Quickie from Miami (the LAST Miami!)

Haven't written in a while-- but that's because I've been busy. SUPER busy.  Haven't been off the ship on my own time for more than 45 minutes in weeks... haven't been off in Miami in well over a month.  This job is a lot, and I'm learning there's a lot of sacrifice involved...like time, and sanity.

The past two weeks we did what's called a "cast changeover" on the Eclipse, meaning that a new cast of singers and dancers (who have been rehearsing for weeks on land) come on board to shadow the old cast for a week and have tons of rehearsals.  And then the old cast leaves and the new cast takes over 100% and does all of the shows, but since they're still "new" there's still tons of rehearsals. And let me tell you, just finding the brainpower to deal with all of that is exhausting.  And it's not just rehearsals, it's costumes, it's ship life, it's everything.   There have been a LOT of changes lately, which is part of why I have been so busy/so stressed!  Not only did we get a new cast, but we also got a new Cruise Director (my boss-- in charge of all "fun" stuff on the ship), a new AV Manager (like the TD, sort of... I supervise him, he supervises the AV/Tech crew), and we got a handful of new Tech guys. Fun fun.

Today when we leave Miami we head EAST to Europe.  We'll be at sea for 6 days, then have several European ports until we arrive at Southampton, England (our new "home base" for the European season).   I'm scheduled to leave June 9th... in theory, by the time I leave I will have seen Norway, Sweden, Russia, Italy, etc etc etc.  Pretty darn cool.  It's exciting to have some new ports to look forward to instead of the same 4 Caribbean tourist traps every week.  I think we even have an "overnight" in St. Petersburg, Russia.  What?!?!  Photos will be taken.  Haven't taken any recently because there's nothing of interest to photograph, but that will change soon.

There's much much more to expound on here, but I don't have time and my last day in Miami is drawing to a close... just be confident in knowing that after 4 months cruising the Caribbean I am neither tan, nor blond.  Still white, still pasty, still dark blond.  Oh well.  That was never a realistic goal anyway.

I've met some pretty incredible people from all over the world over the last 4 months... definitely will be tough to say goodbye in June, but there's still some time left... ! I never imagined (never ever ever ever ever imagined) that my best friends on this ship would be a group of 30/40-something male Filipino tech guys.  Not that it matters where they're from, but still, not what I pictured for myself. At all. I love it when my own life surprises me in good ways like that.

Hope that you faithful blog checker-uppers are doing well.  I'm barely on facebook these days, but once things calm down a little in the European season (longer cruises=more free time) I might find myself with more time for online social life.  We'll see.

Happy trails to you!
D

(P.S. If I learn Greek and Tagalog I will be set for life on ships... with these languages you can do anything....Greek officers, Filipino crew!)

A quickie from San Juan

"Puerto Rico, my heart's devotion. Let it sink back in the ocean...."

West Side Story. I can't help but think of this song every time we are in port here.

It must appear as though I hop from island to island, coffee shop to coffee shop, doing the internet thing, but really, internet is such a commodity that it's a HUGE deal to have it. I have limited access in my office, but to do anything interesting/social/fun I have to pay per minute when I'm on the ship. Right now I'm in a super cool super chill coffee shop in old San Juan, Puerto Rico. I had a blonde moment when the guy at the counter asked me where I'm from and I said "the United States." And then I remembered that I'm technically still in the United States. And then I felt stupid. And then I ordered my latte and smiled politely and pretended not to notice. I'm awesome.

I got off the ship earlier than I thought I would today, but then again, I have to get back earlier than I wanted. My boss, the Cruise Director, invited some of his managers (myself included) to dinner tonight at one of the restaurants on board. Considering that I have not eaten at a single on board restaurant (the cafe and the panini place and the buffet do NOT count), I had to take him up on the offer. So I rushed into town, up the hill, to the coffee shop "Poet's Passage" to do some interwebbing. Fun fun. Really cool vibe here though. Someday when I have more time I aim to try one of their sandwiches... looks good.

Anyway, things are still busy at work. A friend of mine left today, transferring to another ship as the Activity Manager there, which is an awesome promotion and super exciting. Looking forward to hearing his updates. We're getting a new Musical Director this weekend. The current one, Martin, has been doing this since January as a fill in until Ian gets here this weekend. If there's one thing I've learned here (I've said it before and I'll say it again), change is the only thing we can take for granted. People come and go all the time. Wow. And people get fired too. Two guys in the department (not my guys) were fired the other weekend for partying to hard and kissing guests. Let me just say, kissing guests is BAD. When you do that you get fired. And so it happened that they kissed guests and got fired. Bummer too, because they were pretty cool.

Anywho, that's my super brief update from San Juan. Gonna run and do some super quick errands before I hop back to the ship for dinner.

I miss everyone!

D

A quickie from Miami

10:59am

Sitting in Starbucks in Miami at a shopping area (tourist trap) about 15 minutes from the ship. This is my "usual" hangout on Saturdays, as it's a quick getaway and has internet, which is usually all I'm looking for.

I had a surreal moment last night (this morning) as I was going to bed-- glanced out the window and saw lights and buildings and trees outside... and other ships! Crazy. Sort of unexpected at 4:00 in the morning. I would have sat in the window and watched everything until we docked, but I figured it was probably time for sleep. Eh. Don't worry, the 4am thing is super unusual for me. Some people can do it all the time but I might keel over dead if I tried-- my work days start early and end late, not leaving a ton of time for other things, but oh well, such is the life.

I'm at a point in my world where I'm trying to figure out how to deal with taxes for last year... apparently when you freelance in different states and different countries things get complicated really fast. And then when you're on a ship with limited/slow interwebs for 98% of the week, that makes finding/accessing forms and such kind of tricky. Oh well. I can't possibly be the first person in the history of cruise ships to be dealing with this. It's just a pain in the butt. And as I've learned thru my numerous dealings with the payroll office on board, money and numbers are NOT my forte. Every time I drop by with an important form that I've spent days gathering signatures for, he takes one look and shows me what is wrong and makes me do it again. Talk about frustrating.

Anyway. It's another typical crazy Saturday around here. Still waiting for some "normal" type of day. Today I have to drop off/pick up things at head office AND take care of two new cast members when they get on board. Last Saturday we had FULL CREW immigration where all 1200 of us had to be processed by 3 immigration guys before anyone could leave the ship. And then the weekend before I had another new cast member. There's always something. Miami is an important day because it's a turnaround day-- one shipload of people leaves, another comes on board, and we don't have to entertain them until the evening, so there's a bit more time to do other things during the day... like to go Starbucks!

Eventually I will post more pictures I suppose. I just don't have my camera with me! Eventually I want to find time to do more island exploring, because being stuck in tourist land is not my idea of paradise. Hopefully some cool photos will come of that. Will keep y'all posted.

And that's my "quickie" from Miami. Not much new. Just busy. Always busy. Looking forward to my vacation already!

D

A quickie from St. Kitts

Hola,

At the moment I'm sitting on the outdoor balcony at a coffee shop in St. Kitts...somewhere in the Caribbean. Yesterday we were in St. Maarten. The day before we were in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The next two days are sea days, and then back to Miami on Saturday. Whew.

It's been an interesting few weeks since last I wrote. We had New Years... which was fine. Super long day leading up to it, but considering everything that could have gone wrong, I can't complain.

After the new year I had a bunch of friends leave-- they had only been on board for about 3 weeks as youth staff for the holidays to help handle the 600+ kids on the ship. These were the very first people I met, so it was kind of hard saying bye to my "oldest" ship friends. The good thing is that youth staff come back fairly regularly when the kid count is going to be high, so I'm hoping to bump into them all again! The friend thing is hard on this ship, especially as a manager-- I spend the majority of my time with the same people, and I'm their boss. So....yeah. I can be their friend, but there's a fine line. Living and working on a ship is like living and working in the dorms, in a high school, on a boat. And you can't escape. Don't piss too many people off, because you're stuck with them. All the time.

The hardest part about this job, I'm learning, is that the moment I think I've figured it out, found some rhythm, have a plan-- that's when some ridiculous roadblock lands in my face. Along with the stress of crazy hours and irregular sleeping/eating patterns, and high expectations from the boss as well as my cast and technical team, we've been dealing with some illnesses and injuries, and last week we had to fire one the dancers. The decision wasn't mine, and I didn't actually have to DO the firing, but I was in on the discussions and paperwork and at the meeting itself with the dancer-- who had no idea it was coming. Poor girl, she found out at about 8:30 pm and had to spend the whole night packing so she could leave the next day at Miami. Talk about a stressful day. For everyone. That's one reason last weekend was just the shittiest. The stress of that, dealing with other performers' various issues, trying to make my boss happy, helping everyone get past the fact that one of their friends had been fired, etc etc. Wah wah. Blah blah.

Anywho. I'm one month in. Five months left. Exhausted. But okay. The last two ports instead of getting off the ship I went back to bed! Today I'm in St. Kitts--decided to get off the boat just to stretch my legs and get some fresh air... and find some internet!! It's kind of nice today because we're the only ship here, which means the place is not packed with tourists. At some ports we're often there with 6, 7, 8 other cruise ships, which means a LOT of people. Everywhere. Eh. It started POURING rain as soon as I got to the coffee shop, but it looks like the sun is out again, so I may start wandering back to the ship. It's the biggest thing on the horizon (apart from the volcano), so I'm not too worried about getting back!

I don't have photos to share today. They're on my other memory card which is sitting in my office. Oy.

I have plans for some more exciting posts at some point... but for now just know that I'm alive and pale (what?!) and that I also have plans for working on my tan.

OH, before I forget, at last St. Maarten, last week, I had lunch with a friend and fellow production manager who I know from CMU-- Maddie! Her ship was docked with ours that day, so I got to meet some other folks from other ships, which was kind of cool. This is some crazy lifestyle we live, so it's good to have people in various places-- you never know when you'll need them!

Hope all is well on the mainland. I'm definitely missing the "real" world with all it's "real" things... like driving, and yummy food, and weekends...

-D

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!)