Internship Experience

In order to sell this extraordinary experience, interns will first have to experience it for themselves!  All interns go on a training cruise during first week, getting a feel for what exactly they will be selling (you get paid to cruise!). This cruise is not only a great way to get to know the product, but also a fun way to meet your fellow interns (and share a drink if you’re 21). Below is a picture of a group of our interns from 2016 on their training cruise.

There are lots of other fun events we will do as an intern class throughout the summer.  In order to get the full Chicago experience, we will all also go on a double decker bus tour downtown and a Seadog excursion on the Chicago River! These fun events not only help you enjoy the intern experience, they will also help you connect with fellow interns and staff.  Check out this picture of the full 2016 intern class on the Seadog Excursion below!

As interns will learn during training, Entertainment Cruises strives to ensure that guests have the best experience possible on board its cruises. Similarly, the Sales and Guest Services Internship seeks to provide interns with the best educational and professional experience during their time with the program. To enhance the internship experience, the program focuses on five key components: Sales; Guest Services; Company Culture; Networking; and, Intern Projects.

Training is essential to the success of an intern, which is why the training program is slotted for the first five days of the internship. Interns will learn about the company and OSS and there is hands-on training to become familiar with the reservation system, EBMS. During training, interns will also learn and practice the essential sales skills to convert the maximum number of calls to sales and upsell enhancement packages to guests. Throughout the Summer, follow-up training sessions will take place to ensure that interns stay up-to-date on any changes to cruises or the reservation process. Read more below about the training program:

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Mike Jucaban
2013 Sales and Guest Services Intern
Email Marketing Specialist, Entertainment Cruises

Day 1 – When I woke up this morning I was super excited for the first day of the internship. I had no idea what to wear so I decided to go with khakis and a polo. When I arrived at the call center, Kelly directed me to the training room where I met Benia. Other DePaul students in my training group arrived and we submitted all of our paperwork to Benia. We were then introduced to the lovely Taylor Potts, our training supervisor. Taylor went through a PowerPoint that showed pictures of management and supervisors, went over OSS, rules, and compensation. We ended the day by walking over to Navy Pier to tour the Spirit, Mystic Blue, and Odyssey (learning the product we’ll be selling). It was hotter than ever outside so thank goodness I decided to wear a polo instead of a long sleeve button down. We walked back to the office and concluded the day.

Day 2 – There were problems with the projector bulb this day so we moved training to the large conference room in the corporate office. We spent the day learning about all of our cruises and packages (gaining product knowledge), sales skills/technique, and some EBMS. We also role played with each other to get practice on what it would be like talking to guests. Becuase of our smaller training group, we did day 2 and 3 training in one day. It seemed like a lot to take in at once. We ended the day by shawdowing, and Kyle gave me some tips and reassured me that once you are on the floor for a while, it isn’t so hard. That was definitely a big relief.

Day 3 – Bill Miller conducted the training session this day, and it was all EBMS training. EBMS seems like a lot to take in, and with the addition to yesterday’s information, it feels a little bit overwhelming. Bill and Taylor do a good job in making the learning process easier for incoming interns.

Day 4 – We spent the first half of the day reviewing both EBMS and sales technique with Taylor. We did a role play activity where half of our intern group was on the floor calling the other half in the training room. The activity was preparing us for the actual sales floor. The role play activity makes you realize that EBMS is a lot easier when you are actually doing it on the floor. For Groupons and gift certificates I needed to refer to notes, but it wasn’t too big of a deal. After Taylor believed we were ready for real calls, we got all set to talk to real guests. It’s a little nerve wrecking at first, but with supervisors there to help, it gets easier the longer you are on your own. Ended the day with a couple sales and began my 3 day weekend. Real work began the following Monday.

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Edwind McGhee
Summer 2013 Sales and Guest Services Intern

June 16th. The night before I would start my training at Entertainment Cruises. During that night, nerves rushed through my body as I did not know what to expect from the following day. 8 hours of sleep seem like an eternity as I woke up ready to start my internship.

The first day of training felt like the first day of school. Not the agonizing thoughts of having to do school work, but the butterfly feeling of starting something new. Walking into the training room, I saw 5 people that I never saw before, but ironically we were called the “DePaul” group. I took the time to get acquainted with everyone and then it was time to start.

Our supervisor, Benia Macura, came into room with a joyous grin on her face as if OSS was running through her veins. We started off with an simple ice breaker to get us talking. The ice breaker question was, “what was the last concert you attended.” My answer was the Jennifer Hudson concert that she performed last year at the Taste of Chicago. Once we were all properly introduced, we started to dive into Day 1.

Day 1 consisted of a lot of information about the company as a whole. Topics ranging from what Entertainment Cruises stands for to whom all works in the office, were all covered. At this point in time, I started to get overwhelmed with the amount of information that we were receiving on the first day. Little did I know that we were just scratching the surface.

After Benia’s initial introduction of Entertainment Cruises, we were then introduced to Taylor Potts, our training supervisor. Taylor was assigned to take us to Navy Pier so we would be able to see the cruise ships. I was very excited to actually see what we would be selling for the next two months. I have never been on one of the boats before so it was really nice to have that experience. The only horrid part of that day was that it was way too hot, and on top of that I decided to wear a black long sleeve shirt.

For the rest of week, Taylor took us through several powerpoint presentations about the particular details of the ships and how we could effectively sell them. On Day 3, we were introduced to Bill Miller, one of the team leaders in the office. Bill took us through the EBMS session of the training. At first, EBMS seemed like a foreign language to me. I had no clue what we were doing or how we were doing it…I just knew it had to be done in order for us sell cruises.

Throughout the rest of that day, Taylor and Bill did a great job of showing us how to use EBMS and WIKI thoroughly. After we were done with that session, we had the option to shadow some of the interns who have been working in the office for several weeks. Personally I learn things a lot faster when I see it or I am actually doing it, so I quickly jumped on the opportunity. It was also nice to make a little bit more money staying there for another hour.

As I watched, it seemed like EBMS was making a lot more sense to me. The way that the other interns navigated the system and the wiki page, made it seem like it was nothing to be worried about at all.

Day 4 had come and we started with a quick review of EBMS. The review would be critical, because after that we jumped right into practicing making orders from fake phone calls with each other. This part of training to me was the most useful because we were now applying what we learned to real life type calls. I had so much fun with this exercise as well.

After a few hours of practice, it was time to hop on the phones for real. Although I did well in the practice session, I was still so nervous about being on the phones. These were real life calls, with real life people using real life money. The only thing that I could think about was not messing anything up. When the first call came in, my nervousness went away and I just started to be myself. I didn’t make a sell on that first day, but after that I knew that this internship would be a great experience.