Ever wondered how is it like to work on one of the biggest cruise ships in the world? This is my experience, my life and my view as an employee on one of the many cruise ships sailing around the world.
99 Bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beeeeeeeer !
I think this song portraits exactly what’s going on Voyager at the present time. Just like the song, from X number of Romanians, each day is one less. And it’s not only at my nationality level; it’s bigger than that since a lot of Europeans are leaving the ship life. Why? Money mostly. Right now, for the amount of work they are doing and the hours they put in, $2000-$3000 a month is not worth anymore. What is $2000-$3000 in euros? Nothing really, it’s a medium salary that you can earn working 8 hours a day for 5 days a week. In my country, this kind of money still mean something, but slowly, slowly, the dollar value is going down and no Romanian will remain on the ships unless they are part of the upper management or they are really poor back home. So what happened? Well, a few months back, 3 of my good friends didn’t come back. They chose to work in Ireland as waiters and, from what I was told, they are doing just fine. Two months ago, a Romanian couple left the ship too and now works in Romania. Three weeks ago, another good friend went home, he presently looking for work somewhere in England. In a week, one more Romanian is going home too. He decided he had enough and the money is not enough for what he’s doing and he too will join the Romanians that are in Ireland. A Romanian bar supervisor is going home in three weeks and she’s not coming back either. This is happening too fast! So what’s wrong in this picture? I don’t know really, but it worries me since for each European who leaves, an Indian or a Philipino is coming. I guess this kind of money still mean something in those countries. Well, looks like it’s not enough for the ones from Europe and each day, more and more Asians and South Americans are coming to replace us. And you know what? More than it worries me, this is making me sad. Those are people I’ve worked with for more than a year, I got attached to them and now they are leaving me alone on this ship. I feel more and more alone and don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of other friends from other countries, but with the Romanians is different because we have a culture in common, we can advice each other about things, we can discuss common topics like politics, sports etc and we can continue our friendship at home when we are in vacation. This means a lot to most of us, it’s what makes this hard life easier and I hate it when I see it coming to an end.
You might wonder why I am still onboard. Well, my goals are career orientated and I found that onboard is easier to promote and get experience than it is on land simply because people come and go all the time. Also, I might just have a little under $2000, but I don’t pay rent or food and I get to see the world, so for me is still a good deal. Besides, the trainings they provide are free and valuable like the USPH Course in Miami or the Certified Hotel Supervisor course, which is recognized internationally.
But still, I can’t help but feeling sad every time I see my friends going home and this little bugging song comes to my mind every sign off day: 99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beeeeeeeeer! Just replace the bottles of beer with Romanians and you’ll get the picture.
The pictures! Yes, the pictures you see are the Romanians that left or will leave and not coming back. My friends…
Guest Services Department - Strong nerves and patience required!
For nothing in the world I would do this job. I don’t have the patience nor the nerves to put up with all the guest complains we receive daily, many of them that make no sense. The funniest complaint from a passenger I’ve heard of so far is regarding the alcohol policy we have onboard. This policy states that no alcohol should be brought from outside, and if the guest insists in bringing it, the security will take it and keep it safe until the guest disembarks. Well, from what I was told, this gentleman comes cruising and brings a bottle of Jack Daniels with him. Of course, the security officer takes it away and puts it safe until the end of the cruise. Next thing our gentleman does is to go straight to the Guest Services front desk and complains. What’s funny about this is what reason he came up to get his bottle of alcohol back. Apparently, his doctor recommended him to drink daily 1.5 oz of Jack Daniels and he needs his bottle otherwise he will get sick. When told he can buy onboard he said he has no money and of course he had no paper from his doctor. Needles to say that he didn’t get his bottle back until the end of the cruise. The human mind can be so creative sometimes, isn’t it?
Anyways, lets go back to our thing. The Guest Services Department takes care of all the guests’ needs. It doesn’t include, as you can see in the picture above, just the Guest Services Officers (regular hotel receptionists), but also the Printer, the Concierge, the Group Coordinator, the International Ambassador and the Guest Administration Officer.
I am going to briefly describe each position as some of you are not familiar with the terms, so…
1. Concierge
The Concierge provides personalized service for our “special” guests. A “special” guest is one who has a few cruises with Royal Caribbean. They can be part of the Crown & Anchor Society, or rated as a Platinum or Diamond guest, depending on how many cruises that guest took with our company. They get free drinks, tickets to the show and many more and it’s the Concierge’s job to make that happen for them. The Concierge is a one stripe officer, meaning that he has to share the cabin, but he makes good money since he gets tipped every end of the cruise.
2. Printer Well, it’s pretty much self-explanatory. The Printer takes care of all the printed material onboard. He’s a one stripe officer and he makes a fix salary which I am pretty sure is under $2000.
3. Group Coordinator
The Group Coordinator takes care of the organized groups onboard as well as the travel agents that come to visit the ship for the day. The salary is made of a fix salary plus gratuities. This position is a 2 stripe one, single cabin.
4. International Ambassador
Manages the FluentSeas program onboard the vessel to provide language assistance and translation to non-English speaking guests in order for them to understand and enjoy all aspects of the cruise experience.
5. Guest Administration Officer
This position is in charge with the legal part of the cruise. That includes the clearance of the ship in ports, the immigration paperwork of the guests etc. It’s a one stripe position, sharing the cabin, and makes probably under $2000 a month.
6. Guest Services Officer
This is a one stripe position and makes around $1600 a month. They are working on the front desk, handling the guests’ complaints.
All these positions are under the supervision of the Guest Services Manager, which is a 3 stripe position and makes thousands a month.
If you ask me, to get into this department, the easiest way is to apply for the Guest Services Officer. What is most required here is to have a nice personality and look and know at least 2 languages. Once you’re in, you can work your way up, just like in any other department, just like I did.
The conflict between me and my manager got worse and worse over the past few days and yesterday I had enough! I went straight to his office and asked to talk to him. I sat down and started to tell him I am bothered by his attitude towards me but he cut me off and said we will have this discussion in front of the HR Manager tomorrow morning. Actually, he had a good idea since a witness was appropriate for the kind of conversation I was planning to have with him.
The HR Manager is suppose to be the liaison between the management and crew, he is suppose to help and guide us as well as help solving conflicts between two employees. I was surprised to see that our HR Manager did just that and helped me and my manager talk. Actually, I think my manager talked with me just because the HR was present in the room, but who cares? At least we finally talked instead of barking orders at me.
He said some things that made me question how my behavior is perceived by others and pointed some mistakes I did, and on my side, I let him know how his behavior makes me feel and how I wish he will be more supportive and protective of me. We finally reached a common ground and agreed we will meet half way. I will be more diplomatic with the management and officials from Miami and he….well….he just said we will meet half way. Now I guess I have to wait and see what half way means to him. I would certainly like to see a little back up from him, especially when other managers are trying to make me do their work or their Admin’s work just because those guys have no clue what they are doing.
I must tell you though, life looks a whole lot better now and I am back to the positive, happy girl I was. But also, I realized that my manager doesn’t take me seriously just because I work as an Admin for a little over a year. If you ask me, a quick adapting personality who can learn fast means just as much as years of experience. Just because I don’t have the years, that doesn’t mean that I don’t know what I’m doing. In fact, I have quite a long list of achievements and the evaluations to prove it. I have projects that are now used fleet wide, I’ve done two jobs in the same time, and I basically supported the whole F&B Division and Hotel Department during the last year’s winter holidays, changes between years and the crossing from Galveston to Barcelona with the entire paperwork that comes with it. I’ve trained two crew members to replace me while I’m gone and now I am training the third one, I’ve worked with four F&B Managers and two Hotel Directors during a year and a half since I’ve stepped in the management team and never once went to the HR’s Office to complain about something. This was not an easy thing to do and I think I’ve done pretty well considering the four out of five score evaluation I received my last contract….all until this manager came onboard.
But at least, now I have a little faith that the conflict is solved and I can go back to my daily routine and life. Besides, in three days my favorite Executive Sous Chef will come onboard and life will be a little more fun. But this is another subject…
There always was a quiet competition between the Housekeeping and Food & Beverage Departments. Every week, when the ratings come in, first thing we do is to compare ours against them and damn it, most of the times they are better! We know they are doing the same because we meet the supervisors on the I95 and they smile and ask us if we saw already the ratings. We pleasantly smile back and say yes, congratulate them and move on, hoping next week we will be the one with the big green on the face. The Housekeeping Department includes the stateroom attendants and supervisors and the Laundry Division. I am not going to talk about the laundry guys because they are employed as contractors, all I can tell you about them is that they all come from Indonesia and, in my opinion, they do a poor job (unfortunately). They are not really Royal Caribbean employees, they just provide us with the service. So lets get back to more important things… The Housekeeping Department is one of the most stable one, with a low turnover rate and happy crew. The reasons are many, but the most important ones are:
1. Good money The Stateroom Attendant is a tip based position meaning that their salary depends entirely on how much the guest tip them at the end of the cruise. The base salary is $50, but don’t get fooled by it, in average, they make $2500-$3000 a month and sometimes even more. On the other hand, the middle management, the Housekeeping Supervisors, make only around $1800 a month but they have extra perks to keep them happy such as single cabins, access to guest areas etc. The Chief Housekeeper, 1st and 2nd Housekeepers make thousands a month.
2. Not such a hard job The only really hard day for the Stateroom Attendants is the embarkation day when they need to have the rooms ready by noon for the new guests, they need to get the luggage in the staterooms by evening and meet all their guests. They usually employ a helper that takes off some of their work in the morning. Other than that, on a regular day, they have to do the staterooms in the morning and in the evening, which is pretty easy since during the day the guests are off the ship and in the evening they are in the restaurant having their dinner.
3. Structure In the Housekeeping Department everyone knows exactly what to do. The organizational chart is pretty much simple and everyone knows who to report to. You can see it in the first picture on this post. Since the first day you embark until the last one, you are given a section of staterooms that you have to clean. On average, they get a 20 staterooms station, and only the ones who can not make it, the ones who are constantly getting bad rating, get a 15 stateroom station. There are few who get the officer cabins as an assignment, but don’t pity them, sometimes they make more money than the others and they only need to clean the cabins once a day or every other day (depending on how many stripes has the officers who lives in the cabin).
4. Good management (at least on this ship) After work, everybody gathers in the Back Deck (ship’s crew bar) for a drink and chat. In my two year career with this company, I never once heard a Stateroom Attendant complaining about his or hers supervisor. They mostly complain about how messy the guests can get, especially the really old ones who cannot make it to the toilet if you know what I mean, or the young ones who cannot hold their liquor. Other than that, they seem pretty happy with the job. The officers hardly complain about the system, and if you ever hear them complaining, it’s mostly because the company implements all kind of new things, but they never really prepare options in case they don’t work.
5. No competition against each other Everyone is doing their job in the Housekeeping Department and no one is looking in the neighbors’ back yard to see how is he or she doing. Most of them anyway. Because they get the same section for the entire contract, there’s no competition among the employee, they just have to do good in ratings (meaning they have to make the guest happy) not to be assigned to a smaller section, but that happens very rarely and mostly on request.
So who’s reporting to whom on a Royal Caribbean ship? There are two main departments here: Marine and Hotel. The Marine department includes, obviously, the Captain, Staff Captain, all the engineers and marine. The Hotel department is run by the Hotel Director who overseas the operation of 11 divisions, one of them being mine.
I am not going to go into details right now, I am just going to list them and in the future post I’ll describe them one by one. So…
1. Food & Beverage – Is probably the biggest division onboard, almost half of the crewmembers in the Hotel department being part of it. It’s subdivisions are Bar, Galley and Restaurants
2. Guest Relations – This division overseas the pursers and is in charge with everything that is related to guest interaction (as the name says): printer, international ambassador, front desk, concierge, group coordinator, guest administration etc.
3. Financial – Takes care of the financial part of the operation and is divided in two: crew and guest
4. Human Resources – The HR Manager is the liaison between the management and crew. This division is also in charge with the mandatory and not so mandatory trainings and certifications onboard and also with the crew office.
5. Marketing & Revenue – All revenue areas onboard the ship report to the Marketing & Revenue Manager. This includes the shops, explorations, spa, casino, photo subdivisions as well as the art auctioneer, tattoo artist, loyalty ambassador and port & shop guide.
6. Entertainment & Cruise Division – This division is in charge with entertaining guests. Overseas the Activities Manager, Adventure Ocean Manager in charge with the kids program, Stage & Production Manager, Musical Director, Head Broadcast Technician. All activities, shows and entertainment onboard is this division’s responsibility.
7. Facilities - This division is somehow special since the managers have the benefits and privileges of the Marine Department, but is part of the Hotel. They are in charge with the technical part of the Hotel operation such as cleaning the guest and crew areas, fixing the furniture and equipment in the crew and guest cabins, the toilet system, some of the equipment in the galleys, bars and restaurants etc. Cleaners, carpenters and electricians are part of this division.
8. Housekeeping – They are in charge with the cabins, crew and guest ones, as well as the laundry onboard.
9. Inventory – This division is in charge with loading and issuing the food, drinks, toiletries, office supplies etc. Is divided in two parts, one ran by the Provision Master who is in charge with the food and drinks and the other one ran by the Hotel Storekeeper in charge with the non-food items.
10. IT Division – All office equipment such as computers, printers, Xerox machines etc is their responsibility. They are also in charge with the crew and guest Internet and the office networks.
11. Medical Division – needles to explain their role. I think is pretty much self-explanatory.
I hope this helped you have an idea of the organizational structure of the ship’s management. In the future posts I’ll go into details with some of the main divisions.
Name: Oana Home: Miercurea Ciuc, Romania About Me: Born in Romania, ended up working around the world. Love to socialize, see places, make new friends. Always there to help, even when nobody is asking for it :-) See my complete profile
