How did you get into the industry?

About three years ago, my boyfriend told me he had heard of this yachting industry and thought we should try it. I immediately said no way would I ever move away from my friends and family and live on a boat with a bunch of strangers. After a while he talked me into trying it and reluctantly I came down to Fort Lauderdale, where I joined my first boat M/Y Inspiration. Somehow months turned into years and I'm still in the yachting industry and still loving it!

Describe the boat you currently work on

M/Y Domani is a fantastic boat to work on; about half our crew followed our captain from M/Y Inspiration to M/Y Domani. We have a very intense itinerary; in the past 6 months we have been to the Caribbean, Florida, New England, through the Panama Canal, up the California coast and in the next month we will be in Mexico, back through the Panama Canal to the Bahamas.

Describe your biggest challenge on this boat

I am very lucky because the owners are such great people to work for. They are a family and very nice, polite and friendly. But they do love bringing on lots of people with them, like 4 or 5 other families. Every time when we have guests we have somewhere from 20-30, and our boat is meant to accommodate 10-12. It is very busy taking care of all those people with only 3 stewardesses. This has been my biggest challenge, not compromising the quality of service while having so many guests.

Describe your high points of the job

There are a lot of high points to the job, it's hard to single out one, but I have to admit I love doing theme nights! We have a lot of theme nights on this boat and it just gets everyone excited. Whether it's Pirate night, Mexican Night, Island Night, or whatever theme night, the guests get really involved, the stewardess get excited and often we can talk the whole crew into dressing up!

Describe the hard parts of the job

For me the hardest part of the job is the way we live. We have very little space in crew quarters and next to no privacy. With an itinerary as busy as ours we don't have time off very often so we have very little time and space to ourselves. This has been the hardest thing for me to adjust to. Also being part of a couple on a boat you often feel it's not 2 of us in our relationship, but 10 of us in our relationship, so we have to be sure to find time and space for just the 2 of us.

What do you like most about the job

What I like most about the job is definitely the lifestyle it allows us to live. We get to travel and see some of the most beautiful places on the earth. With any job there are ups and downs, but when you're sitting on the aft deck anchored in the Exumas watching the sun set, the downs of the job kind of melt away. We are incredibly lucky that our job takes us to these kinds of places and we get to see the best of the world.