Transportation and documents required:

As mentioned above somewhere, the agency /liner will most often provide you with flight tickets to-n-fro your home. There are cases however, where they will reimburse you the ticket later, or do not offer you the transport cost at all. Hence, you should be prepared to reach the ship's starting point on your own, lest you will miss a good employment chance for lack of funds or ability to reach in time to join your duties. Once you are on the board of the ship, be sure you will return to the place you started from unless it is mentioned that the ship is making a one-way trip. In that case the liner will provide you a return air ticket or book you passage on another ship for your return.

The agency will in the majority of cases provide you with all the travel papers that will be required for the proposed trip, i.e. visas, insurance, merchant mariner's document, etc. You will however, need to have a valid passport for this purpose. The agency will also take care of any entry and exit formalities that are required by any and all the countries that the ship will cross during its itinerary; the same goes for work permit as the case requires.

Besides the passport you will need to carry with you some secondary means of identifications such as driver's license, student id, voter's card, etc. You will need to carry with you a few recent color photographs in case you will need special id when leaving the ship in any of foreign ports you are going to visit.

Obtaining a passport is easy and free of any complications today. There are a number of agencies which can help you in getting your passport. In order to find one close to your area, you either go to the yellow pages in your telephone book, or run a search on the Internet. Either way, you are bound to get an agency within 10 minutes of your search. Look up for the National Passport Information Center in your area for guidance and help.

What you will need to apply for a passport:

• Proof of citizenship, i.e. previous passport or birth certificate or citizenship certificate
• Identity proof - this could be your valid driver's license, previous passport, citizenship papers, etc
• Two identical passport size photographs (size 2x2)
• $65 as the fee for the issue of the passport which will be valid for ten years
• For those who have been issued their previous passport in the last 12 years, after they completed 16 years of age, form DSP-82 can be used (and sent by mail) along with the old passport.
• In case of emergency - and that is when the travel is within the next 5 days - rush service can be requested for. This will involve a hike in the passport fee; in normal cases the passport processing will take about 2-3 weeks
• Your passport will normally be collected and kept in safe custody by the purser of the ship for the whole period of the cruise. The ship will be wholly responsible for each and every of its crew members' movements and safety from starting point to return.

The above are intended to act as a mini-guide for those who are keen to make a career on the ships. For more detailed information, get in touch with the placement agencies that provide the jobs you seek, in person or over the Net. Best of luck in your job hunt!