How Can I Perform On Cruise Ships
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Rob Ondras
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Singer-Songwriter
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Cruise Ship Entertainer
INTERMEDIATE
Does the thought of travelling the world and performing your music for a different captured audience every week sound like fun to you? Do you like high-quality food (and an abundance of it? And best of all, you can get paid well for it? If so, then being a cruise ship entertainer may be perfect for you!
In this video, 12-year cruise entertainer, Rob Ondras explains how to get the gig, what the ships expect, what you should expect and what his life is like on a daily basis at sea.
Insights That Rob Shares In This Video
Forms Of Entertainment
Responsibilities
Getting The Gig
Onboarding
What To Bring
Contract
This Is A Very In-Depth Interview With A LOT More Vital Info!
Rob Ondras
Nashville, Tennessee based singer/songwriter and cruise ship entertainer Rob Ondras has the extraordinary ability to immediately connect with his audience and make them feel right at home. With a vast repertoire of one-thousand-plus songs stored in his memory, Ondras can quickly read his audience and perform each show as if it were tailor-made for them.
At only 5-years old, Rob Ondras began his musical career as one of The Beatles by tearing a picket from his neighbor’s fence, pretending it was a guitar and singing, “She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” while using the roof of his dad’s tool shed as a stage. A few months later, Rob’s dad grew tired of replacing pickets on their neighbor’s fence, so Rob’s mom bought him a Roy Rogers guitar. This propelled 5-year old Rob to the next phase of his career where he entertained family and friends by standing on the fireplace hearth singing Buck Owens songs with his brand new Roy Rogers guitar.
Thanks to a Zenith record player and his mother’s and older sister’s extensive record collections, Rob’s musical tastes were greatly influenced by the albums of a wide range of artists and entertainers from all genres from Country and Western and Folk to Rhythm and Blues and Rock and Roll. Ondras learned as many songs as possible from artists including Hank Williams, Sam Cooke, Buck Owens, Gordon Lightfoot, The Beatles and many more. But, it was the Jim Croce albums he received for his 12th Christmas that began to define Ondras’s musical direction.
Sharpening his skills as a musician, entertainer and songwriter in the Seattle area where he grew up, Rob eventually moved to the Midwest and ultimately to Nashville, Tennessee where he currently resides. Writing for a Christian music publisher, more than forty of Ondras’s songs were published and recorded through Mass Voice Music Publishers. He also received an award for an album by Songs For The Masses that sold over half-a-million units on which three of his own songs were included.
In early 2012, Ondras began performing for cruise lines. Primarily, Rob entertained in various ship lounges. But, after hearing Ondras sing a Neil Diamond set one evening, the musical director requested that Rob take his Neil Diamond Show (“A Hot Diamond Night!”) into the ship’s theater to perform a show with the orchestra. That initial show led to more and more theater performances which led Ondras to create more theater shows such as “American Troubadour ~ The Singer/Songwriters & Story Tellers” and “Sweet Music Man ~ A Tribute to the Music of Kenny Rogers”. Ondras also performs specialty sets as a solo act including: “Solid Gold Country ~ A Tribute To Classic Country Music”, “A Parrot Head Party ~ A Tribute To The Music Of Jimmy Buffett” and “I Got A Name ~ A Tribute To The Music Of Jim Croce”.
Over a span of nearly ten years, several ships and dozens of contracts, Rob has had the pleasure of meeting and performing for thousands of people from all around the globe. Many of which Ondras now counts as life-long friends.