Living On The Oceans For 8 months! The Real Story. PART 1

An exclusive insight of life onboard a Cruiseship, can you last and survive?

In my previous blog
https://steemit.com/travel/@heyitshaas/how-to-make-up-to-usd50-000-in-eight-months-while-travelling
I explained how to land a job on a cruise ship. Today I will give you an exclusive insight into the eight months I spent sailing the oceans aboard the Legend and Anthem of the Seas.

Getting there

As mentioned in my previous blog, I was happily surprised with how fast I landed a job! Starboard hired me as FastTrack Retail assistant manager. Starboard owns the licenses Onboard all Royal Caribbean Ships. Due to my background in retail, customer service and communications working for G-Star in the Netherlands, Australia and Canada they hired me within days after my first interview on Skype.
After I got hired to gave me an insight on how they would first train me and after would promote me to Assistant manager.
During my training to get familiar with the business to would pay me $1500,00 after I got promoted I earned around $2000-2,500 due to the commision structure.

I got really excited about the plan they had lined up for me and decided to resign from G-star straight away so that I could start my new adventure! The recruiters told me that working on the ship would be very intense, so I decided to take a small city trip to Rome the week after I received my final details. I really enjoyed Rome but the second day off my stay there I recieved an email from Starboard stating that my contract was changed and if I could get to them as soon as I read this email.

My heart dropped and I was very nervous about what could have been changed? I therefore decided to contact them straight away! They were happy with my quick response and told me that I had to start a few days earlier then planned to join The Legend of the Seas in Brisbane Australia.

After hearing the news about the last-minute change, I was absolutely thrilled to go! The fact that I had to leave Rome for the other side of the world was a very quick decision. Due to the fact that I could only change my flight on certain dates I only had a couple of hours to say goodbye to my loved ones.

The day of departure

My travel itinerary took me from Amsterdam- Hong Kong- Brisbane in 36 hours! I finally arrived in my hotel in Brisbane at 11pm only to be expected at the Cruise terminal the next day at 8 Am.
At that time I didn’t mind, I was just really excited about my new adventure. Once the alarm went off I prepared myself to go to the terminal and once I got there I saw the immense ship for the first time!

I walked up to the person behind the desk and introduced myself. She asked me to wait so she could get me onboard the ship. I waited and after about 10 minutes she asked me to meet her at the desk again only to tell me that my name was NOT on the list and therefore I couldn’t join the ship today. I was very surprised and I remember there were a lot of thoughts going through my mind.I decided to call the head office in Miami, Florida. They told me something went wrong and there was a possibility I had to fly to Sydney to board another ship there in 4 days. They asked me to wait to see if they could still board me.
After the two longest hours of my life and having spent the time thinking about possible worst case scenario’s that could possibly have gone wrong, they finally got back to me. And luckily everything was fine and I could board my new home!

Adjustment
So finally, after a rough start, I got myself onboard of my new home! One of my new coworkers named Edi welcomed me and showed me around to get familiar with the ship. To be honest, I felt lost as soon as we started walking around. She walked me over to the Human resources department and they gave me the biggest pile of paperwork I had ever seen. At this point it was hard to imagine that I would never find my way around on the ship. Luckily Edi was very experienced and she told me that everybody feels the same way initially. After I filled out the paperwork Edi walked me over to my cabin. If you are in training or are a sales associate you get to share a cabin so I shared my cabin with a 48-year-old Jamaican barber who worked in the Spa. I got settled and finally got to rest in my cabin after an exhausting day.

Ever saw a crew cabin before? Trust me they are small.

I must say that the biggest adjustment apart from the cabin was probably the fact that there is no privacy. I was more than happy to share the cabin, but when you eat, sleep and work it can be very tough to not really have a place to relax by yourself and get your thought back in order. Every member of staff has his own security task in case of an emergency. These drills get boring over time but everyone understand that they have to be done. All in all, after a while, you’ll get used to everything and you start feeling at home.

Legend of the Seas
One of the main reasons I joined the ship was (not surprisingly!) the travelling aspect. On Legend of the Seas, we were sailing the Pacific season and I absolutely loved it! We went to the most remote and beautiful islands and I was able to see so many beautiful places. It was just priceless! During my time on the Legend of the Seas we visited the Fiji Island, New Caledonia, Vanuatu Island, Mystery island, several places in Australia and New Zealand. Just look at those pictures!

In my next blog, I will tell you more about my life at sea, including a ship transfer to one of the biggest ships in the world, along with more “pro and cons” list on living aboard.
As always, comments and questions are highly welcomed!