Captain Kate McCue is the first American woman captain on a large cruise and is currently the master of Celebrity Beyond. However, she’s notable for so much more — here’s everything you might need to know.
In This Article:
- 1. She Fell in Love with Cruising at a Young Age
- 2. She Has Always Had a Career in Sailing or Cruising
- 3. She Made History in 2015
- 4. Her Job Entails far More Than You Might Think.
- 5. Her Celebrity Cruises Career Continues
- 6. She Once Rescued a Ship Lost at Sea
- 7. She Has a Huge Social Media Following
- 8. Her Cat is Almost as Famous as She is
- 9. She Met Her Husband on a Ship
- 10. She Recently Launched a Nautical-Themed Jewelry Collection
1. She Fell in Love with Cruising at a Young Age
According to McCue’s website, she’s long been an avid fan of cruising. Born in 1978, she took her first cruise at just 12 years of old (to the Bahamas), and then she decided she’d like to pursue a career as a cruise director.
However, her open-minded father encouraged her to think about all the various different careers that exist on a cruise ship. This prompted McCue to decide that, perhaps, she might become a cruise ship captain.
2. She Has Always Had a Career in Sailing or Cruising
While some of us hop from job to job before settling on a career path, this wasn’t the case for Kate McCue.
McCue’s College Years
That determination, as a preteen, to enter the cruise industry continued throughout her college years. She attended the California State University Maritime Academy and graduated after three years of studies, in 1999, with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.
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While she was in college, she also studied celestial navigation, as well as crucial maritime skills such as ship maneuvering and medical first aid. She was able to take advantage of hands-on training experiences at sea during her studies, which took her sailing to places like Easter Island and throughout the South Pacific.
Her Internship at Chiquita
She also interned on a cargo ship for Chiquita (yes, the banana company), sailing between Ecuador and California.
In a Cosmopolitan interview, she said of the experience, “My job was to stand watch on the bridge and assist with cargo operations — whether it was loading the bananas, killing those giant spiders that come out of the bananas, ensuring temperatures were maintained in the cargo hold or unloading bananas.”
It was this experience, McCue said, that solidified her desire to work on cruise ships in the future. Working on a cruise ship includes fine dining, entertainment and luxurious shore excursions — much better than killing spiders on a cargo ship.
Her First Sailing Job
Her first cruising job after graduation was in Hawaii, but this wasn’t on any huge cruise ship like what she sails today. Instead, she worked on a tour catamaran, completing whatever jobs were needed, acting as deck hand, bar tender, surf instructor and more.
Working at a Major Cruise Line
After a brief stint working on land in logistics for a container shipping company, she landed her first job with a major cruise line: Disney Cruise Line.
She started out as a third mate, which, on a cruise ship is basically the fourth-in-command and a safety officer. Disney kept her mostly on routes in the Caribbean. At the time, Disney Cruise Line was very small, with only two ships.
Building Her Career at Royal Caribbean
After a while, McCue moved on up to a new position as second officer, but with a new cruise line: Royal Caribbean. She took this job in 2003, but by 2004, she had already gained a promotion and become first officer.
Still, you can’t just move from first officer to ship’s captain. McCue needed more qualifications, so she achieved her chief mate and master’s license at the Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies in 2009.
Read Also: How to Become a Cruise Ship Captain
After this, she was able to achieve even more promotions at Royal Caribbean, finally moving up to the second-in-command position as staff captain in 2011.
During her time at Royal Caribbean, McCue sailed the following ships: Brilliance of the Seas, Mariner of the Seas, Independence of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, Rhapsody of the Seas and Jewel of the Seas.
3. She Made History in 2015
After her long career at Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises reached out to McCue in 2015 with a tempting offer: become a captain, allowing McCue to achieve the dream she set out to pursue so many years earlier, as a preteen. Once McCue accepted the job, she made history as the first American woman to captain a mega ship, Celebrity Summit.
This is a huge accomplishment as, currently, women only represent 2% of the entire maritime industry. Looking more closely at just bridge teams, women make up about 32% of the individuals on those teams, though that percentage was only at 4% when McCue’s career began.
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Taking her role seriously, McCue’s name tag only says “Captain” on it, as, given the sometimes unconscious sexism within the industry, a prior name tag with “Captain Kate” on it led to cruisers only calling her “Kate,” inadvertently dropping her hard-earned title — and that’s a title I think we can all agree that Captain McCue deserves.
4. Her Job Entails far More Than You Might Think.
As the captain of a ship, McCue’s job entails quite a lot. Being a ship’s captain is not just standing around, steering a very large boat.
McCue likens the experience to moving a very large hotel, but beyond maneuvering the ship, her job also includes overseeing the crew, being on call 24/7, attending various functions where she mixes and mingles with the cruisers and more. At the end of the day, she’s entirely in charge of everything going on, on the cruise ship.
While McCue relishes her lifestyle as a captain, though, she doesn’t have to be “on” 24/7/365. Ship captains work 12 weeks on and 12 weeks off, so McCue has a three-month break between stints at sea.
5. Her Celebrity Cruises Career Continues
Since taking the helm of Celebrity Summit, McCue has captained several different ships within the Celebrity Cruises fleet. In 2018, she moved to Celebrity Equinox.
In 2019, she took over Celebrity Edge (and, actually, she captained the ship when it was the first ship to sail from the U.S. following the Covid-19 cruising shutdowns). In 2022, she took on Celebrity Beyond, as the ship’s very first captain from launch.
6. She Once Rescued a Ship Lost at Sea
In 2017, McCue led a rescue operation, when her cruise ship came upon a small boat that had been adrift for multiple weeks. There were six individuals on the boat, two of which were pregnant, and they had already ran out of water and food. McCue and company had just been on their way to Curacao, when they came across the adrift boat and were able to perform a rescue.
McCue performed other rescues in 2023 and in early 2024, when she and the crew either solely executed or assisted in the rescue of more than 200 migrants, alongside the Italian Navy.
7. She Has a Huge Social Media Following
McCue has long documented her adventures as a ship’s captain on various social media platforms. She has more than a million followers on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, and Celebrity Cruises notes that McCue is the brand’s biggest social media star.
Her posts range from educational videos that answer questions about life on a cruise ship or as a cruise ship captain, to wanderlust-esque imagery that would make anyone want to book their next cruise.
All in all, though, McCue’s social media presence primarily aims to show other women that the cruising industry is accessible, and that they, too, can have a maritime career. (Although, in a Travel Age West article, McCue noted that one of her favorite things to post are videos of her officers maneuvering the ship for the first time — a moment of pride for all involved!)
Several of McCue’s posts have gone viral, such as, in 2024, when the captain hit back over over crew member tipping.
If you want to follow McCue’s social media-savvy from the start, you can easily go back to when her YouTube channel began, four years ago, and watch her “How I Sea It” series, that give an inside look at a ship captain’s life.
8. Her Cat is Almost as Famous as She is
Across much of McCue’s social media, followers could, up until recently, frequently spy one very special guest: Bug Naked, a hairless sphynx cat that traveled with McCue around the world.
Bug often appeared wearing various costumes and uniforms in McCue’s social media posts, and she was a favorite with crews on the various ships that she and McCue called home. Bug could be seen accompanying McCue as she went about her daily routine, on the ship’s bridge. Bug even had her own passport!
Unfortunately, the beloved cat with a huge fanbase died on Dec. 26, 2024, following routine dental work.
At the time, McCue posted on Instagram: “The emotions since losing Bug are something I’ve never experienced. The gaping hole in my chest feels like a void that can never be filled…”
Bug was eight years and six months old, and had begun sailing with McCue at just three months old, in 2015. McCue said in a Instagram video that she had originally wanted to get a pet monkey to accompany her on her cruises, but when her superiors denied her request for a monkey, she found Bug.
9. She Met Her Husband on a Ship
McCue’s husband is Nikola Petrovic, a chief engineer in the cruise industry. She met him on a ship and was able to work with him, on the same vessel, when they both worked for Royal Caribbean.
However, this was not an option on Celebrity Cruises, as McCue would technically be Petrovic’s boss, leading to a conflict of interest. As such, the two work separately now.
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After leaving Royal Caribbean Cruises in October 2017, Petrovic joined Virgin Voyages, where he worked for nearly five years, before returning to Royal Caribbean in late 2022.
10. She Recently Launched a Nautical-Themed Jewelry Collection
McCue has established herself as a personal brand beyond her work with Celebrity Cruises, and with that have come opportunities to launch other interesting endeavors — like a new nautical-themed jewelry collection that she crafted with Dune Jewelry.
The woman-founded brand is known for creating jewelry that encompasses sand and earth elements from unique locations across the globe.
The Captain Kate x Dune Jewelry Collection features sterling silver and gold vermeil designs, and gemstones like rainbow moonstone, which have historically been prized by sailors as good luck charms.
