cantthinkofanythingfun

Too many posts to quote, so I'll try and run things down in order posted:

 

Carnival and most cruise lines are reluctant to hire Americans for most jobs other than entertainment, cruise staff, or youth staff, because:

 

1. Very low pay: around $600/month for entry level, for 14 hours/day 7 days a week. Few young Americans work day in, day out, without at least a weekend in there.

2. Shared living quarters: most young Americans have never shared anything more than a dorm room (and not many do that), let alone an 8' x 12' cabin with three other strangers, with only one drawer and one locker for your stuff.

3. Long employment contracts: most young Americans have never been away from home for more than a weekend, let alone the 6-10 months of a cruise ship employment contract.

 

So, few Americans apply, and those that have don't last their first contract, so the lines don't encourage them.

 

Bruns' books should be taken with a large grain of salt. Most of this was before the regulations on drinking were enacted, and I believe they are compilations of multiple crew, and condensing things into a few voyages.

 

Yes, most crew are in quad cabins that are smaller than an NCL inside. The photos they show are usually of doubles or singles, which are reserved for supervisors. My third engineers at NCL rated a single cabin that you could stand in and touch all four walls, and that shared a toilet and shower with the cabin next door.

 

Its not lazy, its that Americans do not have the service industry attitude that goes along with cruise ships. Young Americans' idea of service is "ya want fries wid dat?"

 

Most Canadians will be in the same three areas I mentioned above where you will find Americans.

 

Adrenaline Rush's article deals with the US flag ships that NCL had in Hawaii, and that is a whole different can of worms, believe me, I lived it for 4 years. Those ships do have to meet US labor laws, US tax laws, and USCG documentation requirements.

 

Mary49: Yes, CD's are frequently US citizens, as are their staff.

 

OP, if you are interested, I started a thread called "Pride of America, some realities" back in 2013, that discussed many of the challenges that NCL faced with US crew, on a ship that met US laws. From this, you can imagine the problems they would face with US crew in wait staff or cabin steward positions on international ships.

I read your other thread and it was very interesting. Does the CD and entertainment staff have different living quarters? I'm assuming their pay is better. What about those that work in the shopping and art sales area? They are subcontracted out and don't work for the cruise line.

Cruise Director "Malcom Burns" is now on the Splendor and he is from the Bronx.

Yes, most of the cruise directors I have seen are American. I think the CD we had on the Pride last week was. It almost seems that cruise lines prefer to have American or at least "Western Hemisphere" CDs. I have also seen one American captain on NCL, which was surprising.

One of the perks of having the ships flagged in other countries is that you don't have to follow US labor laws like minimum wage.

 

And while the idea of living on a cruise ship sounds nice, crew quarters are decidedly nothing like what we would consider a "normal" room.

Doesn't Canada have pretty strict labor laws as well? They did have a place on their site for Canadiens to apply.

They had videos of the crew cabins on their site. It really didn't look all that bad. The crew even has their own lido deck.

This isn't a complaint, more of a curiosity. I was looking on Carnival's career site the other day and it seems there is no option for employment on board a ship if you are an American. Americans can be hired for entertainment, casino, or shopping expert, but those are all done through outside agencies. There was no option for Americans for jobs like bar staff, wait staff, steward, etc.. Now that I think about it, the only Americans I have ever seen working on a ship are a couple CDs and one ship captain. Is there something with our labor laws that makes it impossible for them to hire Americans? I know the pay is terrible, but I'm sure there are people who would just like to live on a cruise ship no matter what the pay is.

Do they only get the stuff on the party night? From what I have seen, Carnival offers the Night Owl babysitting nightly. I figured the "party" was just a way for them to say that there happened to be a theme that night (last year for my kids it was Mardi Gras). If they only do the giveaways for the party, we'll have to specifically look for that night and hope it works for us.

My son did night owls a couple times and only got the stuff the night of the party. It was on the first sea day. They charged a flat rate that night instead of the hourly rate.

Does anyone have a picture of the owl? My son is asking. :)

Here you go.

Is night owls just a camp late in the evening? Sorry.....grandma here taking grandkids on 1st cruise and curious to what this is??? Thank you!

It's from 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM. It's like a late night baby siting service, and they do charge extra for it. On one day of the cruise every age group has a Night Owls themed party, and they get some free stuff. At the end of the cruise they gave my son a really nice book with a handwritten note from the counselor. I was impressed with that. I spent over $80k to send my son to a Goddard School for 5 years, and he basically got a book that wasn't even as nice when he graduated from that place.

Is it up to $6.95 now? It was $6.75 last time we sailed and I haven't been able to find anything updated.

It may be $6.75. I just got back and I thought it was $6.95, but I'm usually wrong. I do know that they prorate it if you don't use the full hour.

I'm kind of hurt that my mom thinks your son is the cutest pirate she's ever seen. Plus he's got a giant fruity drink. Mom loves him more than she loves me. Re: muster drill -- stay tuned, we think we cracked it (or at least made it slightly less painful)!

That's just because she didn't have to change his diapers.

How much do they charge for Night Owls?

$6.95/hour for each child, but the night of the party for your kid's age group it's a $15.00 flat fee. That's the night they get the stuffed owl. They also add 15% gratuity to those rates.

I would think it would be tough for celebrities to cruise. On my last NCL cruise they did a profile of the hotel director on their ship channel. He was pictured with a lot of celebrities, Oprah being the one I remember, but NCL does have an entire somewhat private area of the ship. I would think most celebrities would charter a mega yacht for a cruise like vacation.

How old is your son? I wonder if I played with him at camp? How fun to have someone following along who was on the same trip. I'm eager to hear your take on everything, too! Glad to hear you had a great time. [spoiler alert], we did too! In case I didn't get to give you one in person, virtual high five!!! :D

He's five. He recognized your photo from camp, but I don't think his eyewitness testimony would hold up in a court of law. I have attached a photo of him trying to conduct a mutiny on the ship. He enjoyed everything except for the nearly one hour muster drill that went into sail away.

Yes, I was on that cruise and the green "monster" was under repair all week (oddly, it did have water running through it all week). It didn't affect me. I had no desire to go down it, and my son isn't tall enough. The yellow one was working just fine and my son loved it. The green slide is one of those where the floor drops out. To be honest, it looked incredibly tame compared to similar slides I've seen on other ships and water parks.

My son got one last week on the Pride.

I did not know this rule. I have brought a surge protector with me on 3 Carnival cruises, including one last week, and never had an issue.

I was on this sailing as well. It will be interesting to see another perspective of it. My son loved Camp Carnival. I have to admit that I thought the Dr. Seuss stuff may be a bit hokey, but Carnival did a great job with implementing it. This was my third time on the Pride, but first since the upgrades. It was a great cruise. I really don't know if there is such a thing as a bad one. We had some amazing weather.

That price seems a bit high for an OV. I didn't pay much more than that last year for 4 people in a 2 bedroom Haven suite on the NCL Breakaway out of NYC. I would look at NCL out of New York. They are currently running a kids sail free or half off promotion as well as giving some nice freebies like the beverage package. Another option would be the Carnival Pride out of Baltimore. You could get a balcony on that ship for about that price.

I am currently on the Carnival Pride, and this is the entertainment.

I wonder if they will even have an IP? Or if they will just "create" something of their own for their cruiseline. Yes, I agree a large percentage of people perhaps base a lot of their cruises on the various IPs out there, but a larger percentage I doubt even factor that into their decision which line to cruise.

 

Besides the extra cost of licensing fees to use an IP, which I am sure DelRio or whatever his name is would be opposed to, remember he also wanted a more affluent customer base. I am not sure cartoon or TV characters would fall into the "more affluent" customer base he seems to be going after.

Carnival had "Funship Freddie", and that didn't go over so well with the kids. These characters do get kids excited. DCL has a ship full of them and they manage to sell out ships charging double what NCL does. NCL owns other lines that cater to the "affluent" cruiser. If they want to do away with kids and families for a more affluent crowd, then they are going to have some huge new ships with a lot of empty cabins. The affluent people I know aren't so excited about getting on a ship with 5,000 people, but they'll grin and bear a week in the Haven if their kids get to see some of their favorite cartoon characters.

Why not wwe? They get massive ratings every week and have more twitter followers than I believe almost anyone. John Cena is the most requested celebrity among Make A Wish kids. If they were ever going to do a pro wrestling tie in this would definitely be the time.

Other than the personal fact that I think it kills brain cells while watching it, it just isn't very logical for ships. There are no mascots, just a bunch of roided up wrestlers who certainly aren't going to make the rounds on cruise ships.

To the poster that pointed out those Star Wars cruises on DCL, thank you so much. I promised my son a DCL cruise next year, and he loves Star Wars (so do I). I looked at the prices, and they are ridiculous, but a Disney cruise wouldn't be a regular thing for us, so it's worth the splurge. Unfortunately, it does look like he will have to miss school to attend, but missing a week of kindergarden shouldn't keep him out of Harvard.

I'm sure that NCL has something in the works. Hopefully it isn't the WWE.

I disagree with most of the posters. If I fell and broke my wrist and they couldn't send someone to look at it, I would be livid. I'm sure she was in a lot of pain and she shouldn't have had to stabilize her wrist with a towel. I also agree that they could have been given 1 or 2 tags to get off early, if for no other reason than to avoid getting jostled by crowds of people.

I was able to find Carnival's email response to me. I couldn't find the one I sent them because I believe it was through their website, but I was very friendly and complimentary of the overall cruise experience. This was their response:

Thank you for contacting us about your recent cruise aboard the Carnival Pride and for explaining the issues so clearly.

We're extremely sorry to hear about the experience your girlfriend had in your cabin. We sincerely hope that by receipt of this email, XXXX is well on her way to recovery and is no longer experiencing the pain you have described. The safety and wellbeing of our guests are at the forefront of our mind on all cruises, with making sure you have a fun and memorable vacation coming close second.

We were very concerned with the impressions with which you were left and want to assure you that XXXX's wellbeing is our primary concern. Our ship's Medical Center is available during posted hours of operation, which are noted at the entrance to the center as well as in the Carnival FunTimes and on the in cabin televisions. Regrettably, outside of the posted hours of operation, our medical staff is only available for life-threatening emergencies. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

That being said, your feedback is important to us, which is why it's on its way to the relevant managers who will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't happen to a future guest.

Jared, please don't let this tarnish your opinion of us. We'd love to welcome you and XXXX back aboard another Fun Ship in the future.

About getting off the ship. What time did this happen? After luggage was picked up? If so its almost impossible to find anybody's luggage. It's put into steel crates for offloading. Those are organized without aisle ways.

It was around 1AM after bags were checked.

For the record, based on some of these posts, I was in no way expecting anyone to x-ray her wrist, set her wrist, or put her wrist in a cast. I was hoping to get an Ace bandage (which I would have paid for and applied), and get off the ship as soon as luggage was cleared through customs. That's it. We didn't get off the ship until 11:30. Well after all the priority guests. I am in no way saying that Carnival was responsible for her injuring herself. When I wrote them I made that perfectly clear and even told them it was a great cruise.

Going on the Pride this Sunday and it's nice to see another review as I'm doing laundry and packing. I'm not a huge fan of the Pride's decor, but I do like that atrium that goes through every deck. So many new ships are doing away with that to make space.

Thanks for the ship pics. I'm booked on the Gem for November, so this is useful even though the itinerary is different. It looks like those are full sized bowling alleys. That's pretty cool. The Breakaway had bowling, but it was duckpins with a shorter lane.