These days, as well as taking care of protocol, he delivered onboard lectures about Maori customs and traditions.
With three other Maori crew members he led workshops on te reo, kapa haka and poi making during Ovation of the Seas' Christmas cruise, with the participants performing for fellow passengers on New Zealand night.
"They all know the haka because of the All Blacks but they want to learn more about us and our customs. I also tell them about the Treaty of Waitangi. I tell them it's the Magna Carta of the South Pacific."
In his 35 years in the industry Mr Kake-Hill said he had made lifelong friends and rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous, such as US talkshow star Oprah Winfrey.
His greatest controversy came when he organised a powhiri for the first Russian cruise ship to visit New Zealand, the Shota Rustaveli, when memories of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia were still fresh; his highlight was taking Maori carvings to Alaska in the mid-1970s, starting a relationship between the two indigenous peoples.
"It's been quite an exciting life," he said.
Born in Orauta, raised at Ngawha Springs and now living in Kaikohe, Mr Kake-Hill is of Ngapuhi, Ngati Hine, Ngati Manu and Ngati Hau descent.
He travelled with the Ovation of the Seas when it left the Bay of Islands on Thursday evening for Tauranga. He was due to fly back to the Far North from there.
During the gift presentation Mr Davis spoke of his ancestor, Tahuhunuiarangi, who 18 generations earlier brought one of the first vessels into the Bay, the waka Moekakara.
He also noted a personal connection with the name of the ship's observation platform, North Star. A ship of the same name had brought some of his European ancestors to New Zealand and in 1845 had shelled Otuihu Pa, home of some of his Maori ancestors.