Sam Catling landed a role as a cruise ship entertainer at 18, despite having no previous experience working on a ship. Now 38, he has shared what life was really like on board, including the long hours and the monthly pay he took home.
From Asda car park to the high seas
Sam, who jokingly calls himself a former 'trolley wally', said his CV consisted of a paper round and a job collecting trollies at Asda. The idea came from his mum and granny, who had just returned from a cruise and suggested he apply after chatting to onboard entertainers.
He applied after seeing an ad in The Stage magazine. When asked about his previous experience in entertainment, he wrote: "I've had extensive experience pushing trolleys around Asda car park for the past two years." With a drama GCSE and a few workshops, he found himself in Gibraltar on a boat in dry dock, attending two weeks of rehearsals as the ship was refurbished.
Seven-day weeks and power naps
The job was gruelling. Sam worked seven days a week, and crew stayed on the ship for the duration of their contracts, which for his first cruise was six months. His shifts often finished past midnight, and he'd head to the crew bar until 2am before getting up at 7am.
He became skilled at power napping: "Between your different activities that you'd host I was down in my cabin having a power nap. If I had an indoor cabin I'd just close the door and you were in pitch black darkness, so it was really easy to just have a 30 minute nap." But he admitted: "You wouldn't know what time of day it was because you're cutting out all the sunlight."
Pay and perks on board
Accommodation, food, and expenses were included. Sam said: "You're not paying rent, your food's taken care of, you've no heating and electric and gas bills and all of that stuff. It's all taken care of, which is nice!" However, he noted that after a couple of weeks on board, crew members are "sick of the food" and spend money eating out when they go ashore.
Working on ships around 2006, Sam took home about £1,200 to £1,300 a month. Accommodation was shared, with only managers and top talent like main singers getting their own cabins.
According to career site prospects.ac.uk, entry-level cruise ship jobs typically pay around £1,000 to £1,500 per month, often with accommodation and meals included. With experience, salaries can rise to between £2,000 and £4,000 per month, and senior officers, entertainment managers, engineers, and technical staff may earn considerably more.
Life after the cruise ships
Sam worked on cruise ships for four years. He now runs the Deck Tales podcast, which he describes as his "passion" with over 60 episodes available, alongside handyman jobs and occasional work as a TV extra.
He said: "I want to continue doing this until I'm an old man, because there's 70% of the planet that's covered in ocean, so I don't think I'm going to run out of guests anytime soon. The podcast started with just being a platform for cruise ship crew, but now it's something else. It's cargo ship captains, I've spoken to a pirate, I've had a deep sea salvage scuba diver and tugboat captains."
He added: "I just really wanted to drill down into something unique and authentic, and within a specific niche that people might not know about; the stories at sea that most people don't hear. The public might not have an interest in ships, but people are still people, and the stories that happen at sea are there for everyone to hear about."
