Ship Life, You Gotta Love It...

So finally, after more than one year of blog abandonment, I'm back to writing a new entry, and this time it has to do with what I've actually  been doing this past year... After 8 months of waiting and waiting, I finally got the job I wanted for the longest time, I became a proud Crew Member of the Disney Cruise Line. This is completely honest, it was one of my dreams finally coming true, it still is.

After working in Walt Disney World for 2 years, and now working in the Cruise Line, I can say that Disney is an amazing company to work for and that I wouldn't trade my job, it is the fact of living 6 months on a ship what makes things a little difficult sometimes (and yet, still totally worth it).

So yes, ship life... I guess there are many different ways to see it. First of all, you live with people of more than 50 different nationalities (probably more) and cultures. I love that you get to learn and share with them everyday. Plus, even though everybody communicates in English, you get to hear other languages from time to time (this is an amazing thing for a language freak such as me).

The time you spend on board depends on your contract. Contracts vary from 4, 6, 7 or 8 months (never more than 8 months), depending on your department and position. I usually do between 5 and a half and 6 months, then we have the fantastic vacation period of 8 weeks, normally. This vacation period is great to plan trips and activities with family and friends, which you don't get to see very often.

We work HARD, and when I say hard, I mean it! It also depends on the department, but usually everybody works at least 70 hours a week, from 10 to 12 hours a day. No, we don't have days off (weekends? what is that?), we have hours off, the right amount of hours that the body needs to rest (now, if you choose to rest or not, that is your problem). Again, this also varies depending on the department and position.

We try our best to have a normal life, we go out shopping to Walmart when we can, we go out to eat when we can, we go to the movies when we can, we hang out with friends, we have parties and sometimes we even have time to go tourist activities in the ports of call.

In the end, it depends on each person to have a healthy and balanced life. So far, I feel very proud of myself for not having to take excessive amounts of coffee, chocolate or energy drinks like monster and redbull.

Of course there is much more to say about ship life, but you have to live it in order to fully understand it. In my case, with all its ups and downs, I love it and wouldn't want to do anything else.