Inside the Hidden Nightmares of Life as a Cruise Ship Musician: What No One Dares to Share

Ever wondered what it’s really like to tickle the ivories on a cruise ship while the world sails by? Meet Jeff Schneider—a college kid turned cruise ship pianist—who traded saxophone solos for endless sea shuffles and beach days that sound like a dream. But here’s the kicker: beneath the surface of sun-soaked gigs and paid travel, Jeff found the voyage a whole lot less glamorous—more like the never-ending loop of Groundhog Day, with a side of late-night shenanigans and some seriously eyebrow-raising “least PG” moments. So, what’s the dark underbelly of this seemingly idyllic job? Spoiler: It involves more than just playing keys and sipping cocktails. Ready to dive deep into the real cruise ship musician life? LEARN MORE.

A former cruise ship musician has revealed the ‘dark side’ of the job.

In his early 20s, Jeff Schneider was a college kid who spent his summer playing music, getting paid and spending his days hanging out at the beach while travelling.

But while it all sounds pretty sick, the YouTuber says it wasn’t ‘all sunshine and rainbows’ as most people don’t quite know about the realities of working onboard.

Jeff bagged himself the gig as a pianist on the cruise ship, having been advised by a pal that playing the piano would earn him more than his main instrument, the saxophone.

For him, one of the biggest challenges of the job was that it began to feel like ‘Groundhog Day’, but he still did it for three years.

But it seems there was a lot of fun too as he tells his subscribers about ‘getting sauced’ but also some ‘least PG stories.’

He got himself a gig playing the piano on cruises. (YouTube/@‌JeffSchneiderMusic)

Jeff admits he wasn’t always ‘so productive’ as plenty of his fellow cruise ship workers would ‘just pass the time by drinking.’

One guy he shared a room with would even come home at three o’clock in the morning and ‘just start drinking straight from the bottle.’

“Thankfully, things didn’t get as dark for me,” he says, “but I can’t say I always made the smartest decisions.”

Another ‘more fun, less scary’ roommate was asked to complete a random drug test at one point but ‘there was no way he was going to pass.’

And so, Jeff took one for the team.

“He asked me to pee in a condom which he could then hide in his pants and use to pretend urinate into a cup while in a bathroom stall,” he explains. “You still owe me.”

Now, I’m not trying to play into any sexist stereotypes here, but wow, boys are gross. I mean, seriously?

That is dark.

What was properly dark for Jeff though is how he felt like he started ‘to lose my mind’ after a three-four month contract due to the ‘repetitive nature.’

“Most people work at least eight months at a time,” he adds. “Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to hang for that long – and it’s not just because I’d go stir crazy.”

The musician says the difficulty with being at sea is that you’re ‘not building a life on land’, so it feels like ‘starting over’ when you return.

“It’s an incredibly daunting task,” Jeff says.