Oct
22
During a recent day at sea on our cruise, I had the privilege of interviewing Neil Chandler, the charming and witty Cruise Director of the Emerald Princess. Here is an edited version of our discussion:
Commodore Dave: Hi Neil. Can you tell us how you got into the entertainment business?
Neil Chandler: I trained as an entertainer from as far back as I can remember. My parents owned a bar, and I would sneak downstairs in the early hours to play the piano. I can’t play the piano to this day, but I’d think I was entertaining to the people in the pub. And I would steal my father’s clothes and dress up as a clown and go into in the pub garden. We don’t own that pub anymore. I don’t know why people didn’t want to come back to it!
CD: When did you decide you wanted to be an entertainer?
NC: I always knew I wanted to become an entertainer. My degree is in performance studies. I did my training in London. And then I went into nursing for a short time. My mum was a nurse. I had just finished doing a show in Germany and had spent all my money and came back to the UK. My mum said come and work with me as a nurses’ auxiliary (or orderly) so I could pay my credit card bills. I loved it. I spent just three years as a nurse and was starting my nursing degree, but I also worked three nights a week singing in hotels. Then I got fed up with that and went back to entertaining mainstream in a touring show that started in London and moved around the south of England. And then I told my agent I wanted to take a break for a while, and he suggested I take a break working for Princess Cruises. I thought that sounded good, but let me tell you I’ve never worked so hard in my life!
CD: Can you tell us a little about your background?
NC: I was born in the Isle of Wight in the South of England, which is a big tourist destination. It’s a very English seaside town, and it used to have theatres on the ends of piers, and celebrity names would perform there. I grew up watching these great British stage and TV performers. Then as I grew older, I started working behind the scenes of these events, standing in the wings of these theaters, hearing people laughing constantly at every show, eight shows a week. I recall listening to wonderful comedians like Bobby Davro & Jethro. They were masters of their craft, and I thought ‘that’s what I want to be’.
CD: Are you married?
NC: I am married – actually got married three months ago! I met my wife on the Grand Princess in 2003 and we worked together for a while. Then she left the company to work in London’s West End. She’s a dancer. We try not to spend more than 5 weeks apart, for our own sanity. It’s easy to become very consumed by this life and you have to remember that this is just a job. Lynne joins me every five weeks, which keeps our marriage together. It helps that she understands the life, having done it for a while.
CD: What and when was your first job at Princess?
NC: I joined as a Junior Assistant Cruise Director in 2001.
CD: You moved up the ladder very quickly.
NC: I did. I had a lot of theatre management experience. I had performance experience. But I had no ship experience, hence why I started at the bottom of the ladder, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I worked with excellent people all of the time and I was part of three inaugural casts. By doing that you get to work a lot with shore side management and I guess they saw the potential in me, and I was lucky to move up. The company grew very quickly. A couple of years ago we brought out three new ships in a five-month period and needed top jobs to be filled. So I was lucky.
CD: How important is a sense of humour to your job? You seem to have an ability to make everything funny, including the public address announcements!
NC: Very important. If I can brighten somebody’s day, that’s worthwhile. If one person comes up to me and says that was funny, then it’s worthwhile because announcements are boring and you need to put something into them to ensure people will listen… if they are waiting for the quip at the end, they are listening to the whole announcement. And it brightens my day too.
CD: What’s been your funniest moment at sea?
NC: We were filming the morning TV show (called “Wakey, Wakey”) that we do on the ship, and a passenger walked straight into the studio. Oblivious to the fact that we were filming, she looked straight at the camera and asked us if it was the location of a certain ‘meeting.’ It was priceless comedy and if we could have kept it in the show, we would have.
CD: What’s been your worst moment at sea?
NC: It was my very first Christmas as cruise director 4 years ago on the Sapphire Princess. We were just starting the Captain’s Christmas party and the microphones wouldn’t work – not a big deal. But then we found out there was a fault in the fibre-optic system and nothing worked. No announcements, no mikes in the theatres, no music on the TV, no music anywhere on the ship. So from Christmas day evening for three days the ship was silent! To make announcements we had to use the bridge emergency system. I had acts performing acapella, and we had to run the main show in the theatre through a portable P/A system which was a disaster. And this was my first Christmas as cruise director! In fairness, we pulled ourselves back from that in the end. We still found ways to make it fun.
CD: Any favorite ports of call?
NC: Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. Every place I have been is beautiful. I can’t single one out over the others, but there is something about Puerto Vallarta. I would live there if I could. I feel very relaxed and at home there. Maybe I lived there in a previous life or something!
CD: Where haven’t you been as a port of call that you would like to?
NC: I really would like to cruise to Hong Kong and Chinese ports. I would also like to see Vietnam and Antarctica. I have photographs from a friend who was cruising Antarctica and it looks phenomenal.
CD: If you had been cast on the Love Boat, which character would you have wanted to play?
NC: I would have to say Julie, the cruise director, or Doc. I think Doc had some great story lines. He seemed to pop up into some rather bizarre situations. He had some wonderful lines and great scenes. Character wise I thought he was a lot of fun.
CD: What would you like to do after being a Cruise Director?
NC: Theatre management or customer service. To be head of customer service in a large organization would be a challenge. My passion for customer service is now where my heart is. I strive for excellence in everything. I can’t abide substandard. There are many situations I encounter on vacation where substandard seems to be the norm. I would like to work in an airport terminal and be customer service manager. That would be a great challenge!
