With limited time ashore, cruise ship crew seek comfort and essentials in Juneau
- Natalie Buttner
- Aug 19
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 20
A story of working on a cruise ship and finding a home away from home
By Natalie Buttner
Juneau Independent
Thousands of crew members arrive in Juneau every summer via cruise ship. While the passengers they serve look for uniquely Alaskan souvenirs, the international crew hopes to find a sense of home.
In July, Maricar Encabo was eating at the downtown Filipino restaurant, Golddigger. She introduced herself: “My name is Maricar, but in the ship they call me queen — queen of massage.”
Encabo has been a massage therapist on cruise ships for more than 21 years. She said Alaska is her favorite location to work, speculating that passengers are especially excited to be on board because Alaskan cruises are expensive.
Like many crew members working Southeast Alaska cruises, she stops in Juneau at least once a week.
Friends in Juneau
Encabo has a longstanding relationship with one Juneau family who has made a career of catering to cruise ship passengers. She has known Arlene Diente since her children, now adults, were young.
Diente and her husband, Albert Efergan, have owned and operated the Golddigger for 12 years.
Efergan was the food and beverage director for Carnival Cruise Line for 14 years before opening his first crew store in Miami. He added stores in the Florida port cities of Tampa and Key West, and then Skagway. At his stores, he said, crew members could buy phones, send money, and purchase food from their home countries.
Diente began working at crew stores when she was 17. When she first started, she said, she got advice from her uncle, who was a mariner.
“He always told me, ‘When the crew members come, you always treat them like a king, because on the ship they are always treated like the lowest,’” she said. “They work hard, so when they come, you always treat them like family.”
In 2003, the couple sold all their stores except Skagway and Juneau. Since the tourism season in Southeast Alaska is limited, Efergan said, it allowed them to take more time off in the winter.
Efergan said business is good, catering to crew members.
“In Skagway, I did tons of money because I was the only one had a niche for the crew members, because I've been in that area, I know the crew members,” he said. “I know what I wanted when I was on the ship, and I got that niche in the market, and we made tons of money.”
Before they ran a restaurant, Diente often set out home-cooked meals in the crew store in Skagway. They didn’t have a license, she said, so she couldn’t charge for it. This free service helped her discover the desire among crew members for such meals. They started the Golddigger restaurant in Skagway 13 years ago. Diente still cooks.
“I guess they like my food,” she jokes.
According to Diente, the Golddigger does not pay for advertising, relying on word-of-mouth recommendations on the ship.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Diente and Efergan relocated the restaurant to Juneau, first opening the Golddigger in the Mendenhall Mall, before moving downtown to be closer to the cruise ships for crew members.
“I go out in every port,” Encabo said.
“That’s why they call her queen,” teases her friend Berzabeth Bote. “She needs to go out in every port.”
For Encabo, returning to Juneau in sporadic intervals can create painful mysteries. When asked how Juneau has changed in her two decades of working on cruise ships, Encabo mentioned the retreating glacier and fewer homeless people downtown.
Encabo said she regularly visited Steven Kissack when she was in Juneau, bringing him gifts and visiting his dog, Juno. Kissack was shot and killed by Juneau police on July 15, 2024.
“He was always standing there on that side,” Encabo said. “So when I came, I brought something for the dog and for him, and then I cannot find – and I saw it like, picture of Steve on where he always sit. And then I asked the people. They said, ‘Oh, they shot– Steve is gone.’”
Finding essentials in Juneau
Encabo said time, transportation, and cost can limit what the visiting crew can do while ashore.
Crew International Tours, the largest crew shuttle company currently operating in Juneau, charges $8 for a one-way trip to Fred Meyer or Costco, and $14 for a round trip.
Mireya Cordero, Crew International owner and driver, said the service is cheaper than a taxi and provides a regular service that crew members can trust to get them back to the ship on time for their next shift.
Mireya Cordero’s husband, Raul Cordero, started Crew International in the 1980s to fill a hole in the market.
“There's a service that was needed for the crew, because nobody's looking after the crew anyway,” Mireya Cordero said. “Big industry just thinking about the tourists, the money, and all that. Working with these guys, it’s not like I'm making a lot of money, but it's a service that they get, and then we get job and we serve them.”
After Raul Cordero had a stroke three years ago, Mireya Cordero began driving his van. She said some returning crew members would ask where he was or send him greetings.
Cordero said they understand the challenges crew members face, working hard in a new place.
“We know what it feel like not to be able to work,” she said. “And then you find an opportunity to work, and it's not fair that somebody wants to take money from you because you are from somewhere else.”
Cordero also noticed that some crew members are learning to use the city buses, which she admires. However, the bus might take too long for some crew members who only have short breaks in port, she said.
She said that five years ago, there used to be more crew shuttles. Now, there is only Crew International and Tee’s Crew Shuttle.
Tee’s is owned and operated by Terecita Frisbee, a former driver for Dolphin Jet Boat Tours. This summer, she says she is learning Indonesian by working with Indonesian crew members. She keeps her rain pants in the back of her van so she can go hiking whenever she wants, and likes driving around in the evenings to try to spot bears.
For crew who don’t have time to get far from port, there are options downtown. A blue and white sign facing the docks advertises the Juneau Crew Store, tucked on the second floor of the bustling tourist hub of Merchant’s Wharf.
Carlota Cuanzon and her husband bought the Juneau Crew Store in 2016, after retiring from careers with the State of Alaska.
“It's really challenging, because before, I used to sit down all day and do my job in the office, now it's literally a working dance,” Cuanzon said.
On the wall behind the cash register, a wall filled with samples of foreign currencies displays the national diversity of the store’s clientele. Cuanzon said they mostly sell Filipino and Indonesian snacks. They also have MoneyGram, so crew members can send money internationally.
“You don't have to go outside the country, but you will able to meet all kinds of people from different countries,” Cuanzon said. “Yeah, that is the exciting part.”
During the winter, the store is closed, and Cuanzon and her husband are truly retired. They have even taken cruises, where they received a warm reception from some of their former customers.
Cuanzon said getting food from home is a reward for many of her customers, who work hard to send money back to their families.
“Their taste buds are looking for something that makes them feel happy,” Cuanzon said.
While food is provided onboard for crew, some seek out traditional foods in Juneau to stave off homesickness.
Eating at the Golddigger, Joey Naredo and Rose Gallema agreed: Homesickness never gets easier. Gallema has been working with Celebrity Cruises for more than a decade, working in eight different positions over that time.
“Thirteen years, every time I sign, I leave the house, I still cry,” she said.
Naredo also said he misses traditional foods from their home in the Philippines.
“This is how we treat ourselves,” Gallema agreed. “I think we deserve a good food, good time off. So that's a good part that we are looking forward, something that we really look forward in Alaska. Imagine you're in Alaska. You're looking for Filipino restaurants and the warm service.”
“Look at him,” she gestures to Golddigger co-owner Albert Efergan, flitting around the tables, talking to customers. “He's going around us, checking on us. I would bring him on board, if I can.”
Life onboard
For crew members, many of whom are on nine-month contracts, the ship is work and home.
Bryan Abilong, a stateroom attendant on “Radiance of the Seas,” said his favorite thing about working on a cruise ship is the diversity of the crew.
Abilong estimated that on most cruise ships, the majority of crew members are Filipino, Indian, and Indonesian.
“We came from third-world countries,” he said. “That's how they get their crew.”
Abilong said the work is hard. When asked about his day-to-day life he replied simply, “The day is always Monday.”
Like many crew members, Abilong said he was drawn to a career on a cruise ship by the salary and opportunity to travel. However, he said, the long working hours on a cruise ship require the crew to balance their limited free time.
“Working in a cruise ship, you need to discipline yourself,” he said. “And at the same time, you need to find out how you're gonna make your rest.”
Abilong met his partner, Clariza Villanueva, while working on a cruise ship. Now, they always secure contracts on the same boat.
Zorinkimi, Tatei Mangkung, and Roleuahpuii Khawlhring are eager to discuss romantic relationships onboard, navigating the minefield of constantly beginning and expiring contracts.
They work together in a spa on the Anthem of the Seas. During their limited time off in port, they enjoy a meal together.
Zorinkimi, a hairstylist, is the most senior of the three. She has been working on cruise ships for seven years.
“It's very easy to fall in love on ship, actually, because it's like, even if you've been together for three months, it's like being together three years on land,” Zorinkimi said. “You work together, you see each other all the time, and it's so easy to fall in love with that person. But if you fall in love today, he’s going next week.”
She compared working on the ship to a toxic relationship. She said in the two-to-three months in between her nine-month contracts, she forgets the hardships of working onboard, “And then I remember all these little, small moments. And then I'm like, ‘OK, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to do it again.’”
Zorinkimi, Mangkung, and Khawlhring are from Northeast India. Zorinkimi explained that the opportunities to make money in their field are limited where they are from.
But now, she said she thinks she is ready to move on, though she has doubts about her ability to leave the industry behind.
“Now I think I'm getting close to being done with it,” she said. “I don't know. It's very easy to say that, because we work very long hours, but then you go home, and then you miss coming back.”
Zorinkimi said she works 14-hour days, with two hour-long breaks for lunch and dinner. In a week, she gets two half-days off during a week-long trip when the ship is in port. Like any job, she said, there are good and bad days.
“It's definitely a huge part of my entire life,” she said. “I think half of my life is going to be a story of working in a cruise ship.”
• Contact Natalie Buttner at natalieb@juneauindependent.com.
