Interview with That Happy Italian: Cruise Director with Celebrity Cruises, Giuseppe Moschella

P: Did you envision yourself as a Cruise Director before Sue planted that seed? 

G: My boss – he wouldn’t like this answer because he was a Cruise Director at the time and now he’s my boss – but when I first saw him, and I went to the theater, I was like, “What’s that job? What does that guy do?” And someone answered, “Oh, he’s the Cruise Director.” He’s in front of stage and does nothing for a living. I want to be that. 

That was my first ever time entering a theater on Celebrity Cruises. 

When I got the job I realized we actually do a lot of things. 

P: So you didn’t know that the position of Cruise Director even existed when you started as an interpreter? 

G: No! No idea! Nothing. 

I didn’t even know what cruises looked like. I read about it in magazines. I had seen some YouTube videos so I knew what they looked like. But all I heard was bad press because I’m Italian and Italian cruises were not going well. 

So in Italy, they weren’t speaking highly of cruises. But when I got to Celebrity it was a completely different world. 

P: One would assume that you pick up languages easily, but do you think you do, or is it hard for you? 

It happens for me very quickly. I had an injury on stage as I was performing about 10 years ago. I tore my meniscus, my cross bone, my tendons – everything that you could break on a leg. And I had to do something because I was laying in a bed for six months. 

I decided to learn English. Then I started learning Spanish. 

Then I started downloading all these apps on the computer, because at the time I didn’t have an iPhone. And that’s when I started learning other languages as well.  I was really interested in languages because I wanted to leave Italy. I love Italy, but I wanted to go somewhere else. I wanted to explore. 

So I was learning a little bit of German, because I thought, “Oh Germany looks so cool! They have these huge concerts, and have these amazing DJs – maybe I want to be a DJ in Germany.” 

Then I was learning Spanish ‘cause I was like, “Oooh, Spanish is the most spoken language all around the world.” There’s Mandarin, Spanish, and then English. 

And I was learning English because I wanted to live in America. It was my dream. I thought, “One day I’m just going to move to the states to live and work there.” This is one of the reasons I started working for Celebrity because I wanted to start working for an American company. 

P: So you spoke German before you applied to school in Berlin? 

G: I had to. They are very, very rigid. So I had to pass an interview but the interview was with three wise guys who were not as wise but they looked wise. And they spoke very high German to me. I had to sit through it on Skype and I thought, “Oh my god this is so hard. Why are they using these words that nobody uses? This is archaic German.” But I had to. 

My university was in Potsdam, which is 20 minutes from Berlin. It’s a very high-end university. 

It’s where the movie studio is where they filmed Inglorious Bastards and some of the most amazing films, filmed in Germany. So I really wanted to get to that area so I could get into the cinema world in Germany and learn more about journalism, TV, and all the communication and media they had in Germany. 

It was tough but I made it. I was the first one to graduate from my class, actually. I was 21 when I graduated and my colleagues who made it, who were in the same course with me, graduated when they were 22 or something. 

P: Speaking of languages, is there a time when speaking six languages helped you connect with guests in a special way? 

G: Always. Every single day. 

I was talking to a friend yesterday and we were in France. We went off the ship, and as we were out, there was a guest who saw me. He said, “Giuseppe, do you speak French by any chance?” I’m like, “Yes.” 

And he was buying stuff so I helped the guest speak French. And then I connected with the guest on a different level ‘cause I gave him a hand outside of the ship and he was like, “Thank you so much for offering me a hand outside, on free time.” 

So I was speaking English and French already that day.  

Then there was this couple from Germany. They didn’t speak much English and they knew I studied in Germany. So we always chat in German, so that day I was talking in German to them as well. 

And I didn’t notice. I didn’t think of how many languages I was speaking on the same day until later, I went to join the Brazilians on the ship. 

And one Brazilian told me, “Giuseppe, I want to apply for Activity Host. I want to work on your team in the future. Can you help me out?” So we were speaking Portuguese as I was coaching him what to say in English for the interview that I was going to give him later and film it. So I was already using a fourth language. 

Plus, on the ship, I speak Spanish to some crew as a joke. Every now and then I walk by the crew mess and just yell something in Spanish and they laugh about it. Because there’s a lot of Latinos on the ship. 

And that day, since I was always hanging out with my best friend, he said, “You always complain you never get to speak all the languages you know on the ship,” because most of the guests are Americans, “But today you just spoke all the language as you were with me.” 

And I was like, “Oh yes, you’re actually right. I forgot about it.” I do it every day but complain because I will sometimes say, “Oh maybe I should be working for another company because on Celebrity I only speak English when I can speak all these other languages,” and the guy was like, “You actually did speak all the languages. Sometimes you speak it with crew but you’re still using it.” 

The crew connects with you on a different level. If there’s some new crew member that has a problem – because at the end of the day I’m the head of the department – so there might be a guy who has to go home because something happened in the family. And he will come to me and if he can speak his own language he connects with me on a different level. He feels more comfortable and confident. 

And it happens. Especially today, you never know. Something may arise last minute and you want to be there for your own crew. 

P: Is there a language you want to learn next? 

G: Before I joined Celebrity Cruises I really wanted to learn Mandarin. Then I realized I didn’t have time because I was always on a ship and exploring the world discovering everything. I want to learn American from “WISCONSIN!”

P: Ha! We like your American accent and desire to learn different dialects. 

G: I definitely want to learn different dialects from the states ‘cause I can playfully make fun of Germans by using their own dialects depending on the area or the region of Germany. I can make fun of Italians in that way too, by using different dialects depending on the region. But I’m not that familiar with American dialects. 

I hear so many on the ship – like sometimes I’m talking to people from Alabama or New Jersey – but I think it would be so funny if I’m talking to a guest who tells me, “I’m from Minnesota,” and I can say a few words like I was from Minnesota but with an Italian accent.

P: Can you speak to how your role as Cruise Director extends beyond someone’s impression of what a Cruise Director does on paper? 

G: I have different duties on the ship. A lot of people think that a Cruise Director is just a person on stage who hosts the shows. 

But right now, at the moment, I have 92 entertainers on the ship – singers, dancers, acrobats, musicians. I’m their manager. I’m the supervisor. 

I’m the one who makes their schedules, approves, confirms, books ship venues, and does a lot of things with them. That’s the side that nobody sees but I really enjoy it and I love being in the preparation and the making of it. 

I’m proud of the process when it works well and then I see the ratings and I see guests happy about it. And they say, “Oh my god, that was fantastic!” and I say, “Yes, me and my team did that together.” It’s a lot of little satisfactions that we get. 

I love the communication with the shoreside office. A lot of people don’t know about this – they don’t even know we have a “shoreside.” Because for them, Celebrity is just a phone line that they call to book a cruise and get some information. They don’t know we have people we are in contact with every single day. 

People where we share our experiences and say, “This is happening on the ship, and we’re going to have many Latino guests on the ship. Can we get a guest entertainer who speaks some Spanish?” There is a lot of planning that the guests don’t know about. And that’s very interesting to see the planning operating on the ship across the whole ship, with every single venue. 

Seeing the guests’ reactions is very beautiful. I love people around me because I just love people. 

And I’m the same in my town when I’m home. I’m home in my town, and I just go in the morning to have coffee in one place. Then I get another coffee in another place because the other coffee guy may get offended if I don’t have coffee in his place. 

And then I just go and talk around…and everybody knows me. Like, they know Giuseppe’s coming! They know around what time I’ll show up – but they know I’m always late because I end up talking to everybody. It’s always been the same in my town. 

It was the same in university because I would always go around and talk to everybody. I’ve been entertaining people since I was born. At school, I was the guy who was famous for telling jokes to the teacher, even if the teacher didn’t like them. I was famous for being the first guy who created some videos to promote student activities. I was the president of the school who would organize all the activities and do everything for the school for the students. 

So I’ve always been that type of guy. Here, I just do it on a more elevated level. A more professional level and I do it in a way that I connect with so many people around the world and it’s beautiful.