Christmas Onboard a Cruise Ship

What it is like working onboard a Cruise Ship during the Holiday Season.

This isn’t about how difficult it is to be away from home for Christmas. This is about how we celebrate Christmas onboard. Do you get homesick? Of course. But you will soon see how beautifully we celebrate the most wonderful time of the year.

What is it actually like being away from home? All of those years, I never had any family or friends come and see me on a ship for Christmas. Everyone has their lives, their traditions. So you make your own. Being away from home for the Holidays, you are literally in the same boat as everyone onboard.

Pun, possibly intended.

It’s different. We may not be with our home family, our blood family, our pets. We don’t have the big Christmas tree in the living room and we don’t get to watch the snow falling outside. We aren’t preparing a 20 pound turkey and stuffing and desserts all day, (unless you are a chef onboard). We don’t have a boat load of presents under the Christmas tree from Mom & Dad and Santa and the cousins and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and Grandpa and Grandma…

What we do have is just as special. What we do have is each other.

We have the family we have made onboard. The colleagues we work with, the friends and acquaintances and “paisanos”. We are all away from home. We are all missing our family. We all are celebrating Christmas a little bit different than the way we did during our early years of life. But we are doing it together.

Isn’t that really the point of Christmas?

As I’ve said, we make our own traditions. We make it beautiful for ourselves and for each other. So let’s talk about all the fun we have during Christmas time onboard a Cruise Ship!

Leading up to Christmas we(the cast) start our Secret Santa. Here’s how it works if you’ve never done a Secret Santa before. This is the way I normally organize it for my cast but I know there are different ways of playing. You start off by making papers for everyone asking their favorite things, sizes, etc..

What’s your favorite store? What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite candy/chocolate bar? What’s your favorite drink? What size are you in shirts/pants/dresses/shoes? Favorite sports team? Favorite movie? Favorite game? What do you want for Christmas? What do you really not want for Christmas? What do you need? What are you allergic to? etc, etc, etc…. Insert a little photo of a Santa on the page and WaaLaa!!

You have their name on this paper and everyone folds it up and we put it in a Santa hat(for funzies, but of course any hat will do.. I guess). I generally go by age, youngest to oldest. Everyone picks out a paper and right there you have who it is and all you need to know about them as their very own Secret Santa Claus. As a cast we then decide on a price amount. A pretty reasonable amount is about $50 but I have gone up to $100 or $150 with some casts. Leading up to Christmas you have the option of leaving little gifts. Chocolates, a bottle of wine, Christmas socks, body wash, a calendar, essential oils, etc… You can leave notes with your gifts to help give clues to your person of who you are. You can leave the gifts on their door, in their cubby backstage, at a cast dinner, wherever your heart desires. It is even more fun when people start getting really creative.

The difficult part about buying Christmas gifts when you work on a Cruise Ship, is the amount of time you don’t really have to get them! Imagine being on a time limit, you have from probably 10:00am-1:00pm at the mall. And that would be it for the week, or 5 days, or however long your cruise is. So in those few hours, you better know exactly what you are thinking to get that person, because most of that time will be filled with just standing in line. No Amazon Prime around these parts!

Please Note: Don’t drink and Prime. I may or may not have made that mistake one year. It was the margarita’s at my favorite restaurant in Cozumel; La Choza. Insert face to palm emoji.

Shout out to my Mariner Cast who put so much time, thought and effort into the gift giving. Everyone was so clever coming up to Christmas and gave the most amazing gifts. There was really so much thought put into each and every one. From the makeup setting sprays, the lululemon leggings, the Ukulele, the ALL vegan treats, the mermaid tail, the eye shadow pallet.. You guys nailed it. You are all beautiful and I love you all.

Then here we are. Christmas time! The cast decides on the best time to reenact their Christmas morning. We work with our schedules and what place on the ship is the best for us. I have done many “Secret Santa’s” backstage, in the mess by the Christmas tree, and in the theatre by a Christmas tree. Everyone brings drinks and candies and have their Christmas shirts and reindeer ears on. Now comes the big reveal. You go around the circle and start guessing who had you as your Secret Santa.

I always think I know exactly who has me. I’m wrong 95 percent of the time. But neither here nor there.

It goes something like this, in a circle.. “I KNOW Olyvia has me.” Olyvia laughs and laughs and says, “Nope!” Then you sit there contemplating who the heck could possibly have you if it isn’t her.

Scratches Head.

The next person goes, and the next person. While the gifts all sit quietly under the Christmas tree (with no names on them) waiting to be found. One by one they begin to be given away to their rightful owners. As we don’t have a Christmas with our families at home this may be the only gift giving/receiving you have at this time of the year.

Let me just state quickly that we ARE able to receive packages onboard. BUT, depending on where you are in the world, it could take months to get there. And when I say months, I mean, I received Christmas Gifts in April last year.

Secret Santa is one of my favorite ways to celebrate Christmas onboard.

But, that definitely isn’t the only excitement we have during the holiday season. Especially as a cast. As we are together for about ten months, we really become like a family. So, we do our best to celebrate together throughout the holiday season. You may have a cast party, like on the Brilliance I organized an “Ugly Sweater, 12 Days of Christmas, Cabin Crawl.” Had to fit it all in there. On the Navigator we had a Holiday themed Christmas Party. Which meant everyone dressed up like something that had to do with Christmas. Reindeer, Santa Claus, Toy Soldiers, etc. And every contract you try to do a cast Christmas dinner as close to Christmas as possible.

The cast(s), if and when the timing works out, will put on a Christmas show. There was an old Christmas show we used to use. But now we have the opportunity to put together our very own show. Which I absolutely LOVE! It gives the cast the chance to showcase what other abilities they have. There is a lot of work that goes into building these shows. The choreography, the costumes, the song choices, lights, sound, props, orchestra, production value. It takes some time and work, but we always end with a beautiful Christmas Performance that the audiences absolutely love.

It not only puts the guests into the Christmas spirit, but it also helps us as well.

Now, you may have your work Christmas parties and all. But we have our 2000 Crew Member Christmas Party. Just Sayin..

The entire Holiday Season is made up of parties actually. We are away from home and enjoying and being grateful for what we have even if everyone is a little homesick. Let me tell you this though, the Philipino’s Christmas Party is out of this world. You want Jolly Bee? Fried Chicken? This really amazing bread that has cheese and sugar and some frosting thing on it. They have noodles and rice and beer and wine and KARAOKE. With the Christmas lights going crazy. These party’s are some of the most fun I have had during the Holidays on board. And these Philipino’s onboard are some of the nicest most giving people I have ever met in my life.

Christmas day is usually made up of an “All Crew Appreciation Lunch”. There is a massive presentation with turkey, ham, a pig roast, crab legs, shrimp, pasta, mashed potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, 79 different desserts, free soda, and everyone walking around saying “Merry Christmas”. I know when you are home you have that incredible home cooked meal and time with your family. But onboard, we also are given an incredible meal, and with our very own ship family.

Of course it’s not the same as being at home. But, isn’t that the same for everyone?

We grow older, we make new traditions, new memories.

Your Christmas most likely isn’t the exact same as when you were a child. Instead of spending it with your family, you combine it with your Step-Family, or your spouses family. Maybe you have to work. Maybe you go on a vacation. You probably don’t see your siblings like you used to. Now you spend it with your daughter one Christmas and your son the next.

Life is always changing.

So that is what we do. We make our own traditions.

I make sure I decorate my entire room, and always have something on the outside of my door. The ship is also decorated. We have this incredibly beautiful and behemoth tree on the Promenade or in the Centrum, depending what size ship you are on. Of course the Guest area is decorated beautifully, with a team that comes on one day and does it all. All the sudden the ship is Christma-fied!!

Not sure, I may have just made up that word.

The crew areas are also all decorated, by our own teams onboard. We have Christmas trees in the messes and crew bars. There are decorations along the “I-95”. (Which is the main “highway” all the crew use in crew area to get around.) The ship gives every crew member onboard their very own gift. Last year we got a very nice backpack that had “Explorer of the Seas” inscribed on it. We also have a Recycled Christmas Tree Competition.

Onboard we go by the three R’s, “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.” I hope my Environmental Officer friends are proud of me right now.

For Christmas your team makes the best Christmas tree out of recycled materials. Let me tell you how creative these crew members get for these trees. I mean, entertainers are meant to be the creative ones, but holy moly, we never even come within miles of the creative ideas of other teams! Either way, it is really fun to see Christmas trees that aren’t your every day norm.

Sadly, I can’t find any photos of these trees anywhere!

My Room may be smaller. But look, I still have a tree, stockings, Christmas Lights, an advent calendar, Santa Hats… And yes, those are reindeer flying around my port hole! The Broadcast Technicians onboard even put a fireplace on one of the channels on the TV. So obviously Christmas morning that is on in my room! It may not seem like much to you with your extravagantly decorated homes. But, it’s mine and I am proud of it!

I know I touched on the Christmas parties. But there are so many around Christmas that I just have to come back to it! Everyone really comes together. Sometimes you may have a theme party. For some reason we love a theme party onboard.

Or you may just have an “All Crew Christmas Party”. Sometimes, everyone just happens to go out on the same night. Which ends up turning into an all crew party. This happened when I was on the Brilliance about 5 years ago. They had an All Crew Party organized for Christmas night. But, for some reason everyone went out on Christmas Eve. Let me tell you, that was one of the most genuine, amazing, out of the blue nights I’ve ever had. It was so beautiful to just watch everyone so far away from home really coming together. There was so much love filled in that room that night.

On the Jewel of the Seas we had a “Tree Lighting Ceremony”. This included the Live Orchestra, The Royal Caribbean Singers & Dancers, the Cruise Director, most of the Cruise Division, and many of the other managers onboard the ship. Or you just put on these beautiful gold robes and sing Christmas Carols on Christmas Eve. The Brilliance of the Seas (one of my absolute favorite ships) did it right with drinks and food for all of the crew that were involved in the caroling. We made it into something! We always have a gift wrapping party as well. There are SO many kids that come onboard during the Holidays. So, the Cruise Division all helps in wrapping the thousands of gifts.

Oh yes, Santa Claus comes onboard to hand out the gifts!!!

I try to keep some of my favorite traditions. I like to wrap my gifts while watching one of my favorite Christmas movies. I think this past year I watched National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and Office Christmas Party. Christmas Eve or Christmas Day I MUST watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Christmas morning, I wake up bright and early. That will never change. It is pretty rare to have one of our production shows on Christmas Day. Which is great for everyone involved. Plus, then I can start my day with my usual, Coffee and Bailey’s.

I enjoy having people in my cabin to play video games, watch movies, open gifts, and talk about their favorite Christmas memories. Anything to make it as much of an enjoyable Christmas. I give out Christmas cards with a candy cane of some sort to friends and colleagues onboard. Again, just like you would be sending Christmas cards at home. I just don’t have to pay for the stamp!

Christmas really is not much different in the things we do. You eat and drink a lot. You party, play games, sing carols, watch Christmas movies, listen to Christmas songs. You are surrounded by people you love and who love you. The love, the peace, the joy, the giving. It may be “different”, but it’s yours to keep. You may not be physically home for Christmas.

But you are home.

“That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” — Linus Van Pelt