pool games & stingrays

My gosh, it’s been a long time since I’ve written- but I have been absolutely flat out (and very tired) for the last week. Really, my job is awesome yet totally insane.

A lot of people on the ship think the cruise staff have it easy, but I find those those are generally the people who havn’t thought about whether or not they could actually do our job. I must admit, I find this job to be a lot of fun – actually I love every second of it – and I find that it comes naturally to me (which is really nice). But most of the other crew on this ship (and probably most people in general) – especially the ones who think we have it easy – would probably struggle to do our job – it only looks easy because the people who do it are good at what they do.

We are around passengers 11-14 hours a day. And when we are around passengers we are ON. Completely ON. Always FUN FUN FUN all the time. We entertain them, we talk to them, we help them, we make them smile. I’ve become very good at making random conversation with strangers- especially ones who are just sitting there, minding their own business. I think most people would struggle, given you also have to host events, run activities and stay up until 1am in the evening and start work at 9am.
Cruise Staff is not an easy job – it’s a lot of fun for the sort of people who are drawn to the role – for others it might be some kind of nightmare.

Anyway, that aside, I am very excited because today I hosted pool games for the first time. Now, although that does’t sound very exciting (and yes, I have hosted plenty of other activities this cruise already) but pool games is a whole other ball game.

Pool games is tricky. One cruise staff hosts and two are the team captains. You have about 200 spectators. You have to get the crowd ( who were, util you started on the microphone, lying in the sun minding their own business) pumped up, introduce the teams and explain the rules of each games properly yet interestingly yet succinctly, run each event and provide commentary keeping everyone involved.
I was pretty nervous before I started hosting – especially as we had 16 people playing and a huge amount of people int eh pool areas. However, it went really well and I’m really proud to have conqured that challenge.

We played three games – Over and Under, Live Preserver Gladiators and the Great T-Shirt Race.

It went really smoothly, except for a brief moment when the captain interrupted with an announcement over the ship’s PA (which knocks out the music and my microphone) so I had to call a time out AND when security came over and started yelling at my participants for jumping safely into the pool (I did not allow diving – but you have to allow them to jump in a race!!).

This is the same security officer who smokes round the back of the ceramics cart much to my chargin.

ALso, last night I taught a line dance at country night for the first time! man, I feel like a woman.

grapevine to the right, grapevine to the left, mosey mosey mosey mosey, easy walk, easy walk, "doggy pee pee", turn it around.
I love line dancing.

Another exciting thing that happened was that last Friday, I SWUM WITH THE STINGRAYS on Grand Turk. They were so amazing and cute! So gentle, they came in and swam around us in the shallows and we were able to hold them, kiss them and get a stingray massage! So cool! They feel all slimy and fishy and cute! I even got to kiss the stingray’s tail barb. Also we got photos with the stingray “smiling”- they hold her out of the water and she spurts water out her mouth and it looks like she’s smiling!

On the same tour I also got to snorkel at some off-shore reefs- very awesome to dive down deep and explore – there were GIANT BARACUDA! Very very cool!