A day in the life of an Assistant Cabin Steward
Good morning everyone. I am looking forward to taking you along to spend a day with me on-board. My name is Carlos, I am from Uruguay, on-board for 3 months so another 6 months to go. I work in the housekeeping department and I am assigned to the role as a Assistant Cabin Steward.
We are assigned to a section of 20 guest cabins, which we have to clean twice a day, every day.
My day starts at 6:00 am, and first I go, like all of my colleagues to the laundry to pick up the freshly washed towels. The laundry is on Deck 1, my work area is on Deck 12. Luckily we have crew elevators, but as this is quite a busy time of the morning and there are many different areas all trying to move around the ship from other departments, getting from the laundry upstairs is sometimes a bit of a challenge.
We have a little store room on Deck 12, where we keep the trolley with all the cleaning materials, linen, towels and amenities. We did prepare the trolley in advance yesterday, so all there is left to do this morning is to fold the different size towels and stock up the trolley with them, get the hot water for cleaning, collect the vacuum cleaner and the ice cubes so that we can fill up the ice buckets in each of the cabins and get on our way.
Well folding the towels means also to fold the face towels one way, the hand towels another, the bath towels in a third way – and not to forget the bath mat.
We position ourselves on the corridor where our cabins are and wait for the guests to leave for breakfast. We are getting paid by the guests from the tips they leave for us so the better the service, the friendlier the crew, the more money we can earn. After greeting the guests, asking them about their plans for the day, chit chatting a little bit, we get to work on the cabin.
Often the Steward/ess decides what he/she prefers to clean first whether it is making the bed and cleaning the living area or cleaning the bathroom. For me I'm doing the bathroom so this means taking out the used towels and replacing them with new ones, cleaning the shower, mirror, sink, toilet and the floor. I also need to replace the toiletries that have been used, check that there is a spare roll of toilet paper and that the tissues are replenished.
As soon as the Steward/ess has also finished their area of cleaning we go onto the next room. Today is a relatively normal day, not as time consuming as when we have the linen change to do, nor the very stressful and crazy day on disembarkation/embarkation where all the rooms need to be completely stripped and cleaned and made up again ready for the new guests who will be coming on board next.
You are more than welcome to come along another day, maybe where you can see what happens on a linen change day or embarkation day.
Until then, I wish you a good time.
Carlos Navarro, Uruguay