(6) Blog about working on the cruise ship: the Legend in the Mediterranean

Esther
May 30
4 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

Working on a cruise ship: in the Mediterranean

We started the repositioning after some cruises to the North of Europe and around the United Kingdom, when I was working onboard. The Legend was changing for a new itinerary from Harwich to the Mediterranean for 12 day cruises in summer.

The new itinerary had some really nice ports of call:

Cannes, Livorno, Naples, At Sea, Venice, Venice, Dubrovnik, At Sea, Messina, Civitavecchia, Marseille

The highlight for me was the overnights in Venice, guests and crew were going to enjoy the evening in this lovely city. Time for a pizza out and explore! At that time the cruise ships could still dock very close to Piazza di Roma, where the busstation is. Nowadays the cruise ships dock mostly in Porto Marghera or Porto Fusina the cargo port of Venice.

In Dubrovnik we were tendering and back then, there was only one ship in the little town. Dubrovnik is a small city with a wall around it, it has a lot of history.

Here are some sights:

1. City Walls

Walk the full circuit of these iconic medieval walls for panoramic views of the Adriatic and terracotta rooftops. They stretch about 2 km and are a highlight of any visit.

2. Old Town (Stari Grad)

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Old Town is filled with marble streets, beautiful architecture. It’s small enough to explore in a few hours but packed with history.

3. Stradun (Placa)

The main pedestrian street, perfect for strolling, people-watching it has lots of shops and historic buildings.

Nowadays there are plenty of ships in during one day and they even dock outside the city centre of Dubrovnik and they take the guests with bus transportation to the city. We used to go to the local canteen, if we had time to go ashore and filled up our empty Evian water bottles with the local canteen wine, the price was 1 dollar=1 bottle. Also, we loved to try the local cheese and in every, we bought some cheese to enjoy together with the purchased wines. We had some nice parties with the crew and could share the wine. Mainly before a theme night like Rock 'n roll or Country and Western night the cruise staff was getting together to enjoy some nice wine and local cheese from the ports where we have been that day.

Tendering situation in Dubrovnik, it was a small pier for the tender to dock, but in town. I had pier duty that morning.

Formal Nights

My first captain was Hakan Lindgren a nice and friendly Swedish Captain.

Usually we had two times formal nights during a seven day cruise. In a 12 days cruise, there were three formal nights. I really liked formal nights, time to dress up. The first formal night, was the Captains Cocktail. The Cruise Director and his staff introduced the guests to the Captain and they got a nice picture with him. The Captain introduce his staff to the guests in the lounge and made a nice speech about the ship. Remember: how many eggs they were consumed during a seven day cruise.

The second formal night was usually the Repeaters Cocktail.

On the 12 day cruises we had three formal nights, Country night, Rock 'n roll night, 70's night really a lot of theme nights.

Gala night nice picture with the Captain — Formal night nice picture with the Captain

September 11th

Shortly after we started the Mediterranean cruises, it was september 11th 2001 and it was a very scary period also onboard this ship. I was onboard and we didn't know, if we should continue the cruise or cancel the cruise, because many guests wanted to go home. A situation like that can change completely everything. Many guests were also afraid to travel. I got transfered to another ship for a couple of months to finish my first contract. I worked onboard the Monarch of the Seas, short three and four day cruises from Fort Lauderdale to the Caribbean. It's suchs a different experience from the 12 day cruise, I was coming from. The time was passing by so fast. On the short cruises there was a formal night and 70's night. A completely different experience, but both very nice and as a cruise staff you should experience both.

There where some pictures made from all the crew onboard the Legend of the Seas. Can you find me? (right section) and my husband is even in the pictures.