Working on the Cruise Ships - Officer?

Question

Hi,

I am about to begin a cadetship with Carnival UK to train as an Engineering Officer. Could someone with life experiance in this answer a question.

I am wondering how often you get shore leave and are able to visit the ports you are in?

Any additional info would be welcome also.

Thank You

Answer 1

I worked on Costa Cruises as a member of a Crew who had benefits like walking around the ship, leaving the ship and using the guest facilities. Stuff didn´t have those benefits. Probably the same on Carnival, so depends if you are Crew or Staff I believe.

Answer 2

A lot of the time shore leave will depend on your Chief Engineer.  You may be working 'watches' (I'm sure you all all about them) or day work.

All of the years I worked on ships (12 years) the engine cadets had a far better time of it than the deck cadets, the deckies have to work a lot more in port. however on the engine side, a lot of maintenance work has to be done when the ship is in port and they can switch engines off, also even though the ship is docked they keep some engines running (I'm sure I'm teaching granny to suck eggs here) so they still need to have engineers on watch.

Basically its up to the boss how much time you get off.  But hey, even if you're shore leave is c**p as a cadet it's sure to get better when you're a fully fledged officer.