How Much Do You Make? The REAL Salary of a Cruise Ship Musician — Transcript

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1. 0:00working as a performer on board cruise
2. 0:01ships and getting to travel the world is
3. 0:03an absolute dream job but is it
4. 0:06financially worth it my name is David
5. 0:08pagee and I'm a professional guitarist
6. 0:10and singer my wife and I work together
7. 0:12as musicians on cruise ships we're
8. 0:14currently contracted to work on the
9. 0:16Norwegian Viva one of the questions I
10. 0:17get asked the most is how much does a
11. 0:20musician make on board a cruise ship and
12. 0:22that answer isn't exactly as easy as
13. 0:25giving you a number because there are
14. 0:27several different positions available
15. 0:29and that's something that I simply
16. 0:30didn't know when I was getting into this
17. 0:32work I'm going to go through the
18. 0:33different jobs available to musicians
19. 0:35and talk about the starting salaries for
20. 0:37each of them now this information is
21. 0:38publicly available I have found it
22. 0:40online with a simple Google search and
23. 0:42I'll start with lounge musician that's
24. 0:44the position that Stephanie and I hold
25. 0:47the job of the lounge musician is to be
26. 0:49performing every day usually somewhere
27. 0:51between 3 and four sets of Music 45
28. 0:54minutes to an hour each and we are
29. 0:56performing all over the ship there will
30. 0:58generally be a band usually a four-piece
31. 1:01a couple of Duos and perhaps some solo
32. 1:05musicians each of the four members of
33. 1:08the party band is going to have a
34. 1:09starting salary generally somewhere
35. 1:11right around $2,000 a month Duos are
36. 1:15probably going to start somewhere around
37. 1:17$23 to $2500 a month and the soloists
38. 1:20are usually starting somewhere between
39. 1:2233 and $3500 a month these numbers are
40. 1:26definitely going to vary depending on
41. 1:27the cruise line depending on which job
42. 1:30you have and also depending on how well
43. 1:33you negotiate your own salary the
44. 1:35position of the guitar soloist or even
45. 1:38the piano soloist or a piano bar
46. 1:40Entertainer those positions are a little
47. 1:43bit separated from the general Lounge
48. 1:46musician act those positions generally
49. 1:48have a slightly higher starting salary
50. 1:51and they also usually come with a couple
51. 1:53of extra benefits a little bit closer to
52. 1:56guest privileges than your Standard
53. 1:58Lounge musician now depending on which
54. 2:01ship you're on depending on which Cruise
55. 2:03Line you're on there may be other
56. 2:05positions available on some ships they
57. 2:07have something called the pit Orchestra
58. 2:09some of the responsibilities for the
59. 2:11orchestra or the pit band would be to
60. 2:13perform for uh the Production shows that
61. 2:16are on board as well as any guest
62. 2:18entertainers that come on this ship and
63. 2:20our previous ship didn't have that going
64. 2:23on so those jobs might be a little bit
65. 2:26more challenging to get just because
66. 2:28there are fewer of them for the
67. 2:30production shows that are on this
68. 2:32particular ship I was able to find that
69. 2:34the instrumentalists for one of the
70. 2:36Productions have a starting salary of
71. 2:38approximately $4,000 per month and the
72. 2:42production vocalists are going to have a
73. 2:44starting salary of somewhere around
74. 2:46$4,800 a month and then our ship also
75. 2:49has a pit band for Beetlejuice the
76. 2:52musical and then we also have the cast
77. 2:55on board for the musical I haven't
78. 2:57looked into the information about the
79. 2:59pit band for Beetlejuice but what I did
80. 3:02find is that starting salaries for the
81. 3:04cast members generally are going to
82. 3:06range somewhere between $4,400 a month
83. 3:09and $88,000 a month to start it'll
84. 3:12really depend on which role you land for
85. 3:14the production obviously if you are one
86. 3:17of the Ensemble dancers or uh chorus
87. 3:21singers you're going to be making a
88. 3:22little bit less than you would if you're
89. 3:24one of the principles or the main actors
90. 3:28hey it's David from the future I'm am
91. 3:30currently editing this video and there's
92. 3:32a couple of things that I realized that
93. 3:33I missed when talking about these points
94. 3:36one of the things that I think needs to
95. 3:37be taken into account when talking about
96. 3:39these salaries is the conversion rate
97. 3:41and also the average salary for a few of
98. 3:44the different countries that we've seen
99. 3:45crew members from here on our ships
100. 3:48we've made friends with crew members
101. 3:49from all over the world and these
102. 3:51countries all have varying economies and
103. 3:54so I wanted to read to you a couple of
104. 3:56different figures that I found online
105. 3:58something that I mentioned a little bit
106. 3:59earlier is that in the United States on
107. 4:01land the average salary is somewhere
108. 4:04right around $5,000 a month all of these
109. 4:07figures are in US dollar the average
110. 4:10monthly salary in Colombia is
111. 4:14$1,598 the average monthly salary in the
112. 4:17Philippines is
113. 4:20$812 the average monthly salary in India
114. 4:23is
115. 4:24$387 and the average monthly salary for
116. 4:28Argentina is $1
117. 4:30$99 crew members from all over the world
118. 4:33make the choice to come work on cruise
119. 4:35ships so taking into account the
120. 4:38conversion rate or the economy from the
121. 4:40country that they're from will determine
122. 4:43whether or not they want to come onto a
123. 4:45cruise ship and work here all right
124. 4:47let's get back to the video another
125. 4:48option as a performer on a cruise ship
126. 4:50is to come in as a guest Entertainer and
127. 4:52those contracts are significantly more
128. 4:55lucrative they usually start somewhere
129. 4:57around $33,000 per sailing the challenge
130. 5:01comes with the fact that it's less
131. 5:03consistent so you'll be having to book
132. 5:05each sailing one at a time and have to
133. 5:07coordinate your travel between contracts
134. 5:10where Stephanie and I are contracted to
135. 5:12be here for the next 4 months so there's
136. 5:14not a lot of coordinating that has to
137. 5:16happen and all the coordinating that
138. 5:17does happen is actually on HR here on
139. 5:20the ship generally speaking when you are
140. 5:23working on a cruise ship your room is
141. 5:25going to be provided for you for the
142. 5:26duration of your contract and the meals
143. 5:28that you will eat
144. 5:30in the crew mess or if you're in
145. 5:32entertainment generally you're going to
146. 5:34have the Privileges to go eat in the
147. 5:36guest buffet or the guest main dining
148. 5:37room all those meals are included
149. 5:40obviously if you choose to go to one of
150. 5:42the specialty restaurants there would be
151. 5:44a charge associated with that and you
152. 5:46would have to get the necessary
153. 5:47permissions in order to do so and if you
154. 5:49go out into port and you want to eat out
155. 5:51there which when you're going to Ports
156. 5:53like Spain and Italy and France it's
157. 5:56really hard to not want to go out and
158. 5:58eat the local cuisine obviously you're
159. 6:00going to have to pay the restaurants for
160. 6:01those meals that you eat
161. 6:05out so when you take into account the
162. 6:08fact that we were spending somewhere
163. 6:10around $200 a week in groceries now that
164. 6:14we're working on cruise ships that's a
165. 6:16cost that's almost completely eliminated
166. 6:19and that makes it a lot more worth it on
167. 6:21top of that think about the cost of I
168. 6:22don't know going out and having a drink
169. 6:24if you go to a bar in Chicago you're
170. 6:26going to get a beer for about $9 and you
171. 6:28might get a glass of wine for somewhere
172. 6:30around 12 here on board the Viva at our
173. 6:32Crew Bar a Beer's only $125 and you can
174. 6:35get a bottle of wine for 8 bucks or less
175. 6:38once you start adding up all the
176. 6:39different perks of the job and you
177. 6:40combine that with these different
178. 6:42salaries especially if you're able to
179. 6:44negotiate a higher salary the job really
180. 6:47does become significantly more worth it
181. 6:50and then you add in all of the added
182. 6:52benefit of the travel there are cities
183. 6:54on this Earth that I've have gotten to
184. 6:56know very well because of my job on a
185. 6:58cruise ship that I either didn't even
186. 7:00know existed or never dreamed that I
187. 7:03would ever get to see places like
188. 7:05Istanbul Turkey or mikinos in Greece or
189. 7:09Lisbon Portugal these are obviously
190. 7:12places I had heard of but never in my
191. 7:15wildest dreams that I think I would
192. 7:16become so familiar with these cities so
193. 7:19the bottom line is that as a cruise ship
194. 7:21musician your starting salary may be
195. 7:24somewhere between $2,000 and $88,000 a
196. 7:27month and that's going to depend en
197. 7:29entirely on which Cruise Line you're on
198. 7:32which cruise ship you're on which job
199. 7:35you've applied for which job you get
200. 7:37hired for and how good you are at
201. 7:39negotiating your salary there are so
202. 7:41many other perks to the job outside of
203. 7:44just the salary amount and if you want
204. 7:45to see what life is like as a cruise
205. 7:47ship musician make sure to check out
206. 7:49this next video and I'll see you there