Who Is Greg Myers? Greg's CruiseShip Guide What Are Greg's Clubs? Greg's Available Publications  Join Greg's Friends  Advertising with Greg Why Work On A Cruise Ship   Hi. My name is Greg Myers. Welcome to my site. A site I have spent 2 years putting together to give others the benefit of my experience. Why have I done this? Well that will become more clear shortly.    I'm a basically normal, 6ft tall, 38 year old English guy with no special school education, or special upbringing.   I was born in Billericay in Essex, England and live in Essex now, but in between I spent 12 years away traveling; the last 10 of which were spent doing a job I was paid very nicely for whilst seeing the world at the same time, and it set me up for life!   I had the great fortune to see the world several times over and to enjoy a life doing exactly what I enjoy. This is something I would never have imagined possible when I was younger. It wasn't even something I had considered doing until a short time before I struck lucky and got the opportunity (more about that later). I will admit that I got lucky, but now it doesn't have to be down to luck to get the opportunity or to survive where most fail, and I mean that!

I was paid well for something most would do for nothing: I worked as a DJ on some of the worlds most prestigious and luxurious Cruise Ships and Ocean Liners I was paid to do this for some 10 years and earned a tax free income difficult to match on land. I made friends all over the world I met some the worlds most famous people Does it really get much better than that?   To find out why I have created this site click here If you are already living the dream like I did, then congratulations. I have created a site just for you. Click here to find out more.   To find out how I got lucky click here To find out more about me READ ON                                                                 ♦

How Did Greg Become A DJ? I came from a very musical background. Both my grandfathers played 5 musical instruments and my parents introduced me to lots of different kinds of music and encouraged me to take up an instrument. I played the trumpet in orchestras and bands until I was 16 but then gave it up as my parents could no longer afford my lessons and I knew without them I could not progress any further. It was through a friend that I started to get involved in a local hospital radio station. It cost nothing and got me the free training in broadcasting and sound that I was to use in years to come. It also taught me that I was pretty fearless on a microphone. Especially when we went out to charity events and broadcasted live from town centers. I loved doing it, and loved being part of a community that was giving something back to people. We used to visit the wards of the hospital to collect requests from the patients. It became clear that many people never had a visitor and were quite lonely. Just having that excuse to talk to people was enough to make me realise that it all made a difference.    When Did Greg First Realise that He Wanted To travel The World?  My Father was a Londoner and Mother was, and still is a true Australian. With a huge Australian family; it was not too surprising that I got the urge to travel especially as my parents lived in Barbados in the 60s and never stopped talking about it throughout my childhood. The part that frustrated me was that they never wanted to even go abroad let alone take me there. My first time overseas was on my own when I was 19. I went to visit a pen friend in Germany and after a few days decided to escape and go traveling.  That was it. I was hooked!    Sounds Wonderful Doesn't It?   So Has Greg Ever Had A Tough Time Then? Let me take you back to 1987. Just months after I had started my hobby at my local hospital radio station. I was just 17. It was at this time that things got hard. My parents both ended up out of work and it was difficult for anyone to get a job as 4 million people were officially out of work in Britain. (In reality it was obvious that there were a lot more than that.)   I took a job working in a factory some 3 miles away. I was the only person I knew who had managed to land a job out of school other than a few friends who were doing work experience at £27 per week. My job had lots of problems attached to it though. With no transport to get me there, I had to walk there every morning to be in at work at 8 am and often didn't finish until 10pm at night, at which time I would start my hour long walk home to climb into bed exhausted! The boss was a tyrant who didn't care about those who worked for him ( 2 of whom were over 70 years old!) he would just constantly yell at us to work faster and harder. We weren't allowed a radio to listen to, or a lunch hour (only ten minutes to munch on a snack. to be honest there was nowhere to go there anyway and no lunch facilities).    So maybe you are thinking I was stupid to do it. I can scarcely believe that I did that job for 2 years for just £70 per week ( that's right £70/ US$120/EU$80 per week regardless of the hours). The boss was so tight that he employed only 8 people to make the products, pack them and take the orders (It should have been 28). We had none of the mandatory safety equipment required with the machinery and I had to do all the packing on my own for all of the orders from around the globe, everyday. With no regard as to the laws regarding safety I can't believe I didn't lose a limb in those saws. I sliced my middle finger in half a couple of times and still came to work with them bandaged up. I never took a day off sick no matter how ill I got as I was so scared of the consequences.   I know what you are thinking. If it was so bad why didn't I just leave? With no prospect of another job and with neither of my parents working I felt I had no option or we would just starve. However, in the end I could bear it no more and gave my boss 2 months notice. I thought 2 months wasreasonable but I was left stunned by his response. He said that my choice was to stay as long as it took to train up someone from scratch or leave at the end of the week.   I immediately grabbed the local paper and applied for a sales job selling TV advertising and left at the end of the week to the surprise and dismay of the boss. Revenge!  Now you are thinking; "Greg fell on his feet right?" Unfortunately no. The TV advertising company turned out to be a fraud. They tried to get me to sell a debt collector service instead and although I made some sales, when it came to pay day, they took off with all the money and didn't pay anyone. It left me out of a job and almost flat broke! Eventually, on my last pennies I landed a job in a music shop which paid me £120 per week working 6 days a week selling sheet music. I hated it! After a year I got made redundant. It seemed like my world had ended.    I bet now you are sick of reading how bad it was for me, after all, who has it that great anyway? We all have to go to work and work set hours doing something we don't particularly enjoy and using up hours of our lives we could spend enjoying ourselves right?   Actually, I was to soon realise that it doesn't have to be that way at all, and at this point my life changed. The pay off from my job finally opened doors. I went to Majorca on a week's holiday and it made me realise that I should be working as a DJ. Even though it seemed like a risk I bought my equipment and went on a DJ training course supposedly run by the DMC who were the leading DJ organization at the time. My attitude was one of nothing ventured, nothing gained (I felt I had little left to lose) and always has been so ever since. The course amazingly also turned out to also be a fraud, but I made a good friend on that course who set me up with some local nightclub work and taught me all the techniques necessary to be successful, such as mixing and how to read a crowd. It goes to prove sometimes it's not just what you learn it's who you meet along the way.     So now your thinking; "that's good then, Greg's life went well from here on" Shortly after this time my father tragically died and my mother was working both as an estate agent and in market research to pay off the debts my father had left us. I was doing my best to help and was now earning enough to make a difference but wasn't truly happy. I wanted to see the world and not be stuck in the narrow minded world of English everyday life.   Don't tell me; "Greg, we all have dreams but normal people have to work and take care of their responsibilities". If that's what you are thinking then have I got news for you now? Maybe it is you who should stop dreaming and start living my friend because to do so was the single best decision I have ever made. After all our number 1 responsibility in life is ourselves and nobody else will take responsibility for making our lives a success. What did Greg decide to do about it then? At this point I was 22 and had worked at nearly all my local nightclubs and had worked numerous functions as a DJ and compere. I didn't make a fortune but it had allowed me to use some money to go on a round the world backpacking ticket. It was the cheapest way I knew to see the world even though I had to do whatever to afford it from DJ work down to grape picking in Australia for only a few dollars a day. What made this possible was the Gulf War of 91 which was still going on and tourism was seriously hit so I was able to get my ticket for next to nothing provide I was willing to use flights that landed in the gulf region. There were no real worries in doing this as they kept away form areas being bombed and we never left the airport terminals. In fact the staff at the airport had good sense of humour over the situation. i traveled around for around 6 weeks before teaching the other side of the world and Australasia.   I will never forget the day I arrived in Sydney for the first time. I jumped on a ferry to Manley from circular key (next to the opera house). As the ferry pulled out I was trying to look at a beautiful girl I had spotted, but a ship in the harbour was in the way. It said "Queen Elizabeth II". I couldn't believe this was the QE2 and it was the first time I had ever seen her. She looked beautiful and my attention had been taken by her and not the girl I had previously been looking at. I would never have dreamed that the next time I was to be in Sydney, would be on QE2, my home! Later that day I saw a tender boat taking the rich and famous back to the ship from Darling harbour. A local shop keeper remarked how lucky these people were as they were on a cruise around the world. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be on that World Cruise, or even to sail on that ship!    When did it first occur to Greg that he might want to work on a cruise ship? Whilst in surfers Paradise on the east coast of Australia I was checking into a back packers hostel one evening when I was asked if I wanted to go on a booze cruise that was leaving the harbour almost straight away. I made the impetuous decision to go and was wondering if I had made the right decision. I later realised the decision was one that changed my evening (The funny part was that I didn't know the name of the hostel I was staying at on my way home. I ended up at the wrong one and tried to break into dorm no 3 only to realise I was at the wrong place. It took me hours for me to accidentally come across the right one). I didn't realise it was one that would change my life!   As the boat pulled away a massive fork lighting thunder storm was brewing over the sky scrapers. It was one I would never forget as it was so spectacular. In order to take my mind off the approaching storm I talked to as many people as possible. I met a crowd who were on shore leave from the cruise ship 'Canberra' (A beautiful P&O ship launched in the 60s but sadly taken out of commission and destroyed in the late 1990's. I saw her just days before and my heart sunk as this was the ship where it had all started). They told me all about cruise ship life and I realised how much fun they were having. It was clear they were all earning good money also. I spent the whole evening partying with that crowd and was starting to feel a bit envious of them by the end. Their life seemed glamous in comparison and people seemed not to have a care in the world. They all appeared to be just getting on with having a great life.The truth was that they were!    My back packing days lasted about 2 years and it was clear I had been bitten by a travel bug that clearly wasn't going to go away. I ended up going back to Majorca, Spain and was lucky enough to land work the day I arrived and worked in bars and clubs for a few months but I never had either the time nor the money to really enjoy it. From my apartment I saw cruise ships passing by everyday. It was then that I realised this was what I wanted to do.   So why did Greg not just go and get a cruise ship job? Initially, I didn't find it easy to know how to apply as there was no real Internet in those days and nobody wanted to help (this was 1992). It was only when I had given up hope that I was quite coincidentally introduced to the agent booking entertainment for Cunard cruise line. I had to wait for my opportunity and worked on car ferries from Hull to Holland for 3 months before finally getting my chance. Even though it meant getting straight off the ferry one day to arrive in Barcelona the next, I took the chance and never looked back in 10 years.

My first week at sea didn't go so well. In fact it was disastrous and hilarious also. The full story together with other stories of my time at sea and lots of hints as how to avoid the pitfalls myself and many others fell for, and how to make the best of the life, are in my ebook available for FREE if you join my 'Gold Club'. (Click here  for more details).   I got to enjoy every facet of cruise ship life from the wild crew parties to seeing the ports and meeting the people. My job involved running quizzes, commentating on events going on, introducing shows, running karaoke and of course doing a disco every night in the night club. A lot of my job was social as well as the need to be adaptable. Whilst working on QE2 I often took people for a show round of the ship. Some of the people were film producers to Prime ministers of different countries. No matter what job you do at sea, you get to meet the people and see the world. There are challenges such as living in very confined quarters and the different conditions but nothing on land compares to the experience. I can say without shame that I had the time of my life!   Could you do the same? All you need is to know how to succeed and have the right attitude. If I could do it without any help then do you think you can do it with the right guidance?   Truth is I managed to be at the right place at the right time to have all these experiences. But it's now a lot easier if you know what you are doing, to make the best of this chance of a lifetime. During my time at sea I spent many years working in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Canaries but also got to visit remote Islands in the South Pacific, experience the contrasting sceneries and cultures of South America, South Africa, and Australasia. I also got to know cities such as New York, Sydney and Hong Kong as if they were my real home. I went on 3 complete world cruises and I have estimated that, eliminating any flights,  I've been round the world effectively 12 times. I met many famous people including Andre Previn, Christopher Lee, Petula Clark, Sean Been, Stephen Hendry, Norman Wisdom, Richard Dreyfus, Carol Thatcher, Gene Hackman to name only a few of hundreds, but undoubtedly the most amazing experience was meeting Nelson Mandella on the 1998 QE2 world cruise. I will talk more about this in my ebook.     To learn what is really involved you need to take a look at this. Click here for an amazing offer     Related Links:  Why did I create this site? Home Greg's job Club Gold member Contents An Amazing offer Go Gold Today

© 2006-2008 onoceanwaves.com. All rights reserved