Insights of a Cruise Director

The Cruise Director on every ship is one of the most high profile officers on board, second only to the Captain in this regard. But how much do you really know about the position? Below is a list of important points about the role written by a Cruise Director himself, definitely worth bearing in mind before you embark on your next ship or fill out the surveys at the end of your voyage. Would you have what it takes to fill the shoes as a Cruise Director?

Before we begin, please note my views do not represent those of my employer and probably not all cruise directors. Also please note this article is just intended to give an insight into one of the positions on board a ship with points that many people may not have considered or taken for granted for.:)

1) They have worked very hard to get to their position

It is very rare for anyone to initially start their career at sea as a Cruise Director. As with most positions onboard, someone applying for the job would already need to have several years of experience in the field and would still most likely be brought in as a member of the Cruise Staff Activities team or an assistant Cruise Director at the most. The job requires an almost even split of entertainment and management background which is quite a rare skillset and very difficult to find candidates from land-based jobs to move into the shipboard position. Even if the right person was found, there needs to be a level of experience to know what to do when things don’t quite go to plan. In many cases it can take upwards of 10 – 12 years for an activity staff to move up through the ranks. Even if your Cruise Director looks young, they are still most likely in their 30’s at the least, with a hefty background of managing a huge team and engaging people on stage.

2) They work long days, every day for months at a time

We all know that crew members work very hard onboard the ships, giving us the best service day in and day out. We even see it first hand with the stateroom stewards and our waiters who always appear to be working when we need them. This is normally the reason why these two positions specifically get the highest wages thanks to the very generous tips they receive. But did you know that nearly every crew member and officer puts in a comparable amount of hours? The Cruise Director and their staff usually have one of the longest days of work if you looked at their start time and end time. Most Cruise Directors start their day between 8am – 9am and don’t finish until midnight on most nights. You could argue that their job of socializing and hosting isn’t particularly strenuous compared to some positions on board and they would probably agree with you. However, as the face and voice of the ship they have to be ‘on’ all the time. As an experiment, try smiling for as long as you can and see how quickly your cheeks hurt. Now imagine that it was your job to not only smile but to be courteous, positive and engaging to everyone you meet from the moment you wake up in the morning to the time you go to sleep, with no days off for four to six months at a time. Starts to make you wonder if it really is something anyone could do.

3) They cannot please everyone

Cruise ships are a worldwide choice of vacation these days and the different demographics of ages and cultures are more diverse than ever. A Cruise Directors job is to try and please everyone from spring breakers to retirees and Americans to Asians. I once compared my job to holding a jug of water with more than ten holes in it. If we received a complaint or a request for something I would be doing the equivalent of moving my fingers to plug certain holes in the jug, this doesn’t stop the water from coming out though, so I would re-position my fingers again to try and please another request. Eventually it became clear to me that even though I would try my best, water would still pour out of the jug from one hole or another, would that make me give up entirely and pull all my fingers out? Of course not! We know we can’t please everyone, but it would never stop us trying.

4) They make this tough job look easy

An older Cruise Director once told me that everyone has two jobs, their own and entertainment. I didn’t fully understand his reasoning until I became a Cruise Director myself. For us, entertainment is our job, but everyone in the world is qualified to know whether they have been entertained or not and for some people, they will tell you exactly what was wrong with your delivery of a joke or how you should stand on stage. Cruise Directors are normally employed for their outgoing or confident persona and being able to stand on stage in front of hundreds of people every night is a skill in itself that is too much for many to bear. Maybe you are a confident public speaker, but have you ever had to stand on stage alone and deliver bad news like a missed port or a cancelled show to a theater full of people? This is the stuff of nightmares for many but a Cruise Director can do this without breaking a sweat.

5) They can’t be everywhere anymore but they still try

Years ago when the Cruise industry was just taking off, someone came up with the job and title of Cruise Director. In those days, the Cruise Director had a hand in everything and would be highly visible throughout a cruise. Then cruise ships stated getting bigger! It is easy to spot one person regularly on a ship that holds 300 passengers but now most cruise ships are holding ten times as many passengers. As this culture changed the Cruise Director was given an assistant, then some activity staff and bigger teams to accommodate the larger vessels. However, the expectation that a Cruise Director should be seen never changed even though it is still one person. Really, if you have seen any of the Cruise Directors staff in your voyage, then you have had the equivalent engagement as the old days, as his staff are branches of the same tree. The Cruise Director will still try and be as visible as possible at many high profile events of your cruise, but if you happen to always be in the wrong places, you could easily find yourself only seeing him or her once or twice if you’re lucky. Consider this, if a Cruise Director spent 10 minutes speaking to every passenger on a ship that can hold 3000. Then this will take up nearly 21 days, and that’s not including anytime for breaks or sleep! Not quite enough time on a 7 day Caribbean escape.

6) They all have unique personalities

Most Cruise Directors are hired for their personalities but that is where the similarities end. Cruise Directors are people with their own individual personas and abilities. Some will come across as smart and professional and others may be comical and goofy. Not all styles will please everybody but rest assured that even the ones that are entertaining in a comical fashion on stage, will still be one of the most professional people you will meet on board.

7) They work with what they are given

One of the biggest misconceptions about a Cruise Director is believing that they are in charge of choosing the acts and entertainment on board. Whilst sometimes a Cruise Director may request a certain act or movie, really it is the corporate offices of the cruise lines that communicate with agents to get the entertainment. The Cruise Director is in charge of scheduling the entertainment so that it is viewed by as many guests as possible and forming some sort of structure for the cruise. This is the same for the content viewed on TV or the movies shown on board. There are many licensing and copy write laws which dictate what a ship can show on board. Vessels can receive a huge fine if any of these laws are broken which means it is never a simple case of just getting a signal from a TV network so that you can enjoy a particular sporting event, or buying the latest DVD in Walmart and playing it in the theater that night.

8) They have to read every comment about them

Most cruise lines offer a survey to be filled out by the passengers after every cruise either as a paper or online format. These surveys are designed to make sure the Ship receives a score for their levels of customer service that can be compared to previous years and other ships or lines. A lot of the time, the Cruise Director is a named person on the survey meaning that passengers get the opportunity to praise or criticize the person in the position. Some people do take the opportunity to roast on the Cruise Director on these surveys which is strange as no one ever says they ‘liked the food but the Chef was nowhere to be seen!’ Being the face of the ship means you do have to take the rough with the smooth but bear in mind that these surveys are viewed by the Cruise Director, and they have to sift through endless comments of people effectively appraising their job who aren’t necessarily qualified to do so. For example, Cruise Directors have to face many comments from people criticizing their age, weight, personality and the way they dress. If you have left comments like these, ask yourself ‘Did it really affect your enjoyment of your vacation?’ Hopefully, after reading this article you will now have a more in depth knowledge to give your opinion on this tough job on board and before you fill out the survey, you will be able to give a fairer judgment on the person on stage.

So there it is folks, the Cruise Director Job from the view of a Cruise Director. Let me know what you think and tell us who your favorite Cruise Directors are!

Excellent post, really tells it like it is and clears up a lot of misconceptions.

I for one can't imagine being nice/happy/involved/courteous ALL the time without a break and I take my hat off to you and your colleagues. You very definitely add to the enjoyment of a cruise, and I have yet to meet a 'bad' cruise director, there are just some who are less visible and perhaps a bit more low key. Unfortunately there are those cruisers who look for the negatives - the steak was too well done, so the food was terrible, there was a little rust on the balcony so the ship is falling apart, and the cruise director didn't talk to them every night so he ruined their cruise.

I was on one cruise where the cruise director was a little more subdued and less engaging, but that was his personality and he still did his job just fine. I think however that you would need a very outgoing, out there personality to be a stand out CD, while at the same time being careful not to be too 'in your face'. A special mention of Steve Gayda on Celebrity Millennium - we have had the pleasure of cruising with him twice (In Asia and Alaska) and he is wonderful - professional, friendly, engaging and highly visible.

I am not too sure why there are not more responses to the original post.....it has been up for a few weeks now........am I missing something here??? I find it a very interesting post and great insight from a Cruise Directors perspective.

Yes, I must agree.....good post and a great way to get your point across. Well done on posting.

Personally, I think Cruise Directors do a fabulous job and are the Face of the cruise. Each is different in their own personalities, the way they do things and the approach to their job. We have got to know quite a few CD's and no two are the same....some are seen all the time....some are hardly seen at all. Each to their own. Whether the CD is seen or not is hardly a concern of mine.

I don't have any favourites, but one CD stands out. Unfortanetly, I don't remember his name, but we were on the Celebrity Infinity doing the Antarctica cruise and the CD was a young Argentinian fellow from Buenos Aires. He would come to every show 20-30 minutes early and sit on the edge of the stage with a microphone and take informal questions from the audience and answer every one. If he didn't know the answer, he would find out.

One other thing which does stand out about him was we in Port Stanley and waiting in the queue to get on the tender to go back to the ship and it was bloody freezing. They were coming along the queue with trays of hot chocolate and who was the person giving out the hot chocolates????......the Cruise Director. That stood out with me!!!

Great insight. I had a friend who was an assistant cruise director. He said it was toughest but rewarding job

This was fascinating. I'm a relatively new cruiser, and I honestly had no idea what exactly CDs do. I feel better informed now, and it actually makes me want to check out the entertainment.