Company: NCL
Ship: Norwegian Star
Contract Duration: 4 months
Position: Showband Musician
After working for CCL for many years and creating a great career path (reaching Musical Director), I decided to switch companies since CCL made most of the musician contracts 9 months long in duration.
Salary: $3500
NCL deduces from your salary all of your purchases onboard every month and they use Brightwell to deposit your paycheck. You receive your transaction report along with your pay slip on pay day.
Work onboard: 1 hour of rehearsal in the morning when there is a production show plus 2 shows in the evening. Same when we have guest entertainers. When there is no show at the theater where musicians participate, 3-4 sets are to be played by the showband at the bar during the evening. The rehearsal is usually preceded by a full drill. NCL does 1 FULL drill every week. Even in some itineraries that include a lot of sea days, drills may take place during a sea day (although they last for only 30-40 mins when at sea). IPM rotation only has 4 groups which means that on steady itineraries you might never see a port. Some new "safety rules" only allow the guest safety briefing to be done by a small group of people with SPECIFIC duties at a guest muster station, hence you might not see your homeport. Switching IPM is hard. On a surprise sea day, the safety officer swaps the IPM groups which creates really unpleasant situations.
Living conditions: Not ideal. The ship is old and the cabins are very small and not well maintained. I had a roommate from my department. During weekly cabin inspection, I have gotten remarks about the rust in my bathroom cabinets like I was expected to take care of them myself. Officially, musicians do not enjoy any privileges onboard (ie cabin service, dining in guest areas, coffee from guest coffee shop)
Food in the mess: Absurdly repetitive and of questionable quality. Unfortunately many companies have cut the budget on food for both guests and crew after the pandemic.
Crew Bar: Serving only beer and wine. Alcohol policy is very strict and security is always watching if you are not self aware. Random testing every month for LOTS of crewmembers (one time they tested around 100 crew). After 2 am, security enforces curfew, sending away back to the cabin everyone who might be chilling in the crew bar. Any drinks not consumed by that time are to be discarded.
Crew parties: Once per month in a guest area with free drinks for everyone. Got to be very very careful though!
Since itineraries can be long, many times the crew bar did not have any soda drinks for the crew because "guests come first". There were times where the only thing that the crew bar could offer was tonic water. The company never stocked enough for a 2 week voyage.
Overall, the experience was a typical corporate company that has diminished the budget and the effort on crew welfare and the leadership onboard is following the mandate of "leg hurts - CUT THE LEG".
Ship: Norwegian Star
Contract Duration: 4 months
Position: Showband Musician
After working for CCL for many years and creating a great career path (reaching Musical Director), I decided to switch companies since CCL made most of the musician contracts 9 months long in duration.
Salary: $3500
NCL deduces from your salary all of your purchases onboard every month and they use Brightwell to deposit your paycheck. You receive your transaction report along with your pay slip on pay day.
Work onboard: 1 hour of rehearsal in the morning when there is a production show plus 2 shows in the evening. Same when we have guest entertainers. When there is no show at the theater where musicians participate, 3-4 sets are to be played by the showband at the bar during the evening. The rehearsal is usually preceded by a full drill. NCL does 1 FULL drill every week. Even in some itineraries that include a lot of sea days, drills may take place during a sea day (although they last for only 30-40 mins when at sea). IPM rotation only has 4 groups which means that on steady itineraries you might never see a port. Some new "safety rules" only allow the guest safety briefing to be done by a small group of people with SPECIFIC duties at a guest muster station, hence you might not see your homeport. Switching IPM is hard. On a surprise sea day, the safety officer swaps the IPM groups which creates really unpleasant situations.
Living conditions: Not ideal. The ship is old and the cabins are very small and not well maintained. I had a roommate from my department. During weekly cabin inspection, I have gotten remarks about the rust in my bathroom cabinets like I was expected to take care of them myself. Officially, musicians do not enjoy any privileges onboard (ie cabin service, dining in guest areas, coffee from guest coffee shop)
Food in the mess: Absurdly repetitive and of questionable quality. Unfortunately many companies have cut the budget on food for both guests and crew after the pandemic.
Crew Bar: Serving only beer and wine. Alcohol policy is very strict and security is always watching if you are not self aware. Random testing every month for LOTS of crewmembers (one time they tested around 100 crew). After 2 am, security enforces curfew, sending away back to the cabin everyone who might be chilling in the crew bar. Any drinks not consumed by that time are to be discarded.
Crew parties: Once per month in a guest area with free drinks for everyone. Got to be very very careful though!
Since itineraries can be long, many times the crew bar did not have any soda drinks for the crew because "guests come first". There were times where the only thing that the crew bar could offer was tonic water. The company never stocked enough for a 2 week voyage.
Overall, the experience was a typical corporate company that has diminished the budget and the effort on crew welfare and the leadership onboard is following the mandate of "leg hurts - CUT THE LEG".
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