Christmas in the Caribbean

Merry Christmas everybody!

I'm exhausted, so I'll keep this quick--
The last few days have been super busy. With the holidays they've amped up the entertainment on board a little bit, so there's been a lot to do. I've never not been with family on Christmas. Have certainly never been anywhere WARM for Christmas, and have most definitely never been on a SHIP at Christmas, so there were a lot of new things this year. I've also never had to work on Christmas (or Christmas Eve), so I suddenly feel very grown up, and not necessarily in a good way...

I set foot on land on Saturday for the first time in a week. Was able to do a little shopping at Target (!) for things I didn't know to pack... would have preferred to know ahead of time, but you win some you lose some. One of a multitude of frustrations of starting a new job. On a boat. For 6 months straight.


I moved into my ACTUAL room on Saturday. Not the high class swankiness I am accustomed to, but workable. In reality, the room itself is pretty cozy. "Big" closet, a desk, a fridge, a little couch, coffee table, double bed, cabinets (!), AND, get this, a fold down BUNK BED for guests (which I can't have on my first contract, but fun to know regardless). AND IT HAS A PORTHOLE. It's definitely not a balcony, but I can't say that I would want a balcony now that I live five decks below my previous temporary room. In fact, if I had a balcony we would be in trouble because I neglected to pack my wet suit and scuba gear.

My new bathroom, on the other hand, would probably fit in your bathtub. It kind of reminds me of an airplane bathroom...except with a shower squished in the corner. Literally. A corner shower. I have no idea how a person of a taller or wider stature than myself can do anything other than just stand in that thing. Not much elbow room. In fact, if you're using the toilet, your elbow is in the shower. See handy photo image graphic below:



ALSO--new update--I finally got the first of my two uniforms. This one is the "formal" one, that I am technically supposed to wear every day past 6 when I am working or out in the guest areas (as opposed to the crew areas, where nobody really cares). Luckily for you, there is NO PHOTO EVIDENCE of said uniform. Just picture a homely lady preacher. Then put my face on top. Done. That's what I look like in this thing. It's just black pants (which are too short) and a black jacket (collarless...so w-e-i-r-d) and a black shirt under, but wow. Just wow. I will end my commentary regarding said uniform right now.

Christmas on the ship was fine-- it's the end of the year so there's not a whole lot of money in the budget for the ship to do anything super special, but they tried. There was a special Christmas dinner in the crew mess, of which everything was meaty and greasy, therefore I went with my regular rice and vegetable mess. To a noticing person, it's super amusing to track which leftovers from one night end up in another dish the next day. I swear the chefs just dump together all the uneaten cucumbers and green beans and kidney beans and radishes and mini shrimp from the fancy guest restaurants and toss it in oil or something and then try to serve it to us. It's not terribly hard to be a vegetarian on this ship, though options are basically limited to pasta or rice and whatever leafy/veggie/healthy-ish things you can find. In fact, I think I get the better end of the deal...because the day old meat soups they put together are somewhat less than tempting. That being said-- it's not all bad, and this is one of the newer nicer ships so apparently we have it better than some of the older ones. The crew mess only has certain hours though, so if you miss dinner you're in trouble (though certain people, myself included, can eat at guest restaurants at certain times or if they aren't too busy, so it's not totally hopeless).

Ummm... it's suddenly 1:30am and the clocks are changing forward one hour tonight because of the friggin' time zones that we pass through each week. This was not something I had even remotely thought of as I was prepping for this! Once a week we change an hour forward and once a week we change an hour back. Super exhausting, especially when you have an early morning training or rehearsal (as I do tomorrow). BUT, we'll be in San Juan, Puerto Rico tomorrow so I'm planning to get off the ship and explore a little bit.... cool!

Hope you had a merry merry Christmas!! My Christmas gift to myself was the super soft super comfy comforter that I got at Target when i was in Miami on Saturday...on the advice of my colleagues I got this because the crew cabins don't come with many layers on the bed! I also did my laundry...for free...in the wardrobe office...because that's one of the perks of being in this department. Good deal. Though if I'm feeling super lazy I can pay a dollar and just drop it off at crew laundry...but I'd rather keep my dollar.

Merry merry!
Sweet Dreams,
D

P.S. This is my office! That whole corner is mine, and on the right is the AV Manager's (TD's) desk. The bandmaster and dance/vocal/aerial captains share the desk on the left (you can see a corner of it.)

At Sea: An Update

I'm currently somewhere in the Caribbean between St. Kitts and Miami, Florida. The Captain announced to us yesterday that due to some 50 foot waves in the open ocean we would be taking an alternate way back to Florida... yikes.

Since I arrived on ship on Saturday afternoon it's been one busy day after another. I haven't left the ship yet even though we've made a few stops, because honestly at this point I'd rather nap when I have a free moment rather than explore a touristy island that I will see a dozen more times between now and April... don't worry, I DO plan to do some exploring eventually!

With this job I'm not just running the productions--there's a lot of administrative behind-the scenes stuff that will be the biggest learning curve I think. TONS of institutional knowledge that it may take a while to figure out. And all of the terminology is different. For example, the person I would call the "Technical Director" has the title of "AV Manager" in this world. Oh well. As the Production Manager I report directly to the Cruise Director, who, as I learned, is VERY important and basically responsible for everything "fun" for the cruise guests. He's British and very energetic, I'm just hoping I can keep up with him!

Living on a ship is a lot like living in the dorms... if your dorm room is on a rocking, wobbly piece of steel in the middle of the ocean. That being said, this ship is only about 2 years old and is pretty stunning (though having never been on a cruise before this I have nothing to compare it to... my closest experience is from watching "Titanic," which probably isn't the best thing for comparison...). It should be said that I'm living in a fancy guest cabin for this first week or so until my room is available. There is a specific cabin just for the Production Manager, but that room is being occupied by the person currently holding that title, so I got stuck in a guest cabin up on deck 7 with a BALCONY, a couch, and a Queen size bed. And a big little bathroom. Tough life. Really curious as to what my "real" room will look like.

We have three big production shows and a variety of smaller shows that are performed here, not to mention guest entertainers and such. I still don't have a good grasp of how all that works. One thing that makes our shows unique from many of the other ships is all the aerial stuff in our shows... a little Cirque du Soleil-ish. Super cool, and super new for me. A far cry from the last few projects I've worked on on land.

I'm being trained by a guy who's been doing this for years and years, so he definitely knows what's going on. In fact, so far the whole "AV" team seems pretty great. I'm definitely outnumbered by males around here though. We'll see how that goes. Testosterone.

I've met lots of people from ALL OVER THE WORLD. More accents and denominations than you can shake a stick at. I definitely have an advantage as a native English speaker, however. I wouldn't want to be doing all of this training (LOTS and LOTS of ship safety training) without a firm grasp of this language. Just in my cast and crew we've got Canadians, Filipinos, Brits, Scots, Polish, American, Ukrainian, etc. Wild. Have made some friends from South Africa, Bulgaria, Canadia, Ukrainia...all over.

I may try to post some pictures of this place at some point. Maybe even now. We'll see.

P.S. I have NO FACEBOOK on the ship, unless I go pay to use a computer in the crew lab. At the moment I am on my office computer, which has all social things blocked, though I am still able to check email from here.

P.P.S. Will be doing 7 day cruises around the Caribbean until April, then set sail for Europa. For the time being I should be in Miami for a few hours each Saturday, when I will try to catch up with phone calls/texts, as I don't have these conveniences when I'm out on the water!

Cheers,

D

The view from the Bridge.

My temporary quarters. Note the small bed and tiny window.

Cheesy self portrait from my balcony as we sail into Puerto Rico.

And last but not least, the Eclipse Theatre. I found this photo on my office computer, not actually sure who took it or what's happening on stage, but this is the main performance space.

Countdown

If all goes as planned, I will be headed to the Caribbean on Saturday as the newest Production Manager with Celebrity Cruise lines.

I left my safe happy little Pittsburgh world for this adventure, so cross your fingers that it was worth it...

(Oh, and I've suddenly become the web's newest blogger as well!)