I work on 'independence of the seas'!

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

Indy has an escape room now?? It didn’t when we were on last spring break! Last I knew just Anthem and Harmony had them

 

 

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Indy is having a massive makeover this year - including the escape room and lots of other stuff!

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

Great information!

 

Cheers! Ask me any questions if you have any.

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

Working in the shops you are not a Royal Caribbean employee but are you employed by Royal Media?

 

Yes, I am technically not employed by Royal Caribbean. As shop staff, I work for my retail company called Harding Retail.

[wocheez]

What's up guys! I thought some of you out there might find this interesting!

 

I'm Chris from Liverpool, and I am a crew member onboard the Independence Of The Seas! I work in the Duty Free shops.

 

If any of you have ever wondered what being a Royal Caribbean crew member is like, give my blog post a read, and let me know if you recognise me or any of my friends.

 

I talk about my job, social life, travel, and overall ship life.

 

https://www.chriswongvlogs.com/work-on-a-cruise-ship-uk

 

More importantly, share this with anyone you know who wants to start working on cruise ships - or ask me any questions about Royal Caribbean ships in general. I can give you an honest opinion!

 

Thanks for posting this.... love the blog!!

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

Thank you for your thread. It’s interesting to learn about ship life for crew. My friend and I had the opportunity to hang out with a third officer on one cruise and someone from the bar staff on another cruise. It was interesting getting to chat with them

 

Yes, I encourage you to talk to us crew members. We don't mind at all. It's fun to exchange life stories.

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

They are supposed to be adding one in an upcoming Dry Dock.

 

You are correct!

[MaizerDay]

What will you do when the ship is in dry dock?

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

Thanks for your blog - it is very interesting lifestyle and seems to work best if you are single and young. Something I would have wanted to do when I was young adult. My husband used to work on a ship as head of security and his father is was Chief Engineer (now retired). I didn't know my Hubby at that time - we met on shore.

 

Do you have current plans on going back to any of the ships and if so, when? Can you blog while working, or just between contracts?

 

So nice you met your husband at sea! I'm still looking for my travel partner.

 

It's actually very difficult to create content whilst I'm on the ship, because having access to constant good Internet is impossible. The internet is not free for us crew, we still have to pay for it.

[chengkp75]

Chris can answer for the shop staff, but in my experience they go home for a couple of weeks.

 

The majority of the crew continue to work. The galley staff continue to cook meals not only for the crew, but for the hundreds of sub-contractors that work onboard. These sub-contractors live in passenger cabins, so some stewards will continue to clean rooms, though not always daily.

 

Other crew will be utilized to remove furniture from areas to be carpeted, and return it after the carpet layers are done. Some will move furniture to the upholsterers and back. Some will be used to clean the job sites every day where the contractors are working. Some will take garbage and construction debris to the dumpsters onboard. Some will act as "fire watch" for areas where the shipyard or contractors are cutting and welding, standing by with a fire extinguisher to watch for sparks that may start a fire, not only in the space being worked on, but on the other side of the steel wall, because the paint on that side can catch fire from heat of welding on the other side.

 

Depending on the type of "refurbishment", if there is a significant menu change, the wait staff will train on the officers in the MDR to learn the dishes.

 

Deck and engine crew are incredibly busy in drydock, supervising everything from cleaning and servicing the propellers, to the electrical system inspections, HVAC cleaning, lifeboat cleaning and servicing, renewing wires on lifeboat davits, etc.

 

And, finally, in the last few days, the crew needs to clean the ship from top to bottom, inside and out, and start to get ready to receive passengers again.

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

All I saw was a low carb ad

 

 

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Don't hate the player, hate the game.

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

Thanks for sharing your “tour of duty” with all of us. Most of us are very interested in the behind the scenes life on a cruise ship.

 

 

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I'm glad you enjoyed my blog! Thanks for reading, and happy cruising!

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

This is a fascinating thread and your Blog is great too. Thank You!

 

Thank you! The response has been a bit overwhelming, but I love answering everyone's questions! I had no idea this was going to have so much interest.

[shipshape sam]

Of course he sleeps on the ship! The ship is at sea every night!

 

:)

 

In photo area, How can I tell which pictures are mine?

[lcgvol]

I have a question about the crew going home between contracts. I spoke with a waiter on the Indy years ago and he explained how it worked. I have forgotten the details but I remember him saying RC pays for one flight and the crew member pay for the other. Is this correct? I can only imagine how much it must take out of their paychecks to pay for a flight halfway around the world.

[Pellaz]

I wasn't on for these music charters, but they sound awesome! Please tell me more about the Metal Cruise!

There were two recent music charters, the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise (Feb. 1st) and then the Rock Legends cruise about two weeks later. I was on the first one, but wouldn't have minded being on the second one...although some crew members told us that "our" cruise was more fun. :)

 

Things were very much different on the ship during 70K than a regular cruise. Dining in the MDR was all open-seating and only a minimum dress-code was enforced. The Windjammer observed odd hours: closed from 5 pm to 7 pm, but they were open from midnight to 5 am. So was Johnny Rocket's.

I think the art gallery was closed during the charter. While all the Promenade shops were open, the higher-end shops, not surprisingly, saw very little trade.

 

Both of the main pools were drained the night before the ship docked at Port Everglades and the pool-deck and the deck above were closed off as soon as the ship docked, for safety. A giant crane on the dock began hoisting stage construction materials and other gear up and over the side onto the pool deck; this takes pretty much the rest of the afternoon up until departure.

The charter promises 60 bands on 4 stages: Pyramid Lounge, Studio-B ice rink, Alhambra Theater, and a huge stage built on the pool deck, "the largest open-air structure ever built at sea." Each band performed once on the way down to the port-stop, Grand Turk, and then once on the way back, so....120 performances, plus an All-Star Jam. Shows started as soon as the ship entered international waters and continued until 6am in the morning, then they started up again at 10 am. It can be very grueling. :eek:

For the most part these are not "huge" bands with household names, but there is a wide variety of genres represented, from nearly every continent.

The normal ship's alcohol storage isn't sufficient for this charter -- "metalheads" drink a LOT -- so any unsold or unsellable cabins are used for additional beer storage. (They ran out completely the first time the charter sailed, in 2011, on the Majesty....before they even reached Cozumel. :D )

Despite the high price compared to a regular cruise, fans come from all over the world for it. There were 75 countries represented onboard this year, and I'd estimate that only 15% of the passengers were from the U.S. There are a lot of Canadians, many Germans (so the safety announcements were made in English and German), and everywhere from Andorra to New Zealand. It's an amazing experience like no other. This was my 4th consecutive time on the charter.

 

Yes, only if you are married can crew members request a cabin together. Just being boyfriend and girlfriend doesn't qualify, no matter how long you have been in a relationship for.

That makes perfect sense.

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

Chris, I have a question for you.

Is there any value to the crew in half bottles of shampoo, sunscreen, etc. that passengers leave behind? Or are they just one more thing that has to be dumped?

I don't mean personal things like mouthwash or lipstick, and I definitely don't mean trinkets that passengers give as "gifts".

Just curious.

 

Good question!

 

As far as I'm aware, everything the guests leave behind will get thrown out. It's more of a safety thing. I'm not even sure if the cabin stewards keep anything.

[Saab4444]

Who‘s your Captain at the moment. I learnt there are some changes recently and we go in May. Thanks!

 

 

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[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

We will be on the Indy next Monday. Maybe I will see you.

 

 

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I'm back home in Liverpool right now unfortunately. Would have been nice to say hello.

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

We recently saw that RCCL planned to give all employees a bonus and make major upgrades to all crew quarters and recreation areas. I understand you're not employed by RCCL, so we may not hear about a bonus. But, I would love to hear about when/if/how the upgrades happen and what impact they have on the crew.

 

Awesome question!

 

Usually, when the ship goes into 'dry-dock' period, which is about every 4 years I think, the whole ship will be taken off water and get a makeover/upgrades. Of course, the guest areas are the main priority, but the crew areas will also be tended to - such as our cabins, crew bar, training facilities, loading areas and more.

 

Although the crew areas will never be as nice as the guest areas, I can assure you that us crew members really enjoy and appreciate this. It just makes living onboard more pleasurable for us.

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

Hi Chris, thank you for doing this. Wonderful information and wonderings from us cruisers~

 

Thanks for reading. I'm glad you found this interesting!

[nonibop]

Great question! And don't worry, I won't get in trouble for telling you this.

 

There are parties all the time in the crew bar, and of course, we like to drink. From fancy dress, to themed events, birthdays, you name it. In fact, I can honestly say, I've had some of the best nights of my life in the crew bar. Even the Officers will socialise. There will have been many occasions where us crew members would have covered up very well, that we were partying the night before.

 

But yes, there are very strict rules. I have seen many of my fellow crew members lose their job for drinking too much, as this affected their work. Showing up in guest areas intoxicated will get you fired on the spot! As long as you know your limits, and your work performance is not affected by drinking, drinking alcohol is totally fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

Excellent blog. I'm looking forward to the Indy on March 29 and the Christmas/NYE sailings. :cool::cool:

 

I'm excited for you! NYE is awesome onboard! The festivities are so much fun!

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

Thanks very much, Chris ! I am enjoying this very much and LOVE the photos. We won't be on RCI again until next Jan. steve

 

Wow, a long time to wait. But think of all the updates that will happen from now until then. The ships are always improving.

[ROYAL CARIBBEAN DUDE]

What will you do when the ship is in dry dock?

 

We still work on the ship. This is called 'dry dock' period. As shop staff, we will spend most of the time refurbishing the shops and sorting out new inventory. Lots of deliveries will be made to the ship during this time. Any problems we had during the cruising season, will be addressed before sailing again.

[nalatrixie74]

My husband and i kinda joke about retiring and working on a cruise. Sounds great, but long hours.