How I Made Extra Money Working on Cruise Ships (And You Can Too)

Before I started working on cruise ships, I always wondered if there were ways to make extra money on board. Turns out, there are – and I tried a few!

Most crew members are looking to save as much money as possible during their contracts. We get free room and board, so it’s actually pretty easy to bank your salary if you’re smart about it. But what if you could make extra money on top of your regular pay? That’s what I wanted to figure out.

I tried two different side hustles while working on ships, and they both worked – just in very different ways. From printing photos for homesick crew members to building a website in my tiny cabin, read on to learn what worked, what didn’t, and what you might be able to do yourself.

The reality of having free time on cruise ships

One thing people don’t realize about working on cruise ships is that you actually have quite a bit of downtime – if you use it right.

Sure, you’re working every day for months at a time with no days off. But depending on your position, you might only work 6-8 hours a day. That leaves a lot of hours to kill.

Some crew members spend all their free time partying in the crew bar (and believe me, a lot do). Others explore ports whenever they can. But after a few contracts, I started to get restless. I wanted to do something productive with all that extra time.

That’s when I started thinking about side hustles.

The challenge was figuring out what would actually work on a ship. You can’t exactly run a drop-shipping business when you have terrible internet and no permanent address. You can’t do most freelance work when your connection drops every time the ship moves.

So I had to get creative.

Side hustle #1: Printing photos for crew members

This one was simple, low-tech, and surprisingly profitable.

I noticed that a lot of crew members would take photos on their phones – at ports, at crew parties, during their time off – but they had no way to print them. We were all far from home, missing our families and friends, and digital photos just weren’t the same as having something physical to look at.

So I bought a small, compact photo printer online during a vacation between contracts. It was one of those portable printers that connects to your phone via Bluetooth – super easy to use and small enough to fit in my already-cramped cabin.

How it worked:

People would send me photos from their phones (or come to my cabin with their phone), and I’d print them out on the spot. I charged a small fee per photo – just enough to cover the cost of the photo paper and make a little profit.

It wasn’t a lot per print, maybe a dollar or two, but it added up fast. Crew members loved having physical photos to stick on their cabin walls, send home to family, or keep as souvenirs.

Why it worked:

• Low startup cost. The printer was maybe $150, and photo paper was cheap.
• No internet needed. Everything worked offline via Bluetooth.
• High demand. Crew members are always taking photos and missing home.
• Easy to scale. Word spread fast in the crew areas, and I had regular customers within days.

The downsides:

It wasn’t all smooth sailing (pun intended). The printer would jam sometimes. I’d run out of photo paper and have to wait until the next port to buy more. And storing all that paper in my tiny cabin was a pain.

But overall? Totally worth it. I probably made an extra $300-$500 per contract doing this, which doesn’t sound like a lot – but when you’re already getting free room and board, that’s pure profit.

Side hustle #2: Starting WorkingOnCruiseShips.com

This one was a longer game – and way more challenging.

After a few contracts, I realized I had a lot of insider knowledge about working on cruise ships that people on land were desperate to learn. I’d get emails and Facebook messages all the time from people asking:

• “How do I get a job on a cruise ship?”
• “What’s it really like working on ships?”
• “How much money can I save?”

So I thought, why not create a website and try to help people while making some money on the side?

I bought the domain WorkingOnCruiseShips.com and started writing articles in my cabin during my downtime. Late at night after my shift, or during sea days when we weren’t in port, I’d sit at my tiny desk and write about everything I’d learned.

The challenges:

This was not easy.

The ship’s internet was absolutely terrible. It was expensive, slow, and would cut out constantly. Uploading a single blog post could take hours. Sometimes I’d write an entire article, try to publish it, and lose the whole thing because the connection dropped.

I also had no idea what I was doing. I’d never built a website before. I didn’t know anything about SEO, email lists, or monetization. I was just winging it and learning as I went.

Once, while working on cruise ships…

I stayed up until 3 AM one night trying to upload photos to a blog post. The internet kept timing out, and I had to be up at 6 AM for my shift.

I finally got it published, crawled into bed, and then had to drag myself to work a few hours later looking like absolute death. My supervisor asked if I was sick. “Just tired,” I said. Worth it? At the time, I wasn’t sure.

Why I kept going:

Even though it was frustrating, I could see the potential. People were finding my articles through Google. I was getting emails from readers thanking me for the advice. A few even told me they got hired on ships because of something they read on my site.

That felt amazing.

I wasn’t making much money yet – maybe a few bucks here and there from ads – but I knew if I kept at it, it could turn into something real.

The long-term payoff:

Here’s the thing about building a website: it takes time. A long time.

I didn’t see any real money from WorkingOnCruiseShips.com until after I’d left ships and moved back on land. But once I was able to work on it consistently with decent internet, it started to grow.

The articles I’d written in my cabin years earlier were still bringing in traffic. People were still finding them on Google, signing up for my email list, and reaching out with questions.

Eventually, the site started making real money – enough that it became a legitimate income stream. But it took years of grinding it out in terrible conditions with no immediate payoff.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. But you need to know going in that this kind of side hustle is a marathon, not a sprint.

The long-long-long term payoff – Maverick Side Hustles!

In fact, I eventually started a new website called Maverick Side Hustles where people can find learn the skills they need for an online side hustle, with actual suggestions on what side hustles they can do that need those skills. You can check it out here. Now that the internet is faster on ships, this gives people a much better opportunity then I ever had for online gigs!

What other crew members were doing

I wasn’t the only one trying to make extra money. Here are a few other side hustles I saw crew members doing:

Selling snacks and drinks. Some crew would buy bulk snacks in port and resell them in the crew areas at a markup. Instant noodles, candy bars, energy drinks – stuff people wanted late at night when the crew mess was closed.

Doing hair and nails. I knew a few crew members who were good at hair or nails and would charge for cuts, colors, or manicures in their cabins. Word spread fast, and they always had appointments.

Tutoring English. If you were a native English speaker, you could tutor crew members who wanted to improve their English. I had friends who charged $10-$20 per hour for this.

Selling duty-free items. Some crew had access to duty-free shops and would buy items at a discount, then resell them to other crew at a small profit.

Fitness coaching. The gym-obsessed crew members would offer personal training sessions or meal prep advice for a fee.

Photography. With so many places to sell your photos online now, taking pictures of exotic locations around the world is a quick and easy one – a saw a few crew members doing this, including myself!

None of these were going to make you rich, but they all brought in extra cash with minimal effort.

The rules (and how to not get in trouble)

Here’s the important part: you need to be careful about what side hustles you do on ships.

Most cruise lines have policies against crew members running businesses on board. They don’t want you competing with ship services or causing distractions.

So if you’re going to do a side hustle, keep it low-key. Don’t advertise it publicly. Don’t interfere with your work. And definitely don’t do anything that competes directly with the ship’s revenue (like selling drinks when the ship is selling drinks).

My photo printing business was small and personal – I wasn’t running a storefront or taking business away from the ship. My website was something I worked on in my own time and didn’t involve other crew members at all.

Use common sense, and you’ll be fine.

Should you try a side hustle on ships?

If you’re working on cruise ships and have extra time, why not?

You’re already in a unique situation where your living expenses are covered. Any extra money you make is pure savings. And if you’re smart about it, you can use that time to build skills or income streams that continue long after you leave ships.

The photo printing hustle was great for quick, easy cash. The website was a long-term play that eventually paid off big time.

Both taught me valuable lessons about entrepreneurship, problem-solving, and working with limited resources.

My advice:

• Start small. Don’t invest a ton of money upfront. Test the idea first.
• Solve a real problem. The best side hustles help people with something they actually need.
• Be patient. Some side hustles pay off immediately. Others take years. Know which one you’re signing up for.
• Don’t let it interfere with your job. Your main priority is still your ship contract. Side hustles should fit around that, not the other way around.

The bottom line

Working on cruise ships gives you a weird combination of limited resources (terrible internet, tiny cabin space, no car) and abundant opportunity (free time, captive audience, low expenses).

If you’re creative and willing to put in the work, you can absolutely make extra money while at sea.

I printed photos in my cabin and made a few hundred bucks per contract. I built a website in terrible conditions that eventually became a real business.

Could you do something similar? Maybe. Could you come up with something even better? Probably.

The crew members who succeed with side hustles are the ones who see a need, figure out a simple solution, and just go for it.

So if you’re sitting in your cabin right now wondering how to make extra cash, stop wondering and start trying.

The worst that happens? It doesn’t work and you’re back where you started.

The best that happens? You build something that keeps paying you long after you’ve left ships for good.