Cruise line workers reveal the grueling schedules they must keep while on the job

Cruise ship employees work demanding schedules.
Rather than working traditional five-day weeks, cruise ship employees instead often work for seven days per week for the duration of their contracts, which can run from around two to 11 months.
The hours can also be intense, ranging from around eight to nearly 20 hours per day.
But the flip side of their grueling work schedules is long, uninterrupted blocks of vacation time between contracts, often for around two months.

A job on a cruise ship may seem like an opportunity to work at a relaxed pace, but the unusual contracts signed by cruise ship employees result in schedules that rival notoriously time-intensive industries like investment banking.

Rather than working traditional five-day weeks, cruise ship employees instead often work for seven days per week for the duration of their contracts, which can run from around two to 11 months. Between four and eight months was the most common contract length cited by 31 current and former cruise ship employees who spoke to Business Insider. Most requested anonymity for fear of reprisal from their current or former employers.

The hours can also be intense, ranging from around eight to nearly 20 hours per day. (The employees Business Insider spoke with reported an average of around 12 hours per day.) A former waiter for Carnival Cruise Line who said he worked around 12 hours per day called his schedule "crazy," and said it led to fatigue and stress.

"We don't get enough sleep," he said.

Carnival did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Read more: Richard Branson reveals how his new adults-only cruise line, Virgin Voyages, will turn the cruise industry upside down

But the flip side of a grueling work schedule is long, uninterrupted blocks of vacation time between contracts, often around two months. That means some employees end up working fewer days during a year than those who work five-day weeks, like a current Royal Caribbean Cruises first officer who alternates between 10 weeks of work and 10 weeks of vacation. But other employees end up working more days than they would on a traditional schedule, like a current Cunard Line bar server who works six-month contracts separated by two months of vacation.

Cruise ship work schedules can be exhausting, but for some employees, the prospect of a nine-to-five office job is more intimidating than the demands of working on a cruise ship.

Anyone who has worked on a cruise ship for a long time "is generally scared of being on land and being on a nine-to-five job," said a Royal Caribbean employee who has worked on cruise ships for two decades. "Going into an office and sitting there forever and then leaving and going to your meager little home and having a meal and watching TV and then going to bed that's just scary to most of us. It's scary to me."

Have you worked on a cruise ship? Do you have a story to share? Email this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com.