Pros
The tips are great, the views are wonderful if you ever get a chance to glance out the windows. They tried to recognize employees with a recognition program and throwing parties every month. Marine crew is compensated accordingly. You work hard with a lot of great like-minded people, creating great bonds.
Cons
Recognition program is peer based which ends up being popularity based, hard workers largely go unnoticed and are overly relied on by management. Sales team sells unrealistic cruises with crazy turnaround times. You can come in from a lunch cruise of 300 and have to clean and reset for dinner in an hour and a half, which includes loading and offloading cast iron stand tables and heavy metal chairs. This is the servers job, most servers are young women in their early 20's. There are never enough plates or silverware and the company will not replace them, which makes it that much harder. You are expected to provide service on the fourth (top) deck while trying to manage your 40 person section. If you've been on a boat you know it's very windy. Most people request champagne or martinis on the top deck, they will not make it. Most cruises are events where drinks are included. A lot of lunch cruises are kids cruises that have soda and juice included. If you run a deck by yourself you can expect to only get 50 dollars in incentives. In cruises where beer and wine are included, people don't buy hard liquor, drink heavily and don't tip. You apply to this job thinking most cruises are lunch and dinner cruises where couples and tourists come to enjoy themselves.