Golden Gate Bridge, Sept 24, 2012

A few weeks ago on our way south from Seattle the ship spent the night in San Francisco.  On the way into and out of the city we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge.  I was able to get out to the heli-pad on the front of the ship as we left the city and took this quick video.  It was really incredible, and as huge as this ship is it dwarfs in comparison to the Bridge.

I don't remember how much clearance they said we had, but there was not a lot of extra room overhead!

In case the video doesn't work as planned, here's a photo as we approached the bridge---

And as we passed under it--

Pretty cool.

Okay.  Time for bed.

Sweet dreams,
D

Canal Day

Yesterday, 10/4/2012, the Infinity went through the Panama Canal on its way from Seattle to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  I was in rehearsal all day, so I didn't get a chance to actually go outside and see the (9 hour) process of navigating the locks and the lakes, but I do have a cool pic from a webcam as we passed through:

Celebrity Infinity in the Panama Canal - October 4, 2012

We'll pass through the Canal 4 or 5 more times before I leave, so I'll definitely find time to watch some of it... it's pretty amazing.  There's approximately 50 centimeters of clearance on each side of this ship as it passes through... that's not a lot of room.  As I was eating lunch that day down in the mess on Deck 1 all you could see out the porthole window was a stone wall... if there wasn't glass in the window you could reach out and touch it.  Insane. Some colleagues and I were comparing it to pulling into the garage... for a couple of hours at a time.

Okay that's all for the moment.  I have a 9am rehearsal for a guest talent show tomorrow.  AND it's one hour forward [AGAIN] tonight as we continue our eastward journey.  Ouch. 

Sweet dreams.
D

Thoughts

Yesterday I received a compliment that I can't stop thinking about...it's cracking me up a little bit. One of the guest entertainers on board told me I reminded her of a 'young' Angela Lansbury:

What do YOU think?

In other news, we're 11 days into this 17 day-long cruise... still in the Pacific Ocean.  Stopping in Puntarenas, Costa Rica today as our port of call.  Since the new cast is still in rehearsals for their third and final show, they're using this day as a rehearsal day... that being said, I don't think I'll be getting any sun in Costa Rica today.  Oh well.

My lighting guy just called me to tell me he's been throwing up all morning and that he might not be able to work today. Throwing up sucks, and under normal circumstances I'd say 'that sucks, stay home, feel better.' But since we're on a ship, which is not normal circumstances, there are certain maritime and company regulations that come into play here... first and foremost he has to be reported to the medical facility, and may or may not be isolated to his cabin for a day or so until he gets better. Any sort of GI disturbance is serious, because some of those bugs are super contagious and must be kept at bay... there's nothing fouler than a ship full of pukey poopy people.  Actually, as I write this, my boss just called to say we're nearing the dreaded 'Level 2,' which means we've had a certain number of GI cases reported in so many hours and need to boost our sanitization efforts.  Oy.  Talk about fun!

That being said, I'll leave you with this image of future me...

Hope you are well!
D

Cast Changeover...

I don't quite exist this week...or next, but somehow have carved out a second to make a post.

This cruise and next are a part of what we in the cruise industry call the cast changeover.  Last embarkation day (when the old guests leave and new ones come on) in Seattle, I got my 17 new dancers and singers on board.  For the last few weeks they have been in rehearsals in England and arrived on board as a whole cast to replace the outgoing group, who will be leaving on the next embarkation day in Seattle. 

It's a particularly crazy time... not just in the days leading up to the new cast arriving and the old cast leaving, but the suuuuuper long days wherein we have a full day of normal rehearsals, shows, lectures, and events, and then add on top of that the extra rehearsals we are doing with the new cast members to get them fully accustomed to the theatre, the stage space, the scenery, lighting, sound, costumes, etc.  They need to be at 100% with everything when the current cast leave, so needless to say it's a busy week.  At the moment my normal brood of 17 cast members has doubled to 34, in addition to my tech team.  Supermom am I... yeah, you have to be part mom to do this kind of job, whether it's on ships or on land.

That being said, when we leave Seattle on Friday we'll be heading south instead of north.  Alaska season is over, so we'll be doing a repositioning cruise, or "crossing" cruise, to transition to Panama Canal season.  Instead of a 7 day cruise this repositioning will be 17 days.  Yup.  The cast does basically the same amount of work in 17 days as 7 days, but I sure don't.  The ship will be doing an overnight in San Francisco on the 23rd of September, so I'm looking forward to the chance to do a little exploring in that city.  I've only ever been to the airport, but I saw Alcatraz and Golden Gate as we flew in!

Hope all is well with everyone.  I'm just trying to stay sane...and awake...sounds a little like grad school.  Once this changeover period is over I'll breath easy and sleep again.

Thinking of my people, wherever you are.

D

Mathematics

Nearly two weeks into this contract on the Infinity, and so far so good. Even though the previous Production Manager left before I arrived, we all survived with no major issues.  It really helped that I had the basic institutional knowledge of what the heck I'm supposed to do and who's responsible for what on these ships.  Otherwise we'd be in trouble.  As of now, the cast is good, the AV team is good, my boss is good, the ship is good, the itinerary is good. My cabin is half the size as my cabin on Eclipse. There's no window. There's no couch. But no matter.  I'll trade the stress/frustration of that ship for a smaller, darker, couchless cabin any day. No worries.

It's kind of fun now that I've already completed one contract to be able to talk to the cast/AV team and figure out how many of the same people we know.  It's a good icebreaker for me as the new person:  "Hey, did you say you worked with 'so and so'? Me too!" Yup.

We've got a few more weeks of Alaska cruises, then on September 21 we head south to reposition for our Panama Canal/Caribbean cruises.  The new cast will arrive on September 14 after four weeks of rehearsals in the UK, and we'll spend a week transitioning them into everything.  Should be crazy, but I feel a little better prepared since I survived one already my last contract. We'll see!

--

So...some math for you.  You may have heard me say, and it may not surprise you to hear, that men outnumber women quite significantly on ships.  I happened upon some numbers the other day that made me laugh a little... at this moment, there are approximately 770 men on board.

And 170 women.

--

Moving on, I just spoke with the on-board Alaska expert/naturalist guy and he says tonight should be a great night to see the Aurora Borealis, aka Northern Lights.  I might try to pop out to the open deck after the shows tonight to see what I can see! I've never seen the Northern Lights!


More soon,
D

A New Adventure

Celebrity Infinity...in some exotic locale.

A new adventure awaits on the high seas as I make my way to Alaska to join the crew of the Celebrity Infinity for the remainder of its Alaska season and into it's Central/South America season... should be interesting!

I expect to be on board until February, so any and all Birthday/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years gifts and other assorted fan mail can be sent to this address (or some variation thereof)::

Celebrity INFINITY / Crew Mail
Danielle Fullerton / Production Manager
2935 West Corporate Lakes Blvd
Weston, FL 33331

This address is basically just a routing center for the ship and the mail will be forwarded to me wherever I am in the world!

More updates to come!
D

All's Well That Ends Well

SO.  I'm done. I'm back. It's over. The Celebrity Eclipse and I parted ways on June 9 in Southampton, UK, at the end of a very long and oh-so-short 5.5 month contract.  As with every home I've had, I left a piece of my heart there, and will miss a lot of people very very very much.  They know who they are.

(some of the guys...just your average evening)

Okay, enough of me being sappy.

In the 2.5 weeks since my return I've been crashing in the spare room of my sister and her husband's house in Richmond, Virginia, USA.  I've been sleeping late, eating delicious food, watching movies, and spending loads of time with my super cute 14-month-old nephew Giovanni (Gio!).  I'll be doing a little domestic adventuring as well, visiting friends and family around the USA.  Lately I've also been reflecting a lot on my travels, my work, my self, etc etc.  Being a Production Manager on a ship is no easy task.  When Maddie, the incoming PM arrived on May 26, it was like instant relief...the end was in sight.  We talked and talked a lot about the stresses of the job, the good, the bad, the ugly, the pros, the cons, all of it.  We jokingly referred to it as "Production Manager Therapy," but it was no joke... it's a tough job, a lonely one, so having someone to really (really!) talk to about it (after 5.5 months of nothing) made a world of difference.  To Maddie I wish the best of luck: it's a big ship, a beautiful ship,  with big shows and a lot of responsibilities.  The work is tough but the people are good.  Safe travels!

(Maddie and I in Warnemunde-- rock on, lady!!)

As for me, I didn't think I would miss it, but I do.  Even after a few short weeks away I'm already rested and rejuvenated and have had time to think about a lot of things and how I would do things better--differently--if I were to go back to the Eclipse.  What you may not understand is that when you are a Production Manager on a ship you don't get a day off.  Ever.  So on this contract I worked 5.5 months straight.  Other PMs work 6-7-8 months.  Straight.  It's hard.  But I must be crazy, because I've agreed to take another contract as a PM with Celebrity.  This time on a different ship, a "smaller" ship, with a much different itinerary.  While I was on the EC we spent 4 months in the Caribbean before sailing over to Europe, where before I left we did a Norway cruise, a Mediterranean cruise, and a Baltic cruise.  It was pretty incredible.  On my next ship, the Celebrity Infinity, we'll spend a month or so doing Alaska cruises out of Seattle, then make our way south to do Central America cruises for a while, then south again to South America.  I may even see Antarctica (!!) before I leave.  This will be VERY different from the last ship.  Smaller size, different production company.  Just very different.  On the EC I had a number of people tell me that they could really see me doing "Millennium Class" ships (of which the Infinity is one), so we'll see how that goes.  Believe it or not, I got a lot of crap about working too hard/too much while on the EC, so I'm hoping I can get rid of that label. Shouldn't be too hard-- I hope.

(rough day at the office...)

I'll admit, I did a terrible job of keeping this blog up to date while I was on the ship.  I don't know how some people do this every day, or even multiple times a day! Yikes!  That being said, I plan to continue (to the extent that I am willing/able) on my next adventure, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, I'm in the process of reviewing loads of photos and plan to upload many of those to my 'facebook' site, which is simply more accessibile to me and most people I want to share those with.  Some may end up here too.  We'll see.

That being said, I thank the folks who took the time to check in on me every now and then...  Just know that if I wasn't writing then I was either working, sleeping, or adventuring in some amazing port.

(adventure time in Copenhagen, Denmark)

Talk soon,
D