A question we often get asked often is:
"Which is the best cruise line company to work for?"
If you’re going to commit 6+ months of your valuable life to working on cruise ships, then this is a great question!
The problem is, there are simply too many factors involved to say whether one cruise line is "better" than another… which makes it a pretty much impossible question to answer.
What’s more, you can speak to 5 crew members who have each worked for the same 5 cruise lines… and every person will give you a wildly different opinion of each company.
I know this for a fact because I speak to crewmembers all the time and it never ceases to amaze me how a perception of a cruise line changes from person to person.
I would tell you that Carnival is a fantastic company to work for because of the fun times and great experiences I had working for them for over 3 years. Yet a close friend of mine had one bad experience on a Carnival ship, left after 3 months and vowed never to work for them again… and now enjoys telling everybody to stay clear!
Often the most damaging thing you can do is just listen to ONE opinion.
Generally, your enjoyment onboard boils down to these factors:
1/ The ship you’re working on. This is a personal preference but some people prefer to work on large, busy ships with thousands of passengers and crew… while others prefer the intimacy of working on smaller, less hectic ships where everybody knows one another.
2/ The job you do on board. Every position on board is different and every department is different too. One job on a Royal Caribbean ship might involve more hours, more responsibility and less pay than the exact same job on (say) an NCL ship… or vice versa.
3/ The itinerary of the ship. If you’re on a ship that spends a lot of time at sea and fewer days in port then it often means more working hours. If you’re on a ship that visits the same ports week in, week out then that too can become a little tedious after a few months.
4/ Finally, the most important factor of all is YOU and the people you work with. If you’ve got a great team around you and you’re an easy going, fun, hardworking person… then you’ll enjoy working on cruise ships and the experience it gives you regardless of the company you work for.
And this really is the key to a happy life on board and it has nothing to do with the company you work for.