River Cruisers vs Ocean Cruisers

River boats vs Ocean liners

Question;
Hello sailors, I am specifically interested in a comparison of working conditions between river cruises and ocean-bound cruise ships?
I work for Princess third contract already, started as assistant buffet steward first contract, the second got promoted to the position of buffet steward (finally).
Whoever had worked on these big companies knows how hard is to get promotion and “advance” to a better paid job.
Job is like any other job, more difficult mentally than physically, especially in the restaurant department.
Anyway, I’m interested in how is it to work on riverboats in comparison to the ocean-liners?
Is it any easier, at what position, what’s the salary, how long are the contracts, and generally, does it pay more to work on the river or ocean?
What are the best paid positions and through which agency is it worth to try go through, to what company?
Thank you all in advance and calm seas to all

Answer;
As I worked on the river and the ocean, here’s my take on River Cruisers vs Ocean Cruisers, based on my experience

River cruisers are “small” compared with the average ocean cruiser.
River boat has about 50 crew members, of which usually 25 are Romanians, 15 Hungarians, and 10 “other” (Balkan region and others).

I normally get along well with everyone, I love all people around the globe, I am incapable of any hate, but I will quote one colleague from the ship “only **** Romanian is a good Romanian”.
Not that I agree with this statement, but there’s something about them. They are terrible work colleagues, working with them was a terrible experience for me, I’ll not talk about it right now.
One Romanian who worked with me called his female Romanian coworker: “Romanian b****”. Although I know two Romanians who are dear to me, they are mostly a disaster to work with.
There are Romanians on ocean-bound cruise ships, but they seem to be more “quiet” and “polite” there. I have a feeling that their manners are much more in check there.

Waiter’s river ship salaries are around €2.000 total (2014 g.)
While I was on the ocean, I was getting about $3.500 total (2011 g.).
There’s more work on the riverboats, we never had breakfast or lunch off, 12 hours work day, you work a wide range of assignments, regardless what your contract says, you wash windows, vacuum-cleaning a restaurant, … everything.
It’s pretty hard, especially because of the stupid side jobs, which on average ocean cruise ship, being a waiter, you just don’t do.

On the river boat you’ve got about 10 waiters, 3 bar staff (who also work at the restaurant for dinner, but have a station or perform as runners), and you have a restaurant manager. And that’s it.
And that’s why there’s so few possibility of advancement, ie. entry level position is waiter and following is the promotion to a restaurant manager.
I believe that one needs 5-7 years to get there (if not more), and I think that a restaurant manager’s salary is no greater than €3.000.

There’s much more promotion opportunities on ocean cruisers.
For example, it goes assistant waiter > waiter > junior head waiter > senior head waiter > head waiter > assistant maitre > maitre > assistant restaurant manager > restaurant manager, and so on.
In my case work on a river boat was quite relaxed, there was no harsh supervision, ie. level of service was not exactly a thing of beauty.
The food was much better than on the ocean, phenomenal, extra, top.

For info about contracts hit on google, same for agency, and at the end I’ll just point out that I generalized a lot from my personal experience, maybe someone will disagree with me.

Link to the original text here: River Cruisers vs Ocean Cruisers