Not all entertainers have a place on cruise ships

Dear musicians,

Entertainment departments at cruise lines have specific ideas of what kind of entertainers they want to see on their ships. They do collect comment cards from passengers and decide from those cards what works and what doesn’t.

So, they don’t, generally, like to experiment much with the type of entertainers they hire.

We do get a lot of calls, however, from people that think they should absolutely be on ships because of the uniqueness of their act, and because they’ve been told by cruisers they would be great on ships.

I don’t doubt that some people may find it entertaining to listen to bebop played on a garden hose but cruise lines aren’t going to go for that because it won’t fill their lounges on a regular basis.

Some examples aren’t as ludicrous as the one I just mentioned though, for example, if you are a piano/vocalist, you would certainly be a candidate. But if you are a piano/vocalist who performs Elton John songs only, you would not be considered because your repertoire would appeal to only those that like this particular artist.

The bottom line is that you should stick to the job descriptions we’ve outlined on our website and try to adjust your act to what the cruise lines are looking for. Trying to get them to change their entertainment program to accommodate your particular act is a losing battle.