Please Call Her Captain

“This is Captain Kate, but you can call me Captain because it took me 19 years to earn this title.”

Those are typically the first words that passengers hear booming over the speakers when they are aboard any cruise ship helmed by Capt. Kate McCue. The announcement continues, like the woman who makes it, friendly and lighthearted, but also sharp and direct.

“People don’t have a tendency to call men captains by their first name,” Captain McCue said on a recent phone call from her home in Las Vegas.

Captain McCue became the first American woman to captain a cruise ship in 2015, and commands the Celebrity Equinox — a 122,000-ton, 1041-foot ship in the Celebrity Cruises fleet. Starting in September she will be at the helm of the Celebrity Edge, a billion-dollar ship that was designed by women and overseen by Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, Celebrity Cruises’ chief executive.

What sparked your interest in sailing?

My interest in sailing started when I was 12. I went on a four-day cruise with my parents and brother over Thanksgiving. When we got back, I told my dad that I was going to work on cruise ships. I wanted to be the cruise director. My dad said I could be a cruise director or a captain or whatever I wanted.