Well, you can't have a great cruise vacation without fabulous cruise ship entertainment. Now, for singers, dancers, acrobats, solo pianists, showband musicians, top 40 bands and duos, the process for getting cruise ship jobs is quite simple. Please re-read what I just wrote..."the process" is quite simple. Most cruise lines hire directly for cruise ship entertainment. For this information, you can simply visit any cruiseline website. Somewhere on the homepage will be a link entitled, careers, jobs, employment or contact. If they use an outside hiring company for entertainment, the contact information is usually posted for you. A good example is the Crystal Cruises website; www.crystalcruises.com. Click at the bottom of their homepage under employment.
It is common for many cruise lines to hire production companies to put their cruise ship shows together for them. For example, many of the big production shows on NCL's ships, are produced by Jean Ann Ryan Productions out of Fort Lauderdale - www.jeanannryanproductions.com . Other cruise lines have their own in-house production companies. Holland America uses a company called Stiletto Entertainment - www.stilettoentertainment.com
You will find casting information for singers, dancers etc, cruise ship production jobs on most cruise line websites. You just have to snoop around their site a bit. Usually easiest to click "site map" on any website for contact information.
For musicians, bands, duos and pianists, yes, you can contact the cruise lines directly. However, because cruise lines deal with so many musicians, they prefer to use the services of a small handful of agencies. But keep in mind that if you deal directly with the cruise lilnes, you DO NOT pay an agent commission fee. If you choose to use the services of an agency, you will pay them between 10 and 20 % of your cruise ship salary forever!!! So, if you are going to commit to an agency, make sure they can keep you working at the top of the pay scale. Two agencies for musicians, used by many cruise lines are www.proship.com and www.whitefoot.com. They are by no means the only ones, but their history and reputation with cruise ships is solid. This is a good place for musicians, bands, duos, soloists, technicians etc to start.
