What It’s Like to Be a Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Entertainer

From actors to musicians, cruise ships employee dozens of performers to entertain guests on board.
A Royal Caribbean singer and dancer told Insider what it’s like to live and work on a cruise ship.
Singer and popular TikToker Bryan James says the gig is “one of the best jobs on the planet.”
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Acrobats, ballroom dancers, rock bands, aerialists, and actors — nearly every entertainment job you can think of exists onboard a cruise ship somewhere.
According to singer Bryan James, who started working on cruises in 2017 and is currently onboard Royal Caribbean’s largest ship, the Wonder of the Seas, the gig is “one of the best jobs on the planet.”
That’s how the 35-year-old described it to his nearly 700,000 TikTok followers, who are endlessly fascinated by his behind-the-scenes footage of cruise life, with videos documenting everything from what crew members eat in a day to staff lifeboat training.
“When you’re like a gigging musician like me, it’s just a hustle on land,” James told Insider. “Ships really allow you to have a very anxiety-free existence.”
In the hierarchy of ship workers, entertainers are pretty close to the top. Whereas most crew members work 10 hours a day, seven days a week, James performs around three hours a day and usually has one full day off from performing each week.
“You just can’t sing seven days straight, week after week — you’d lose your voice,” James said. “Every job on the ship essentially works seven days a week for six months straight. They would love for us to do it, but they just wouldn’t be able to keep musicians.”
In a $7 billion industry tasked with engaging thousands of passengers stuck onboard a ship together for up to days at a time, entertainment is the name of the game.
On Royal Caribbean ships, passengers can see Broadway classics like “Mamma Mia” and “Grease,” ice spectaculars, and “aqua shows” with performances from dancers, divers, and artistic swimmers. When I called James, he had just returned from performing at a “music festival” put on at the ship’s outdoor theater.
With entertainers elevated to somewhat of a celebrity status among guests, they’re given significantly more freedom than other employees.
For example, James and his band are able to eat at the guest buffet instead of crew mess hall — something fellow performers, like James’ colleague, a diver who previously competed in the Olympics for Brazil, aren’t even allowed to do.
“Royal Caribbean is trying to entice people to come onto their ships — for us, we wouldn’t have done this unless we had the ability to live more freely,” James said. “It is unfair, but it is how the system works right now.”
Harris’ schedule allowed ample time for getting off at ports. During her contract, she traveled to Spain, France, Norway, Portugal, Italy, the UK, and throughout the Caribbean. Courtesy of Sequoia Harris
The privileges cruise ship entertainers are afforded can sometimes create tension with other departments whose schedules are more strictly regulated, Sequoia Harris, a 24-year-old dancer from New York City who completed a 10-month contract with Royal Caribbean in November, told Insider.
“They work literally every day all day,” she said. “A lot of the stuff I see coming from their management and supervisors, it’s borderline exploitation in my opinion. I remember when I first got on the ship, I was like, ‘what do you mean you don’t have days off?'”
But the abundance of free time was also the most challenging part of her job, Harris said. Crew members are often restricted from hanging out in certain areas of the ship reserved for guests — making it easy to go crazy with boredom, she told Insider.
There are also sacrifices that come with any job that requires being at sea for multiple months in a row, like missing out on holidays and milestone events with family members and rarely seeing land-based friends, James said.
“Socially, your life changes massively. I’ve got little nephews at home and I’ve missed every single one of their birthdays, Christmases, Thanksgivings,” James said. “But when you are home you don’t have a job so you spend that time really intensely with people.”
Harris graduated from Fordham University in 2020 with a BFA in dance. Courtesy of Sequoia Harris
Harris said she was surprised how much she missed some aspects of social life at sea, despite sharing a small bunk room and bathroom with her roommate, which made privacy hard to come by. Living in such close proximity with her castmates helped form life-long bonds with entertainers from all over the world, she said.
“There was a time when I was saying this is my first and last contract and I’m never going to do this again,” Harris said. “But then there other times when I’m like, that was actually really fun. I miss these people and dancing with these people.”
James, who’s in his sixth year in the cruise industry, said he originally fell in love with the job because it allowed him to travel the world with nearly zero expenses.
“But now that the travel bug is gone, I’m realizing it’s not really to travel. It’s more like I can make good money and I can do it in a way that doesn’t stress me out one bit,” he told Insider.
“That’s kind of what everybody is searching for in life,” he continued. “To do something they’re good at, something they actually like to do that pays them well and they don’t have to stress — and that’s what I’m finding on ships.”
Do you work on a cruise ship? Have a tip or story to share? Email this reporter from a non-work address at htowey@insider.com