From The Horses Mouth - Blogs I Have Found About The Ship Life Experience)

One thing that I started to do as soon as I was offered a position with NCLA was to scour the internet to find accounts of what sip life is really like. I’m not sure how many of you have engaged in this process…but my experience is that it was a slow, difficult, and time consuming venture! I don’t know if it’s that I was not typing the right combination of words into the google search- or if there is just not a lot of really substantial information out there…but finding someone who actually wrote about their real experiences was extremely hard.

However, over the months of searching I have stumbled across a few blogs that I want to share with you. Hopefully these will help you to get a fuller picture of what ship life is actually like. Of course, these experience are unique and subjective because they are written by individuals…but they do offer an inside look into this very unique profession.
If these help you please leave a comment and let me know. Also if you know of any good blogs that should be added to this list- please share them as I am always looking for additional blogs about ship life to read.

Enjoy!

Here are a list and brief description of the blogs that I have found so far….

This was the blog that started it all for me (the very first blog I found in my search) from James Byrd, who started with NCLA on Pride of Aloha working as a JR Waiter…then moved to Pride of America and eventually was promoted to guest services. Amazingly now he has received another promotion to one of the managers in guest services! He is a true example of “working your way up”.

http://web.mac.com/cruisingjames/Site/Home.html

Click on the current blog to see his 2009 entries and NCLA 06-08 to see what his experience was like from 2006-2008 (though you might have done this already).

Blog about working as a Youth Counselor (my job!) with NCL

http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Kitchener/blog-321690.html

The blog about her experience on the ship starts there but there are many other entries about the ship life that follow

Blog about working as a social coordinator with NCL

http://tealfrost.wordpress.com/2009/02/

This is the month where her posts about getting ready for the job on the ship starts. Scroll down to Bon Voyage to see her first post about getting ready to leave for the ship…then up to see the ones that follow.

Blog about working with a non NCL ship (P & O at first and then Princess 2nd) as an internet cafe coordinator. Must warn you this blog is long and has a LOT of entries at first!

http://sashasatsea.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to start at the beginning of her blog.

Blog about working with NCLA…before there was only 1 ship. This was also from back in the day where they had to do training at Piney Point instead of in Hawaii.

http://akalei.wordpress.com/

Scroll down to the bottom to see the first post. This blog is pretty short..seems like she did not end up finishing it…but it’s still something!

Inaugural Post!

Hello World!

This is my first official post! I'm mainly starting this blog to help those out who are thinking about going into the cruising industry. I never planned to go into this line of work, but after unexpectedly finding myself unemployed in mid May, I decided to take a long hard look at what my next move should be, and decided I really wanted to find work where I could combine my love of travel with a steady job. One option was the cruise industry! So I started doing research about positions that I might be suited for, and here I am now almost five months later, waiting for my ship assignment, with Norwegian Cruise Lines!

Anyhow, this blog will hopefully give you some insight regarding what my process was like...what steps I took, and of course what it is actually like living and working on the high seas (once I get there that is)! I might also post some other stories and info from my life along the way... But my main hope is that this blog will be informative, helpful...and maybe even somewhat entertaining!

During the next few posts I will tell you a little more about myself, what position I was hired for, and take you through the entire hiring process.

Until then...