brodie.mcculloch

adventures of a rogue thinker.
brodie mcculloch
brodie mcculloch

I live and work in the most isolated city in the world. I am passionate about social innovation, entrepreneurship, marketing, travel, technology, government 2.0, sustainability, design, photography and have been known to have entrepreneurial tendencies.

brodie.mcculloch@gmail.com

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So you want a Job on a Cruise Ship

Noordam

I have started writing a book on how to get a job on a cruise ship because I realised that there are a lot of people who want to know about this and the information on the internet is really out of date and misleading. 

The book will launch in September but I have started up a blog, facebook page and twitter account to start getting people involved and hopefully start a community prior to the launch. The ideas is also to keep an ongoing community around how to get a job. 

The blog has been setup as a Q&A around specific questions people have and they are able to email them through to me. 

I am interested to see what sort of attention the site gets and the plan is to advertise it through twitter and facebook as that is where most of our interested users are. 

Have a look and let me know what you think. 
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On the ms Noordam in the Caribbean

This Caribbean season was more work than play. There was some beach time but after Jayne left there were very few photos. Still was good fun but work was the priority. Many of the ports were new to me and I really enjoyed the Dutch ports of call, very different to the rest of the Caribbean (I thought anyway).
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In the Mediterranean on the ms Noordam

A lot happened in Europe during the 2.5 months in the Med, below are some of the photos and the two itineraries that we sailed. All the photos can be found on flickr. It was a awesome few months and got to see many of the european ports while working which is always good.

Jayne took most of the photos which was good because it gave me a break. I think I will be back in Europe next year for the whole season so that should be good to.
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Training on the ms Eurodam in the Baltic

I flew from Dubrovnik to Copenhagen, Denmark where I had an overnight ready to board the ms Eurodam the next day.
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20 days in the Baltic
I really didn't get a whole lot of time to explore the Baltic as I was doing a lot of training and getting ready to take over the ms Noordam 20 days later. What I did see of the Baltic was amazing, the weather was really good and the views were amazing. Work was good and I have a strong feeling that I will be back in the Baltic in the future. One thing that was really annoying was the fact that I didn't have a Russian visa or seaman's book so i couldn't get off the ship in Russia. next time.
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Days out in Dubrovnik

We had about 6 or 7 days in Dubrovnik, Croatia before my flight to Copenhagen so we spent some more time chilling and checking out the old town which Dubrovnik is so well known for.
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View from the walls of the old town
It is an amazing place, although we had got used to paying Eastern European prices for everything and now we were back onto the tourist rates.
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Tower
We walked the wall of old town and had dinner inside. We stayed at a really cool hostel and the owners known as Croatian "ma" and "pa" for their homely appeal and shot of honey port (or something like that) on entry.
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Ryan on the Wall
Ryan booked his ferry ticket to Italy as he was going to learn Italian and make some wine for a few months. This was good bye for a while but with the interwebs it is easy to stay in contact. I left my bike at the hostel, I told them i would be back in 30 days, i don't know if it translated but we will see.
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Vienna to Rotterdam to see the ms Eurodam

So luck came by way when I got an email from Holland America Lines wanting to interview me for the position of Manager On-Board Marketing. So I had a phone interview which went well and they asked me to fly from Vienna to Rotterdam to visit their new ship the ms Eurodam. While I flew to Rotterdam Ryan flew to Greece, Eos to party down for a week.
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ms Eurodam
I flew to Amsterdam and got the train to Rotterdam. I staid where I was a month before when we were cycling through Rotterdam, it was just across the river from where the ms Eurodam was docked. That day I went and watched the opening ceremony (it was a long day) then the next day I went on board for a tour and interview with the existing On-Board Marketing Manager and the Seattle Office Manager. So I looked around the ship which is shiny and new talked about the position.
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the ms Eurodam opening
Anyway all went well and a few days later I got an email saying I got the job and they wanted me to start immediately. This was a problem as my medical was not valid and I still had another month of traveling to do with Ryan. But once I have got all this stuff I will be boarding the ms Eurodam for 20 days training in the North Sea and then will be flying back to the Mediterranean to board the ms Noordam where I will be until I cross the Atlantic to the Caribbean. Not sure when I will be home. Maybe February.
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Happy Australia Day

On the ship we celebrated Australia day on the 23rd because the 26th is also Indian independence day and there are a lot more of them than us. In total we worked out there were 8 Australians on the ship. I managed to get free beer and sausage roles made (about 1000) for the crew, it was a big night.
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Above is a photo of all the Australians at the party, I think this is the least amount we have had on board because there are usually dancers and spa girls. Oh well it was still big anyway.
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getting scuba qualified in Cozumel, Mexico

I finally organized to get open water scuba qualified in Cozumel, tomorrow I have my second lesson which I am excited about. On the first lesson we got straight into it and were underwater in about 10 minuets after some brief instructions…….I love mexico. There is a group of us doing it from the ship, 2 youth councilors, one shop guy and one other shore ex staff. Everyone really enjoyed the first dive, it was off the beach but I got to see a eel which made mel (one of the YC’s) freak out. Gold. It Is working out to be really cheap but is going to take 4 Cozumel’s to get qualified because we are only there every second week.  At least I will have done something really good this contract (and saved money and learnt Spanish and got fit…..oh-o). So I should be fully qualified in about 1 more month, it will be worth it though.
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Yacht racing in Barbados

In Barbados we have a yacht racing tour where they split the group of about 30 into two teams of 15 and the get on a genuine racing yacht. I hadn’t been on a yacht before (once again im not sure why considering I live in Australia but whatever) and it was a cool experience, shagun and kylie managed to avoid getting seasick which was good considering we were going quite fast.

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the boat we beat

We were able to participate as much or as little as you wanted. It turns out there is a lot involved in sailing a yacht, there are ropes and sales and all sorts of things that have to be turned. As you can see I picked up nicely on the sailing terminology and now consider my self an expert……this may also need to be put on the CV - “Champion Yacht Racer” sounds good to me.

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Go team green, turning the thingos to make the sail thing go up / or down

 

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pro yacht person

Needless to say our Yacht won, they said it came down to the crew which I am confident is true. More photos are here.
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“MESSY” is the word to describe the catamaran cruise in Antigua

We have a great tour in Antigua called Antigua by Sea, It is a tour that takes you by a really nice catamaran around the whole island of Antigua. There is lunch on the beach, famous peoples houses, snorkeling and then a cruise through Nelsons Dockyard ( a famous British navy port). None of this mattered because there was free (well included) liquor. I had also invited Clair who organizes all the groups on the ship and Chris who is one of the Ships IT guys.

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our boat

Things started out smooth but as the rum punch kept flowing it became increasingly more “messy”. Our first stop was snorkeling and lunch on a private beach. We then continued around the island to see Operas house and some other famous people who’s names I forget now. When shagun got in the water to go snorkeling he lost his snorkel and one flipper, I have know idea how he managed to do that but it is impressive none the less.

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the team snorkeling

We then went into Nelsons Dockyard which had some of the most impressive Yachts I have ever scene.

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Shagun in the water

With all this action and history going by it was good that we were able to relax with a drink or two. Kylie was dancing and missed most of it while we had met another group of Australians from Brisbane who were cruising for 14 days. They did not help the situation and attracted an email from the operator. Fun and games.

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we look under control, that changed.

 That night was also interesting……but I might save that story ? You can see many of the photos here, and all my photos on flickr.
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