Being a stewardess means handling the safety, cleanliness, and maintaining the standard of interior and interior services on a yacht. It takes a professional approach and attitude to handle your role as a stewardess. In this article, we will be exploring stewardess hierarchy and their responsibilities on a superyacht.
Who is a Stewardess?
A stewardess is an essential part of a superyacht’s crew. They are responsible for interior safety, maintenance, and cleanliness. In addition to that, they are also directly accountable for treating the guests with a professional attitude and appearance. This includes tending to their requests, special needs, and keeping their accommodations clean and tidy.
Stewardesses, like deckhands, are one of the most basic positions on a yacht.
A stewardess job may look like a common hospitality job, but there is a catch. The superyacht industry is full of wealthy, elite-class people coming from all over the world. They have their own personalities, cultural backgrounds, and cuisine culture. Tending to such varieties on one single yacht can be frustratingly challenging. However, a hardened stewardess knows how to deal with such situations with grace and skills.
This is exactly why even a basic stewardess’ salary is about 2500 Euro, even if she or he is a fresher.
How does the Stewardess Hierarchy work on a Superyacht?
Stewardess
This is the most basic role (yet essential) on the Stewardess Hierarchy scale, simply referred to as ‘stewardess’ on a superyacht. Their basic salary starts from 2000-2500 USD or Euro, depending on what kind of yacht you are working on. Additionally, they also earn hefty tips during a busy season.
As a stewardess, you will most likely report to the chief stewardess, especially if your crew size is small. The chief stewardess is responsible for overseeing whether the interior management and quality of service are up to the elite standard. However, on larger superyachts with larger crews, you will be either responding to a Head of Service or Head of Interior, depending on what your responsibilities are as a novice stewardess.
Head of Service
The Head of Service personnel works with a small group of stewardesses to maintain the quality of service and fulfil any special requests made by guests. They are also responsible for training the stewardesses working under them, showing them the ropes around their responsibilities. As a Head of Service, they are the advisors and overseers.
If and whenever necessary, they will actively partake in providing services to guests as well or assist other stewardesses with their responsibilities. By hierarchy, a Head of Service directly reports to the Chief Stewardess. There can be multiple Heads of Services on a superyacht managing different small teams of stewardesses.
To get a general idea regarding this job description, take a look at this job posting.
Head of Interior
Just like the name suggests, the Head of Interior is directly responsible for managing the interior. This ranges from keeping an accommodation “jazzy” to actually designing and maintaining the main interior of the superyacht, such as the lobby, dining area, pool and party areas, and so on. This will be unique for each superyacht as every superyacht is different.
Hence, being a Head of Interior requires superlative imagination skills, an impeccable sense of design, and a great eye for detail. Similar to Heads of Service, a Head of Interior also works with a small team of stewardesses and (sometimes) interior designers to make a superyacht look beautiful and mesmerising.
Superyacht Times have covered a very intensive article regarding this role. Take a look!
Chief Stewardess
The Chief Stewardess is like a captain of stewardesses that oversees the entire interior operation on a superyacht. All the Heads of Interior and Service are bound to report to them directly. The Chief is the ultimate stewardess bagging tons of valuable experience and a great sense of knowledge to handle even the trickiest of situations related to a superyacht’s interior operation.
As mentioned earlier, a Chief Stewardess may directly oversee other stewardesses instead of ‘Heads’ themselves in a small crew.
A Chief Stewardess is responsible for directly reporting to the captain.
To get a better idea regarding a Chief Stewardess’ job description, take a look here!
Conclusion
A stewardess is an honourable hospitality role that requires a dynamic personality, graceful skills, and a positive attitude. Stewardesses earn a hefty amount of salaries and tips in one charter rotation, making it a highly demanding job. Also, climbing the stewardess hierarchy ladder can take years as the job description demands more out of you. However, if you are determined, this can be rewarding to you in the long run.
If you wish to be a stewardess on a superyacht, we also recommend you take the Stewardess Course. It will prepare you for the challenges that a stewardess generally faces.
Related: How to Become a Stewardess on a Superyacht?
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