I'm an ex-FBI agent who worked on cruise ships for 6 years. The hours were long and I was paid hardly anything but it allowed my wife and I to see the world.

• Vincent McNally worked as a security officer on Holland America Line cruises from 2005 to 2011. 
• Security officers investigate alleged criminal activity on the ship.
• McNally said his hostage negotiation skills helped him handle drunk passengers. 

This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Vincent McNally, a retired FBI special agent who worked as a security officer on Holland America Line cruise ships from 2005 to 2011. His words have been edited for length and clarity.

I went on my first cruise after I retired from the FBI, where I worked for about 30 years.

I looked at how the ship was run and thought it could be a fun job. I asked the security officer about his job and how the hiring process works. He said you work hard but you get to see the world, so I decided to give it a try.

I applied and didn't hear anything for six to eight months — then I got a call from Holland America Line. I completed the training course and then that was that. I got on the ship.

The cruise line let my wife come along. I'd work three or four months at a time and then get three months off. We would spend about six months a year living on the ship.

Ninety-five percent of the time, working on cruise ships was great. Since I didn't financially rely on the job, I was able to enjoy it and make the best of the experience.

I still sail a lot. About every six months I'll go on a cruise and I do a lot of it on Holland America Line.

I worked 10 hours a day, seven days a week

The most difficult part was working long hours seven days a week. Usually, I'd work from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. You could break up the work day into segments, but I personally worked through the 10 hours straight so I could be free in the evenings unless I was called out for an investigation or an emergency.

The Chief Officer or myself had to be on board the ship at all times. As long as he could cover for me, I'd be able to go ashore for a few hours. Sometimes I'd get the whole day off and take a tour.

There's so much activity every day. On one cruise, they wanted me to wake up at 3 a.m. to meet the port pilot on the gangway and then work the rest of the day, but that was atypical. If you're going into a port, you have to be available pretty much all day to meet with local authorities, deal with any disciplinary actions on the ship, and attend captain's hearings.

My salary was so little, I was hardly making anything. It wasn't at all comparable to what I was making in the government. But it allowed my wife and I to see the world together, and that's what we did for six years.

It's a give-and-take. You're not buying food and you're being served dinner every night. We were taken care of very nicely. We always ate in the dining room and we had a nice cabin. It wasn't the best but it was located in a quiet part of the ship and it had a porthole, so I can't complain.

Editor's note: A Holland America Line spokesperson said the company cannot speak directly to a former employee's recollection and that the cruise line follows International Labor Organization requirements to ensure proper rest and time off for crew members.

I used hostage negotiation skills I learned in the FBI to calm down drunk passengers

Working on a cruise ship was a learning curve. You have to learn a whole different way of handling security with the customer service component added in.

People were on vacation, so alcohol was almost always involved if there was an issue with a passenger.

I did not have physical altercations with anybody. That's pretty good for all the different ships I was on. I used my first responder training in hostage negotiation and acute traumatic stress management to negotiate people out of bad situations. I ended up teaching management and security staff on how to utilize those principles to handle any kind of situation.

There were little things you could do to make life a little better for the duration of the sailing. One of the ways I solved the alcohol problem was by creating contracts for problematic passengers to sign saying they won't drink for the rest of the cruise or they'll get kicked off at the next port. It helped a lot — we'd never have a problem with them again.

There were also accidents that I had to determine if they were legit or if the person was trying to scam the ship, which happened a couple of times.

Passengers would claim that somebody stole something from their room. I never had a case where an employee stole something from a passenger's cabin. We can check the lock on the door and see who has gone in and out by their keycard.

I think I have the world's record for the fastest recovery of about five seconds. A passenger said her diamond bracelet was missing from her purse and I looked inside and it was under the flap in the bottom. It's not all fraud — sometimes people just forget where they put their passport or money.

Man overboard incidents are still a problem. Cameras should pick it up, but we do search the whole ship. It's an exhausting procedure. One time, we put everything together and it looked like a missing person had a reason to jump overboard, but we ended up finding him. Over the years, man overboard training and procedures have improved, as well as safety protocols to prevent accidents.

I was very lucky to never lose anybody on the ship except during an unfortunate accident when a lifeboat cable broke and two workers fell into the water. One of them drowned.

I was impressed by the training but some staff didn't have real-life investigation experience

The cruise line's training for security staff was better than I was expecting. But if crew members didn't have law enforcement experience, they didn't understand the whole totality of how to properly investigate a crime. They may have passed the course, but they had no practice or real-life training. I'm basing it upon the FBI standard, which is pretty high.

I read through some investigations led by other security officers. They were pretty thorough, but in my opinion, they wouldn't always cover all the bases. As far as I am concerned, I conducted my investigations like an FBI agent — you interview different people, get the facts, and then put it on paper and send it in.

Editor's note: A spokesperson for Holland America Line said most of the company's security officers have prior law enforcement experience and all security officers receive training in crime scene management and investigations. Investigations are recorded in a governance database and reviewed by the company's Ethics & Compliance team, they said.

The ship's captain has to sign off on all the security officer's investigations, giving them ultimate authority. When it comes to disciplinary actions for crew, the captain is like a judge. They use their discretion, depending on the severity of the issue and the totality of the circumstances. I've had some really good captains and some that were far off the mark.

Editor's note: A spokesperson for Holland America Line said criminal allegations are reported to law enforcement any time an alleged victim requests. Depending on the severity of the allegations, they are reported even if the victim declines, they said.

One thing that should improve is mental health for crew on cruise ships. Crew services didn't have any training on how to deal with mental health issues. People would come to me and I'd end up counseling them, mostly about depression, anxiety, or just feeling alone.

Editor's note: A spokesperson for Holland America Line said the company has several resources to care for employee mental health, including an onboard medical team, a 24-hour psychological support network, an onboard human resources team, and well-being trainings.

Do you work on a cruise ship? Share your story by emailing this reporter at htowey@insider.com