What You Need to Know About Working on a Cruise Ship

seafaring

28 Aug

I told my friends back home that working on a cruise ship was “like a paid holiday where you get to travel the world.” Yeah, I was wrong. It’s not a holiday. It’s long hours, endless rules, and living in a windowless cabin below sea level. But it’s also sunsets at sea, friendships that feel like family, and stories you can’t quite explain to anyone who hasn’t lived it.

Cruise ships are their own floating cities, with thousands of people working behind the scenes to make sure everything runs. From the kitchens to the engine rooms, the cabins to the theatres, there’s a rhythm and a culture that only really makes sense once you’re part of it.

If you’re curious how it is like to get hired, to work, and to live on a cruise ship, here’s the truth, as best as I can tell it.

Getting a Job on a Cruise Ship

Why work on a cruise ship?

Before you think about applications, it’s worth asking why you’re considering this path at all. The job comes with real benefits – steady pay, no rent or household bills, and the chance to travel – but also long hours, months away from home, and limited privacy. Some people thrive in this environment, while others find it difficult.

For me, I chose cruise ships because I wanted to travel, earn, and save money, while also experiencing something different from a regular office job. Life at sea is a lifestyle in itself.

What jobs are available on a cruise ship?

The variety of positions available genuinely surprised me when I first started working on a cruise ship. These floating cities need every type of worker you can imagine.

The hotel department is massive, covering housekeeping, restaurants, bars, and guest services. These roles often don't require specific qualifications, making them good entry points.

Entertainment keeps passengers happy. Dancers, singers, musicians, activity coordinators, and youth staff usually need talent or qualifications.

The technical departments keep the ship running. Engineers, electricians, plumbers, and IT specialists are essential. These positions typically pay more but require proper certifications and experience.

The deck department handles navigation, safety, and port operations. Officers need maritime qualifications, but deck hands can start with basic training. These roles appeal to people who prefer outdoor work.

Food and beverage operations are enormous on cruise ships. Chefs, kitchen assistants, waiters, and bartenders work in multiple restaurants and bars. Experience helps, but many positions offer training.

Then there are the specialised roles: shore excursion staff, photographers, retail workers, and medical staff. They round out the voyage, adding the services passengers value when they’re far from shore. There's honestly something for almost everyone.

Do cruise ship jobs pay well?

Pay on cruise ships is almost always in US dollars. Salaries vary dramatically based on your position, experience, and nationality – yes, unfortunately, where you're from affects your pay.

Entry-level positions typically start at the lower end. Housekeepers, restaurant assistants, and basic entertainment staff fall into this range. Skilled positions earn considerably more – chefs, officers, technical specialists, entertainers. Cruise lines also increase salaries after every hundred or so days worked, so the longer you stay, the more it adds up over contracts.

Two crew members in the same position can still earn different amounts if they were hired through different hiring regions. That said, even the “lower” scale is often higher than what you’d earn for the same job back home, especially if you’re from a developing country.

Tips can significantly boost income for service positions. Bartenders, waiters, and housekeepers often rely on this, though how much they take home depends heavily on passenger culture and the cruise line’s tipping system.

Overtime pay exists but varies by contract. Some positions include overtime in their base salary, while others pay extra for additional hours.

Tax depends on your country, but most crew I know don’t pay tax from their cruise ship income.

Overall, pay onboard is usually similar to – or even higher than – land-based jobs. The real difference is that your living costs are mostly covered: no rent, no utility bills, no commuting. So even if the salary figure doesn’t look extraordinary, the money you actually save by the end of a contract can feel surprisingly substantial.

How to become a cruise ship crew member?

Applying for a cruise ship job usually starts online, either through the cruise line’s official careers page or a manning agency that handles recruitment in your region. The process often involves submitting your résumé, going through multiple interviews, and then completing medical checks and background screening before being hired.

Requirements vary depending on the role, but some basics apply to everyone: a valid passport, medical clearance, and the ability to communicate in English. If hired, the company will usually arrange your mandatory STCW Basic Training before your first assignment at sea.

Not everyone qualifies. Medical issues, missing documents, criminal history, visible tattoos (depending on policy), or not securing the necessary visas can all be disqualifying factors. Cruise lines are strict about compliance and safety, so even small gaps in paperwork or health standards can stop an application from moving forward.

The entire process from application to embarkation for me took 3 months.

Working Onboard a Cruise Ship

How long are cruise ship contracts?

The length of a cruise ship contract depends on the cruise line, your position, and sometimes even your nationality. For most crew, contracts typically run between four and ten months. Rank-and-file crew often sign longer contracts, while officers and managers usually work on fixed rotations, splitting the year more evenly between sea and home.

My own contracts usually stretched to about a year, with a short mid-vacation in between – what we called a 5-1-5-1 rotation. It was never perfectly exact, but that was the rough pattern. Once you’re onboard, time takes on a different rhythm. There are no weekends or public holidays – the ship runs every single day.

Between contracts, there’s what crew call “vacation” – essentially unpaid time off. It might last one or two months, depending on the company’s staffing needs and ship schedules. Unlike a land-based job, you don’t get to choose your dates, though you can sometimes make requests.

What are the working hours like on cruise ships?

Cruise ship jobs don’t follow the neat 9–6 rhythm many people are used to. Hours depend on the department and the ship’s itinerary, but most crew work 10–12 hours a day, seven days a week, for the length of their contract. Some roles run on straight shifts that stretch from morning into evening, while others follow split shifts with a morning stretch, a break in the afternoon, and another round of duties until late at night. Officers and technical crew often work rotations around the clock to keep the ship running.

Even with such long days, ships must comply with the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC), which requires a minimum number of rest hours in every 24-hour and 7-day period.

Time off on cruise ships rarely means a full day off. Instead, you get windows between shifts or early finishes when the workload allows. Port days and sea days shape the rhythm of the job. On port days, some departments enjoy lighter schedules and might squeeze in time ashore, while others face their busiest hours. For example, casino staff get time off since casino is closed; however, housekeeping and maintenance staff, may have to stay onboard to clean and prepare for the next group of guests. Sea days, when the ship doesn’t dock anywhere, tend to be the busiest: packed dining rooms, constant entertainment, and more work across nearly every department.

And holidays? The ship doesn’t stop sailing just because it’s Christmas or New Year’s. In fact, those are often the busiest weeks of the year. Passengers are celebrating, which means crew are working – extra decorations, extra entertainment, extra everything.

Is it dangerous to work on a cruise ship?

Working on a cruise ship isn’t usually what I’d call dangerous, though the risks are different from those on land. The safety protocols onboard are extensive and constantly enforced, and every crew member completes mandatory safety training before starting work. You'll learn firefighting, survival at sea, and first aid.

Still, there are realities of life at sea that don’t exist in a land-based job. On land, a fire alarm means you head outside and wait for the firefighters. On a ship, there’s nowhere to run – the crew themselves are the first responders. Collisions, groundings, or engine failures are rare but not impossible, which is why constant drills and inspections are part of the routine.

The more everyday risks are less dramatic but more common: fatigue from long hours, slippery galley floors, heavy equipment, or seasickness in rough seas. These are the things most crew deal with rather than disasters you see in the news.

Medical facilities onboard handle most injuries and illnesses. Serious cases get helicoptered off or the ship diverts to the nearest port.

How does the cruise ship hierarchy work?

Cruise ships operate with strict, almost military-style hierarchies that shape daily life onboard. It’s not just about who reports to whom – your rank can determine your cabin assignment, the food you’re allowed in the mess, your internet allowance, and even which areas of the ship you can access when you’re off duty.

Officers and managers are at the top of the structure. Within those groups, you’ll find clear rank distinctions: captains and staff captains, chief engineers and their officers, hotel directors and department heads. Below them are the rank-and-file crew who make up the majority of the workforce – cabin stewards, waiters, galley staff, casino dealers, and countless other roles that keep the ship running.

The size of the crew depends on the ship itself. Smaller vessels might sail with under a thousand crew, while the mega-ships can carry over 2,000, representing dozens of nationalities and job titles. It really does feel like a floating city, where every person has a role to play, from maintaining the engines to serving cocktails to entertaining kids in the playroom.

Living Onboard as Crew

Where do cruise ship crew live?

Crew live onboard, of course. For the length of a contract, the ship is both workplace and home. Every vessel has a designated crew area below the passenger decks, with cabins, a dining room, a bar, a gym, and lounges just for crew.

Cabins are small and practical, assigned by rank. Some are barely the size of a storage unit, with two bunks, a desk, a TV, and a shared bathroom. Managers’ cabins tend to be more spacious, oftentimes with a sofa and a porthole or window for a glimpse of daylight. Most of us, though, share a windowless room with a roommate, where you quickly lose track of whether it’s morning or midnight.

Beyond the cabins, the crew quarters form their own hidden world. Long corridors stretch past identical doors, alive with the hum of voices, bursts of music, or the sound of someone sprinting off late to a shift. At first the layout feels like a maze, but you learn the shortcuts fast – which stairwell lands you closest to the crew mess, or which passage shaves five minutes off your route to work.

The corridors buzz with activity at all hours. Someone's always coming or going, and it takes time to get used to that constant motion.

What about food, then?

Crew meals are taken in the crew mess or officer mess, depending on rank, and served buffet-style four times a day. The menu is practical and filling, often repeating in cycles. With so many nationalities onboard, there’s always rice, pasta, curries, stews, and bread – and everyone finds their own way of seasoning or customising a plate.

The mess is loud, busy, and quick. People rush in between shifts, chatting in bursts or eating silently before hurrying off again. It isn’t a place to linger (except maybe during tea time), but for a few minutes, it’s where everyone pauses together.

What is daily life like for cruise ship crew?

It’s a rhythm that looks ordinary on paper (or in this case, on screen) but feels extraordinary when you’re living it. Practical things are done differently at sea. Laundry is done in crowded crew laundries with machines running non-stop, internet flickers in and out depending on satellites and weather, and even walking down the alleyway means adjusting to the ship’s constant motion (though less noticeable on mega cruise ships).

Crew usually spend their free time in familiar places. Crew bars and lounges are tucked away, dimly lit, with cheap drinks and a mix of karaoke nights, board games, or just the chatter of conversation from corners of the globe. The gyms fill with people trying to stay fit, and sometimes the only thing you really want is a nap.

And then there’s shore leave, which is what most crew crave. Some days you step off into cobbled streets, markets, or cafés, savouring the freedom of solid ground. Other days, immigration rules or short port calls mean you only as far as the terminal – or not at all.

Working at sea has been one of the most challenging and rewarding chapters of my life. It’s tested me in ways I never expected – long hours, constant motion, living in tight quarters – yet it’s also given me stories, and experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything. I’ve learnt how much I can adapt, how resourceful I can be, and how vast the world feels when you sail through it day after day. Life onboard isn’t easy, but it’s been worth every bit of effort.

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