Smooth sailing: Who's who in a cruise ship crew

THE CAPTAIN

You may catch glimpses of the captain striding through the ship like a tsar in a white uniform – or tsarina on Celebrity Edge and Cunard's Queen Anne. But you really don't want to see captains too often, since they're ultimately in charge of ship operations and safety.

Below the captain are officers such as the staff captain and chief engineer. As second officer on Celebrity Equinox, a typical watch for Charlotte de Lisle involves navigating the ship, filling the logbook, monitoring the ship's stability, completing reports alongside the on-duty Officer of the Watch and Sailor, and performing safety checks.

Most passengers will only hear the captain squawking over the noon public-address system to relay weather conditions and the ship's position. Some host Q&As or cocktail receptions.

My most memorable captain was Star Clipper's Sergey Tunikov, a natural raconteur who gave talks on his seafaring escapades, which began in the USSR's navy. His ripping yarns of mast-snapping storms held everyone enthralled.

The ambition of stalwart cruisers is to share the Captain's Table. Don't bank on it: you'll have to be a VIP, frequent cruiser, or celebrating a special event, although you might sometimes score a random golden-ticket invitation.

Small-ship companies such as Ponant and Coral Expeditions have open-bridge policies that let you chat to navigational officers. On Windstar's Wind Surf you can uniquely stay in an Officer's Suite in the crew-only area.

THE CRUISE DIRECTOR

The cruise director is the provider of fun and the circus ringmaster. They are the most visible member of the senior crew: the person with the over-the-top personality, endlessly buzzing around and organising everything from trivia quizzes and shuffleboard competitions to lectures and full-blown evening shows.

Don't be fooled by their bubbly personalities. Cruise directors work sometimes 16-hour days. They have to be highly organised and hard-working, with impeccable people skills and – especially on European cruise lines – the ability to speak several languages. Safety and security are part of their remit, too.

On smaller ships the cruise director can define the whole atmosphere. The most amazing example I've encountered was Moroccan firecracker Kamel Hamitouche on Ponant ship L'Austral in Alaska. His high-watt smile and sense of humour never dimmed, but he could also engage in pensive conversation after dark on the ship's deck, as the dark forests of the Inside Passage slid by.

THE FOOD AND BEVERAGE MANAGER

Let's give a nod to the hotel manager or hotel director, responsible for all the ship's bits that affect you the most – unless the engine conks out, which is the chief engineer's problem.

Yet even more critical, surely, is the food-and-beverage manager who keeps passengers so well fed.

The organisation required must hurt their brains, as food supplies need to be ordered months in advance; only in Europe is there good supply and short distances between ports.

As Oceania's senior executive chef Laurent Trias once memorably put it, you can't run down to the corner store if you've forgotten the sugar.

Supplies change according to weather – guests eat more soup and less salad in cold climates – and passenger profile. Australian-filled sailings see coffee consumption double on Celebrity vessels.

Trends must be tracked too: P&O Australia's F&B manager Steve Stubbs has charted a rise in popularity of pinot gris, pinot grigio and premium chardonnay.

A ship uses upwards of 3000 recipes. Ingredients are measured by truckloads. The biggest Royal Caribbean ships see 60,000 eggs, 5700 kilograms of flour, 680 kilograms of coffee and 450 cases of champagne demolished in a week.

THE CHEF

"In a restaurant on land, people come once and that's it," Viking Star restaurant manager Jon Hobley once tellingly told me. "On a ship, you have to keep them happy every single night, not to mention for breakfast and lunch, and that's a huge challenge."

The variety and quality of food produced on cruise ships verges on the miraculous. Chefs plan menus, manage supplies, ensure hygiene, prepare, cook and clean up afterwards. Hundreds of guests might expect their meals simultaneously.

Working conditions are pressured, storage and workspace tight, and surfaces pitch and roll. All this is a far greater challenge than any faced by land-based chefs, but you can add more: no gas or other open flames, food demands that change with the weather conditions, and humidity and salt air that affects pastry making.

The 160-strong culinary team in a Celebrity ship's main galley prepares 25,000 meals daily. The more luxurious the ship, the greater the number of chefs. Oceania has perhaps the best cuisine at sea.

Half the 800 crew on board the 1250-passenger Oceania Marina work in the restaurants; 12 crew are devoted just to moving supplies around the ship in a timely fashion.

If you ever see a chef emerge from behind the scenes be sure to convey your appreciation. Sometimes they make restaurant appearances. Some lead culinary workshops, accompany shore excursions to local markets, and host chef's tables on board.

The best I attended was with Anthony Mauboussin on Viking Sea, a humorous and insightful French chef happy to share the trials of ship supply and pleasures of food such as New Caledonia rock lobsters and Swedish cloudberries.

THE WAITER

Be nice to the cruise ship wait staff. They work exhausting shifts looking after 25 seats. They don't just take orders and carry things to the table.

They set up tables, clear them away, polish silverware and mop floors while conducting polite conversation in a foreign language and answering questions about food and wine often unfamiliar to them.

Since certain nationalities are incapable of ordering from a menu without making changes to it, waiters also must have the saintly patience to cope with non-gluten, hold-the-cheese, add-some-ham demands.

Meanwhile, each table is at a different stage of service with some guests needing aperitifs while others are ready for dessert.

I could name dozens of great waiters on cruise ships who matched efficiency with the personal touch: Manuel and Joseph on Le Soleal, gloriously cheerful Princess and Maria on Regent Seven Seas' Mariner, Jerry and Virgo on Hebridean Sky, who never forgot a passenger name or preference in breakfast eggs or dinner wines.

The other reason to be nice to waiters is that they can enhance your dining experience. Portuguese waiter Pedro immeasurably improved my dining experience on Silver Muse's Atlantide restaurant recently, where he worked the back corner with old-school European professionalism.

He suggested which beef cut was better, produced a Chateau Cadillac wine not on the menu, and always knew what he was talking about.

THE BARTENDER

Like waiters, bartenders do more than you might think, including requisitioning bar supplies, sorting stock, cleaning glassware and organising special events such as cocktail receptions and parties.

They need a good memory for customers' drink preferences and the personality to be everyone's temporary best friend.

If you frequent the same watering hole throughout your cruise, a small tip goes a long way. The same goes for sommeliers. As Viking Sea's sommelier Lorena once told me: "We want to give you an experience you might not get at home with some lesser-known wine labels. But there are famous labels too, and some guests want to stay in their comfort zone."

Dejan on Celebrity Silhouette, with his pleasant demeanour and genuine knowledge of wine, made all the difference to dinners in the Grand Cuvee main dining room.

My favourite bar at sea is the Martini Bar on Celebrity's Edge-series ships, its bar counter encased in ice.

It isn't just an eye-catching social hub but typically features four high-energy bartenders with tricks to rival those of Bryan Brown in the 1988 movie Cocktail – only on a moving ship.

They balance and flip bottles and cups on their heads and arms, fill 15 martini glasses with a single pour, and stack glass in a choreographed show that gets hearty applause.

THE HOUSEKEEPER

One of the greatest satisfactions of cruising is returning to the ship after a day in a hot, dusty destination – or, for that matter, from dinner on board – and finding your cabin cleaned and tidied.

It's thanks to housekeepers that you enjoy pleasures you're not likely to experience at home: an unsullied shower screen, towels replaced at whim, your remote control awaiting on the coffee table, and your rubbish bin emptied.

The housekeepers responsible for maintaining this oasis of calm, aided by assistants and laundry workers, have physically demanding jobs, work incredibly long hours and, on the best ships, are seldom seen: they keep track of your excursion and dining schedule, and are nearly always working when you're not there.

It would be churlish to fault housekeepers on any cruise line, but Vidin and Fahdli on Regent Seven Seas' Explorer took attentiveness to another level, providing an immaculate cabin, bed sheets tucked in with military precision, books regimented on my bedside table, and not a speck of dust left unvanquished.

Housekeepers work 12-hour shifts every single day of their contract, which is usually between six and nine months, and are likely to earn around $1500 a month. Only an uncharitable cheeseparing cheapskate would leave them un-tipped.

THE BUTLER

If you want a taste of the aristocratic lifestyle, book a cabin with butler service and you'll know what it's like to have your clothes ironed, ice bucket filled, champagne cork popped and shoes shone – sometimes without even asking. If the leg of your sunglasses falls off, why worry? Ring for the butler.

A bustle of butlers has spread across most cruise ships in recent years, though confined to superior suite categories. However, on luxury ships butlering becomes much more than room service by another name.

A butler's duties include unpacking luggage, restocking minibars, drawing baths, organising restaurant and shore-excursion reservations, arranging laundry, and catering to whims from delivering your morning espresso to organising in-suite cocktail parties.

Silversea is the only company with butlers for every cabin category, 24 hours a day. "Formal night is coming up and I thought I'd get your shoes ready," my butler Neil on Silver Spirit told me, presenting me with shoes whose mirrored surface reflected my gaping face. More recently on Silver Muse, my butler Lori tucked a bookmark into my book, and a cleaning cloth into my glasses case. I could get used to such little pleasures, but sadly never will.

THE GUEST LECTURER

Lecturers are a regular part of cruising and unique for being the only staff who aren't paid and who (usually) stay in passenger cabins.

Their work is confined to two or three lectures per week, always on days at sea, leaving them with the rest of the time to see the world. Sweet job if you can get it and the process to be a guest lecturer is highly competitive.

Lecturers give talks on destinations or on specialist topics, often history, archaeology, diplomacy, astronomy and the arts.

Most luxury lines have good "enrichment programs": I've attended great talks from US television host Lori Verderame about the antiques business aboard Seven Seas Mariner, and on world affairs from Christopher Whelan on Silver Spirit. Resident historian Jeremy Paterson on Viking Star gave great accounts of ancient history.

Small lines such as Coral Expeditions can have well-rounded lectures. On Coral Adventurer in Indonesia, presentations from Ian Burnet on Timorese history and from Mike Sudgen on sharks and rays were a treat. So was the presence of the ever-fascinating former captain of Queen Mary 2, Christopher Rynd.

THE EXPEDITION GUIDE

The lack of jobs for qualified marine biologists and other assorted experts is our gain on expedition cruises. We have people with doctorates and obscure enthusiasms at our disposal, and the best make anything fascinating, from the fluke prints of whales to the life cycle of Arctic saxifrage.

I've had the pleasure of encountering many erudite guides, like Silversea's Alexander Watson, an expert on the effects of habitat fragmentation on woodland birds in Australia, or Ponant's Mick Fogg, a marine biologist and wildlife photographer.

Expedition leaders also have to be calm, sun-wrinkled, reassuring-looking types who lead you into bear-infested forest or close to crumbling glaciers without panicking you. Extensive safety and emergency training is part of the job.

The expedition crew plots the best places to explore, shows you the wildlife, explains the science and occasionally pops open champagne in a Zodiac as you glide between icebergs.

They also give on-board lectures. At some point they must sleep but pull open your cabin curtains at dawn and they're already out there on a frigid sea, scouting the morning's adventures.

WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THE CREW

BE CONSIDERATE

Do housekeepers with 15 cabins to clean need to deal with your strewn belongings first? You've paid for a cruise, not to be a meanie. Oh, and complain where due, not simply because your chilled water hasn't appeared in 30 seconds.

BE INTERESTED

Remembering crew names is a good start. It isn't hard: the housekeeper remembers yours. Crew appreciate being asked about themselves, their work and their families back home. It invariably produces a smile.

BE AWARE

By the same token, do be aware the crew have a job to do, and can only chat for so long. And when you see crew in plain clothes off the ship, remember they're enjoying rare hours off: leave them in peace.

BE COMPLIMENTARY

Cruise lines often give you surveys at journey's end. Commend crew who've gone above and beyond. Even better is an email to customer service. What takes you 10 minutes can improve a crew member's standing or at least enhance their reputation.

BE GENEROUS

Australians on self-indulgent holidays love to complain about giving tips to underpaid, 12-hour-shift workers. Is the system fair? No. But your stance doesn't help those who've tirelessly cleaned your cabin, even if they do receive auto or pre-paid gratuities.