Jose Roman ⋅ Norfolk , VA U.S. Navy, Petty Officer First Class ⋅ 22 years served

David,

I would start here:

http://heroesworkhere.disney.com/

http://heroesworkhere.disney.com/transitions

Disney is a great company and very proactive in hiring veterans.

Jeffrey Duck ⋅ Deltona , FL Deploy Tech Services ⋅ 30 years experience

Actually David, I've been in a dead zone and offline anyway.

Do please let me know how it turns out and feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions.

Good luck!

David Edgerton ⋅ Mount Pleasant , SC U.S. Navy, Lieutenant Commander ⋅ 20 years served

Thank you Jeffrey, absolutely excellent advise and insight. I appreciate the time you took to respond so thoroughly. I apologize for my delayed thank you, I have been out of town celebrating my wife's 40th birthday.

I will heed that advice and look into it.

Kindest regards,
David

Jeffrey Duck ⋅ Deltona , FL Deploy Tech Services ⋅ 30 years experience

Hi David,

Have you considered Disney Cruiselines? When thinking of a job in the cruise industry most people thing about working onboard but most cruiselines are divided into shipboard and shoreside divisions.

This is very general and may not apply specifically to Disney but as far as I know they still separate their cruise business from their theme park and other businesses. Here's generally how things are likely broken up...

Onboard the ship:
- Deck & Engine Dept. - Everything associated with running the ship as a ship. This includes the Captain, Chief Engineer down to the wipers. There are two Captains; the Captain and the Staff Captain who handles all staff issues so although the Captain has ultimate authority onboard, the entire Hotel Dept. generally reports to the Staff Captain through the Hotel Director.
- Hotel Dept. - As you'd probably guess, This includes everyone associated with the passenger and entertainment aspect. The Hotel Director or Hotel Manager is typically the highest ranking hotel officer followed by Chief Purser, Chief Stewart, F&B Manager, down to the Towel Steward.

At the office:
- Deck and Engine - These people support the D&E staff onboard
- Shipboard Hotel - Likewise, they are the conduit for the shipboard staff.

The departments in the office mentioned above are commonly referred to as 'Shipboard' because from the perspective of the office, they are the ones that handle the ships. To distinguish the people on the ship from those off the ship, they would be referred to as crew vs. shoreside staff or employees.

The rest of the people in the office are divided into their usual company departments.

I bring all this up because most people don't think about how the cruiselines are structured and they think the jobs are only onboard. In addition to Central Florida, there's typically some ship related staff in areas where there are multiple ports, and wherever their current new builds and dry docks are going on. There are also ships agents at every port. A ships agent is usually a small business who is hands-on and coordinates anything critical or any emergencies while in port.

I worked shipboard and shoreside with shipboard IT which was on the hotel side so I'm familiar with D&E operations onboard but not how things are structured shoreside. Another important consideration to the D&E structure is that each ship typically has their own culture. For example, one ship may be Norwegian while another is Greek. That carries over to the entire department. When I was in the industry, companies were merging and there were some power plays going on while merging an Italian crew with a Norwegian crew. Cruises have become so mainstream now that everything may now be well integrated but I'm sure some of this still lingers.

When it comes to Disney, I would think you would have a much better chance at getting into a Disney Cruiseline shoreside position. Clearly, your Navy background will help. Generally there's only one thing that's acceptable to allow a ship to sail late so having people who understand that schedules are absolute and are comfortable in that environment have an advantage.

Each ship also has two Captains and two Staff Captains because they're onboard 3 months on and then 3 months off. They probably will overlap a week to share turn-over information. Most of their 3 months off is time off but they also have to deal with various issues while they have time shoreside so there are always some Captains around the office.

So here's the inside secret... You could do some digging and find out the name of the Captains and Staff Captains for a ship sailing out of Port Canaveral. Find out who they are and when they rotate shoreside. Either two weeks before or a week after they rotate, call the office and ask for them. If they're not there, you have a name and when you get someone on the phone ask for that person or "if he's not in the office, is there another Staff Captain you can speak with?". Identify yourself as a US Naval Lt. Commander and start your pitch.

Feel free to message me directly if you have any other general questions. For you or anyone else reading this; I could pretty easily find the names of the Captains and senior crew but that's something that I'm explicitly leaving out because it's something that someone capable of such a position should be able to locate themselves.

I sincerely hope you find this direction appealing and wish you the best. The industry in general is short of quality leadership and I think you have some quality skills you can bring to the company.