cruise ship drumming?

Somewhat interesting I hope. A couple weeks ago I was on a ship for a seven night Hawaiian cruise. Going through drum withdrawls so I contacted the Butler, and told her that I would pay very generously for a drum lesson at the convenience of the the ship drummer. They had a huge theater with a nice kit on stage that was closed most of the day, so this was certainly possible. I also told her I would pay just to practice on his kit if he was interested. She contacted the Musical Director who contacted the drummer on the ship. The message got back to me that he passed. I was miserable. Like any obsessed new drummer, I was thinking about, and missing my drums the entire cruise. Joey
 
Hi,

I play on a cruise ship once a year. It's from Boston to Bermuda. It's my own band so I am not working for the cruise line. First let me say that I do NOT enjoy it. The first year was enough. They used to pay us the first couple of years $2500.00 for a 5 piece band, they also gave us a cabin and we could bring our wives. Now there is no pay but we can still bring our wives. I won't go into details about why we keep playing this gig for no dough lets just say I am out voted.

In our case we have to bring all our own equipment on the ship. The equipment needs to be sniffed by bomb/ narcotic dogs before being put through the xray machine. One night I'm playing in the lounge the next night I'm on the pool deck, the next night I'm playing on the island of Bermuda and going through their customs agents. Not to mention the salt air on my kit (use my smaller cheaper kit)

Then if your lucky you won't have rough seas. That's always fun. Bring your Bonine (motion sickness medicine)

In my case it's playing 6 jobs in 7 day's, lot's of moving my drums all over the ship. Big bar bill at the end of the week (my wife :)


You don't enjoy it, adn you only do it because you're outvoted?? That's not right. It's one thing playing hotel lobbies to pay the bills, but being made to play on a cruise ship for no pay is insane. There's always a public sector job out there somewhere. Think of the pension.
 
Somewhat interesting I hope. A couple weeks ago I was on a ship for a seven night Hawaiian cruise. Going through drum withdrawls so I contacted the Butler, and told her that I would pay very generously for a drum lesson at the convenience of the the ship drummer. They had a huge theater with a nice kit on stage that was closed most of the day, so this was certainly possible. I also told her I would pay just to practice on his kit if he was interested. She contacted the Musical Director who contacted the drummer on the ship. The message got back to me that he passed. I was miserable. Like any obsessed new drummer, I was thinking about, and missing my drums the entire cruise. Joey

Some drummers are excellent performers, but do not know how to teach. Others teach beginning and intermediate students, but feel awkward teaching adults. Maybe that was the case.

I had a drummer come up to me on the Lido deck once and ask me questions about his Chaffee book. I was happy to talk with him and if he asked for a lesson, I would have obliged. Please remember that a cruise ship is part of a large corporation with rules and regulations regarding staff affiliations with passengers. The drummer may have been trying to not get in trouble by taking money from a guest in exchange for services. If you had been on my ship, we would have talked drums for free.

Jeff
 
oh man i lasted a week and got fired! i had to audition over the phone and sight read charts..i did bad but they hired me anyway and when i started it was sight and big band chops that i just didn't have and for 6 months! im glad im back on land..live and learn!
 
When I was in my 20's I did the Costa Riviera out of Vancouver to the Inside Passage of Alaska. What a great time.

It was a learning experience for me as I had to learn to play very quiet. But as a single guy in my 20's... "I was not there for the music" but rather the rotating smorgasbord of single women who were cruising solo. :D

Our stage was over the crew bar and at 2am I was free to practice as loud and long as I wanted...until 5am when the passengers started circulating.

It was that boat's final voyage and the crew was beyond caring about anything so there I was, longhair hippie kid walking around in jean cutoffs, barefoot and usually slightly buzzed. Haha that'd never fly today!
 
I'm practicing my sight reading now so that I can get a gig on a cruise ship but this thread is a bit scary!

I've got a contact (a friend of a friend) who works on a liner, she's going to send me the charts for one of the acts and put in a good word to the manager. I don't know any big band, jazz, Latin or polka stuff though.

I was gonna get tommy igoes groove books to at least look at a few different styles.

Do you always take your own kit? I was gonna take my stage customs. Should they be in cases or does that get really tedious? I don't care about nicks and scratches much.

And how often will I get to practice outside of band stuff?
 
For the amount of pay vs what is required of the musician it hardly seems worth it.
Basically, it seems that you have to simply like living on a ship.
It would be more fun to play in a local theater pit where you would be doing the same kind of thing and you could go home when the show was over with a few bucks in your pocket.
 
I drummed in a Bee Gees Tribute show. We were at sea for a week and it was one of the best weeks of my life! We only had to play three shows and we could go where we wanted for the week and had a decent cabin. $55 a day got you unlimited alcohol and boy did we smash it...we averaged 4 hours a day sleep!

Plus no one cared if we were seen coming out of passengers cabins ; - )

Heard horror stories though. Another band told us they went on a ship. Shown to amazing rooms. Some guy came along an hour later shouting at them to get down below where they were shown bunk beds and then told they could only leave bottom deck (bottom of the ship with no windows) to play shows and that was it. They had two weeks of hell. Worst than prison ha ha.........
 
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