rainy day in sunny mexico

Today is raaainy! I got up at 7am to work out, started to get ready and turned on the “window” (the TV channel that shows the webcam from the bridge), took off my shoes and got back into bed again. You couldn’t see anything, the rain was so heavy. Our arrival to Cozumel was delayed and the passengers are generally a bit grumpy – but I think they’ll still have a good day. After all, you can’t control the weather (unless you are X-men).

I am on IPM today. I had a ping pong tournament at 9 (cancelled as they were taking apart the tables for some reason), board games get together at 10 (no one came) and a trivia at 11.15. Of course there were still 12 people at the trivia, as the trivia nuts are so crazy for trivia they will always stay on board if it is on. At least until it’s over. Now I have a nice 3 hour break (which I used to mostly to go to horizon court for a delicious meal). Then I have putt putt (a crazy activity where we play putt putt in the piazza) and then another trivia at 4:30. After that I have to decorate club fusion for fright night, but apparently I have library from 5-6 and then my appraisal at 6:30 so I don’t know where I’m going to find time!

Tonight is fright night. Fright night is pretty much my favourite theme night. I dress as .. I don’t know, part ghoul and part bride of frankenstien. I do my crazy hair (for those who saw MacBeth, you will understand what this is) and generally run around saying “spooky”, “freaky” and “creepy” at people in a warbly voice and making cat sounds. It’s really fun. For fright night Itself, we start with dancing to ghostbusters, then we do the “spooky slide” which is just the electric slide to spooky music. Then we do the time warp (which is awesome). Next is the mummy game where we choose 3 couples who were dancing and get the lady to wrap the man up in toilet paper – the best “mummy” winning champagne.

Then, the best bit, we teach the passengers the thriller dance !! They love it! I love it! Fright Night is the best.

Tonight we also have the Princess Popstar finals. My job is to stay in the “green room” with the passengers (which is actually just a blocked off area of club fusion) and interview them via video feed after they sing (like on idol). Basically I pretend to get drunker and drunker as the interviews go on, we make jokes and have fun and at the end I fall over and pass out.

So that’s my night – it’s a big one and I have 2 hours of break left – so I’m gonna have an hour nap. That is how cruise staff survive. Hour naps whenever we can.

No Pass Outs

Something really cool happened this week – it’s summer holidays in the US and there are heaps of kids and young people on board.

I am in charge of running events just for the 18-20 year olds. We call them the grey zone because for some insane reason, Americans have set their drinking age at 21.. So these poor kids can’t go to the bars on board, or to the kid zone. I think that having the drinking age at 21 is absolutely retarded. Can you imagine? 20 years old and can’t go to a bar? I did all my best drinking between the ages of 18-20… it would be a shame to miss all that.

Anyway, the 18-20’s this week have been awesome. They are a crazy bunch and have been organising their own events all week on top of the ones I am running. They made signs and put them up all over the ship.

However, we got off to a slightly rocky start when I FAINTED at our first meeting. Now, you have to understand that when you are “off” in fort Lauderdale, it is not a relaxing experience. You have exactly 2-4 hours to get EVERYTHING you need for the next week- and use fast internet to upload photos and videos. Then you have to factor in travel time and the terror that you will miss the ship. I skipped breakfast and lunch due to extreme running around. Also It was really really hot.

The first 18-20’s meeting is held on deck 16 at the sail away party. In full sun. And I was talking A LOT to avoid awkward silences amongst the 18-20’s. suddenly I realised I was seeing auras around things and my hearing started to go. I went to the bar to get some water but they were really busy and they wouldn’t give me any. So I passed the “18-20’s get together” sign to one of the boys and went to sit down in the Lotus Spa.

But I didn’t make it – I fainted on the door of the lotus spa and hit my head. Fell on my face. So embarrassing. I was totally disoriented and had no idea where I was. It was the worst ever. Also worst ever = crying in front of passengers. Anyway I was sent to the medical center and all my vital signs were fine – so I’m ok. But everyone teases me about fainting now. Including the 18-20’s.

Another cool thing this week is my charm bracelet. I am collecting all the diamonds international charms – they are free and you end up with a cool bracelet – you just have to go to diamonds international in every port and collect your charms. I am IPM today in Grand Turk, but I’m getting Liz (the port and shopping guide) to collect today’s for me. So far I have Diamonds International, Sunglasses (St Maarten), Shopping bag (St. Thomas) and an Ammolite (from the Ammolite gallery in St. Thomas).

Liz has given me lots of fab stuff this week – she is the best and alsothe most extreme shopper in the world. It is her job to help everyone on board with their shopping questions about each port, promote various stores and … help people shop I guess? It is serious business this cruise – she has a line at her desk that snakes along deck 7 forward, all the way around the Piazza some days.

This week she gave me a shirt from Cariloha, which is made entirely out of bamboo (and is so comfortable). She also gave me a crazy straw hat and a heap of things from Del Sol. Del Sol is a store that sells a plethora of random items that all change colour in the sun. I have the nail polish (clear in the dark to pink in the sun), hair clips, rings and two cool tote bags that I’m pretty sure I’ll be giving to mum and Alison when I get home (they are PERFECT bags for teachers).

At the moment I’m just hanging out in my room – but I have a board games get together at 2pm… then off to decorate club fusion for fright night tonight. Then Library from 4-6pm. There is something random on tonight called “gameshow”. I have no idea what that is yet.

and another video post

hm.. so i made a video because my fingers are too sticky to type... woo st thomas today.

VIDEO WOO!

oh also - check out my cabin!

Pre-emptive post

ok. so i didn't post last week. I have come to realise that Western Caribbean weeks are going to be like that for a while - simply because all the ports have lots to do, and i'm not going to spend time searching for free internet until i've done all the other cool stuff in that port.

This week in ocho rios, we went out for Indian food as a whole team (which could never really happen as 2 people always have to be on in port manning). It was delicious and then tehre was a tropical storm.

Grand Cayman I was IPM. UGH Grand cayman is fabulous, but is a tender port, meaning from 6:30 am to 11 am I had to stand in michaelangelo dining room handing out tender tickets and trying to explain to passengers what "tenders" meant.

Cozumel this week was great - i did a tour to Mexico Experience and CHakanaab. Mexico experience is a new theme park that has lots of mexican artworks and minatures of all the important temples - i'll be uploading photos in st maarten (wednesday) so you can see waht i'm talking about - very cool!

Chakanaab is a nature park that has a natural lagoon that is connected to the sea, so you can see all the fish from land! I went snorkelling there and also had delicious mexican food.

OK that's a quick overview of what's been happening. OH also, I hosted the international crew show in the princess theatre, did a lot of singing and co-hosted the newlyweds/not so newly wed gameshow. my performance review is this week - i hope i'll do ok!

Ministry of sound Sessions Seven just downloade... OMG finally good music!

OK, that's it.. I have to get back to the ship to do the ship tour and welcome aboard trivia!

money money money cash cash drink drink

I also got last month’s bar bill. $260. TOO MUCH! Not all on alcohol mindyou – I got a $60 haircut and colour, $80 worth of cosmetics and perfumes and spent $25 on twix bars from the crew shop. But the rest was alcohol. Alcohol in the crew bar = really cheap. Alcohol in passenger areas = passenger prices = EXPENSE.

And as cruisestaff, we spend a lot of time in club fusion – it’s the performance space/bar/niteclub where most of our activities take place. It’s our home away from home (away from home). And trust me, if you had to sit through 10 singers in princess popstars karaoke competition, you too would need a drink. Normally I get $3.40 long island iced teas – and with 2 a night, most nights a week, you can see how things escalate.

So, this month, I save money. I have to pay my room steward $40 a month (although he slacked off last month a bit I think) but that is my only sunk cost. Of course, I am going to drink a bit – but I’m not getting drinks in club fusion any more (and am becoming better friends with the fusuion bartenders- so I might get a couble of sneaky freebies if it’s slow). Fortunately I like the fusion bartenders anyway, so it won't be too bad (P.S those of you who know me well know i hate getting free drinks off people anyway - so you can see the bar bill situation is dire)

SO I made this decision on June 1st.. and also on June 1st I was hosting Princess popstars in club fusion. It was just too much to get through. S...o I decided to try for a free long island iced tea (or at least an extra strong paid one- LIIT's are not THAT expensive so i wasn't too bothered). Anyway, one bartender was going to make me this drink.. when the other one came up and said “hey let me make you a drink”. From his tone, I totally thought he meant a freebie – so I got realllly excited and said “yeah, well make me something awesome – what do you think I’d like”.

bow bow.

So he made me a red drink in a little squat glass. I was very excited. Then he asked for my account number. OH WELL I thought, such is life. Then I saw the receipt. $7.99!! NO NO NO!!! why would he make me the most expensive drink ever. Then I tasted it and it was rotten.. yuk. Tasted likea cup of my anger. I think he knew I was expecting a freebie so he taught me a lesson. BUT MY BAR BILL!!! Oh no!
I was very sad and went back to the fusion booth with tears of despair in my eyes. I bought a long island tea for myself to commiserate and combined the drinks. At the end ofpopstars there is a short break where music plays in the lounge until the next activity – and it’s my job to go and dance. When I came back from dancing, the bar staff had cleared my drink. MY $12 DRINK! OUTRAGE!

I went on to drink a lot that evening to commiserate. Wah!

it's all about the music (and not losing your laminex)

Last Wednesday, I simultaneously ran out of cash and internet credit and had to wait for today (pay day) to buy more.

.I spent eight days without ANY internet access. That’s the most time I’ve gone without using internet in the last 12 years. It was slightly less terrifying than I thought, however, because I am so completely busy all the time that I haven’t had time to miss it (although it is pretty much my only connection to the outside world).

This week has been really interesting because Mark’s parents are on board. They are very nice (and very british) and we have had a lot of fun showing them the ports. It also means that Mark has been off every port this week, so we get to hang out together on three different ports this week – just like the good old days (3 weeks ago) when we were in port manning partners.

I think I am going to ask (in a few weeks) if we can go back to being In Port Manning partners again – it was such a shame we got swapped when Mark and I are besties.

This week was also cool because I have done A LOT of hosting. Trivias, Pool games, Paper flower making and (most excitingly) my own game show (that I came up with) called “it’s all about the music”.

My game show is pretty much a music trivia but a bit more exciting in that people bring down their answers aftery every question and we make them yell out answers & read out stupid answers etc. My game show has 3 sections – one where I play a song and they have to name the artist and the title, one where I flash a picture of a musician on the screen and people write down their names and one where my assistant gargles a song and they have to guess what it is – I had 25 teams this week! Next week I’m gonna play ukulele as well!

CD (that’s Tim, the Cruise director – he gets called “CD” – all cruise directors do) watched this week and said he was impressed – which is cool.

I have decided I really really want a promotion - Barbara is a great roommate but I want my own room. I am doing as much work as the ACDs (some of them anyway) so I’m really going to push for a promotion this cruise by doing as much as I can and not holding back. I’m really good at this job and really motivated to do well. Today I’m getting together some crosswords to do up a “crosswords @ sea” for the library. I’m also going to pick CD’s brain to help improve my gameshow.

I was really scared the other day because I almost committed the ultimate sin on a cruise ship- I lost my laminex (or thought I did). The laminex is the photo ID you must carry with you when you get off the ship and put in the IPM board when you are on IPM. It is basically a sacred piece of plastic. If you lose it, it is a BIG DEAL- obviously creating a security risk for the whole ship (what if someone picks it up and uses it to gain unauthorised access to the ship?).

Anyway, I was rushing to get my production notes printed for my gameshow & gather all the equipment I needed for my slideshow, and I don’t know, I must have been emptying out my bag in the office. My laminex was on the desk and I SOMEHOW seem to have piled 3 decks of cards (prizes) on top of it. I must have decided I didn’t need the cards and pushed them against the wall in the corner of the desk, with my laminex underneath.

The next day, I realised it was gone. I looked for it for six hours, experienced the seven stages of grieving and finally came to accept that I was going to get a written warning (pretty much the worst thing you can get- stays on your record for 3 contracts- and if you get 3 you are OUT).

I bumped into the music manager in the corridor and mentioned my problem.
“Terry, I’ve lost my laminex”
terry- “umm, no you haven’t – you stashed it in the office”
me- (in disbelief)”I searched there for 2 hours today – it’s not there”
terry- “well it’s there, I knocked over some cards and saw it underneath – I thought you were hiding it there for some reason”.

!!!!!!!!!

OH MY GOSH! THE RELIEF! AMAZING! I would not have found it until someone cleaned up the office (which is pretty clean so probably an even that is quite far off).
WHAT A NARROW ESCAPE. Want a promotion, not a disembark!