Almost all crew members at one point in their contract or career will experience homesickness when working on a cruise ship.  Whether you are a first time joiner or someone that is nearing the end of their contract, it is normal to miss being at home. For adults, homesickness may occur when travelling.  And working on a cruise ship can exacerbate those feelings about life back at home.  Consider the length of time away from home with contracts of 4, 6, 8, and 10 months on board.  We’re not just talking about missing friends and family, but also about

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Finding a cruise ship job is ultra competitive, so applicants need to be more creative when it comes to finding their dream job.  There are a number of effective social networking websites for cruise job hunters, but how do you use them to find a job within the cruise industry? It’s not likely that posting your resume on sites like Monster.com, SimplyHired.com, or CareerBuilder.com will actually be helpful in finding a cruise ship job.  The fact is that that the cruise lines receive so many resumes and applications that they don’t need to look for applicants on these types of

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As you can imagine over the years we've seen thousands of cruise job applications. Some great, some okay and some downright poor! Here are the 5 of the most commons mistakes we see most job seekers making time and time again: 1) Applying for more than one position in the same application (you should only ever apply for ONE job at a time). 2) Your CV/resume is longer than 2 pages in length (lengthy resumes almost never get read because recruiters don't have time). 3) Too much irrelevant personal data clogging up your CV/resume (for example, nobody cares that you have a 'full

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There's no doubt the cruise industry is a TOUGH industry to crack. If it was easy to get a job on a cruise ship then you would not be reading this newsletter... Instead you'd probably be working on a cruise ship right now... perhaps getting paid to travel around exciting places like the Caribbean, the Med or the Far East! Sure, some people send off ONE job application, land an interview and then get hired right away. But I can assure you this is definitely not the norm! For most people, it takes some determination and persistence. It takes the ability to

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We're not talking about big ships versus small ships. We're talking about the number of cruise ships that each cruise line has, also known as their fleet. Getting to know the size and type of the company's fleet for where you are applying is advantageous for a number of reasons. Cruise lines with large fleets mean that you have the opportunity to work on different cruise ships throughout your career. And, the more ships that a cruise line has, the better the chances are for advancement. But don't expect that all the ships in a fleet are identical. Older ships have fewer

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Apart from sending your employment package out sooner rather than later, there are some tricks to decrease the time it takes to get started working on a cruise ship. This is not a 'get-rich-quick-scheme', though. The application process takes effort. And the better the effort, the better the chances are to get hired to work on a cruise ship. Extra effort starts in the form of tweaking your resume and cover letter. If you’ve been waiting for a long time for the cruise lines to call, it may be time to re-look at your resume and cover letter. The Getting Hired department of

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How long should you wait for a cruise ship job is one of the most common questions that we get on our discussion forum. Unfortunately, there is no standard time frame for how long the hiring process takes from start to finish.

In fact, we've had members who were hired in a matter of days but we've also heard from some members who've reported waiting over a year to finally getting hired and placed on a ship.

One of our members, Jaime from Australia, just posted last week that she just received her flight details.

She writes:

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The internet has made it easy to apply for cruise ship jobs online. On the other hand, it has also made it easier for criminals to trick you into the latest employment scam.

Unknowingly, job seekers respond to newspaper ads and online cruise job postings while scam artists (disguised as cruise hiring agencies) promise jobs in return for payment.

Or worse yet, the fake agencies take your personal information and drain your bank accounts by stealing your identity.

One typical scam involves fake

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This past week, a member of WorkOnCruiseShip.com, wrote on the Main Discussion Forum:

“I started my 2nd contract with Harding Brothers on the Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas in March of this year as a Trainee Assistant Manager...I was about 2 months away from the end of my contract when I was asked to transfer to Azamara Quest as an Assistant Manager....Last cruise was the Manager’s last cruise...Guess who the new Manager is?  Me!!”

This crew member is not alone in finding that the cruise industry is a great way to enjoy a fast career,

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