Hello again everyone! I'm writing to you today from somewhere over the North Atlantic just off Greenland where we were yesterday and which was the last port in Europe (although, geographically, Greenland is part of North America but it's generally tied to Europe) out of my 6 months tour on the Brilliance of the Seas, It's been lots of fun visiting many cities in Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, England, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland. We are heading back to America now where we'll be doing Canada and Northern USA ports mostly for the rest of my contract which will end in October. This is the kind of adventure you can look forward to by getting a cruise musician contract so, keep working on your material, and don't get discouraged if it takes some time for you to land your first contact, because once you get it, as long as you do your job well, you'll get another and another until you decide it's been enough sailing for one life time hahaha. Any way I wanted to post some more information about safety onboard because is stuff you will get bombarded with when you get onboard. There's always a period of adjustment after getting on a ship even if is not for the first time, every ship has a different lay out, it takes time to get to know your way around, and on top of that, for first timers there's all this safety trainings with lots of information about things that you're expected to put into practice almost immediately, so it can be a little bit overwhelming, but how cool would it be if by the time you get on your first ship and on to your safety training you are already familiar with the concepts they'll be talking about! I'm sure it would lighten the burden a little. So, I'll give you a brief definition of some of the more important concepts and terminology you'll hear and use on a daily basis onboard. Forward: The frontal part of the ship. Aft: The back part of the ship. Port side: Looking towards forward, is the left side of the ship. Starboard side: looking towards forward, is the right side of the ship.

Hello again y'all ! In today's chapter of "What's going on Luis's ship" I bring you the story of "The Mardi Gras All Crew Party" to which I didn't go hahaha. Forget it! I just needed a way to start the topic of today's post which is really about what are called "Side Jobs", although you should know that the HHRR (Human Resources) department onboard is in charge of putting together different sorts of activities for the crew's amusement and entertainment, oriented to make everyone's experience onboard for their months long contract more enjoyable and relaxing from what can get to be some stressful periods dealing with whatever problems or challenges you might encounter in your job onboard plus the fact that we spend months at a time missing our family and friends back home right?.So, these activities go from things like "Independence day" celebrations for the several nationalities onboard featuring special menus at the "Crew Mess" and party time at the "Crew Bar" (Yes! There's a bar onboard where crew can get alcoholic beverages at cheaper prices than the guests can) of course there's a set of guidelines regarding alcohol consumption for the crew, but believe me there's quite a lot of it going on onboard! Other activities include raffles, bingo sessions, sports classes or tournaments, movie screenings, and of course the infamous "All Crew Parties" which are pretty self explanatorly, parties where the whole ship's crew is invited to attend so they are usually held in large venues like the ship's discotheque for instance. Anyway....last night there was a thematic all crew party "Mardi Gras" style, you could wear masks and things like that and I suppose it was an great fun time for everyone but I decided to sit (or rather sleep) that one out as I have to be up at 5 AM to work at my "Side Job" with the art department. So, after you have completed your first 90 days onboard which is considered your probationary period, you can apply for an extra job onboard helping other departments with certain tasks and this way you can make some extra money! There's different kinds of tasks you could perform depending on the department you decide to offer your help to, for example, you can become a part time "kind of" a security guard for the "Security Department" where you walk around the ship for a couple hours usualy at night time, just keeping an eye on things around areas where alcohol is served, ready to "blow the whistle" if some kind of problematic situation arises, so the "real" security guards come and take care of the situation. You could also help the " Port and shopping" department with easy tasks such as handing out flyers to the guests at the gangway while they get off the ship at the ports, advertising shops and places of interest, or you could help the art department like I do on my ship currenlty. What we do for them is help set up the art work at the venue where an "Art Auction" would be held, we do this very early in the morning, and then we come back in the afternoon and breakdown the auction set up after it's finished and bring all the artwork back to the lockers and/or the Art Gallery.

Hello everyone! Tomorrow at 3pm CEST we have our 2nd community call 😊 drop a YES in the comment if you’ll be attending! This is a great chance to meet each other & ask your questions about cruise life. See you tomorrow

Hello friends. Just stopped by to share a few facts of ship life that are not generally discussed in the opening stages of the cruise jobs discussions for those of you who are planning on getting onboard for the first time. And it's about the "safety duties" aspect of the onboard life. As a cruise musician you are first and foremost a "crew member" which means you are a seafarer and as such you have certain safety duties to attend to that actually surpass your duties as a musician. There are a couple of motto's you will hear often such as "safety is first" and "safety is everybody's business", this is actually quite true, and to be mindful of our safety duties and general responsibilities onboard will make everyone's experience safer. Once onboard you will be given an "emergency card" that has your safety duties information such as your "emergency number", "instruction number", "emergency station number" and "Muster station number". If you wish I can elaborate on these terms and other information contained in the emergency card on a later post, but what made me want to post today is something called "inport manning duty" which for the first time I was assigned to recently. Every time the ship docks in a port the crew (depending on their work schedules) is allowed to get off ship and enjoy some time around the ports and/or cities the ship is visiting at any given time, but, there's a certain number of crew members that most remain onboard at all times when the ship is docked at port to manage any possible emergency events that may happen while in port. This means that if you emergency number is shown in the "inport manning list" you are not allowed to get off the ship at the port that said list specifies for you, even if you are "off duty" at your regular job. For instance, today we are at the port of Glasgow, Scotland, which I was very excited to get to walk around but while checking the inport manning list yesterday I noticed I would not be able to do🥺. All these information as I understand it is standard operation on all ships, however I have only worked with Royal Caribbean so I'm not sure about other companies, but here, you have a chance to "switch" your inport manning duty with another crew member that shares you same "instruction number" and, of course is willing to stay on ship instead of you. You have to arrange and process this "switch" with the pertinent managers onboard at least two days in advance, otherwise your request will be denied and you'll have to stay onboard for inport manning in the end. However this is something that is not very likely to happen often specially to us misicians, just once in a blue moon, as it just happened to me haha, but don't worry too much about it. Just thought I should share...Any way I hope this information is useful and clear enough 😄. That's all falks! Carry on.....

I’m so grateful to have such talented musicians here who have already worked on cruise ships: @Allan Lewis @Emilie Rose @James Cole @Bruno Muringa @Wallie Lewis @Ryan North @Jon Williams @Ricardo Toribio @Terrick King @Fred Rubin @Petros Palaskas @Luis Diaz @Olivier Turner @Ashley Hinds @Oleksandr Marusiak @Marcos Tapajóz 👉 Please feel free to introduce yourselves in the comments: - What ships you’ve worked on - What you’re looking to get out of this community - And anything else you’d love to share! (And if I’ve forgotten anyone who has already worked on cruise ships, please let me know so I can add you here 🙏). ✨ I’ve been trying to find a way to give you points and a special badge in Skool, but it seems this feature isn’t available yet. In the meantime, you are more than welcome to share your experience and help aspiring musicians here if you’d like to. I’d also love for this community to be valuable for you. Please let me know in the comments what kind of support you’d like to see here — for example: - Support calls during or between contracts (for mental health, life onboard, etc.) - Strategies to rebook contracts or negotiate higher salaries - Moving from a band role to a solo position - Planning your next step: whether to keep working ships or reorient back on land - How to transition smoothly once contracts end I’m also working on bringing in guest entertainers and agents for Q&As. That might not happen straight away, but it’s definitely in the plan so you can also gain value from this community, beyond sharing your own experience.