SS Norway - 1986

Here I go off to Miami to Norwegian Cruise Lines to work on the biggest cruiseship in the world at that time with 2000 passengers. I had been watching too many episodes of Love Boat while getting in a rut working as Bar Manager in Montreal so having finished my Hotel Restaurant Management Program thought it best to move on to something more exciting.

Boy did I move on to something more exciting! This ship was huge. It only had about 12 bars and 2 huge dining rooms that did two sittings at 5oo each so that all 2000 passengers could be served.

I was working bartender in the lounge so when we set sail I was the bar that was filled first while the ship was leaving port. People and people ordering every drink you could imagine. All exotic drinks too. I was elated when someone would just order a beer. Talk about up to your knees in it. Drinks and more drinks. You see on a ship there was no cash transactions. The passengers just used to sign and pay the bill at the end of the voyage.

The thing was you would expect to make money with all the volume but the SS Norway had a system where you would work serving the guests one cruise and you would get credit for all the 15% gratuity added on to their bar tabs then the following cruise you would be working service bar and get no credit for any sales rung under your key. The waitresses would get it all.
So to get paid more than your $1100 monthly salary your 15% gratuities would have to add up to more than $1100 and only then would you be paid more depending on how much more your gratuities were. For example if you had a month of earning $1200 in gratuities they would pay you the extra $100 to bring it up to $1200 what you earned for the month. Sneaky bastards!!

All that for working 80 hours a week because as well as work in your regular bar you would also spot someone so they could have their lunch break where they worked on the pool deck. So you would be sweating buckets outside serving drinks for about an hour and a half while they took their break during the day. Then there were the boat drills , loading , and on and on.

One Saturday just as soon as we woke up we had to go into the wine cellar and change the entire wine inventory so we could have the wines ready for dinner at 6:00. We started at 8 and finished at 5:45 just 15 minutes before service.

The food was absolutely brutal! I was losing so much pounds because the food was all from Asia and although I do like Asian food there was the presentation aspect that really bothered me.I felt like I was in a food bank getting handouts. It was the same over and over again. I longed for some North American food so I used to sneak into the officer's eating area after they left to grab some food off their beautiful buffet. There was no way they were going to eat food served to the service personnel.

The room I had was horrid. As well as being dank and damp it was across from the showers where when you entered the bleach would be excruciatingly repulsive. You would choke on it literally. It was not a good time.

After the first few weeks they switched me to work in the dining room as a Sommelier probably so I could be guaranteed I could get one good meal at the end of service. I liked it better there but it was still crazy.

We had our own glasses given to us and we had to label the glass rack with our name lest our glasses disappear before the next service. Our section was about 60 passengers to serve drinks and wine. What I didn't know was that you had to pay the dishwasher some money so when he would clean the glasses he would return them to your rack so you would have them next service. If you didn't you were hunting down your glasses on the other Sommelier racks in a hurry to get your tables set before the first sitting.

It was so bad that I met another Canadian on the ship on a Thursday so I asked him how long he had been on the ship. He mentioned 4 days and he was getting off Saturday. He couldn't stand it.

I was losing weight and was not enjoying it at all. As a sommelier I had the pleasure of serving the Mamas and Papas one week and actually made money cause they were just ordering Dom Perignon that lifted the 15% over the $1100 for the month.

I spent a lot of time in the crew bar where the action was fast. That was one thing the cruises were crawling with single women. So much choice. I drank and partied. Scavenged for food leftovers and worked constantly.

After about 2 1/2 months I reluctantly had to call it quits and return to Montreal. I was losing tons of weight , run down , and sick. Before returning I spent a week in Fort Lauderdale to relax and unwind. It was a let down of course but like they say if you do not try something you would have never known.

Between that September when I returned to Montreal and January I was unemployed but was interested in moving to the States. I had a job interview at a Hilton Hotel in Natick outside of Boston and they were going to do my papers and everything but in the end I changed my mind. They were looking for people and I guess they thought with my age and experience I could have changed things around there as it was going to be a good management position.

Instead I stayed home in Montreal and figured that was it for me that now I would stay in Montreal and settle down for good. The Love Boat it wasn't and I was going to stay put and stop thinking about moving so much.

Yeah right..........

So Much For Settling Down

Last week in my job history post I found a spot in Montreal where I was a Bar Manager in an exclusive private club which serve politicians , lawyers , and other people with lots of money. It was days only with weekends off and 3 weeks off in the summer when the club closed. As well all bank holidays we were closed. Not a bad spot to maybe settle into for the next twenty years.

I loved it! I had my apartment in NDG , a suburb of Montreal , where I lived like a swinging batchelor or maybe not that swinging but just the same I was enjoying my time getting settled and so on...You would think working in the industry making some good money and having the hours I had , weekends off etc.. I would never want to change anything. Right? Wrong!

Here I was now between the ages of 25 to 27 that I worked at the University Club of Montreal enjoying a rather carefree life being a Bar Manager when I decide that perhaps there is something more than just do this until who knows when. I mean really it is human nature to want something better isn't it?

So I decide early on in my tenure as Bar Manager to take a Home Study Hotel Motel Restaurant Management Course through Granton College. If ever financially and time wise there is a constraint to going to college full time I highly recommend a home study course. I spent the next two years about writing pages of homework assignments to learn all I could about other departments within a hotel and restaurant. Even Saturday nights I would stay in just to concentrate on the next written homework to be mailed back.

So in mid 1986 I started to get a bit ambitious. Yes I was happily in a rut you could say. Nothing I tried could settle me permanently where I was. I wanted more excitement and adventure. I graduated out of the course with my diploma and was anxious to do something new.

At the Club the management was very happy with me. Inventory and bar cost was good but like I mentioned the pay raise the first year was 15% then the following year was half of that and I felt I was doing just as good a job as the 1st year. I felt the time had come to move on and besides I missed the public interaction cause working a club service bar is not a spot where you can interact with others. A private club is a spot where you are seen and not heard from. You serve and that is it. And I had this course now so why not use it.

Well at the time the Love Boat show was pretty popular so I thought why not send my applications to a few cruise ship lines down in Miami and see if I could gain some employment on one of them. It was the month of May and I sent a few resumes down outlining my experience as Bar Manager and my course I just graduated from.

Well it wasn't two weeks or so later I get a call from one of the cruise lines who want to hire me as a bartender. It was at work I got the call at around 3PM just after lunch from Norwegian Cruise Lines to work on the SS Norway , the biggest cruiseship in the world at the time.

You know when on the phone faced with a decision right there some people would have backed down and replied that they needed to think about it but I on the other hand agreed right there and then that I would be there in 3 weeks to start working.

I went upstairs to give my notice that afternoon to the club manager who then asked me to go tell Louis the Maitre'd that I was leaving. We went down to the wine cellar and I told him. Well I have to tell you that was the only time in my life I started crying my eyes out when I gave notice. I loved working at that place and if I wasn't so young and restless I'd still want to be there now.

Some bartender I worked with one time told me if I was scared of leaving a place that it was the time to leave. I felt no reason to leave the University Club of Montreal that treated me so well other than I felt incomplete living as I was at the time. If I had actually settled down and met someone eventually my life would have not lived to it's full potential. I would have just been like many others who wished they coulda , woulda , shoulda before having all the obligations.

Having thought all this out I knew I made the right decision but it was real difficult. My dad was visiting me and we were going out on these golfing trips and my nephew was now old enought to visit and I would take him out to different sites in Montreal. I felt a connection to the family unlike when I experienced the mixed up days of a few years ago.

But now it was the SS Norway in Miami. I got rid of my furniture , sold my car , and for the next ten years from 1986-96 I basically lived out of a suitcase with stops at my Mother's between travels.

If you ever wanted to just travel on what could only be described as most of the time on a limited budget I did it during those years. The next few posts on Mondays will describe to you what anyone can do if they wish if they work in this industry. But promise yourself just not to wait as long as I did before doing it..

Next week life on the SS Norway.