Jobs on a cruise ship generally pay less than similar jobs on land.
That’s because cruise ships are not flagged in the United States and they are not bound by United States labor laws. But, while cruise lines may pay lower wages than land-based jobs, they generally pay much higher wages than what many workers can earn in their home countries.
Related: Royal Caribbean gives casino gamblers a gift that benefits all cruisers
In addition, all crew workers get room and board. They essentially have no expenses except internet and Royal Caribbean does give all workers free access to What’s App.
Cruise ship workers work hard. That can’t be denied.
Whether their salaries are fair, good, or even great is relative to their personal situation.
Cruise lines generally keep their salary info very close to the vest. Popular YouTube personality Chris Wong, appears to be finishing up what he has called “his last” contract and shared a video with a lot of detail as to how much money he makes.
Royal Caribbean crew member shares salary info
Transcript:
🤑 How Much Money I Currently Earn Working On A Cruise Ship in 2025
What’s up you guys, welcome back to Chris Wong Vlogs. Now before I start today’s video I just want to say a huge massive thank you because this YouTube channel has officially hit 100,000 subscribers. I will be getting my YouTube silver play button, obviously I’m not going to be able to hold it and see it until I finish this contract and go back home to the UK, but it is a huge milestone that I’ve been trying to reach for a very long time.
It’s only taken me what, five years or something to get it, but nonetheless here we are. I don’t know, hundreds of cruise ship videos. What started off as just a simple idea in my head has now turned into this massive cruising community.
I think now that I have this milestone achieved I believe I am the most followed casino host in the world, and I’m not just talking about casino hosts on cruise ships or Royal Caribbean casino hosts, I think I am legit the most followed casino host on the planet. All of these VIP hosts in Vegas, casino hosts working in the major casino resorts and hotels in Europe, in Asia, whatever. I think I’m the most followed host in the world now on social media.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but anyway, that’s something to…I’m not going to claim it anyway. I’m just going to claim I’m the most followed casino host in the world. Fact.
But enough about that, let’s get into today’s topic. So I wanted to do a nice video or a big video in some way to somewhat celebrate my 100k subscribers. I couldn’t think of anything too exciting.
I had all these different ideas in my head of what I wanted to do out in some of the ports in Australia to celebrate 100k, like buying a bunch of balloons and celebrating with food and everything, but I thought that’s probably not so much interesting. So I came up with today’s video topic, which is how much money am I currently earning as a casino host on board a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.
Now I did make a video just like this.
This was probably about three years ago now, which is a how much money I make working on a cruise ship video. And this today, still to this day, I should rather say, is one of my most viewed videos on my YouTube channel. And because I did recently just get promoted, I thought let’s give an update as to how much Chris Wong is currently earning as a crew member on board a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.
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How much does Chris Wong make as a casino host?
Now I will be repeating a lot of the same things that I did in my video three years ago, so I apologize if you already know this information, but here on board Royal Caribbean, we get paid every two weeks. At the time I’m recording this video, it is now the start of February. I’m not sure if you can see that on my phone.
So February 3, and my phone went off, sorry about that. Which means I’ve now just received the full payments for the previous month of January. So I’m going to share with you now my actual payslips that I received from Royal Caribbean for the month of January, which I have on my iPad.
Obviously for confidential reasons, let me see how much you can see this. I have scribbled out pretty much everything on this because obviously the information is completely confidential, like you know my name, my employee ID, there’s a whole bunch of other like reference codes and everything. Even like the breakdown of what my pay is, you can see it all scribbled out there.
The only thing I have not scribbled out is the bottom, which is my net pay. And this is exactly how much money I was paid for that two week period. So I’m not even in focus here.
Camera, what? Okay, this is a much better shot. So I’ve put the iPad on my desk. So yes, as I said, I have scribbled out completely everything because it is confidential.
But this is my paycheck for the first two weeks of January. You can see it says $2,890.21. And then if I do my second paycheck for the month, it is $1,450.09. Which means if my math is correct, $2,890.21 plus $1,450.09 for the entire month of January, I was paid $4,340.30.
So there’s a couple of things I want to address here because I know after just showing you what my month’s salary was as a Royal Caribbean active crew member, there’s a whole bunch of questions that you’re all eager to start typing in the comment section. So I’m going to start actually trying to explain exactly what this pay slip and how this salary is broken down.
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How does Chris Wong’s salary break down?
So first of all, my role on board a Royal Caribbean cruise ship is a casino host. Let’s take a look at the amount. $4,000 in a month.
Yes, that is actually fantastic money. For me to actually earn something like that in the UK, it’s actually quite difficult at this point in time with the way inflation is and everything. So for me to earn $4,000 here on board and not have to pay any rent, pay for any bills really.
I mean, obviously I have my phone bill. I pay for internet when I’m on board the ship. And every time we go out into port, I may spend money buying food, clothes, souvenirs, whatever.
But realistically, I don’t have any large payments like a house payment, a car payment, or anything like that whilst I’m on board living on board a cruise ship. So $4,000 over $4,000 is a lot of money, even when I convert it back into my home currency, which is UK Great British Pounds.
The next thing I want to talk about is a lot of you are probably now wondering, how is it that within those two paychecks that I just showed you, it fluctuated so much? Okay, one of my paychecks was over two grand and my second paycheck was just over one grand.
So part of the salary slip that I showed you, I scribbled out a lot of the breakdown. Now I can’t really go into detail because that’s confidential information, but to put it in simple terms or a summary as to how the breakdown is worked out as to how much I’m going to receive for that two week period, it’s a combination of commission and tips and a whole bunch of other things.
Now depending on which ship you’re on, it’s actually going to be a big factor into how much money you are realistically going to make, whether it’s a large ship, a small ship, and depending where it is in the world, it’s also going to have a huge impact on this.
I am on board Quantum of the Seas, which is currently sailing around Australia. I also visited Alaska and I did a couple cruises in Asia. I would actually argue that our ships where you can potentially make the most money for crew members is our ships in the US when we do Caribbean season.
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U.S. cruisers tip the best
Now the reason I say that is because generally commission and things like tips is often naturally just a little bit higher when you’re in that part of the world as opposed to where I currently am. Even if I compare Europe ships because Royal Caribbean has cruise ships all around the world,
it is kind of a fact really that our ships, whether it’s a large or small ship, in the US during Caribbean season, this is where crew members will often make the most amount of money. So for example, last year when I was actually an assistant casino host on Icon of the Seas, my salary was actually a little bit higher than what I’m earning now as the senior position here on a ship in Australia.
In fact, my biggest paycheck, if I remember correctly, I may have to dig through my pay slips now, when I was on Icon of the Seas, the highest salary I ever got in a month’s period was close to 5,000 US dollars and that was the assistant position. So commission and tips has a huge impact in a crew member’s overall salary. I’m not just talking about my salary now, this is kind of generally how it works with majority of crew members.
But again, every crew member on board based on their position is going to be paid differently. Different positions are paid higher, some positions, the way they’re paid is completely different to how I’m getting paid. So remember, when you’re looking and watching this video and if there are any aspiring seafarers out there,
I’m not saying if you become a crew member you’re going to start earning as much as I am, there’s a chance you may have a position that’s going to be earning even more than me, but realistically there’s probably going to be a smaller salary for you when you’re starting out.
You have to remember, I have been working on cruise ships for over the course of a decade now and I’ve been in this current position working in the casino for I think is close to five years, so my salary has fluctuated up and down over the course of this five-year period. This is what I am currently earning right now, but when you start your entry-level position as a crew member on board our Royal Caribbean cruise ships, I would say maybe expect to earn a little bit less compared to what I’m showing you, but I think a lot of you still out there watching this video will find this information very very useful.
How are Royal Caribbean crew members paid?
So how do I actually get the money from my salary? Well, as an active Royal Caribbean crew member, when you come on board and sign on for your first day, you are given and what is created for you a Salary at Sea bank account, and this is essentially a US bank account that is given to us, this is essentially a bank account that is given to us for the sole purpose of Royal Caribbean paying our salary.
So every two weeks my salary ends up in this US bank account and I am free to do with it whatever I want. I can put this card into an ATM, draw out the money, I can use this as a debit card and just go shopping, spend it wherever I like, the restaurants, the shops, and this is where my money goes to. So Royal Caribbean don’t pay you into your own home bank account, they give you what is called a Salary at Sea bank account.
What’s wrong with my camera? Okay here’s a much clearer shot of my Salary at Sea debit card, so you can even see Royal Caribbean and Celebrity branding all over the debit card, and this is what I get paid into every two weeks.
For me personally to earn anything over four thousand dollars a month is just insane okay, like I have managed to save so much money working for this company, of course I make money from my YouTube channel as well, so the two combined my cruise ship salary, my YouTube ad revenue, the two combined does make me a pretty healthy salary over the course of a year, and that’s how I’m sort of able to maintain this lifestyle if you will,
Because a lot of the questions I get on a daily basis is you know how much longer are you going to work on cruise ships for Chris, like “is this something you’re going to do forever?” “When are you going to come back home to the UK?” “Or, when are you going to come back home and look for a you know real job?”
But the thing is is that to find a job back in my home country to earn this much money and you know the idea of having to start all over again just doesn’t sound appealing to me. It’s like why would I give this up right now when you know I’m earning a very nice amount of salary every single month from all my streams of income and revenue,
There isn’t anything really pulling me back to the UK apart from obviously you know family and friends, but like I said the way inflation is at the moment in the country and the cost of living just naturally, not just in the UK but sort of all around the world, I’m very comfortable just sort of you know working and living on board the cruise ship even after all this time
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