How to Get Hired as a Cruise Ship Tour Guide

"Donna, have you ever worked on a cruise ship? [I would love to work on a cruise ship! How do you get hired? And what are they looking for?] Well, there's not a trick to it. I have to tell you, I loved working on a cruise ship. I felt like it was a job...well, I didn't feel like it was a job. It was something I did and I had to convince myself that it was a job. Even though we worked hard, it was easier to work everyday for six months than it is, for me, to work Monday through Friday, nine-to-five. That's harder than working on a cruise ship. But people have to know how cruise ships work. In most cases, the ships are registered in other countries. By doing that, they don't have to hire U.S. help. They don't have to follow the U.S. labor laws. They don't have to follow minimum wage. So a lot of the jobs, they hire international crews. So if you are interested in working in the dining room or as a cabin steward, often times, they hire international crews that will work thirteen hours a day for maybe one hundred dollars a week. In some cases, and I won't mention cruise lines, they even pay to work on the ship. And Americans usually won't do that. If you are interested in those jobs, you'll need to work on a few of the U.S. registered. But some of the other jobs...like I started out taking care of the children- a great way to get experience. Working as cruise staff, if you have an entertainment background, they like actors, singers, people who aren't afraid to be in front of groups, people who can do exercise classes, dancing classes. You might want to apply for the cruise ship...for the cruise staff. Pursers office; if you've worked at a hotel, it's very similar to working at a hotel. It's the same customer service type skills, the same type of billing with credit cards and such, answering questions....so you might want to work in the purser's office. Shore excursions. Are you good with accounting and detail? Shore excursions are the tours they take. Thirty-five hundred passengers, they are taking a lot of shore excursions, you've got a lot of details if you are good at that. Then you might be interested in working in the shore excursion office. If you are interested in the shops, the salon, and the casino, a lot of the cruise lines hire concessions that hire for a number of other lines. So you'd want to go on their website to see the names of those concessions, so you can apply to them. Princess and Crystal hire their own people. So, you would go directly to the cruise line for that. Captain's secretary...do you have good administration skills? That's another position that people often forget. So you want to look at a specific job, and what are your talents in that job?"