When twenty-four-year-old Lana Kramer accepts a six-month crewmember contract to perform as a dancer on a cruise ship, the experience is far from anything she could have imagined. The surreal vibe of being trapped between two worlds—rigid Navy-type crewmember rules on the one hand, dancing in sparkling costumes beneath bright lights on the other—causes confusion for Lana. From below-decks affairs to treacherous shipboard politics and the occasional rough seas, Lana soon discovers cruise life is not for the faint of heart. Gradually it becomes clear that as one of the few female crewmembers, all that glitters aboard a cruise ship is within her grasp—but at what cost? In this unusual environment, far from familiar territory, she discovers a hidden resourcefulness and learns to navigate this city at sea without throwing her scruples overboard. As Lana develops her own unwritten crewmember survival guide, she chooses to redefine the crew-life rules, and in the process, redefine herself.