Career Highlight – Erich Zschaeck
My one-of-a-kind lifetime adventure started in May of 1990 with my first contract onboard the M/S Holiday. Reflecting on my journey, I have spent more than half of my life travelling around the world onboard Carnival Cruise Lines as part of our GCO family.
It all started in the spring of 1990 on a Sunday morning while I was visiting my cousin in Miami, Florida. During my visit, I was introduced to his neighbor, a gentleman from Puerto Rico. At the time, I was working six days a week as a waiter at an Argentinian Restaurant and I was looking for a new job. During our conversation, the neighbor asked me if I was interested in working on a ship and I replied, “I have never worked as a fisherman, but I will give it a shot”. He then explained that he was referring to a casino business onboard cruise ships and that he was the Casino Operations VP for Carnival Cruise Line, Mr. George Negron. He scheduled me for an interview at the main headquarters in Doral, Florida. This is where I met Mr. Rodney Dofort. I will always remember his office. There were six or seven white boards on the wall; one for each ship and the names of the employees assigned to each vessel. This is how scheduling was done at the time.
Rodney introduced me to a lovely lady named Martha De Garcia who oversaw the casino personnel department. While Martha read my application form, she asked me if I was born in the USA, which I confirmed, then she asked me if I spoke Spanish, I also confirmed. I believe that she assumed that English was my first language. From there, she conducted the rest of the interview in Spanish. Lucky me, I thought, as my English wasn’t great at the time. To my surprise when I got onboard, most casino employees were British with many technicians being from Liverpool. They had very strong accents to learn English from! After years of working for GCO, Rodney Dofort used to joke with me, calling me a glitch in the system. That’s how it all began.
I started my career as a Casino Slot Cashier which required walking the casino floor to sell coins to slot players. Within a contract, my dealer training began. I then moved through the ranks to Supervisor, Assistant Manager, Casino Manager, Fleet Casino Manager for Costa Cruise Lines and Shoreside Personnel Supervisor from 2005 to 2008, where I was delegated to schedule the majority of the casino team members for CCL, HAL, PCL, Cunard, P&O UK & P&O Australia. What a great game of chess!
After 21 wonderful years of service, in 2011 I decided to settle down and raise my three beautiful daughters.
During my precious time at sea, I met so many amazing people and many of them I still call family. These relationships I made went beyond Casino and included people from different departments that were from so many different countries and cultures.
During my journey, I’ve had the pleasure of watching my other very close friends achieve many great things. The teams that have worked for GCO could truly write a book on perseverance & success.
Years passed by away from the ocean while I was concentrating on raising my girls. I always found myself telling stories about my travels around the world and all the adventures I had encountered during my days at sea. Then, in 2023, I decided to return to work onboard again.
When I rejoined, I was very surprised, and I was trying to take in how much our GCO team has grown over the years and what a fantastic operation we are running. I was amazed not only with the size of the business but more importantly that there was still that special family feeling I always felt onboard.
From the get-go, with the support of the shoreside team, I received continuous information, making my return a smooth experience. When I joined the Carnival Breeze, I remember walking down the pier in Galveston, Texas with my luggage having butterflies in my stomach, thinking would I enjoy it as much as the first time around? Would I know anyone onboard? Many questions came to mind, and I realized that these were probably similar emotions that a new hire feels when joining for the first time.
Right away I felt welcome and at home with the excellent support I received from Casino Manager, Vitalii Gruzky and his team. Funny enough, Vitalii was one of my dealers years before I had left, and it was great to see that he has moved up through the ranks and was now training me. I thought to myself, thank God that I was nice to him when he was my dealer. 
I would encourage anyone with an adventurous soul to try this lifestyle for a while. After leaving and living on land for 12 years, where bills, traffic, and taxes play a big part in your day-to-day life, there is no place in the world that gives you opportunities like GCO. Working hard for six months, where you can save money and then get two months’ vacation, travelling to exotic places around the world and meeting friends for life…is priceless.
Old shipboard friends call me Zscheky and the new ones refer to me as Papi (nothing to do with my grey hair). Hope to catch up on one of our lovely casinos soon!
