A Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship in Costa Maya, Mexico
I live in one the most beautiful places on this earth, Cape Town, but I always had a dream, to work on cruise ships, which I managed to fulfill and see almost all the places I intended to, just missed Machu Picchu. I will still get there, just not on a ship.
I started my life on cruise ships doing cruise jobs (in the casino) through a friend working out of Limassol, Cyprus on Louis Cruise Line doing cruises to Israel, Egypt and the Greek Islands. I did 2 ships with them, 2 stints on both. It was to be the start of a long life on cruise ships, eighteen years in total….yes some people do it for a few years and quit, I kept going. I loved seeing all the new places, well eventually they were not new.
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The French cruise ship the Mermoz
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I got a taste of what life on cruise ships were about, working out of Cyprus, after a year I got a job on a French Cruise Ship the Mermoz owned by Croisieres Paquet. I worked for a casino concessionaire Casinos Austria. The Mermoz, sadly, does no long exist, she was sold to strangely enough to Louis Cruise Line, scrapped her after a few years. The Mermoz was by far my favorite
cruise ship, even after all those years (18), she was a classic old lady, very French. I saw practically all the world, working on board her. Thank You Mermoz for the wonderful experiences of seeing the Galapagos Island not once but twice, Cuba, India, South America, Norway even my home town Cape Town, and then some really remote places as well, St Helena Island midway into the Atlantic, that is just a few. They even had wonderful musical cruises, theatrical ones, where they would go to places in old amphitheatres in Greece and do shows there, or have classical show on board.
I even did a short stint on a ferry boat between Greece and Northern Italy, Anek Lines during the winter, lovely choppy seas of course. The money was good on there I worked for an American man who had the concessionaire on there. My life changed, I then went to work out of New Orleans doing the Caribbean for Commodore Cruise Line, no longer exists. It was fun doing the Caribbean, going to the beach, wonderful experiences.
I returned to Europe and got a job with an English Casino Concessionaire, Southern Games based in Fulham, London. I did quite a lot of different ships with them, the Portuguese ship the Funchal, which I did Brazil for the summer season three times, one of my favourite places is Brazil, the people just have so much energy, the place has a real buzz about it, the music. The Funchal would do seasons out of Sweden, the Norwegian fjords, beautiful, then Mediterranean, she kept moving, was in all different languages as well. I did some ships out of Palma de Majorca, one strangely enough yet again a Louis Cruise Line ship (haunting me) that was owned previously by Croisieres Paquet the owners of the Mermoz. It seem strangely intertwined, I never did figure that out. I also did the wonderful cruise ship Marco Polo joining her in Singapore coming back to the Mediterranean.
I ended my cruise history by doing 8 years with Royal Caribbean International, doing three of their Celebrity ships, wonderful cruise line as well. The Royal Caribbean ships are getting bigger and bigger, I did three of the Voyager class one. I highly recommend working for Royal Caribbean, check out their website.
So at the end of the day, dreams can be fulfilled, what you put your mind to you can do…..
