CRUIZIN’ FOR A LIVING
DIARY OF A CRUISE SHIP SPA THERAPIST
THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY
MB STEYN
Mini Book 3
Continued from Mini Book 1 and 2
Book 3 of 5
Copyright. Copyright 11 January 2012 by Marie-Berdine Steyn. This edition was prepared by MB Steyn for Smashwords.
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Copyright details:
CRUIZIN’ FOR A LIVING (SERIES NAME)
DIARY OF A CRUISE SHIP SPA THERAPIST - MINI BOOK TWO (BOOK NAME)
THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY (SUBTITLE)
AUTHOR: MB STEYN
PUBLISHER: MBS SELF-PUBLISHING. BS and MB Steyn are the logo and trademarks of The MBS Initiative.
AVAILABLE SOON
MINI BOOK 4 - available 30/01/2012
(15) SHIP NIGHT-LIFE
(14) SHIP DAY-LIFE
(15) THIS IS life
INTRODUCTION
After reading Mini Book 1 and 2 in the Cruizin’ for a living series you should have a good idea by now of what is expected of you in the first week onboard and what experiences you might encounter.
More than this, after the first month you would have settled down a little and realize what goes up and what comes down very quickly on a cruise-ship. This will also be the time which determine if you are going to stay on the ship or if you are going to terminate your contract.
Ship life is not going to be anything you could have imagined in your wildest dreams; it is going to be one of the most unique experiences of your life.
Many people believe that you were either born to be able to life on a cruise ship or that you were in-fact born on one.
To some extend I believe this is very true. Almost all first contractors will know within the first week or month that they were made for living and working on a ship or not. Almost all who don’t adjust or don’t accept the challenges of the new environment leave the ship within 3 weeks of signing-on.
In my experience it is best for first contractors to try to enter their first contract with an open mind and willingness to learn and adjust. If you don’t have this mind-set it will be hard for you.
The next mini book (book 3) in the Cruizin’ for a living series will introduce you to Chapters 9 to 12 of the Complete Guide Book (Cruizin’ for a Living - The Complete Guide) which will be available end of February 2012.
In Chapter 9, I will explain to you what your duties will be onboard in your position as a spa therapist, hairstylist, fitness instructor or Nail technician. I will explain the financial structure the spa company you are working for follow and how much you can expect to earn.
Please bear in mind that figures in this book was as was such in my experience during 2010. It might differ from person to person and the type of ship you are on.
In Chapter 10 we will deal with Guests and what are expected of you as a Staff member when dealing with guests.
Chapter 11 details coworkers and colleagues, with The Boss as the final subject in Chapter 12.
Enjoy this journey with me and I hope that I will provide you with some understanding about ship life which might help you prepare for your first-contract and guide you towards an experience that might change your life forever.
CHAPTER 9
THE JOB & RETAIL
WHAT IS IT LIKE WORKING IN A SPA ON A CRUISE SHIP?
You’ll get this question a lot from guests and more so questions like: “How much money do you make?” “Can you do all the activities as the guests?” “Can you get of the ship at all?” “How much free time do you have?” “Do you enjoy it?”
The answer to the last question will be most of the time: “Absolutely love it sir!” which you’ll say with the best fake smile you can muster. This is because it is very impolite to tell any guest that you hate your job and the cruise ship and that you think the company you are working for is really shit. If a manager or the HD hear you say anything along negative lines to a guest you will for certain get a warning. Even if it is true.
But from a fellow employee’s viewpoint, what is the position of a Spa employee on a cruise ship like?
Well, this will depend from person to person and from the group who is working together and how they handle their position and job.
For me the first three months onboard was a wonderful experience and all the events that happened which was negative I could handle. But then everything slowly started falling apart and I later hated my job. That only goes for my job as a therapist, I loved ship life and that I could explore some new places and cultures. What I hated most about my job was retail. Retail can be an absolute nightmare to anyone who is very dedicated and faithful to the principles of:
Freedom of Choice. No Hard Selling. No Lies. No Forcing guest to take product. Manipulating humans to make them believe what they need. Manipulating guest to take products you believe they need.
Unfortunately though this is not possible if you work for a company who’s main objective is actually retail and not so much treatments. What do I mean by this?
Well even if you have back to back treatments booked, like 10 massages in a row on any given date, these don’t mean very much to a company which is motivated towards Retail. The reason is that they make more money from Retail than Treatments. The reason for this is that most Spa Company’s you work for also ‘own’ the spa on that cruise ship, but treatment revenue is split between the Cruise Ship Company themselves and the Spa company.
For Example: You work for the spa company *TRABON. They own the spa on a ship called the *ICE EPICARUS which is owned by the Cruise ship Company *EPICARUS. What happens is that when a massage is booked in the spa on this ship some of the revenue goes to the spa company (TRABON) and the other to the cruise ship company (EPICARUS). Most of the time it is split into a ratio of 50/50.
IF you thus have a treatment that costs $200. $100 goes to the Spa Company (TRABON) and the other $100 goes to the Cruise ship Company (EPICARUS).
(The ratio to which it is split though will vary from company to company)
But with Retail it is totally different. When anything is retailed (products that you have to sell to the guest) the total revenue go only to the Spa Company and in very unique cases the Cruise Ship Company will only receive 5 or 10% on any Retail.
So if you sell to your guest a product that costs $200, the whole $200 goes to the Spa Company and none to the Cruise ship Company.
Do you now understand why most Spa Companies are so persistent on Retail and that their therapists have to retail to every guest. It’s not about their concern for the guest, but rather that more money is made for a company through retail. For a better understanding, go through the table below:
The
column above demonstrate:
REVENUE MADE THROUGH RETAIL VERSUS TREATMENT REVENUE.
The table above is just a rough estimate of revenue which a Spa Company will make through treatments and retail versus the Cruise ship Company which only gets a cut from treatments.
The first column indicates the number of therapist. In this case I used 1, 50 and a 1 000. If every therapist do $5 000 worth of treatments A WEEK and also retail at $1 000 a week, that gives you a total of $6 000 per therapist per week. (This is just a average as every week will differ and most of the times you never retail so much or make the $5000 cut).
As you might have noticed; if a Spa Company had 50 therapists, the Spa Company receives $153 250 in revenue, while the Cruise ship Company receives $103 250. (per week)
That is a $50 000 difference. The $50 000 difference were brought on mostly by Retail Sales. For this reason a lot of Spa Companies now put their main focus into retail sales and not so much treatments.
For a therapist this concept is very hard to grasp at first, especially in your first contract were therapists believe they are therapists and not retailers.
“I became a therapist in the first place because I like the feeling of being able to give advice to another person in need and to help another being?” you say to yourself. “I don’t like to push other people to buy something, especially something they don’t need!” “I would hate it if someone else tried to sell something to me after a wonderful treatment!” and so on.....
These are the statements I hear a lot among my co-therapists onboard and also the reason why my retail was so bad in the first weeks.
The first three weeks luckily I was not pushed to retail, but in the following weeks my manager became more and more annoyed because our retail was so low. Well, to be exact, I don’t think she really cared, but Head Office did, so either she pleases Head Office or get transferred to another ship or even get demoted.
MAKING SENSE OF THE REVENUE AND YOUR SALARY ON A CRUISE SHIP IN THE SPA.
Don’t have a clue what I just explained....... I will try next to break it down for you:
First of all, don’t expect to receive a basic salary when you work in the spa onboard many or most cruise ships. The reason is that there is none; in most cases anyway. There are some exceptional spa companies which might provide you with a basic salary (around $400 to $800 a month, with tips and commissions added along the way). The exceptions are yachts and private cruise ship companies which might give you a basic salary. Otherwise expect to work for only tips and commissions.
Most Spa companies estimate the average revenue a therapist should aim to get at around $4500 to $7000 per week (Massage and Spa Therapists). For Ionithermists ($7 000 to $11 000), Skin Specialists ($5000 to $9000). These amount will differ from ship to ship, the type of ship with regards to clientele and the rating of the ship; 3 star, 4 star, 5 star etc. The above are what was mostly expected on the cruise ship I worked on, which was a 3 to 4 star cruise ship, but with a 5 star Spa. (or so they told the guests.....).
Anyways, lets take a Spa Therapist as example which has a target of $5 000 for the week. This $5 000 has to include a minimum retail as set by your manager or spa company. When you first sign your contract they will tell you the average retail they expect from you is around 25% to 30%. So from the $5 000 Revenue you earn from the week $1 500 of that has to be Retail. The percentage may vary from 20% or even 30% which most companies aim for, but most therapist struggle to achieve this on these kind of ships, or on most ships for that matter.
So to break it down for you: If you are going to work as a Spa Therapist you will be expected to do treatment per week to the value of $3 500, and earn Retail to the value of $1 500 to achieve your $5 000 Target. Sometimes it is easy to achieve this, mostly it is a disaster. (I’ll explain later)
Say for the week you achieve your $5 000 then there will be some subtractions that occur. You will pay $35 per day as “Boarding Fee”, or otherwise this is what your spa company subtracts in order to pay to the Cruise Ship Company to supply you with a bed to sleep in and food to eat. So per week $245 has to be subtracted from your total revenue and then you can calculate how much in commissions you will receive.
So now let’s do the math.
$5000 Revenue - $245 = $4 755
(For the week you have thus made $4 755 for your spa company in revenue)
Next, how do you calculate what you put into your pocket after this week of hard work?
Take $4 755 and subtract the percentage of commissions that your spa company is paying to you. Usually it’s 7,25% for Spa Therapists, 11.3% for Hair Stylists + Nail Technicians and 11% for Fitness Instructors.
So your total commissions for the week would be:
$4 755 - 7.25% = $344.73 (R2 413)
(To calculate the percentage you take the amount $4 755 x 7.25 and divide it by 100, which gives you the amount you will get)
I hope this makes it a bit more clear to you with regards to what you can expect to earn while onboard.
THE EARNING REALITY
So now most parents wants to know, how much exactly will my child earn as a therapist onboard?
That is a good question, and one that will only be correctly answered once he or she is onboard their ship and actually earning their own money. But to give you an average of what to expect and what not to expect I will show you the following table of 7 weeks earnings you can expect and what me and most of the spa therapist onboard earned.
Rand
to Doller exchange rate calculated to the average of R7 to $1.
The above table shows a usual 7 weeks cycle onboard and what you can expect to earn.
To calculate how much money you can expect to earn take into regard that your contract will be 9 months or 7 months. For first contractors you have to complete 9 months first, with your second contract you being able to choose to do a 7 months contract. (Just beware here; what your company don’t tell you is that they will pay the flight ticket to the ship for you if you do a 9 months contract, but should you choose the 7 months contract you have to pay your own flight ticket. Most of us didn’t know this until we are about 3 months into our first contract onboard)
But lets get back to calculating your income for a 9 months contract in your first contract.
A 9 months contract consists of 36 weeks. So if you have a ship which does 7 day cruises (weekly cruises) it will be quite easy for you to calculate your income, or average earnings.
Take 36 and multiply this by the average income per week, which I have discovered is a minimum of $300 (R2 100) and maximum $900 (R6 300). These include your tips and commissions.
So minimum you can expect in 9 months will be $10 800 (R75 600) and maximum $32 400 (R226 800). The $32 400 is a maximum though and very rarely achieved, there might be some, but I have found that the average for a 9 month contract is a total earning of around $15 000 to $19 000 (R105 000 to R133 000).
This is the total earnings you can take home if you don’t spend a penny. The reality though is that you will probably spend around 60% of your salary. I have found that the most employees take home after a 9 month contract is between $4 000 (R28 000) and $11 000 (R77 000).
The reason for this is very simple; You will need some items for work, for parties, for leisure and just to spoil yourself sometimes. It is very common that you will spend half your earnings per week every week. So if you receive $400 in tips, you are most likely to spend all of these tips and save just the commissions of $250 you got from treatments and retail. This is also the most common thing to happen. Although your tips might be the highest source of income for many therapist, they are more likely to spend it all; most probably because on most ships tips are paid in cash every week to employees, but commissions are paid every six weeks into a bank account, like Ocean Pay which is specifically for Ship Employees.
So if someone tells you that you can expect to bring R300 000 ($42 857) home after 9 months onboard, please beware and be realistic, because this is not likely to happen. I’m not saying it cannot happen, there are some who are extremely good at their job, but it’s not common.