June 16, 2009

This is dedicated to anyone who's ever suggested that my job doesn't really count as "work", or that my life on this ship is all fun and games.

This was my day yesterday, beginning to end:

8:30 AM: I wake up after about six hours of sleep, which isn't bad but it's still 8:30 in the morning. Struggle out of bed, get ready for my day.
9:00 AM: I'm off the ship and ring Martin so that we can talk for a whole 15 minutes before he has to get ready for work.
9:20 AM: I find a bagel and coffee and just relax, actually, until...
11:00 AM: I'm back on board, getting ready for work.
11:30 AM: A-pass duty, where I help check guests in. It is the least favorite job I've ever done, anywhere.
1:45 PM: I'm done with a-pass, changing out of my uniform...
2:00 PM: off the ship making phone calls, etc.
3:00 PM: back on the ship getting ready for boat drill
3:15 PM: boat drill, where I help hand out wristbands to children etc.
4:00 PM: As soon as boat drill is over I go to a department meeting. C and I are both more of an affiliation with the department than actual members, so we spend most of the time bored out of our minds while the others try and hash out some conflict they're having with one another.
5:15 PM: Meeting FINALLY over, I go to my club to try and get a bit of prep work done.
6:00 PM: What I thought was going to be ten minutes of preparation took 45 minutes, so when I finish I go straight to dinner. A disappointing dinner. I had salad with old lettuce and some really nasty hummus.
6:40 PM: Back to gather my things and begin registration what is supposed to be a half-hour registration time.
7:45 PM: Registration is finally over. C and I trek out together, find a photographer pal of ours, and end up having some fun with an impromptu photo shoot since we have our snazzy new uniforms now.
7:55 PM: I crash in the mess with some pals with a cup of tea, intending to relax for the half-hour I have before work should begin again.
7:58 PM: I get a call from the cruise director wanting me to go with him to suck up to some guests. It's all kind of a long story, but it has to do with another cruise director, a certain blog, and these folks having a bad time on one of our other ships. Except, they came on another cruise anyway despite their horrible horrible time. Hmm.
8:00 PM: I run up to the office to check my email to try and figure out what the cruise director was actually talking about.
8:20 PM: I meet with the cruise director beforehand so that we can go visit these people at dinner, only to have both of us discover that the other cruise director was wrong, they don't have teens traveling with them, and it's pointless to have me around. I run off since I should've finished prepping to open my club back up already.
8:30 PM: I arrive just in time to open, and spend the next 3 1/2 hours registering another 60 kids, struggling to convince them that they should stop being awkward, convince them again that they should be even LESS awkward and dance, and successfully DJing a dance party.
12:00 AM: wander around the ship with and without teens, make sure all is well, etc.
1:00 AM: I've given up by now, clock out, and drag one of my musician friends to the crew bar where C buys everyone a round, we all critique a dry martini, and for the first time since about ten that morning I relax a little bit.
3:00 AM: I get back to my cabin exhausted, crash, and manage to sleep seven whole hours.

And that was the end of my day. I think the real kicker of the story is that despite pulling what turned out to be just over an eleven-hour work day, I still spent 40 minutes in the office earlier playing catch-up on things I should've had done yesterday. And I'm still not entirely prepped for this cruise... I like getting everything together by the day before the cruise starts, but I'm not ready for the last day of this cruise yet. It's just one simple thing and won't be an issue, but still.

I am greatly looking forward to going home and getting some time where I don't have to work.

June 12, 2009

The other day I was standing up on the very top deck of the ship, watching fog roll over Grand Cayman Island and wondering what I was going to miss about the ship when I left. I still have these moments of peace every now and then when I'm looking out a window or standing outside when I remember: I'm on a ship, and that's pretty cool. I can have had the worst group of kids after getting four hours of sleep, but nothing can change the fact that I'm on a cruise ship of all places. I don't really get that feeling on land very often.

Of course there's other things I'll miss as well, but honestly that's the main one. I'll miss people, but the people won't be on this ship after I leave anyway. I'll miss getting to go to another country every few days, but not enough to really matter. Maybe I'll miss parts of the lifestyle, but it's too soon to tell about that right now.

I'm probably very behind with this blog thing, since I don't really remember what I wrote about last. I've been sick for about three weeks, and am ALMOST at 100% again. I had to wake up at 8:00 AM this morning for a very pointless training. I got to eat in the guest dining room two nights ago. I got to hang out with J, the bloke mentioned towards the beginning of this thing quite often, twice in the last few weeks because our ships go to the same place on occasion, and K has returned to this ship. It's mostly same old, following a routine, and trying to make it these last six weeks before I burn out entirely.