Hi Mathilda,

When I graduated from college, I had a B.A. in Theatre Production. 1 years experience working in a scene shop and 1 year working as a stage hand for the local performing arts center. I then went to grad school and studied religion, but I worked for 2 years as the stage manager/sound tech for a small theater company near that school that did education theater (don’t do drugs, make good life choices, etc.) that toured schools, prisons and juvenile detention centers on evenings and weekends. I also spent 2 summers working as a sound and lighting technician for a small theater. So that those were the qualifications I had when I applied to the cruise line.

Hey! Sorry it took me so long to see this (and you’re probably already done with that first contract)! I actually did bring in SM kit on my first contract, but it was totally unnecessary. Cruise ships have plenty of office supplies and several first aid kits in your theater. Leave the kit at home. You may want to bring your own blacks, even if they’re going to issue you a uniform. My first ship only had boy sized clothing, so they let me wear whatever pants I wanted and a cardigan along with the logo-ed black polo shirt.

I actually have an entire post on packing to work on a cruise ship over on my site. You can check it out here: http://brokegirlrich.com/what-to-pack-to-live-on-a-cruise-ship/

That sounds glorious :)

I was a drummer on a Royal Caribbean ship. I only worked 2 hours a day. 8pm and 10pm shows. I was 21 at the time, so I partied 24/7. In the officers bar back then beers were .10. It was crazy fun.

You might want to consider looking into a different job. Housekeepers have one of the toughest jobs onboard, often working 12-14 hour shifts EVERY DAY. They usually hire people from places like Indonesia or the Philippines for those jobs and they are very low paid (although the conversion rate to their local currencies is very favorable – it probably wouldn’t be into Canadian dollars). They do interview over the phone. You might have an easier time looking into the child care areas. Their pay is much better and they actually have some time to get off the ship.

My position was really fortunate, actually, most in the entertainment department are because people want to be entertained while they’re stuck on the ship. That means most of the activities were scheduled for when we were at sea. So I really just had to run rehearsals or maintenance calls during port time as necessary – that meant I could get off the ship in most ports, outside of our in port manning schedule (a rotation of a minimum number of crew that have to stay onboard in case of an emergency).