home is a place that is 87 days away...

With Barbara and Tim both leaving in 2 cruises time- and Mark in 6, I have started thinking about going home myself. Not that I miss home so much (and I love it here & am still having heaps of fun), but I have been thinking about it a lot.
So I sat down with my new itinerary and some coloured pens and worked out how the next three months will pan out.

As of today, I have 87 days left of my contract. I disembark the Emerald Princess on the 19th of October. I have 8 7-day cruises remaining and then 3 10-day cruises after that. The 10 day cruises will just FLY by because they are mostly new ports & different destinations. 10 day cruises are also apparently very different to 7 day cruises in terms of passenger demographics AND how hard cruise staff work. On the 10 day cruise there is a lot more time and things are a little more … relaxed. 7 day cruising is apparently much harder work than usual- and Tim does work us very hard (but is an amazing cruise director, and we certainly get the results!).

Tim and Barbara have 2 cruises left, Mark has 6 cruises left. Then… crazy time. DJ Dave is leaving after the first 10 day cruise, Boogie and Hersh are leaving after the second 10 day cruise, I am leaving after the third 10 day cruise and Collette is leaving after the fourth 10 day cruise. Can you imagine how crazy those weeks are going to be? It is going to be an awesome way to end the contract.

The new runs are exciting as well – 10 day eastern followed by 10 day western.
10 day eastern (starting on ) is Port Everglades, Princess Cays, At Sea, St Thomas, Dominica, Grenada, Bonaire, Aruba, At Sea, At Sea, Port Everglades.

The 10 day Western is Port Everglades, At Sea, At Sea, Antigua, St Lucia, Barbados, St Kitts, St Thomas, at sea, Princess Cays, Port Everglades.

How Exciting. The only slightly disturbing thing is that when they run together it goes at sea, at sea, port everglades, at sea, at sea – meaning whoever is IPM in port everglades is doomed to 5 days in a row of intensity! And guess what, although I’m only going to experience the double sea day double ONE TIME, if IPM schedules stay the same, it looks lke I AM GOING TO BE IPM!! Hahah oh well, I’ll be so stoked to be going home at that point, I won’t even notice Im sure!

The good thing is I should be able to swap around IPMs with other people so I get to see all the ports in the western run (which I’m only going to be doing once), as I can swap them and do St. Thomas or Princess Cays IPM.
Times left in each port

Port Times Off IPM
Fort Lauderdale 11 7 4
Princess Cays 11 7 4
St Maarten 4 2 2
St Thomas 7 4 3
Grand Turk 4 3 1
Ocho Rios 4 3 1
Grand Cayman 4 2 2
Cozumel 4 3 1

This means I have tenders a total of 6 times left in my contract. YES YES YES!! Only six tenders to go!! (provided none of the new ports are tender ports!!)