deckhand

boat captain

server

captain

restaurant manager

Hornblower Group

Unfortunately, after working here for over two and a half years I understand this brand is nothing to be desired. Due to inconsistent work ethic, insurmountable turnover, poor leadership and abominable pay, this company is unable to hire and retain leaders. 

This cultural issues within the brand are so overwhelming that despite a great training and development team, hard working sales associates, and a decisive expansion plan, it is nearly impossible to align with such alarmingly contradictory ideas on moral values (COVID policies), people organization and employee respect, not to mention, poor proprietary CRM technology and debasing ideas of employee respect. 

Hopefully, in time and with continued growth/ outside psychological opinion, this will be a more inclusive workplace. It is my hope that this will soon be a place where people can find joy in his/her/their work environment. For now, physical brand recognition and expansion has been the focus, to the detriment of community values and employee confidence. 
Currently, employees are leaving in droves and it isn’t simply due to the ailing cruise industry. 

IF YOU DO CHOOSE TO WORK HERE:
- Be very alert and affirm confidence within yourself during your career here as mental health is low and department v department aggression peaks during high pressure quarter points. 
- Take advantage of growth opportunities and immediate promotions within 3-6 months. 
- Be very discreet with personal, family and health information. We have a track record of mishandling confidential employee information.
- Enjoy the work/life balance availed to you via the many remote career opportunities. 
- Enjoy cruising on the water during company events as they occur once every quarter. 

Overall, it’s a huge work in progress as it seems the brand looks to go public soon. Maybe come me on board and stay until the change so you may be apart of the huge perks that come to employees within a newly created IPO brand. Even still, keep your wits about you and choose the career that fits you best. If it is something you can endure, I believe, with renewed leadership and organization, this brand could be as improved and become as great as it appears to be on its resume lol. 

Happy Job Hunting! 

This company contributes to an enormous amount of waste. . Glass and trash are thrown into the same recepticle by servers who don't take pride in their work, clearly they just don't care. There is so much garbage after a charter disposed of recklessly Servers do not follow food handler rules, neither does kitchen crew. Quality and supplies available is low. Nothing fresh coming out of the Hornblower boat bar except a lime or lemon garnish. Servers are promoted to be event managers with no previous management experience resulting in an inexperienced management staff. no benefits for food and beverage employees becasue the company keeps the hours part time for 95% of employees. It's misleading because  the rule is you have to acculumate a certian amount of hours in a calendar year to be eligible for benefits. With the job being mostly seasonal at this port one will never acculmulate enough hours to benefit from a healthcare plan coverage. The company demands full availability ot close to it during the busy time but provide little to no work hours during the slow times. The company does simply not offer full time to most of the food and beverage employees.
Cons: I have witnessed the cooks handle the food they give to staff and customers bare hands no gloves so that is iffy, Food staff do not follow food handler rules, management does not enforce food handler rules, garbage and glass is mixed cause people dont care to enforce recycling, not organic, not GMO free, quality of food supplies is low and filled with chemicals, kitchen crew is unhappy most of the time, Nothing fresh coming out of the bar except a lime or lemon garnish, Servers are promoted to be event managers with no previous experience resulting in micro managing of veteran staff and lack of experience in resolving customers problems.

I would first like to state that these statements are only valid for the Northern California region; this company is large and its other ports function largely independently. 

But as someone who worked first as an hourly crewmember and eventually as a salaried manager, I can say that the divide (at least in my department and region, I know others were different) between the capabilities of the two tiers could not have been more stark. While we certainly had poor hourly crewmembers and a few capable managers, as a general rule the lower-ranking crew could be counted on to have a more sophisticated and practical knowledge of our operations than those who were allegedly giving them orders.

Suffice it to say, such is not how things are supposed to operate.

A truly astounding amount of counterproductive territorial behavior, emotional overreaction, and favoritism also characterized the behavior of upper and middle management. And while I feel bad on the one hand for painting all managers with the same brush as there were and indeed still are managers there who buck that trend, I must discourage anyone from applying to this position who is looking for a longer term commitment; if my experience is to be any guide, you will either suffer from enormous stress or find yourself having to become detached and disengaged as a matter of self-preservation.

A typical shift includes arriving to your scheduled yacht (it changes almost every shift) 3-5 hours before the guests arrive, give (or receive) the tasks you must accomplish before setting out for the charter; once the guests arrive, you continue your designated tasks - serving, bartending, running, etc.  When all the guests have left, you clear all the glassware and dinnerware, then reset the yacht for the next charter - set up the correct amount of tables and chairs, re-linen all tables, make sure all dishes are cleaned, etc.  
It is a very fun and relaxing working environment.  I looked forward to going to work everyday.  The managers were approachable and easy to talk to.  If any issues arose, I felt comfortable and confident to speak to the person directly without any problems.  
It is a part-time job, so the hours are minimal.  And the amount of hours you're scheduled to work are dependent upon how many charters have been booked for that week.  January and February are the slowest months; November and December are the busiest.


First to be fair I was a victim of the COVID-19 break out when these folks decided to let me go. But before then my position was a new position (only 13 months old) and I was the third different person they hired for it. That should of been the first red flag for me. They're expectations for the role were unrealistic as they searched for "the perfect person". As the local IT support I had to cover 3 offices Baltimore, DC and VA with a schedule that was not flexible at all. A lot of outdated equipment on the cruise ships that required daily maintenance. No real training, even though they knew I had no experience supporting cruise lines before. Work culture was click based so if one person didn't like you, the whole office didn't. This company didn't value my overall experience and let me go when the pandemic started, but it was a blessing because I found a much more stable job with a better prepared company. Hornblower is a looks good on the surface until you get behind closed doors. 

First of all, this was one of the dirtiest commissaries I have ever stepped foot in. The food was not properly stored, unsanitary conditions! They leave piles of dirty dishes in the sink. They didn't have the proper hook up for soap or sanitizer. Food was stored in open cans in the fridge. Raw and cooked food was stored on the floor. Nothing covered, dated or labeled. 

Now lets talk about the gally on the boat! On one boat the walkin was 73F! They had the floor drain trap sitting in the hand washing sink which was also the food preparation sink. None of the dishwashers worked on the boats. Water pressure was low, not even temp! 

Okay the straw that broke the camels back was when we were serving burnt filet mignon and pouring brown water on top. The "Chef" was blanching pre cut crudite carrots and sending them out for service. They also were using yellow romaine lettuce for the "ceaser sald" which had purple cabbage and purple ceaser dressing. I wish I could attach pictures so you could see!  They are a joke to work for.

Working on the water can be nice whenever you get the fairly uncommon opportunities to actually take the time to enjoy the views and where you are.  But overall the pacing and organization make it difficult to actually enjoy any of those perks.
Training is pretty lackluster with managers that often don’t care too much about you as a person. I don’t blame them being scattered though, considering the insane amount of people there are for them to juggle, especially with all the turnover.
There are technically free meals but you often have to fight for them/remind anyone around you to get them because often there is no good time at all, since there aren’t technically any breaks at all.

I don’t exactly regret working there for a while with what I learned with stress management but the tips as a bartender were terrible unless you’ve worked there long enough to get the extremely few types of nights to get anything comparable to the vast majority of bartending jobs.

Being a Hornblower ticket agent is a rewarding experience. On a typical day, you come in at 8:30 and leave at 5:30 unless there are night crusies to which you would leave at 9:30. You take the customers ticket and provide customer service regarding the surrounding area as well asany inquiries on tourist attractions. Management is sometimes lax but most of the time is very strict. Considering this is a fairly easy job its hard to understand why. Co-workers make the work encironment enjoyable so you dont dread coming to work each day but any assignments still get completed in a timely fashion. The hardest part is dealing with some customers but I'd say that's expected within every workplace dealinng with custoomer service. The hours are great during the busy season but during the off season you can see up to maybe 7-15 hours per week. The most enjoyable part is providing an excellent experinece for the tourist and talking to them about where they are from and what they love about NYC.

I worked here for just about two years and i really enjoyed it. We rode the yachts almost everyday as employees and it was a lot of fun. As a part of the food and beverage team we executed the parties for clients every cruise. Some went well but some didn't, I didn't want to leave this job but i had too. The management was good but needed some work it was obvious the company cared for the managers much more than the regular employees. Overall the company is good, it is up and coming with a bright future. I don't have any hard feelings for this company and i wish them all the best. In a nutshell the boats are dirty inside, the food is mediocre, the pay is well and the benefits are good for the managers. For the part time employees they don't get much love and they make up a large percentage of the Guest services team. As a customer they are very overpriced for the service they offer. If you like boats and like working on the water, this might be the place for you.

If I could give a 1/2 half star I would. It's no surprise that the guests have low reviews. After all, this is a reflection of the company culture. The call center schedulers need retraining or basic math skills: why would you not schedule enough staff to handle the increased call volume? Why? Because you only care about making money at the expense of overwhelmed workers! New methods of operations are implemented, which includes added responsibilities at the same pay rate. This causes burnout, especially when you get a different work schedule each week. This does not allow for any normal work-life balance. The gaslighting from management could start a forest fire. I'd never pay for any excursions with this company. They only care about warm bodies or bodies with some semblance of a pulse to be overworked and underpaid in the call center. And the commission plan? Laughable! 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Deckhand 131 salaries reported	$19.74 per hour
Boat captain 14 salaries reported	$47.13 per hour
Server 85 salaries reported	$17.23 per hour
Captain 52 salaries reported	$34.69 per hour
Restaurant manager 32 salaries reported	$23.34 per hour

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