From Land to Sea and back again
I started my career abroad working in the ski industry, after saying goodbye to my left anterior cruciate ligament I was forced to change careers and I followed in my mothers and my sisters footsteps to sea with the then Thomson Cruises. I started as a Social Welfare Hostess now called Guest Experience Coordinator onboard Thomson Destiny and I loved it. Roll forward 15 years and I've been a Destination Services Adviser, Front Office Manager (now Guest Relation Manager), a bike guide and finishing up as Destination Services Manager. I've had the privileged to work on all our vessels up until the pandemic and covered all the areas we as Marella Cruises sail to. Post pandemic I moved into my current position as Destination Services Executive - looking after the ports in the Eastern Caribbean region, the Eastern Mediterranean, Canada, East Coast USA, New Orleans and I take care of our Bike program and Bike guides across the whole fleet. No one day is the same at sea and the same can be said for my job now 'on land'. I wouldn't change a second of any of it - travelling the world and getting paid to do so, it the best job in the world - In my opinion!
I manage regions our ships visit from a Destination perspective.
I look after a number of regions/ ports but looking at the Eastern Caribbean region as an example. I manage 17 different islands where our ships visit and in those 17 ports I set up and organise the tour program for our guests. This means I work with 55 agents, setting up the tours our guests will have on offer to them in the different ports, the contracts between ourselves and the different agents, the H&S requirements are completed, tour pricing and the BAU issues that crop up as our ships sail between the different places are dealt with. At the same time I manage the bike program for these 17 ports. Ensuring the routes our bike guides take are risk assessed and safe for our guests to enjoy. We meet and adhere to all the different port requirements. I also ensure the bike guides receive all the necessary training from a maintenance perspective and from a tour delivery aspect. Plus that the maintenance schedules for the bikes onboard is completed and spare parts schedule for orders in complete and expenses are monitored so we don't exceed our fleet budget.
And that's just one region! Every day brings different challenges.
It's constantly busy, challenging and no 2 days are the same.
Ultimately moving from waking up in a different port everyday to being land based has been challenging. But the best part about my current job is I still get to travel. I get to do site visits to new regions/ports we are taking the ships to (if i'm looking after them). I also get to visit the ships to support the teams and to meet the agents I speak to on a regular basis in person. Plus I get to attend industry events such as Seatrade. But I also get to see my family more than once every 6 months which is wonderful, as whilst travelling is fantastic you do miss out on a lot of the simple things like Christmas. I missed 7 Christmas's in a row whilst working at sea, summer BBQ's, birthdays, weddings etc as they didn't match up with my assigned vacation time.
Never be afraid to step outside your comfort zone.
Working abroad was a huge step, working at sea was an even bigger one. I had moments at the start, where I thought I would never pass my STCW course (sea safety, fire fighting etc, a course that is required to work at sea) I ended up having to do the course 3 times throughout my career as it has to be renewed every 5 years.
I never thought at the start of my career at sea that I would become an actual uniform wearing officer. What I mean by this is an officer in a white uniform with gold stripes (Epaulettes) on my shoulders - but I did when I became the Front Office manager onboard Thomson Spirit, what a massive learning curve I did it!
Gosh this is a hard one to answer....
I believe I am a lucky person, as I can sit and think of many moments (some funny, some unbelievable, some scary) in my career that I am proud of.
Some I'm proud of because I survived and I probably shouldn't tell you about those! But through those experiences I learnt that I am resourceful, I'm strong in a crisis, I'm dependable and that I can find solutions to problems in the hardest of circumstances.
I've made some dreams / lifelong ambitions for some people come true a long the way and seeing how people react to seeing places for the first time is always magical.
