Carnival crew member reveals how much she spends onboard
Curvy Girl Cruising has built up a very popular YouTube channel while working as a singer on Carnival Cruise Line ships.
Cruise line crew members get a lot as part of their contracts. Terms include three meals a day, snacks, a cabin (usually shared), and access to crew-only facilities like a gym and a bar.
Cruise ship musicians get even more perks as they can access passenger areas. They can visit the buffet (sometimes for a small fee, depending upon the cruise line) and other on-board passenger dining options.
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Having your basic needs met, however, does not mean having no expenses. In theory, a crew member could survive spending no money, but most do not do that.
Lizzie, better known as Curvy Girl Cruising, shared her efforts to control her spending and what she spends her money on in a recent blog post.
You might be surprised by where the popular Carnival Cruise Line singer spends her money.
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Curvy Girl Cruising shares her spending
"Obviously, we've just entered a new year. I see a lot of people want to do goals and try and achieve new stuff, and for me, every single year, I try and get better with budgeting," she said.
"With this job, it's kind of a good and a bad thing because we go to all these amazing places, so we want to spend loads of money."
Being in exotic places as a singer means being able to get off the ship much more often than regular crew. That's a world filled with temptations and Lizzie decided to document eight days (one cruise) of her spending.
In this case, she picked a unique cruise for her.
"So, basically, this is just going to be how much me, as a crew member, spends in an eight-day cruise on board," she said. "The cruise that I've done, like, my research on, if you will, was last cruise, and I was port-manning, which basically means I could not get off the ship for the whole eight days. Everything that I have spent is on board, which does mean I do get crew discount."
Carnival offers both crew members and passengers an app that tracks their on-board spending. (Curvy Girl Cruising no longer specifically mentions the cruise line she works for, but it's evident from her video.)
Here's where the crew member's money goes
Like many of us on land, coffee shops are a weakness.
"The biggest place I spend my money, I already can tell you wholeheartedly, is the coffee shop," she said. "...If I go to the coffee shop, it can range between $3 to $5 every time."
When she can get off the ship, Lizzie buys Starbucks Cold Brew concentrate and an oat milk creamer. An on-board coffee costs her around $4 with her discount.
Internet is another major expense for crew members.
"There are some days, obviously, that I've just said about the internet that I will splurge a bit more on the internet, but we get a standard 24-hour free crew WhatsApp plan," she said.
"So, if I know that I'm not really going to need internet that day, I will avoid it and just use the crew WhatsApp, so that I can just text my friends and family."
That's very limited in what it can do.
"It won't do video calls and send photos, but if I know for that day that I just need to text my family, then I'd rather do that and save the money where I can," she added.
Lizzie also regularly buys water and soda in the crew bar, which adds a few dollars here and there since prices are greatly discounted compared with what passengers pay. A Pepsi in the crew bar, for example, costs 75 cents, about 25% of what a passenger would pay.
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As a musician, Curvy Girl Cruising can also eat in extra-fee passenger restaurants. She did that once in her eight-day cruise, bringing her total spending to just under $130 for the week. She would like to get that total down to under $100.
"One of my goals on my bingo card was to save a certain amount of money and also to just be better at budgeting overall," she said. "And doing the video like this, breaking it down, is really useful. And I'm very grateful that things like laundry is free for me."
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