Our living quarters were small, but sufficient. Guys lived down in the hull of the ship, with two people to a room. Girls lived in one large room on the third deck of the ship. Us dudes had a bit more personal space, but rarely received cell reception down in the hull, a trade off I was more than happy to make. Living in the hull was also great during the 6pm-6am or 12am-12pm shift, with no windows, it didn't matter if it was night or day, I had no trouble getting to sleep.

My roommate and I lived in a small room with three beds, but with only two people had plenty of space. I had two lockers and one large dresser for my belongings, he had one locker and two dressers for his. We had a couple small TV's in our room with 30 channels or so, but we had much better things to do than watch television. The bathroom, used by all four deckhands, had two showers, a toilet, and a sink. With all of us running on different schedules, we rarely even bumped into each other down there.

Living space wasn't all that important. Generally, if I was awake, I was working or off ship. If I wanted to spend some time on my laptop, I'd find a cafe with a wifi connection. My room was mostly used as a place to sleep and not much else.

We were fed well. For breakfast, we'd write out a ticket for whatever we wanted. My usual breakfast consisted of french toast, a huge helping of scrambled eggs (I'd do the cook's laundry from time to time), diced/fried potatoes, and a bowl of raisin bran. Lunch and dinner were served buffet style and could be anything. Pizza, baked chicken, steak, chili, chicken strips, pasta, a variety of sandwiches, generally it was pretty good. Lunch and dinner also always came with a salad and some kind of dessert. The passengers, paying well over $500 a day for their cruise, ate exquisite meals and often I'd be able to arrive in the kitchen at the right time for a leftover, untouched plate of gourmet food.

Pay

ACL is unique when it comes to paying it's employees. Instead of paying deckhands, stewards, and dishwashers by the hour, they hire people for these positions as temporary workers and pay a base rate of $30 to $35 per day. At the end of each week long cruise, passengers are asked to tip for the whole week with a gratuity. They suggest $150 per passenger for the gratuity, but often passengers will give more. All those gratuities are added together and then divided among the deckhands, stewards, and dishwashers. On my ship we averaged around $750 a week with tips and base pay together. Larger ship crews were pulling in around $1000 a week consistently. Additionally, if you completed your contracted, 84 days straight, they'd give you a $750 bonus, which was sweet icing on the cake.

*My ship was the smallest of the fleet and we consistently made less than the other ship's crew. We had less work though, and a more relaxed environment, so it balanced out.

Where I Went