April 28, 2009

I am half-way through my contract. These last three months have been full of fun and adventure and work, and once I got used to ship life I fell quite easily into the routine of things around here. I expected another three uneventful months to come.

And then swine flu happened.

Today is April 28th, a Tuesday, and we're supposed to have gone to Cozumel. Actually, it's only 7:25 as I type this so we should still be IN Cozumel. I should be relaxing out on Lido deck supervising swimming teenagers right now, recovering from a day in the sun and possibly a mojito. But at 11:00 last night I learned we wouldn't be going to Cozumel, because of swine flu.

On a short-term scale, this doesn't mean much. It means we miss a port of call, which is a bummer and means I have to work an 11-hour day as opposed to a 6-hour day, but it happens. The guests get upset but it's not the end of their world. Life goes on, next cruise is back on track. But this isn't a missed port for weather or hurricanes or what-have-you, this is a missed port for a pandemic in Mexico. It won't go away before our next cruise. And our next cruise? It only goes to Cozumel.

I don't know what this will mean on a long-term scale. I haven't really been told anything, but rumor has it the higher-ups are looking for an alternative port and my ship will switch routes. Shadier rumor has it we might be going to Nassau. I don't know, but I'll try to keep things updated.

The worst part of this story isn't that I have to work two sea days in a row though. Oh no. The worst part of this story is the guests. At 11:15 this morning I called C, wondering if she knew where my nametag was, and it turned out she'd grabbed one of mine instead of hers. When I went up to switch with her, a riot was going on at the pursur's desk where the captain was answering questions. They moved things into our main lounge, and I snuck off to watch the going-ons with a photographer. And, man, what a show.

The captain, staff captain (your second-in-command), hotel director, cruise director, chief pursur... pretty much all the head-haunchos were there doing a Q&A session with the guests, letting anyone ask a question on the microphone and doing their best to answer so that everyone understands what's going on. Sounds simple, right? It would've been, if these guests were at all reasonable. Instead they were just idiots, accusing Carnival of doing this just so that we could make more money, asking over and over again why we can't just go to a different port (because we don't have time; everywhere else is too far away at this point), why can't we just go back to Tampa early (because that would be lame?), and so on, so forth. There was one woman in particular instigating them all, yelling that everyone should boycott the casino and bars, and just being a pain in everyone's asses.

Now, don't get me wrong. I can understand why guests would be upset we missed a port. I can even understand some of their points. But there is a wrong way and a right way to do criticism, and they had it all wrong. Besides, do they not understand that this is still THEIR vacation? Make your complaints, sure. PLEASE, in fact. But once you've done that, go on and do your best to enjoy yourself. Have fun. Relax. Maybe take a second to realize that not getting to go snorkeling in Mexico beats out dying of swine flu.

As far as other things go... well, we had another crew party last night. Poor timing, but it was a lot of fun despite it all. They opened the water slides for us, and people went down them right through 3:00 AM. There was also food, dancing, drinking... your typical party. A good way to prepare for 48-hours of sea day.