Cruise Eden trainees Keely and Ocea visit P&O in Sydney

The Year 11 Eden Marine High School trainees spent four days in Sydney learning about cruise planning, destination experiences and cruise management as part of the P&O Pacific Partnerships Program.

Cruise Eden coordinator Debbie Meers said the trip to Sydney had provided Keely and Ocea the "fabulous opportunity" to visit the P&O offices of Carnival Australia and learn first hand how cruises were organised.

"They spent two days working in different departments learning all about how cruises are organised and run from the administrative side," she said.

"It was amazing to see how much they learned over those two days and then on the third they were surprised with the bridge climb as a destination activity."

Ms Meers said for their final day the girls were able to witness firsthand how staff aboard one of the P&O cruise ships docked at Sydney Harbour handled the turnaround of guests coming off the ship and those checking in.

"It was an amazing experience, Keely and Ocea learned so much about cruise operations and the behind the scenes organisation," she said.

READ ALSO: South Coast language as spoken by Elders group meet at Jigamy, Eden

Ms Meers said it had been heartwarming to see local businesses getting behind Keely and Ocea to support them in their school based traineeship.

"There were a number of businesses that supported them with sponsorship or purchasing of items that assisted the girls in their trip to Sydney," she said.

Keely and Ocea said looking back on their trip to Sydney they discovered they learnt so much about how cruise ships were operated from behind the scenes.

Keely said she'd learnt so much about the different departments within P&O headquarters.

"There were parts of the company that I didn't even know existed like a care team that was dedicated to helping people with any special care needed," she said.

READ ALSO: Crown Lands seeks to clarify situation on Eden's Nullica Lodge

Ocea said seeing the various departments involved at P&O helped her understand how they all interlinked to come together to give visitors a seamless experience.

"There's so, so many different departments and staff that work for them and they all interlink to create this one big operation which I thought was so cool because I hadn't realised how much went into cruises," she said.

Ocea said it really opened her eyes to seeing the many career paths she could take in tourism.