AnonymousCM5
Member
Company: RCCL
Ship: (I wont name the ship because my job is a one person job)
Contract Duration: 8 months
Position: Private Studio Photographer
I started working as a junior photographer in 2016 for RCCL, my first ship was a small ship that sailed trough the caribbean the first six months of the year, then during summer it repositioned to the baltics and sailed though Scandinavia and the norwegian fjords. As a first experience it was great to get to know so many countries and so many different cultures. It was the 8th month of my first contract, I was about to go home and they told me I had to stay 2 months more and transfer to another ship that was sailing from Vancouver, CA to Alaska, I did accept the promotion and was transferred the next day.
I am good at portrait photography, however, I have to be brutally honest, my assistant manager was my paisano (and also we became very good friends, to this day) and that played an important part in me getting a promotion so quick, normally is not that fast and people sweat their asses off for such promotions.
From that day on I did the private photographer job in 5 diferent ships until 2019, that is when I did my last contract in a Quantum Class ship, Quantum Class are big ships and pretty new, here's my review of the last contract:
RCCL has something called Salary at sea, this is a debit card where all your wages get transferred and also you can tell the HR office to link it to your expenses on board.
Work onboard: private photographers normally do phone calls in the morning, we get the special ocassions list from the cruise staff team and call anniversary couples, quinceañeras, newlyweds and any kind of groups travelling and celebrating special ocassions, sessions are complimentary and the whole point of the job is to have a busy agenda during formal evenings so you can have enough shootings to sell and achieve the revenue target for the cruise, appointments can come from your phone calls, from photographers (yes, they get commision if I sell), from walk ins or something that I liked to do a lot was to look for people spending big during their cruise, such as Art Dept customers, jewelry customers (in these ships you can easily find a Cartier o Omega shops randomly placed next to a restaurant), hanging out at the Concierge Club was also a good idea to catch the right people. Once you have the photoshot with your potential customers, we arrange a viewing session the next day and then I show the pictures with some triggering music (I liked to use Ed Sheeran a LOT, works every time) show the packages and make my pitch. The smallest package was $550 for only 5 pics in digital format, you get a branded USB with the HI RES images and a copyright release from the cruise line, thats it. Beyond that you could sell wallart collections, photoalbums, single prints in acrylic, metal or canvas, of course these are not produced on board, RCCL partners with a vendor that makes and ships these items from the USA to any country in the world. I always exceeded my target and getting a good commission per cruise and providing also the regular photographers with incentives aside form the booking comissions.
Honestly I don't remember what was the base salary but along with commisions I ended up making around 3000 USD per month, I did not work that hard TBH, Ive heard of people in the same position making a lot more per month, of course the ship assignment and itinerary has a direct effect on how well your business can go.
Living conditions: Single shared cabins for most of the revenue dept, this means you have a single room that is very small, in this room you find a bunk bed that you need to pull down when is bedtime and push up when is work time, you also have tap water and a mirror in our own room, a TV with crew shows and some shows that can be requested to the broadcast team and a fridge. The shared part of the room is the toilet and the shower, I shared the same bathroom with a person from sports staff, altough he was never in his cabin as he was dating a manager, so pretty much I had the toilet and shower for myself, a shared bath room is basically a bathroom with two entrances/ exits, one for each cabin.
Food in the mess: No one is going to be 100% happy about this, there are 70 nationalities on board so F&B department has to go above and beyond to keep everyone fed (I was part of the crew welfare meetings), some key points during my last contract regarding food were:
1. Ommelete station at breakfast: we had a cook in the mornings that used to make ommeletes for crew with all sorts of ingredients, this was great!
2. The quality of indian food was amazing! and I am not indian, I am from a hispanic country.
3. Desserts and ice cream at all times during peak hours. (IDK if this is good or bad lol)
4. The late night snack pizza looked as if it was a pizza made with all the leftovers from the day, and it was like that in all the ships that I saliled in, sadly if you were looking or something to eat late in the evening that pizza was probably your only option.
5. 5. Smoothie days, pretzel days, theme dinners and all sorts of events around food almost every week.
6. As a staff member I could eat in the windjammer, which is like the buffet for guests, I used to go a lot, later on during the contract not so much anymore as I was fed up with guests.
Crew Bar: Crew parties almost every week, including caribbean, Brazilian, latino and rock nights. Crew bar was pretty fun, with a back deck space for smokers and an inside bar that served any kind of sprits with no restriction. Also we had 3 PS4 stations with several diferent games and ping pong tables. In general people used to get very drunk, you just had to not look drunk in front of security or otherwise you may get breathalized and go home the next port day.
The crew was amazing, I had a bunch whole of friends working at the shops on board, majority of them were latino people, but there were also A LOT of eastern europeans and canadians, everyone was always pretty chill and laidback, it was the same with the potographers team but they used to work a lot more.
The bar was always full and the crew welfare team was always proactively preparing activities to kep us all amused (karaoke, DJ nights, theme nights, st patricks, pride day.... you name it!)
Itinerary: I started saling from Seattle,WA to all the Alaskan ports (Juneau, Skagway, Icy strait point, the glaciers) and also Canada. During my 4 year experience I have to say Alaska comes 2nd regarding landscapes and beauty (1st place is for the baltics of course) later on during the year we crossed the Pacific Sea through Hawaii, French Polinesia (Bora Bora, Papette), New Caledonia, New Zealand and finally Australia, then we started sailing from Sidney to all the NZ ports like Tauranga, Picton, Auckland, Wellington...NZ is a great and beautiful country and NZ people are laidback and relaxed.
I don't have a lot of complaints as you can see, I enjoyed my time on board a lot and RCCL IS GREAT FOR CREW! my position was good, I normally did not work my ass off and saved enough to start a living at home, I just did not feel like cruising anymore after covid.
I hope this review will be helpful in some way, cheers!
Ship: (I wont name the ship because my job is a one person job)
Contract Duration: 8 months
Position: Private Studio Photographer
I started working as a junior photographer in 2016 for RCCL, my first ship was a small ship that sailed trough the caribbean the first six months of the year, then during summer it repositioned to the baltics and sailed though Scandinavia and the norwegian fjords. As a first experience it was great to get to know so many countries and so many different cultures. It was the 8th month of my first contract, I was about to go home and they told me I had to stay 2 months more and transfer to another ship that was sailing from Vancouver, CA to Alaska, I did accept the promotion and was transferred the next day.
I am good at portrait photography, however, I have to be brutally honest, my assistant manager was my paisano (and also we became very good friends, to this day) and that played an important part in me getting a promotion so quick, normally is not that fast and people sweat their asses off for such promotions.
From that day on I did the private photographer job in 5 diferent ships until 2019, that is when I did my last contract in a Quantum Class ship, Quantum Class are big ships and pretty new, here's my review of the last contract:
RCCL has something called Salary at sea, this is a debit card where all your wages get transferred and also you can tell the HR office to link it to your expenses on board.
Work onboard: private photographers normally do phone calls in the morning, we get the special ocassions list from the cruise staff team and call anniversary couples, quinceañeras, newlyweds and any kind of groups travelling and celebrating special ocassions, sessions are complimentary and the whole point of the job is to have a busy agenda during formal evenings so you can have enough shootings to sell and achieve the revenue target for the cruise, appointments can come from your phone calls, from photographers (yes, they get commision if I sell), from walk ins or something that I liked to do a lot was to look for people spending big during their cruise, such as Art Dept customers, jewelry customers (in these ships you can easily find a Cartier o Omega shops randomly placed next to a restaurant), hanging out at the Concierge Club was also a good idea to catch the right people. Once you have the photoshot with your potential customers, we arrange a viewing session the next day and then I show the pictures with some triggering music (I liked to use Ed Sheeran a LOT, works every time) show the packages and make my pitch. The smallest package was $550 for only 5 pics in digital format, you get a branded USB with the HI RES images and a copyright release from the cruise line, thats it. Beyond that you could sell wallart collections, photoalbums, single prints in acrylic, metal or canvas, of course these are not produced on board, RCCL partners with a vendor that makes and ships these items from the USA to any country in the world. I always exceeded my target and getting a good commission per cruise and providing also the regular photographers with incentives aside form the booking comissions.
Honestly I don't remember what was the base salary but along with commisions I ended up making around 3000 USD per month, I did not work that hard TBH, Ive heard of people in the same position making a lot more per month, of course the ship assignment and itinerary has a direct effect on how well your business can go.
Living conditions: Single shared cabins for most of the revenue dept, this means you have a single room that is very small, in this room you find a bunk bed that you need to pull down when is bedtime and push up when is work time, you also have tap water and a mirror in our own room, a TV with crew shows and some shows that can be requested to the broadcast team and a fridge. The shared part of the room is the toilet and the shower, I shared the same bathroom with a person from sports staff, altough he was never in his cabin as he was dating a manager, so pretty much I had the toilet and shower for myself, a shared bath room is basically a bathroom with two entrances/ exits, one for each cabin.
Food in the mess: No one is going to be 100% happy about this, there are 70 nationalities on board so F&B department has to go above and beyond to keep everyone fed (I was part of the crew welfare meetings), some key points during my last contract regarding food were:
1. Ommelete station at breakfast: we had a cook in the mornings that used to make ommeletes for crew with all sorts of ingredients, this was great!
2. The quality of indian food was amazing! and I am not indian, I am from a hispanic country.
3. Desserts and ice cream at all times during peak hours. (IDK if this is good or bad lol)
4. The late night snack pizza looked as if it was a pizza made with all the leftovers from the day, and it was like that in all the ships that I saliled in, sadly if you were looking or something to eat late in the evening that pizza was probably your only option.
5. 5. Smoothie days, pretzel days, theme dinners and all sorts of events around food almost every week.
6. As a staff member I could eat in the windjammer, which is like the buffet for guests, I used to go a lot, later on during the contract not so much anymore as I was fed up with guests.
Crew Bar: Crew parties almost every week, including caribbean, Brazilian, latino and rock nights. Crew bar was pretty fun, with a back deck space for smokers and an inside bar that served any kind of sprits with no restriction. Also we had 3 PS4 stations with several diferent games and ping pong tables. In general people used to get very drunk, you just had to not look drunk in front of security or otherwise you may get breathalized and go home the next port day.
The crew was amazing, I had a bunch whole of friends working at the shops on board, majority of them were latino people, but there were also A LOT of eastern europeans and canadians, everyone was always pretty chill and laidback, it was the same with the potographers team but they used to work a lot more.
The bar was always full and the crew welfare team was always proactively preparing activities to kep us all amused (karaoke, DJ nights, theme nights, st patricks, pride day.... you name it!)
Itinerary: I started saling from Seattle,WA to all the Alaskan ports (Juneau, Skagway, Icy strait point, the glaciers) and also Canada. During my 4 year experience I have to say Alaska comes 2nd regarding landscapes and beauty (1st place is for the baltics of course) later on during the year we crossed the Pacific Sea through Hawaii, French Polinesia (Bora Bora, Papette), New Caledonia, New Zealand and finally Australia, then we started sailing from Sidney to all the NZ ports like Tauranga, Picton, Auckland, Wellington...NZ is a great and beautiful country and NZ people are laidback and relaxed.
I don't have a lot of complaints as you can see, I enjoyed my time on board a lot and RCCL IS GREAT FOR CREW! my position was good, I normally did not work my ass off and saved enough to start a living at home, I just did not feel like cruising anymore after covid.
I hope this review will be helpful in some way, cheers!
