JOBS ON CRUISE SHIPS

ENTERTAINMENT DEPARTMENT

Jobs available in the entertainment department aboard cruise ships: requirements, wages and benefits.

The rapid growth and modernization process of the cruise industry in the last decades have opened a new, promising horizon for artists and professional performers, with many opportunities, job options and rewards for both professional entertainers and young people and students serious about entering the entertainment industry.

Although there are specialized agencies and producers that provide entertainment staff to cruise companies worldwide, large companies in the sector have their own entertainment department and the resources to organize their own programs to offer their passengers different productions, from cut-down versions of famous musicals, themed revues and plays, to full-scale, elaborate Las Vegas and Broadway style shows with an abundance of talented dancers, musicians, singers and speciality performers, such as illusionists and comedians, who have to appear in different productions, sometimes with a lot of audience participation and a profusion of laser lighting effects, pyrotechnics, video projections and countess costume changes.

Joining the entertainment department aboard a cruise ship is a unique experience that can provide a stable job and a lucrative source of income, and entertainment-related positions are therefore among the most sought-after on cruise ships: cruise directors, cruise staff, hosts and hostesses, performers, shore excursion staff, etc.

In any case, entertainment doesn't just happen, and it takes a lot of planning, hard work, commitment and determination to maintain the necessary level of innovation and distinction to satisfy the expectations of an increasingly exacting public.

Jobs interviews, auditions and castings are held in diverse cities around the world by cruise ship agents or international specialized companies to recruit a wide variety of staff, sometimes for their incorporation into existing productions, or to participate in cabaret shows and other forms of nightime entertainment with much shorter contracts that run for no longer than the duration of the cruise or part of it.