Captain Kate McCue currently serves on Celebrity Beyond, where she lives with her hairless cat Bug, who has become a celebrity in his own right.
In addition to being the first female captain of a modern megaship cruise ship, she has enhanced her fame with her Instagram page that features a daily Captain's Log video.
The popular videos share snippets of what it's like at the helm of a cruise ship carrying more than 3,000 passengers and more than 1,400 crew. It's essentially a 24/7 job, and McCue has made one key decision because of that never-ending responsibility.
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"For today's Captain's Log, we're answering this question and I'm going to turn it into kind of a two-part question. The first part is, 'can I drink while I'm on board the ship?'" she shared.
There's a key difference between "can" and "does," she explained.
"Technically, I could have a glass of wine at dinner, but I choose not to," she said. "In fact, I go completely cold turkey from the moment that I join the ship for my full contract, whether that's a regular three-month contract or during the pandemic.
"It was 318 days on board, completely cold turkey until I get on the plane ride home, where I'll probably order a Bloody Mary and call it a day."
McCue made clear that her decision reflected the 24/7 nature of her job,
"What I find is I don't want to put myself in a position to lose. So it's one less thing to worry about if I'm not drinking while I'm on duty. And I'm always on duty 24-7 when I'm on board the ship," she explained.
Emergencies, she noted, tend to happen at inconvenient times.
"If my bridge team's going to need me, it's going to be three o'clock in the morning, not three o'clock in the afternoon. And I don't want to have to think, 'Did I have something to drink last night? Do I have my wits about me?' So I don't even put myself in that position."
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Image source: Celebrity Cruises
How to meet Captain Kate on Celebrity Beyond
Some ship captains will have a Captain's Table on select nights. That's a chance for a few passengers to have dinner with the captain.
Those passengers could be VIPs, random folks, or pretty much anyone the captain chooses. Holding a Captain's Table, however, is not a mandatory part of the job and McCue has a good reason for almost never holding one.
"The second part of that is the Captain's Table. I haven't done a Captain's Table in the last nine years since I was promoted, except maybe once or twice," she said.
"Because what I found is I could sit at a table with eight to 10 people for two to three hours and tick off 3,400 other people that didn't have dinner with the captain. Or, I could stand in a very public place and be accessible to everyone for a couple of hours and meet a couple of hundred people. That's just what works for me."
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Some Celebrity Cruises ships will have an evening where officers line up in a public place to greet the crew. The captain will participate when duties allow. The cruise line also has an event on most sailings where the captain addresses top-tier loyalty program members.
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