beauticians on cruise liners?

Question

I know this is quite a specialised question but I'm thinking about working on cruise liners and my trade is beauty therapy, I wonder if anyone could tell me the ups and downs of this and some of the rules

Answer 1

there are 2 manjor concessions that run the spas:
www.hardingbros.co.uk
and
www.steinerleisure.com
I worked for hardings on the retail division and what I remember is people from the spa complaining about the salaries and comission, but i think it depends a lot on which ship you are working.
I remember mostly the massage therapysts complaining that on a ship with only british passengers they didnt work at all, cause the brits didnt like being touched.
On another ship, we didnt have formal evenings, ever, that is bad for the spa....
what i can tell you is, after 10 years on ships, i really liked travelling the world.
on the plus side, spa, shops, casino, photo.... all concessions are STAFF and not CREW, which is a lot better in terms of cabins, priviledges etc
good luck

basically what you need is a medical exam (they will tell you which one they want, depending on the ship´s flag) and something called STCW-95 which is a course of 8 hours or so that teaches basic sea survival, crowd management, basic fire fighting and basic first aid... thats it...
Some ships and destinations require a seaman´s book, its just like a passport for crew, costs 35USD+- and you just need to aply, it whould either be the same nationality as your passport or the flag of the ship.,
if you want more info, let me know
just to add what Tivogal said, the spas are always concessions, i´d say 90% of the ships franchise the spas, casinos, gift shops, photo op and in some rare cases even the shore ex desk.
only the smaller cruise lines run their spas.
Carnival, Royal, Costa, Celebrity and more = Steiner´s
P&O, Thomson, Fred Olsen, Island and a lot more = Hardings

Answer 2

look to the cruiselines for details, most have "job" postings on their websites. Good luck .

Answer 3

i think so