Religion on the ships

[cntwait2cruz]

I've seen somewhere and I'm not sure where I read it. But I thought I read that the do offer religious services on the ships on Sunday morning. Is that correct?? If so, where do they get their minister, do they have one they keep on staff?? Man would that be a hard job or what!:eek: LOL....

[debicost]

On the Cunard Line, the Captain conducts Sunday Services, called the Commodore's Service when I was on the ship :)

[Copper_beeches]

On the Majesty Repo they had a Minister and a Rabbi aboard. The Minister did a few ecumenical services for the pax over the course of the 16 days and a few for the staff as well. The Rabbi did the passover seder and ceremony. From what I gather from dinner with the Rabbi and his wife, and lunch with the Minister and his wife, they register with the different cruise lines, and are selected randomly. In some areas, apparently it's a lottery system. They aren't paid, it's free passage in exchange for performing a few services. Both were retired, and both had done several cruises before, the Rabbi had done MANY and had turned down a few other offers after accepting the Majesty (apparently the lines only have Rabbis aboard during the high holidays)

[professor]

On the Star, a couple years ago, I recall a paster of unspecified affiliation conducting services in the Spinnaker Lounge on Sunday morning, sort of a generic protestant service, vaguely Baptist. As the ship was at sea, I believe he came aboard at the previous port for this purpose -- not a crew member or fare-paying passenger. I do not recall if a priest and/or rabbi also provided religious services.

[cmdchiefthom]

As I recall, I spent two weeks on the Noordam over the Christmas holiday, and there was a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, conducted by a priest who was the religeous officer for that cruise. It was very cool, passengers and crew attended together. It kind of set a tone which lasted the entire two weeks.

 

Most recently, aboard the Spirit, when the Pope died, there wasn't a member of the clergy as crew, and Ricky, the CD, asked for volunteers on the PA system to conduct a memorial service in the show lounge. Two passengers did volunteer their services.

[ROCruiser]

Four years ago when we were on the Galaxy cruising Alaska, my husband, a minister, actually arranged a Sunday service on board on his own. The staff put the notice on their dailies and some other passengers joined us for a nice little service in the theater.