Great question.
I worked on cruise ships for several years and was heavily involved with the team who created the Cruise Ship Diploma elearning course (the same team who are also behind well known e-learning brands such as CabinCrewDirect.com, PSADiploma.com, etc).
First of all, absolutely no disrespect to the two moderators here who have both worked on ships and quite obviously know the industry inside out, BUT... judging by their comments to your question, neither has actually looked at the course, enrolled on it, or know anything about it at all (one openly admits to not having even looked at the website). nothing wrong with that of course but they are simply expressing their opinions based on the facts they had to hand and probably their past experience of scam merchants who have and still do operate in this industry - and rightly so!
So, I'm here as one of the course creators to simply add a bit more weight to these facts; not to over-rule the respected opinions of the moderators in question
Anyway, here's my comments:
First of all the Cruise Ship Diploma is a COURSE that you study and learn from and receive a certificate from, in the same way you would at school or college to enhance your employment prospects. It is not a job site and taking the Cruise Ship Diploma elearning course by itself DOES NOT guarantee you a job, in the same way that going to college and studying a course in Mechanics does not guarantee you’ll get a job as a mechanic at the end of it. Neither the course brochure nor website
make any such promise - if it did, then yes it would be a total scam! The only people who can guarantee you jobs are the cruise lines.
Remember, just as has already been mentioned in this thread,
you can only get hired by contacting cruise lines directly, submitting your applications, going through the recruitment and interview process and being very persistent.However, the cruise industry is a VERY competitive industry as you probably already realize. You are competing with tens of thousands of other job seekers from all over the world. So, you won't get hired by simply being the same as everybody else. You often need to do something that helps you to stand out, to be a little bit different from the masses, something that gives you an edge - whether that's actually knocking on the doors of cruise lines, being more experienced than every other applicant, or simply making sure your application stands out from everybody else's when it hits the Inbox of the recruiter. And that's where the course has helped people in a lot of cases because it can give your application an 'edge' - and sometimes that little edge can make all the difference.
Afterall, if you were a recruiter and you had two applicants; both had exactly the same qualifications and experience except one had taken it upon himself to take an additional course related to the job he was applying for and because of this, he understood the industry better, knew what was involved in the job and the life onboard and more... wouldn't you agree that this person probably had the edge over the other applicant?
On top of this, one of the most common pieces of feedback from students who have taken the course is that the
confidence it's given them at their interviews has by itself made it more than worthwhile. Particularly having the ability to talk about the industry knowledgable, answer questions confidently and have an awareness about working on cruise ships that most normal applicants would not have.
Another piece of feedback is that interviewers have been impressed by applicants who have taken it upon themselves to take such a course showing a genuine desire to work in the industry.
On the negative side, one or two people have said that taking the course would be irrelevant and wouldn't make any difference to a persons job application. Fortunately that's the only negative feedback so far about the course. On the whole, it's been very positive and well received.
On top of this many respected colleges from around the world are now introducing the Cruise Ship Diploma course as part of their travel and tourism courses as they believe it will enhance their own students qualifications and prospects in the cruise industry. Right now it's being introduced to colleges in New Zealand, South Africa, the UK and India and most recently, China.
Taking the course is an investment and I am by no means trying to 'sell' you on it here. Far from it. I think it's something you should look at and think very carefully about whether you think it could help you or not. It's not for everyone and once again, it certainly can't guarantee you a job all by itself.
Thanks for your time and to the moderators of this site for allowing me to share my comments from the "other side".
Best of luck
