By the time Lientjie Joubert applied for a position on a Carnival cruise ship, she wasn’t a gap year novice. She’d worked abroad before. She’d navigated new cultures, new colleagues, new time zones. She thought she knew what she was signing up for.
She had no idea.
The Carnival Experience
Carnival is one of the world’s largest cruise lines — which means it is also one of the world’s largest floating workplaces. The scale alone was a shock. Thousands of guests, hundreds of crew, multiple restaurants, entertainment venues, pools, casinos. It is a city at sea, and it moves.
Lientjie worked as a waiter in one of the main dining rooms. The hours were long. The guests were demanding in the way only guests who’ve paid for a holiday can be. The tips, however, were real money — more than she’d earned in any comparable role on land.
“The first two weeks I wondered what I’d done,” she says. “By week four, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”
The Crew World
What she hadn’t anticipated was the crew culture — one of the most international, interesting, and tightly-bonded communities she’d ever encountered. Her crewmates came from the Philippines, India, Jamaica, Romania, Ukraine, South Africa. They spoke different languages and shared the same galley kitchen. They celebrated each other’s birthdays in crew cabins and covered for each other when family news from home arrived.
“I made friends from fifteen countries,” she says. “Some of them are still my closest friends now.”
The Ports
Every few days: a new port. The Bahamas. Mexico. Honduras. Jamaica. Lientjie had days off in places she’d only seen in screensavers. She snorkelled in clear Caribbean water on a Tuesday morning and was back on shift by dinner service.
Would She Do It Again?
She did. That’s the answer. When this contract ended, she took two months at home, reorganised her finances, and applied again.
“There’s something about the rhythm of it,” she says. “The sea. The movement. The fact that nothing is ever quite the same. I missed it the moment I left.”
For South Africans considering cruise ships: the entry roles are accessible, the income is genuine, and the life is unlike anything you can find onshore.
