About Me

Follow my travels and get insight from behind the scenes as I work my 6 month contract as a Guest Service representative onboard a cruise ship.

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Days 54 - 60: Panama, Sea, Jamaica, Sea, Florida, Sea


December 7, 2011 at 19:22

Ok, ok so I've been slacking at the blog again.  I've been getting shit for a couple days to write more so I guess I had better do just that.  To be fair it's been a pretty uneventful few days. Come to think of it I think that's a good thing. Or maybe it's bad because the last cruise seemed like it dragged on FOREVER.  Def didn't help that we had an average age of 80ish onboard.  Yikes.

It was nice to go back to Panama, but this time instead of racing out at the crack of dawn to wander all over hoping to eventually wind up back at the ship, I slept in a bit then went out with my laptop to the same place for lunch we went when we were last here.  Where we dock in Cristobal it's pretty dirty and smelly but the area right at the dock is so heavily tourist driven that's it's fairly clean. Mind you on the other side of the street are empty lots filled with garbage.  I had a nice chill couple of hours while I caught up on the internet, chatted with Dad for a bit, and had a nice lunch of coffee, a sandwich, and of course a Panama beer before having to head back on board for a shower and work. Back to the grind.

A shining light on these days was the fact that there were a couple birthday's onboard so there was another party the night we left Panama.  Party's happen so rarely that people tend to go all out for them.  Officers and crew get dressed to the nines to party in a tiny room, this time down no deck 2 and no one blinks an eye as the drinks are passed around and the clock moves on.  The only real bummer for me was that I worked at 7 the next day and when the party ended at 2am we kept it going for another few hours.  I didn't make it to bed until around 4:30 which meant my 6:30 alarm came WAY too soon.  Either way I survived the morning and dove into bed on my break and managed to get more sleep in the afternoon that I had got the night before. Oh life on the ship.

We had another safety drill in Jamaica and instead of rushing out again for an hour or so this time I just took it easy afterwards while waiting for work so nothing to report there. And with another Sea day until we were back in Florida it was business as usual as we explained disembarkation about one million times before we got to say goodbye to our elderly friends yesterday.

There are certain things that just need to be done when we're state side and as a result I'm starting to develop a bit of a routine while in Fort Lauderdale.  This time around I finally got a bank account setup so I'm able to get some of this cash out of my possession and back up north so I can actually start using it to pay off some bills.  From there I went back to my new favourite diner for another normal breakfast of bacon and eggs and some reliable internet.  I had a nice FaceTime with mom and dad before power walking back to the ship to start another hellish 11 hour embarkation day.  

It's funny thinking back to when I worked at the Marriott Harbourfront and the Delta Beausejour when a busy day was 150-200 arrivals or when I was at the Courtyard and busy 60 arrivals.  Now we've had days where we've brought on as many as 3,000 people into 1,275 rooms so a normal day like yesterday where we bring in 2,500 people is a walk in the park.  Crazy how a little perspective and experience can change everything.

Today we were  back to a regular busy sea day but it's even more tiring for me this go around on account of the group of 400 from Quebec which means lots and lots of speaking French for yours truly.  On the plus side my French is getting better every day. On the down side I'm exhausted but I guess that's not really anything new.  Tonight on my break I went to see our "Extraordinaire" show in the theatre.  Before this I'd only seen a few small snippets of the other shows and was pleasantly surprised by the talents I've been living with for the past two months.  Dancers, singers, jugglers, a trapeze act and everything in between.  I'm thinking it's time to start checking out a few more of the shows we've got to offer on board.

Most importantly I think anyone reading this post and my past few can see that things have turned around for me lately. Ship life has been much better since Aruba and I'm doing everything in my power to keep it that way.  Right now, with the exception of Patrick who's on nights, I'm the only guy working directly with 10 other women.  What does this mean? It means from my boss, to the group coordinator, and all the girls on the line, there's always some form of drama to diffuse or someone who just wants some attention to help them get through the day.  I'm embracing the roll because the happier they all are the smoother things run and the happier I am as a result.  It's kinda like the old saying "happy wife, happy life". Mind you whoever came up with with probably didn't have 10 wives…

Ciao!

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