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Kate McCue, America's first female "mega" cruise ship captain, discussed her career as part of Women's History Month on Fox News Radio's "Everyone Talks to Liz Claman" podcast on Friday.
McCue, 43, is currently the captain of the Celebrity Edge, an Edge Class ship homeported at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
McCue said she first envisioned working on a cruise ship after a trip with her family at age 12, when she was living in San Francisco. She had such a great time that she mentioned to her father that she wanted to become a cruise director.
Her father replied: "Heck, you could run the damn thing." With that, McCue's path was set.
McCue attended the California State University Maritime Academy in Vallejo, where she recalled she "didn't know port from starboard [or] bow from stern" on day one.
"Everything I learned, I learned at school," she said, recounting training cruises to the Marquesas and Easter Island. "That's where the wanderlust really was instilled and I thought, 'This is what I want to do ... for my life.'"
Her first major cruising post was as an entry-level Third Mate on a Disney Cruise Lines ship. McCue said she later applied to Miami-based Royal Caribbean International in hopes of more advancement opportunities with a larger company.
Host Liz Claman noted that McCue's hard work and climb through the ranks at Royal Caribbean helped pave the way for the unexpected offer from a former colleague to become captain of her own ship.
McCue said that while at Royal Caribbean, she worked with Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, who later became the first female CEO of one of RCL's brands -- Celebrity Cruises.
"She came to Celebrity and shortly after, I was sailing on the Quantum of the Seas with Royal Caribbean with my husband [Nikola], who was the chief engineer ... and he brought the phone in while I was sleeping and he said, 'It's Celebrity'."
"They want you to be a captain," McCue recalls Nikola telling her.
McCue recalled Lutoff-Perlo telling her that she was unable to promote her at Royal Caribbean but that her name was "consistently at the top of the list" of staff captains' appraisals of their crew.
"She wanted to make sure that she paid it forward coming into this role," McCue said.
"I always wanted to be the first American [female] captain," she said, adding that she was later repeatedly asked for comment by the media and even her passengers about her new role.
McCue described instances throughout her career where she has been mistaken for a lower crew member, especially while standing next to a male officer.
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In one case, both she and her husband were on a ship and wearing their uniforms -- both sporting four gold bars on their sleeves -- when a couple approached them.
"Someone came up to him and said 'Oh, captain, you're doing a great job' and he turned them toward me and said 'No, she's the captain'."
"And this gentleman just laughed -- and my husband did not."
McCue said she takes such instances in stride and good humor, often posting them to her well-known TikTok account.
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