Rating

6.2/10
  • 1. Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis:
  • A general assistant to the marketing team with event planning, brochure writing, email composing, blog writing and content production responsibilities, as well as PR and, when covering, the management of a TV show. I sent away specific deals, meaning a lot of liaising with other departments and writing long boring emails, and a lot of business etiquette.

    8/10

  • 2. Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?
  • I learned everything I know about marketing, business and office conduct at planet cruise, learning the hard way what a disciplinary was by being late a few times in a row, and learning everything about marketing from my colleagues. PETA then tried to teach me about business but I learned way more on the job about that than I ever did with peta.

    10/10

  • 3. To what extent do you enjoy your programme?
  • I enjoyed what I was doing and a few of the people I was doing it with. I did not enjoy being 'the apprentice' because it meant I wasn't respected like any other member or staff. I felt like I was unable to get the resources I needed from other departments purely because I was 'just the apprentice'.

    7/10

  • 4. How well organised/structured is your programme?
  • It was ridiculously bad. PETA made mistake after mistake when it came to the final assessment, putting me through too late and having to get special permission to extend my programme after I had left the company, plus my manager had no idea what was going on half the time which I think was due to her ignorance but also a lack of communication from PETA

    3/10

  • 5. How much support do you receive from your employer?
  • I felt very unsupported by my manager, but very supported by my mentor, because my manager pleaded ignorance, not even knowing that training was on Thursdays and had been for the whole 15 months. My mentor however, who was technically my one step up manager, was incredibly supportive and was always readily available to talk to me or to help me if I needed it.

    7/10

  • 6. How much support do you receive from your training provider when working towards your qualifications?
  • My training provider, with the exception of my assessor, were useless when it came to support. I would email my teacher and not receive a response until either far too late or right before the deadline, or I would try and ask questions and not get answers. They also messed up big time with my final assessment date by setting it a month after I left the company. Also, on site training days were miserable. I was told I'm an adult now but I was treated like a child, not being allowed freedom in the classroom to even get up to use the bathroom without having to ask, which I think is disgusting when they have no duty of care over me and no authority, really. I got 'told off' multiple times for having my phone on the desk or even just vibrating, which is ridiculous given that on multiple occasions I let my assessor know that I was still technically working because my manager needed my attention sometimes. It's ridiculous that they tell us we're adults now, then proceed to treat us like children. Even in the college environment I was in prior to the apprenticeship I wasn't treated like that.

    2/10

  • 7. How well do you feel that your qualification (through your training provider) helps you to perform better in your role?
  • The training had nothing to do with my work. In fact, they tried to get us all to do the same project, telling me 'itll definitely apply to your job in one way or another', when I was showing them, even with written confirmation from my employer, that I did not have to deal with it enough to make it an entire project and that I was better off using other things. They may have provided me with a few presentation skills I didn't have before, though I never needed to use them.

    4/10

  • 8. Are there extra-curricular activities to get involved in at your work? (For example, any social activities, sports teams, or even professional networking events.)
  • The whole team regularly attended pub Fridays which was essentially an extended lunch time to spend at the local pub and we occasionally planned outings and social events. I also put together dnd (dungeons and dragons) club because I am an avid player and wanted to play more. We also had plenty of bake sales and all that kind of stuff.

    9/10

  • 9a. Would you recommend Planet Cruise to a friend?
  • No


  • 9b. Why?
  • I believe that the travel and tourism industry is incredibly toxic, and if it's not then it's this company. All departments share the same floor and the same room. There were over 200 employees in the one office which clearly was not built for 200 as there were only 3 toilets each and three meeting rooms, one of which was used as a filming studio. It caused a lot of conflict between departments, especially when we'd hear that one department were getting a reward that another wasn't. There was also a lot of departments debating being the BEST or most IMPORTANT department which wasn't true for any of them, because the whole company would crumble without just one. It was ridiculous, had no support structure, the employees are scared of management, and hr did not do thorough enough investigations for serious accusations.


  • 10. What tips or advice would you give to others applying to Planet Cruise?
  • Consider the type of environment you want to work in. It's loud, uncomfortable, and quite often pretty tense. There's not a lot of inter department mingling so you have to REALLY work to build rapport with everyone in the office. Also, don't drive in. The carpark was always overflowing.


Details

Level 3 Apprenticeship

Hospitality Management

Portsmouth

January 2020

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