Bryan James works as a guitarist for Royal Caribbean and he posts popular videos on a number of social media services.
He often shared a look behind the curtains into crew life. Onboard musicians live in an interesting in-between on many crew lines.
On Royal Caribbean, for example, a solo guitarist or Schooner Bar piano player has passenger-like privileges. They can eat in passenger areas, hang out with their audience after the show, and even use the pools and hot tubs.
They are also crew members in that they have some of the same drills and requirements that non-entertainers have. They also face the same medical requirements and are bound by the same code of behavior.
Solo musicians also get solo cabins which can sometimes be in passenger areas. They can order room service with the same single fee passengers pay, but they don't get traditional room steward service. In most cases, crew members lucky enough to be in this position will pay a steward to clean their room, change their sheets, and towels once or twice a week.
James has worked both as a solo guitarist and in a band, so he has had his own room and had to share with another band member. That's a lot nicer than the cabins where most of the crew lives.
In a popular TikTok video, he took his viewers through every class of crew cabin, from the smallest to the spacious quarters of the cruise director.
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Royal Caribbean crew cabins from smallest to largest
Transcript:
There are so many different types of cabins that crew members stay in on cruise ships.
I'm gonna show you the rooms from smallest to biggest., From these tiny little cabins to huge ones like the cruise directors stay in.
Alright, let's start tiny. These are single shares. You get your own space, but you are sharing a bathroom with somebody else. It's a cabin a lot of crew members want to stay in because of the privacy of it. Yes, you share a bathroom but your own space like, oh, it's gold on a cruise ship.
Speaking of privacy, you will not get privacy in one of these rooms. This is a bunk room where two people stay in it. It's bigger, of course, but you're gonna be in here with a stranger, somebody maybe from your department, maybe somebody not from your department, maybe you have a similar background, maybe you have nothing in common.
You kind of just get what you get.
Couples tend to request this cabin cause it's got decent space, and then they get to live together.
Then we've got solo cabins. This is what everybody wants. It's really similar to the last cabin, except it's just built for one person. The bed is bigger. It's a fold-up bunk, and if this is your cabin, you can have anybody visit you.
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They could stay in your cabin for basically free. It's amazing.
Now, one of the best cabins on ships is the cruise director's cabin. Everybody wants it, but only one person can have it.
It's two separate rooms, kind of a kitchenette over here then you've got a big old porthole with seating. You can have meetings here. You can have parties, I mean whatever you want, and then just have a space that is only your bedroom.
It's gotta be so nice.
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