![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/EPIC-Miami-1-6002-e1294067669550.jpg\" "\\"EPIC-Miami-1-600\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nHowever, we digress. Put “cruising” and “reality” on the same flatscreen, we’re there. And so last night, we were there, to see the head of a cruise line (Norwegian<\/a>) mingle anonymously \u2014 while suitably disguised \u2014 with his workforce on two Norwegian ships.<\/p>\n Okay, so this was the first time we’d watched Undercover Boss<\/a> (CBS). No episode comparisons. No critique of the show.<\/p>\n In case you missed it (and as a cruiser why would you?), here’s a snapshot of what transpired and what made it so interesting:<\/p>\n \u2022 Undercover Boss uncovered\u2026Silvia, a server in the Manhattan Room (the Epic’s main dining room) recognized the boss right away. She had once served him in the Epic Club, and remembered. Taken into his confidence, she played along, as one of the four employees who interacted most with the company CEO-in-disguise.<\/p>\n \u2022 New York, New York\u2026John, who’s from Brooklyn, pushed Kevin, who’s from Manhattan, into chipping rust off pipes and paint railing all the way around, and was unruffled when he discovered late in the show who “Peter Francis” really was.<\/p>\n \u2022 In case you’re wondering how these employees didn’t figure this out with TV cameras following them around (we did), they were told it was a televised competition between two men vying for one job, and all of them seemed to buy it, except Silvia. if they didn’t buy it, they should quit cruising and go into acting.<\/p>\n \u2022 Best line of the show\u2026In learning how to strap people in for rock climbing, the neophyte boss waited while a woman pulled the strap through her legs before quipping: “Thank goodness I stopped, I was almost going to handle that part.”<\/p>\n \u2022 Lessons learned\u2026that promotions are slow for NCL employees, that they should be rewarded for loyalty, that eight-month contracts would help avoid missing seven straight Christmases at home, that the work is harder then the boss knew. “I have an even greater respect for our crew since I\u2019ve walked in their shoes,” he said.<\/p>\n \u2022 Television rewards\u2026after throwing away the cover, the boss enlisted Jessica in a management training program, made Michael an assistant cruise director on the Epic, sent John, his wife and newborn daughter on a cruise out of “Brooklyn” with his parents, and arranged for the Epic’s new assistant head waiter Silvia to have her upcoming wedding on a Norwegian ship.<\/p>\n All were clearly moved.<\/p>\n Maybe there is something to reality TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’re not exactly reality TV people. To us, reality meant non-fiction. A good book maybe\u2026a biography. Real life, right? Then along came “reality TV” for which there was originally no definition. The next thing we knew, people were doing all kinds of bizarre things in the name of competition and calling it “reality TV.” Reality?… Continue reading Kevin Sheehan: NCL's Uncovered Boss<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,25,19,15],"tags":[454,204,86,35,29,126,421],"class_list":["post-5732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-people","category-ships","category-stories","tag-cruise-ship-employees","tag-cruise-ship-entertainment","tag-cruise-ships","tag-cruises","tag-epic","tag-norwegian","tag-undercover-boss","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Sheehan-ice-e1294067455140.jpg\" "\\"Sheehan-ice\\"")
<\/a>\u2022 News flash\u2026no more ice skating on NCL ships. After Sheehan helped an employee named Jessica with the laborious job of setting up 60-pound panels that made an ice rink, nobody showed up to skate. “That is dead as of now,” said the boss.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Sheehan-dance.jpg\" "\\"Sheehan-dance\\"")
<\/a>\u2022 The Dancing King\u2026Michael, a member of the Epic cruise staff, taught the boss how to dance so that the boss could teach 1,000 guests at the White Hot Party that night. Neither succeeded but, in trying to find out more about his select employees, Sheehan discovered that Michael’s mother died of brain cancer and that he had raised $20,000 in her memory.<\/p>\n