Cruise director - enlighten me please.

I am reading all the threads, just looking at the types of questions I may have in the upcoming months, planning for our first cruise.

I truly did not know all the things we are able to do just on the ship alone, we really thought it was about lounging/eating/drinking...which would be excellent. :D

Reading the thread about which ship will have which cruise director (at this point, anything I know about cruise directors comes from Julie from the Love Boat):

Why are they so important?

Are they really visible during the cruise?

I'm really not sure what they actually do.

Thanks!

From wikipedia:

A cruise director is a high-ranking or senior officer of a cruise ship with responsibility for all onboard hospitality, entertainment and social events, who acts as the public face of the company. The cruise director reports to the hotel director, has a deputy or assistant cruise director, and is supported by a team of entertainment staff.

Responsibilities of a cruise director may include:

Scheduling of entertainment, activities and social events

Officer in charge of entertainment staff

Public announcements

Conducting and supervising safety briefings or drills for both passengers and crew.

Usually very visible around ship and introduces all main shows.

I think the good ones stand out and enhance your cruise, but a bad one won't diminish it any. They act as the host or MC for all the major events on board. The really good ones generally have high levels of energy and a great sense of humor and can be very entertaining. How often you see them out and about or interacting with passengers depends on the ship your on, I think. The smaller the ship, the more likely you are to interact.

The Cruise Director is responsible for all the entertainment and activities aboard the ship.

We've never cared if there was a CD or who it was.....but then, apparently, we don't play well with others!

For folks who can't find their own fun, they are important...I guess.

Same with Captains...some folks LOVE to know who is driving the ship....I don't care, as long as we get there and home again!!

From wikipedia:

 

A cruise director is a high-ranking or senior officer of a cruise ship with responsibility for all onboard hospitality, entertainment and social events, who acts as the public face of the company. The cruise director reports to the hotel director, has a deputy or assistant cruise director, and is supported by a team of entertainment staff.

 

Responsibilities of a cruise director may include:

 

Scheduling of entertainment, activities and social events

Officer in charge of entertainment staff

Public announcements

Conducting and supervising safety briefings or drills for both passengers and crew.

 

Usually very visible around ship and introduces all main shows.

Thanks, I just thought I'd ask people on this board, everyone seems to know a lot.

The Cruise Director is responsible for all the entertainment and activities aboard the ship.

We've never cared if there was a CD or who it was.....but then, apparently, we don't play well with others!

 

For folks who can't find their own fun, they are important...I guess.

 

Same with Captains...some folks LOVE to know who is driving the ship....I don't care, as long as we get there and home again!!

Thanks. It seems it's up to us the role they will play in our trip. :) I don't think in our case we will really notice all that much, we are easily entertained.

I think the good ones stand out and enhance your cruise, but a bad one won't diminish it any. They act as the host or MC for all the major events on board. The really good ones generally have high levels of energy and a great sense of humor and can be very entertaining. How often you see them out and about or interacting with passengers depends on the ship your on, I think. The smaller the ship, the more likely you are to interact.

Thank you!

We never give a CD that much power to make or break our cruise. ;):)

I think the good ones stand out and enhance your cruise, but a bad one won't diminish it any. They act as the host or MC for all the major events on board. The really good ones generally have high levels of energy and a great sense of humor and can be very entertaining. How often you see them out and about or interacting with passengers depends on the ship your on, I think. The smaller the ship, the more likely you are to interact.

This surely is very valid.....the only thing I would disagree with is that it doesn't matter the size of the ship, whether you will interact more or less with a CD. In my mind, it has more to do with what activities the cruiser participates in and whether the CD will be the host or very involved with it. After you have participated in one or two things that the CD was the host of, it amazes me how much you may notice the CD walking around the ship.

Sure the CD is the emcee in the nightclub, but it is the other 'smaller, more intimate' onboard activities that they host/lead that can be made more fun, with a CD that has a very entertaining personality and great sense of humor. There are some CD's that are more starchy than others....but a good one, can make it a lot of fun....but a bad CD, will generally just have NO impact on a cruise I am on.

You can never forget a good CD (Mariner OTS 2005 / Monarch OTS 2011) and its hard to forget a bad one (Jewel OTS 2012). But as was mentioned you got to make the best on your floating island...😎

I've had one or two CD's who "enhanced" my cruise. They certainly didn't "make" it but they often put a smile on my face w/ their wit and energy.

I've had a few CD's who were downright annoying IMHO. Loud, brassy, self-impressed. Not so funny OR just so behind the scenes it was like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. I almost never saw them.

So for me they've never turned a good cruise bad, or a not so good cruise good. And mostly they just "are."

I was amazed during my first cruise how the CD and Activities Manager seemed to be omnipresent. They were a fun and funny duo, who really enhanced my family's experience.

Second cruise, CD was more the "wizard of Oz" type and no comedian. Still an enjoyable cruise, but I had developed some great expectations for the CD that left me wanting.

I was amazed during my first cruise how the CD and Activities Manager seemed to be omnipresent. They were a fun and funny duo, who really enhanced my family's experience. ....

Was that duo Leigh and Irky on Explorer?

I was amazed during my first cruise how the CD and Activities Manager seemed to be omnipresent. They were a fun and funny duo, who really enhanced my family's experience.

 

Second cruise, CD was more the "wizard of Oz" type and no comedian. Still an enjoyable cruise, but I had developed some great expectations for the CD that left me wanting.

On our first cruise we barely knew what a CD or Activities Mgr was....we were with a group of friends who were seasoned cruisers and they almost became our activity manager.

Was that duo Leigh and Irky on Explorer?

Hee hee hee. [emoji2] [emoji2] [emoji2]

We are always amazed at how much boundless energy the CD's appear to have. They must drink gallons of super sweet coffee to keep going the way they do.

You will notice the CD's, as they seem to be everywhere throughout the ship. (It's a function of they are where the activity is; which is where you are going.)

A really good CD can enhance your cruise enjoyment; a poor one will not detract from it.

Enjoy your cruise.

I've never really noticed the CD, except for one. He was "off duty" and talking with one of his staff about how he had slept with a passenger the night before. Loudly and in very graphic detail. In Johnny Rockets. I wasn't really impressed by that...

Although the CD no longer makes annoujcements. When he does appear you can get a sense of how is team performs. We had an excellent CD on BOS Jan 22 sailing. Coincidently he was from Liverpool, GO REDS!! He was energetic, witty and seem to have a lot of fun with fellow officers. The captain Stig Nielsen was in rare form during the Captains hour or something. He laughed and joked quite a bit.

Although the CD no longer makes annoujcements. When he does appear you can get a sense of how is team performs. We had an excellent CD on BOS Jan 22 sailing. Coincidently he was from Liverpool, GO REDS!! He was energetic, witty and seem to have a lot of fun with fellow officers. The captain Stig Nielsen was in rare form during the Captains hour or something. He laughed and joked quite a bit.

I am sorry to hear that CD's don't make announcements anymore. I know that the CD (Carlos Torres) on Majesty this past Thanksgiving still did them. For some people maybe they thought they were intrusive, I thought they were helpful, so I did not miss something I wanted to go to.

Since you have just completed a cruise on Brilliance, can you tell me who the Activities Manager was? It is fine, if you only remember their first name.

We have had some good cruise directors and some bad ones.

Some we see a lot around the ship. One we never saw until the two days before the cruise was over (a 21 day cruise). He never showed up for any of the functions. But we did hear him making announcements.

The Love Boat was a cute show, but it is not the model of current era cruising. The reality is that Cruise Directors are no longer nearly as important, are not "high ranking officers" or officers at all, and now deal with being a Master of Ceremonies, Activities Planner (with lots of direction from above), the voice you hear (too often) over the ship's PA, etc. In fact, many ships actually have behind the scenes "entertainment directors," production managers, etc. Cruise Directors generally work in the Hotel Department and report to either the Hotel Manager or possibly a lower level person (on some ships).

Having been on around 100 cruises, nearly 4 years on ships, etc... DW and I can only recall the name of 2 Cruise Directors over more then thirty years of frequent cruising (generally over 70 days a year in the past 10 years).

So who are the really important folks for passengers? The most important would be the Hotel Manager/Director who is the highest ranking officer on a ship that interacts directly with passengers. Most ships are divided into only 2 main departments which is the Marine Department (overseen by the Captain, Staff Captain, Chief Engineer, etc) and the Hotel Department. So if you want to make friends with an officer the best one is the Hotel Manager (there are also advantages to being good friends with the beverage manager). The "Guest Services" Manager (the person in charge of the front desk) is also a very valuable person for passengers in that he/she (and their staff) can often resolve complaints/issues before they become big problems.

As to announcements, the cruise lines know (through surveys) that a majority of passengers truly hate being interrupted by announcements. The best CD we ever had only made a single PA announcement every day (at noon right after the Captain's daily update). That particular CD made it clear that passengers all received a daily printed schedule that they should read. But now, most CDs are required to "promote" various onboard activities and events....especially the ones that generate a profit for the cruise line. So you will hear the promotions for Bingo, various sales, casino events, etc. On the Ultra Luxury lines (such as Seabourn, Crystal, Regent, etc) it is unusual to be interrupted by any announcement other then a mid-day update and usually brief comments by the CD. The assumption is that cruisers are capable of reading the printed schedule and deserving of a cruise with a minimum of annoying interruptions.

Hank

I've never booked a cruise based on the CD but there are a couple I would look forward to seeing again. A combination of talent, energy and personality.

On our first cruise we had a great CD. He was funny, entertaining and round about the ship. That cruise was a B2B with a 3 day coastal followed by a 14 day Panama Canal cruise.

Our mother was joining us at the end of the coastal when we got to LA. Unfortunately, my dear mother dod not turn her cell phone on that morning. We had no idea whether she had made the trip or not. the ship was boarding through two gangways and it was impossible to go back and forth to see when she boarded. The CD was supervising the boarding and he asked us what the problem was. We explained and gave him my mother's name. He said she had not boarded and to go bak to our cabin and they would call when she came on board. About an hour later we got a call and we met up.

About a week later, we were sitting by some windows just taking it easy and he saw us. He sat down and asked us about the cruise. He was truly interested in what we thought.

That is an example of a great CD.

On another cruise, we had a CD who was not so great. Yes, he dd the usual MC duties, but he was habitually late with the Princess patters. And on on occasion we were waiting outside the theater waiting for a show. There were about 8 people just mingling and talking and the CD came out of an office. He saw us and has a "seer in the headlights look". He quickly glanced at his watch and took off in the other direction...

That is an example of a not so good CD.

A good CD can brighten the whole trip and make you feel welcome and appreciated. They have high energy and are happy to see you.

You can't help but feel great when one is aboard.

Over here in the UK P&O are re titling their cruise directors as 'Entertainment Managers' which is what their function is. Apparently some passengers were under the impression that they were a company 'director' ;)

Even the bad ones are obviously good enough administrators to keep their jobs.