Andrea Mickelson would have said "absolutely not" to the idea of becoming a river cruise ship captain if you had asked her during her five-year run as a mate.
She's now been a captain for 17 years.
Mickelson, who lives in Yacolt, Wash., will helm the American Harmony on the Columbia River for American Cruise Lines this year, a rarity in the male-dominated cruise industry, which sees few women steering ships.
While there is no public data on river cruise ship captains, female mariners worldwide make up just 2% of the industry, according to Celebrity Cruises, which made Capt. Kate McCue the first American woman to command a major cruise ship.
"I was tired of new captains coming in and telling me how it was done," Mickelson said of her time as a mate. "I already knew what to do, so it was time to step it up."
The 47-year-old Mickelson has been working on river cruises since 2000, beginning as a housekeeper and working her way up to a deckhand in the engineering department, where at the time, she was surrounded by only men.
While a deckhand, the captain at the time said whoever learned all the channels and security callouts first would get the second mate position the next season.
"I was like, 'On it,'" Mickelson said. "And so that's what I did."
Capt. Andrea Mickelson onboard the American Song. She is joining the American Harmony this season. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Andrea Mickelson/American Cruise Lines
No longer a 'man's world'
When she first stepped onto a ship, the mariner world was more male-dominated than it is today. Mickelson now sees more women on her ships and hears more women speaking on radio channels from other vessels.
But it was a "man's world" when she joined the industry, she said, and not without challenges, like sometimes being ignored on the radio when trying to communicate with a bridge.
Passengers can still be surprised to see a woman holding the captain position but respond positively, with some saying they will tell their young female family members about Mickelson.
"I do have passengers that are like, 'I'm going to tell my granddaughter. Can I get a picture or show our granddaughter that she can do this?'" she said.
Positive feedback
It's the passenger response that staff Capt. Timea Szabo also finds both encouraging and rewarding.
Szabo, a captain-in-training for Emerald Cruises, earned her license in 2019 and has helmed small ships in Budapest, where she lives. The 38-year-old is a staff captain, second in command, on the Emerald Star, which sails the Rhine and Danube rivers, while working toward main captain status.
"Most of them are surprised, but I like the women's reaction," Szabo said. "They are so proud all the time. They always say to me, 'Yes, girl power.'"
As a captain-in-training, Szabo "practices and practices," she said, learning the route, studying maps and maneuvering the locks. Now in her second year of training, she anticipates she will need one more year of practice before she can move up, which she said is typical of the required training period.
She said she was drawn to the industry after working a "very, very boring job" that overlooked the Danube, prompting her to daydream about how exciting working on the river would be. She first joined a small ship as a waitress in 2011, prompting her family to ask, "Timea, are you crazy?"
"I said, 'no, but maybe, yes, I am crazy," she recalled. "This is my dream. ... I wanted to prove I can do what a man also can do. It's not about the gender."
Capt. Helen de Cent joined European Waterways as a hostess before climbing the ranks to captain. She will join the Shannon Princess this season. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Emerald Cruises
Working her way up
Helen de Cent has had a river cruise captain's license since 2019, but she initially went to university for fashion design.
Hailing from New Zealand, de Cent bopped around the world, working in tourism in London, the Middle East and then the Alps, where she ran a mountain bike chalet before a friend recommended she work on a Continental Waterways barge that traveled through Paris. The now-48-year-old joined as a sous-chef and was at port when she saw European Waterways' Renaissance float by.
She joined the line, which offers luxury barge cruises, as a hostess and initially had her eye on becoming a tour guide for the company. But onboard the Spirit of Scotland, the thought occurred to her: "Wouldn't it be good to drive it if there was a need?"
Now, de Cent is readying herself to helm European Waterways' Shannon Princess, which she is joining this season in Ireland.
De Cent actually trained under a female captain, which she welcomed since so few women work in the industry.
"She was hard on me, and it wasn't easy," she said. "But actually, that's what you need -- you need someone to be hard on you, because you're not going to have butterflies all the time. Unfortunately, it sounds really sad to say, but some men, for some reason, feel threatened by women in more senior positions."
Despite being in such a male-dominated sector of the travel industry, de Cent has found herself thriving and, she said, hopefully inspiring others, like the time a young girl asked her, "Are you really driving that?"