12.29

Today I woke up to a knock on my door. I got out of bed, opened the door and to my surprise I found Ricky along with all the supervisors in the cruise division. It turns out that 9 cabins in the cruise division had failed cabin inspection so Ricky was marching everyone around to inspect the cabins so it didn't happen again. Well I had literally just woken up and suddenly had 6 people barge into my cabin. Talk about a rude awakening. They didn't know why I had failed cabin inspection, as there was nothing written on the paper that said I failed so Ricky just told me to get  new shower curtain as mine was a bit dirty looking. This is because my shower takes 3 1/2 days to drain after every shower so the curtain is always sitting in dirty water that slouches around as the ship moves. I've had Facilities look at in multiple times but it always seems to clog up immediately after they unclog it. This afternoon I stole a shot vac from the stage staff and attempted to suck the crap out of my drain so we'll see if that makes any difference. edit: it has!

This is a random thought but it literally feels like Christmas was about 2 months ago. I cannot believe that it only happened 3 days ago. It seems impossible. My brain cannot comprehend that it happened in this same cruise. I can't explain to you how long ago it feels. The cruise ship time warp continues…

This is a scattered post, but more randome news: I finally ordered an intervalometer for my camera so I can make some time lapses. I want to show the ship coming in and out of various ports. I also plan on shooting a time lapse of Dancing Under the Stars because Ricky wants to show Miami how the party progresses throughout the evening (morning). Hopefully I can get some pretty cool shots! It should arrive in San Juan by Saturday so hopefully I'll have it for this next cruise!

As I write this post I'm getting eaten alive by some sort of ants that I think could be fire ants as my feet and legs are starting to really burn so I'm going to go. This always happens in St. Croix and yet I continue to sit in the same spot on my computer. Yes, crew members can get pretty desperate for internet. 

12.28

I forgot to mention that early on Christmas day (between midnight and 5:00) we were involved in a search and rescue operation with the U.S. Coast Guard to search for a crew member from the Celebrity ship Summit who went overboard. We searched for about 5 hours and then were released from the search to continue on to St. Lucia as other Coast Guard ships arrived. We found two life rings but unfortunately no body. After searching 2,000 square miles the Coast Guard decided to call off the search yesterday with no results. While it is only speculation, many suspect suicide was the cause of the overboard. It is possible for crew members to get depressed, especially around the holidays, as we work long hard hours and are away from our family and friends for a prolonged period of time. Our thoughts are with the friends and family of the Summit CM. 

More uplifting news: Last night we were on our way from St. Kitts to Antigua when we had to turn around and return to St. Kitts to medivac a guest. We didn't even tie up when we returned. We literally just pressed the ship against the pier, opened a bulkhead door, quickly transferred the guest to a waiting ambulance on the pier and then backed away. It was pretty impressive how little time the whole operation took. Hopefully this speed helped save the guest's life. 

Kurtis' birthday was yesterday and we had a rock night in the crew bar. Typically in the crew bar the sound system is always blasting Latin, Caribbean or house music but Kurtis requested the keys to the DJ booth for his birthday and setup a Rock n Roll playlist. It was a lot of fun to sit around and listen to "real" music for a change. There were about 8 of us and we just blasted rock music until 3:30 in the morning.  Unfortunately the crew bar is always filled with smokers as that is one of the few places where you can smoke so I always have to purge my lungs and take a shower every time I leave the crew bar. 

12.27

12.27

Wow I must say I'm impressed that people are still reading this blog. That's dedication! 

Well Christmas has come and gone and I must say I'm glad the holidays are wrapping up. As you can imagine, things are much more busy this time of year than normal. There are a lot more special events, shows and basically things to entertain the holiday crowds. 

We had a special Christmas (excuse me, Holiday) Show in the theatre which I had to create some video elements for. Most of the work went into this 2 minute animated video I created which was essentially opening credits for the show. It introduced the singers, dancers, stage staff, tech team and the orchestra. I shot individual video of each person and then put them on Christmas balls that dropped in and out of the video. It's hard to explain the entire concept but it turned out pretty well. It was projected on the massive sike while the orchestra played behind the video. It was cool because we recorded the orchestra playing the music to a click track so I was able to edit to the song. Then when they played the music live it lined up exactly to the video because they used the click track. 

The day before Christmas Eve I helped set up a massive balloon drop that was to be released during the Christmas Eve celebration the following night. We worked until about 3 in the morning to fill 750 balloons and stuff them into this net we had constructed and suspended above the Centrum on Deck 10. Now I wasn't in charge of the design of the balloon drop, I was just helping the stage staff put it up. In fact I told them that I thought it wasn't going to work and it turns out I was right!

When they went to release the balloons on Christmas Eve the rigging lines that were supporting the forward part of the net broke and the entire mass of balloons began to drift down towards the side of the Centrum in a massive blob. The video of the chaos is pretty hilarious. Stage staff sprinted down the stairs to Deck 8 where the ballon mass got stuck and were finally able to cut the net and free the balloons. So the balloons just rained straight down on one side of the Centrum rather than dropping from the center as planned, but the guests thought it was funny and everyone had a good time regardless. 

Christmas Day was super long and it was definitely weird to be celebrating Christmas not only while I was working, but while being on a cruise ship in 85 degree weather. However I was so busy the entire day I didn't really feel homesick because I didn't have time to worry about anything! The following day I slept until 11:30 and it felt great to recharge my batteries. Just in time to gear up for the New Years celebrations. 

And the show goes on… 

12.17

A few pictures to spice up the mass of boring text on this blog. (click image to enlarge)

First photo was recently taken in St. Croix. The rest is what my cabin looks like decorated for Christmas. When my sister visited she brought me the worlds smallest Christmas tree and some other things to spice up my cabin. It does make it more cheerful!

12.17

It has been eons since I've written anything on here. In fact I'm not sure if anyone even reads this anymore so if you do read this post, comment and let me know! 

So a quick recap of the last month or so includes a visit from my family, Thanksgiving, a few new ports of call and a whole slew of other things that I can't even remember. 

My mom, dad and sister came down for the Thanksgiving cruise. It was really great to spend (some) time with them and hang out in their room which felt like Richie Rich's mansion compared to my cabin. Unfortunately for me Thanksgiving meant additional work so I didn't get to spend as much time as I had hoped with them, but I still got to have a few delicious meals with them and we even went sailing as a family in St. Maarten which was great. 

A lot of my time Thanksgiving week was spent making daily videos telling the story of a turkey that was getting chased all around the ship and on different islands by a chef. Yes, 4 years of college education and I'm making turkey chase videos. But it was actually a lot of fun and the guests seem to enjoy the videos. The final video showed 6 chefs chasing the turkey around the ship and down into the Centrum (central area of the ship) where it cut out and picked up in live action as people watched the chefs try to catch the turkey only to be stopped by the Captain who "pardoned the turkey". It was quiet a site to see. 

What else has happened… I went 4wheeling in St. Maarten and explored both the French and Dutch sides of the island. I wore my helmet camera and took some pretty cool video which I'll post if I ever have an internet connection faster than dial up.

Here is what I had written about 4wheeling which I never posted…

"Yesterday I went on a 4Wheeler excision in St. Maartan. It was pretty cool to see most of the entire island from a 4wheeler. If you didn't know, St. Maartan is split into two different sides. A Dutch side and a French side. As you can imagine, they are completely different. We ate lunch in the French side and it felt like I was in France but with the addition of Palm trees and 85 degree weather. It was rather bizarre. As we were sitting outside along the street eating lunch at a small restaurant a police van screeched to stop outside of the restaurant with its siren blaring and an officer jumped out. He began yelling in French demanding to know who's vehicle was parked on the street across from the restaurant. He walked through the restaurant asking everyone and I guess no one took ownership. After about 5 minutes he got back in the police van and took off. It was very strange. After the officer left we resumed our lunch. I had a delicious shrimp shish kabob and a petite pain which I guess is a French donut. It sort of tasted like a pretzel crossed with a Chineese donut minus the sugar. 

We also stopped at a buttery fly farm. It was actually really cool. A guide walked us through the room (?) which is a large area enclosed in screening to keep out any predators. She showed us various specious of butterflies and let us hold different caterpillars while showing us what type of butterfly they turned into. After she finished talking we just walked around and looked at the various butterflies. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to photograph various butterflies when they landed on the plants. It was a game of cat and mouse that lasted about 15 minutes until I decided 100+ photos of butterflies and leaves where butteries had been milliseconds before was probably enough. 

Next we hopped back on the wheelers and headed towards Airport Beach. As you may have guessed from the cleaver name, Airport Beach is a beach located next to an airport. And when I say next to I mean the runway is 15 feet from the beach. There is the ocean, then the beach, then the runway. You may have seen pictures of people hanging on to a fence and getting blown back by the thrust from jets taking off. Well this is the place. There is a bar next to the beach that has a chalk board with the list of departures and arrivals so people know when to expect a plane. I must say it's pretty awesome. Following airport beach we had to head back to the ship because some people had to get back for a rehearsal. We were actually cutting it pretty close so we were really hauling on our way back. In fact there were some people that weren't comfortable going that fast so we left them in the dust. Literally. On the way back I rode with Tamara (our Light Tech) because she was riding with Hugh who had sprained his ankle playing soccer at the olympics the previous night and had to be on a 4wheeler that wasn't going to go as fast. Let me tell you it was a good thing he didn't ride with Tamera because we were cruising. We were continuously trying to stay in front of Patricio and Brittany as we raced back. I was sitting behind Tamera I was constantly looking behind us to make sure Patricio wouldn't try to sneak around us. If he did start to edge up I would yell to Tamera and we would box him out. It was a pretty intense battle as we made our way back to the ship. Judging by the glares we were getting from our tour guide who was on the 4 wheeler in front of us, I don't think he liked our little game."

It's hard to believe but Christmas is next Sunday. It's so strange to think that Christmas is in a week. I am in a complete time warp and literally don't know what time of year it feels like. Yes we have a huge Christmas tree in the Centrum and I hear Christmas music and we have caroling and Christmas shows but my body is still confused as to the time of year. The hot weather, working literally every single day and constantly revolving around a 7 day schedule really has my mind confused. But the good news is I'm not counting down the days to the end of my contract because time is moving so fast!

Tonight the Cruise Division is having a wrapping party to wrap over 700 gifts for the Adventure Ocean kids. These are the kids who enroll in our children's program while onboard. We're starting around midnight and just wrapping until there are no more gifts to wrap! Should be fun? 

It's going to be a busy next two cruises as both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve fall on turn around day. We'll be sailing on Christmas day so we'll have to keep the guests extra entertained as they'll be stuck on the ship. It will definitely be weird for me to spend Christmas away from my family in the middle of the ocean, but I plan on buying a phone card so I can try to call home from the ship for the low low price of….

I also just found out that there was an earthquake 14 miles off the coast of Puerto Rico this morning while we were sailing in but I didn't feel any additional motion in the ocean. Good thing!

Well I think I've written plenty for now. Congratulations if anyone is still reading my ramblings! Let me know if you are still actually reading and if so, I'll try to keep writing things! 

11.5

I've gotten very lazy, I know. To recap what you've missed: Work, sleep, heat. And food.

Actually it's been a fairly eventful week or two. Allow me to indulge you:

After a crew drill in St. Lucia one of our lifeboats could not be retrieved from the water. Something was wrong with the mechanism that pulled the boat back out of the water. We typically leave St. Lucia around 17:00, but I noticed it was 20:00 and we still hadn't left yet. We couldn't leave without one of our lifeboats (Titanic anyone?) so we continued to sit in St. Lucia until the engineers could figure it out. I suggested we just tow it behind us but no one seemed to appreciate my suggestion.  We finally set sail around 21:45. Keep in mind the guests had no idea what was happening and didn't know we were supposed to set sail much earlier so we HAULED to get to St. Croix on time. We typically cruise around 12 knots and at one point around midnight I noticed we were doing 22 knots! Oh and it turns out the lifeboat wasn't actually completely fixed. They pulled it out of the water and back up to Deck 5, but they couldn't retract it all the way back into the ship so part of it was hanging out over the water. Every port after St. Lucia they would put the lifeboat back in the water to work on it. I'm pretty sure it's fixed now. 

Well, incase you missed it, Halloween happened. And incase you were wondering, yes, people love to celebrate Halloween on cruise ships (at least this one!). Sunday night we worked from midnight until 3:00 to decorate certain areas of the ship. We hung spider webs, set up projectors, piled up pumpkins, ect. Oh and we even built an awesome haunted house in the conference center. The guests awoke on Monday to a completely different looking ship. Monday night we had costume parties, parades and dances; all of which had to be recorded by yours truly. I picked up a Grim Reeper outfit in St. Thomas that I wore which made it a little difficult to operate the camera, but it was totally worth it for the looks I got from the guests. 

This past Wednesday was the start of the crew olympics. Basically the different departments on the ship compete against each other in a variety of events. The first event was the Quest. Now the normal Quest gameshow that the guests attend can get pretty crazy, but crew Quests are about 100 times more insane. I'm actually surprised no one was injured from the two hundred or so people running around full speed in the Safari Club completing Quests. The next event is Dodgeball.

On Thursday I returned to the private island water park where I had gone my first week. Ricky (cruise director) treated the cruise division to a trip there as a way of saying thanks because our division has been having such high ratings. About 30 of us went and it was a ton of fun. I will try to post some pictures and video (internet is too slow). It was the last time we'll be in Aruba (major bummer) as our itinerary is changing in one week. 

10.24

Well Stelian has left me and Kurtis has returned. A reminder: Kurtis was the broadcast tech who was here my first week, but then left for vacation and Stelian was his temporary replacement. So now I'm back with Kurtis until the end of my contract. 

Kurtis seems like a good guy. He's been working on the Serenade for quite some time and I believe this has caused him to acquired a "I'll do whatever the hell I want" attitude. I would write more but, unlike many internet users, I'm aware that the internet (and this blog) is accessible by anyone, so I won't go into details. 

This past cruise we lost four crew members due to drug and alcohol violations. RCI has a very strict zero tolerance policy if you're found drinking or doing drugs while on duty. Well you can't do drugs whether you're on or off duty, you get the point. The idea behind this is that we as crew members are supposed to be able to perform our emergency duties at any time of the day, thus we have signed our life away and are subject to be breathelized or screened for drugs at anytime. BAC is supposed to be below .04 if you're on duty and below .08 if you're off duty. Now you're probably thinking, "There is no way the crew stays below .08 when they're drinking in the crew bar until 5:00 am" and you are correct. However, everyone knows that if they are tested and blow over .08, they are immediately dismissed. And when I say immediately, I don't mean when the current cruse is over and we return to San Juan. I mean where ever we are, whatever island we're docked in, you pack your bags and get off the ship then and there. They don't mess around. 

I write this entry as I wait to move my laundry into the dryer. Yesterday I went to do my laundry and as I got close to the laundry room I began to see wet footprints on the the ground. I opened the door and water began to flow over the door jam and into the hallway. Now normally this might stop people from doing their laundry, but time is precious on the ship and there were people wading in the water moving their clothes around. I hoped up on the counter to wait for a washer to open and only sat there for a few minutes when facilities came in with a big sucking machine and told us to leave while they cleaned up. Long story short, I'm doing laundry today because I couldn't get it done yesterday. I know, earth shattering news from the Caribbean Sea. 

10.12

Today Stelian took me on an excursion in St. Lucia for my birthday. He had gotten tickets to a 4x4 excursion that traveled to the rainforest. We met on the pier at 8:00 and loaded into the back of a Range Rover. It as about an hour drive to the rainforest and along the way our guide told us all kinds of information about the island. We stopped to look at various fruits and other vistas along our way to the rainforest. 

The ride in the Range Rover was insane. We were going so fast up and down these twisty roads that everyone kept falling into each others laps in the back of the 4x4. The tires would squeal every time we'd take a turn because of the speed. Apparently this is just how people drive in St. Lucia. Also, everyone honks their horn as they fly around corners to let oncoming traffic know they're coming and to get out of the way. Literally every corner there was honking. Every single corner. In a country covered with twisty roads. It was loud. 

As soon as we entered the rainforest it began to rain (go figure). It was just a little rain, it was and all out Caribbean downpour. Now usually these intense downpours last for about 10 minutes and then it goes back to pure sun and heat, but in the rainforest the rain was relentless. We all gathered under this little hut where a man lived "off the grid." He grew his own food and lived on his own without any electricity, plumbing, etc. We ate some of his fruit that he had grown (mango, bananas, apples, cocoa, pineapple and some other strange ones I can't remember). It all tasted amazing as it was literally on the plant/tree minutes before eating.  

As we stood under the hut it looked like the rain wasn't going to stop before we had to leave to go back to the ship and we hadn't gotten to explore any of the rainforest on foot. Stelian and I decided to brave the rain and go out on our own. We were wearing bathing suites so it didn't really matter if we go wet. As we meandered through the forest, we came across a really cool waterfall. The water was really silty because of all the rain, but I decided I wanted to try to walk behind the waterfall. As you can see (hear) in the above video, Stelian was pretty excited I was doing this. His narration says it all. 

After getting our fix of the waterfall, we returned to the hut where everyone was loading back into the 4x4s. It was still raining so we had to put the flaps down on the trucks. As you can imagine this made things rather stuffy in the back of the Range Rover. Did I mention one of the Range Rovers broke down so we had to wait with it in the rain until another truck could arrive? I was glad to climb out of the back when we finally made it back to the ship. But even with the rain and breakdown it was a really cool excision and made for a great birthday! 

10.11

It's been ages since I've written anything. For some reason I feel like my free time has been few and far between lately and the time I do have free, I prefer sleep over blogging. I'm also lazy when it comes to writing. 

This past cruise we had some big cheeses on board with us from Miami to do "Anchored In Excellence" presentations. Essentially they reported on what the company is doing fleet wide and also specifically how the Serenade numbers look. Our officers also made presentations to the Miami folks regarding the performance of our ship. A few weeks earlier I had made some videos that they showed during the presentation. The folks from Miami really liked the videos and decided to distribute them to the entire fleet! I was pretty pumped to hear that! 

This past Friday night it became extremely windy outside. I was working late in the broadcast room and the ship was rocking and rolling. After I finished my work I decided to go outside to check out the conditions. Well before I even got outside I could tell the wind was intense because it was hard to open the interior doors of the ship due to the pressure difference. As soon as I opened the door to the outer deck a huge mass of air rushed into the ship and almost blew me over! I literally had to bend over and physically push myself as I walked towards the bow. You can't see much of the ocean at night (go figure) but I could hear the waves crashing against the ship and feel the spray even way up on deck 12. After I crossed the bow and began to walk in the other direction with my back to the wind I was immediately pushed along at a jogging speed as I tried to walk. It was actually a lot of fun! Stelian gets sea sick pretty easily (and he chose to work on a ship?) so he wasn't very happy Friday and Saturday. He was downing Gingerale trying to calm his stomach. 

Today we are in Barbados. I milled around the town for a bit but it was mega hot so I didn't too much walking. I went to the beach and swam for a bit and I'm now in the cruise terminal using their WiFi. 

9.29

Today I was suppose to go on a snorkeling trip to swim with stingrays but I found out this morning that the crew excursion was cancelled. Major bummer. I was all set to go snorkeling this morning and now I'm just sitting in a casino bumming free WiFi. Oh Well.

9.28

Last night I was working late in the broadcast room (what's new?) when the cruise director called me around midnight. He was finished with work for the night and wanted to know if I'd like to go out for drinks with him. Of course you say yes to drinks with your boss no matter how much work you have left! So I sprinted down to my cabin, changed into something nicer than my current late night editing outfit (gym shorts and t-shirt) and met him in the Vortex.

The Vortex is a night club on Deck 13. It's surrounded by glass and has really great views in the day time and it is the perfect location for a loud nightclub at night because the noise is isolated from the staterooms. I've been doing a lot of work for Ricky lately but haven't had a chance to talk much with him about things other than work, so it was nice to just talk about random things. After about an hour we met a few other crew members there and all and all it was a great time. 

9.25

Well it's been quite some time since I've written anything. Honestly nothing too noteworthy has happened this past week, but here are a few things you may have "missed":

I am not from England. I have never been from England nor will I ever be from England. I have no idea why, but it's quite often that someone will ask me if I'm from England. At first I thought it was because I was speaking English without some sort of other heavy accent on top, so maybe people just assumed I was from England because of the "clear" sounding accent. However, something happened at dinner last week that got me thinking about my reasoning again. 

I was sitting at dinner with people from all over the world, including another American. She asked me where I was from and I obviously responded with Pennsylvania. The person to my right (who is FROM ENGLAND) turned to me and said, "What? I thought you where from England?" So now someone from England thought I was from England. I clearly don't sound like him, but he said I looked like I was from England. Who knew. 

Typically when we have boat drills and our life boat goes in the water, it's only filled with about 5 crew members so the large boat is quite spacious. Well last week they decided to fill a life boat to it's capacity of 150 people. So they rounded up 150 unlucky crew members and stuffed us inside the boat. Let me be the first to tell you that you don't want to be stuck in a life boat with 149 other people. To say it was cramped would be a gross understatement. We were lucky because most of the crew members were not wearing life jackets, which add a considerable amount of bulk to a person's body. I can only imagine what it's like when all 150 people have life vests on. I think I'll swim. 

The new hotel director wanted to create some videos that highlight crew members who have done something special for guests in which the guests have noticed and reported it to another crew member. This award winning series "Anchored in Excellence" will be on your local cable access channel this spring. The two scenarios I was told to recreate where as follows: Two guests board the Serenade and go order coffees from one of our coffee shops. The barista greets them and takes their very complicated coffee order. The guest's pay with their Sea Pass card and go on their way. Cut to: The next morning, same coffee shop. The barista see's the two guests from the previous night approaching, greets them by name and asks if they want the same order from last night (she recites the order perfectly). Well as you can imagine the guests are BLOWN AWAY that she remembered all this information. Wow, what a great cruise line! 

The other scenario involves a photographer in our photo gallery who comments on how nice a guest's camera is. The guest then explains that the camera broke today and they are worried that they lost all the pictures. The photographer offers to take a look at the camera and we find out the next morning that she has recovered all of the pictures. Hooray! These were actually a lot of fun to shoot because we reenacted the scenes with crew members playing the guests. As you can imagine, there were quite a few outtakes! 

We have a new captain beginning this cruise. I have not met him yet, but I will tomorrow night when I shove a bright camera light in his face. I've only heard him on the PA system, but he sounds like a friendly guy from Canada!

9.17

Today I walked around St. Croix for a while. I had never had the time to get off in St. Croix, so it was my first time. I decided to just walk down the coast to see what I could find. After I was out for about twenty minutes it began to rain. Rain storms in the Caribbean are really intense for about 5 minutes and then it stops and the water instantly evaporates from the heat and in 20 minutes it's like it never rained. So I took cover while it rained and then continued to walk along the water. I came to this really cool fish market where they were selling all sorts of different types of fish. There were also kids walking around with random musical instruments each playing different songs. It was pretty chaotic. I didn't buy any fish and continued to walk past the dock area. I ran out of normal road to walk on so I decided to turn back and walk along the road towards the ship. Because St. Croix is part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, they have a lot American cars so I felt right at home as big F-350s rumbled by me. 

This evening is the farewell show where I get to screen the CIR preview. I made it a little shorter this show because I feel like last time it was starting to feel less like a preview and more like you were beginning to watch it. This week I cut it down from six to four minutes and made each segment about 20 seconds shorter. I think this will (hopefully) hold the audience's attention better. I think tomorrow I have to start work at 700 because we have to run the departure slides. Apparently we'd somehow gotten out of it the past few weeks, but I guess this week we're back to running the slides. I think we basically just hangout in the broadcast room and wait for someone to call me to let me know they're ready for the next group of guests and then I change the information that displays on the TVs and monitors throughout the ship. Sounds like an exciting morning to me. I think after I do that I'm going to go out and try to find a less expensive drug store to buy some supplies I need. Hopefully I can find a place where I don't have to spend half of my life savings on soap. 

I'm getting eaten alive by some sort of flying spider like thing as I write this. This is my first encounter with bugs in the Caribbean and they are not pleasant! Closing my laptop now.

9.17 Finally something to watch, not read.

9.16

Happy Birthday to Allison!!

Today I unintentionally received the shortest haircut of my life. I walked deep out of tourist country in St. Maarten in search of a barber shop. I walked and walked until I saw a small sign with an arrow indicating that haircuts were just around the corner. I walked down a skinny alley and low and behold I found a small sliding glass door that opened up to a women with a pair of clippers. And boy did she like to use those clippers. 

I tried to explain how I wanted my hair to be cut, but I wasn't really sure we understood each other. This became clear moments later. She began to use the clippers on the side of my head which was fine, but then all of a sudden bzzzzzz over the top of my head they went; mountains of hair being removed in one swipe. It happened so fast that it was honestly too late to do anything, so I just settled back and watched my hair come off row by row.  The good news is I won't need another haircut for awhile. The bad news is I'm pretty sure my scalp is going to burn if I'm not careful, but I do feel much cooler now! I also look pretty goofy because you can see the tan line on my forehead from where my hair used to be to where it is now. I have a nice half inch white outline of my hair, but I'm sure 15 minutes outside on Deck 12 will take care of that. 

My latest side project (because I love to make extra work for myself) is to update the video that plays in the beginning of the Welcome Aboard Show. It's projected onto the stage scrim before the singers and dancers come out to do their routine and is essentially a pump the crowd up video that shows all the cool things you can do with Royal Caribbean. The current video looks (is) pretty old, so I've decided to make some new animations, update it with HD footage and put in some better music beds. Hopefully it will be ready to go for this Sunday's show!

9.13

Today I had some time to go exploring in Barbados. After fending off thousands of offers to take a taxi, I walked along the water for about 20 minutes until I reached the town of Bridgeport (I think). The town is very European (as it was settled by the English). The cars are mostly European brands and they drive on the opposite side of the road as we do in America (and they love traffic circles). The streets and buildings also have that close together European feel. 

After I reached the town I continued to walk because I was looking for a beach someone had told me about where a lot of crew members hang out. Well once I walked into the town I couldn't figure out how to get back out to the water as I kept running into little canals and inlets but not the actual coast line, so I just walked around and soaked in the surroundings. There were bridges and draw bridges all over the place and I enjoyed watching all of the water traffic. As I turned around and made my way back towards the ship, I stopped into a "drug store" because I'm running low on soap. Well I'm still running low on soap because I wasn't about to pay the prices that these stores were asking. It was 12 USD for a bottle of body wash!! I could buy an overpriced cheeseburger in St. Maarten for that price! With fries! I know at many of these retailers you heckle to get a better price, but I wasn't sure if that applied at a drug store and frankly I was tired and wasn't in the mood to fight for my Old Spice so I'll keep looking for a better deal. And don't worry, I'm not completely out of soap yet. I may look like I don't shower due to my current overgrown non existent haircut, but I assure you I do multiple times a day. 

Tonight is Rock n Roll night in the Centrum. I've began to notice that if Ricky (new cruise director) really gets into an event, he'll just keep going and going and going and going. And going. Whereas our previous cruise director, "30 minute Mark" as someone referred to him in our conversation about this yesterday, always ran the events on an exact schedule. I was warned that Rock n Roll could go very long, so we'll see what happens! Maybe I'll bring extra batteries and memory to be safe!  

9.12

Last night I was running the Welcome Aboard show. We record the show and then broadcast it for the guests that night and the following day. The beginning of the show always starts with a graphic and then fades into a video roll. The graphic also appears again when the show is complete. So I did just that. After the show ended I started playing the show from our video server. I did a few other things in the office and then went down to my cabin around 0045 to head to bed. Around 100 my phone rang. Apparently instead of using the Welcome Aboard graphic, I used the Farewell Show graphic. The graphics are exactly the same except for the huge letters that read either "Welcome Aboard Show" or "Farewell Show". Apparently I was just looking at the colors of the graphic and not actually reading it because I thought I was using the correct one. Opps. Live and learn. 

This morning we were in some left over rain from Maria, so the outdoor events were cancelled. Luckily the rain let up around noon and we were able to hold the Men's Bellyflop Competition in the afternoon. Ricky, the new cruise director, runs the events differently than Mark but so far I like his changes. 

This evening is the Captain's Welcome Aboard Reception so I have to wear a tuxedo. Last week the button of my tuxedo somehow got caught as I lowered the camera from my shoulder and I ripped the button clean off. Luckily I realized what happened as soon as it happened so I was able to find the button on the ground and save it for repairs. It was slightly embarrassing as this happened right in front of the stage in the theater so everyone was watching me search for my button, but I did find it and was able to have the tailor sew it on today so the jacket is good as new! 

9.8

I finally had a chance to get off the ship in Aruba today for an hour or so. Thing were busy today as I had to record another of the cast's show rehearsals this morning. We were also waiting for a satellite specialist who was flying into Aruba today and will be sailing with us for 3 days to do some work on our satellite system. We're having major issues with one of our satellites so hopefully he can resolve our problems.

We're keeping our eye on Tropical Storm Maria as she moves towards San Jaun. There is talk that we won't be able to return to San Juan on Sunday, but we'll have to wait and see how the weather turns out. If that is the case we'll most likely spend the day at sea until we can sail into the port safely. Never a dull moment at sea!

9.6

Every time we have an all crew drill one side of the ship's life boats go down in the water for practice. This week it was my side of the ship's (starboard) turn to go down. The night before someone told me a story about a cable snapping while lowering a lifeboat and the whole boat rolled over, so I was a little nervous about the drill, but I know that accidents rarely happens so by the morning I had forgotten about it. 

Four other crew members and I loaded into our lifeboat and prepared to descend. The arms above us extended out to swing the boat over the water and then we lowered 60 or so feet into the water. After splashing down we unhooked the huge steel cables holding the 150 person lifeboat and then used oars to push away from the Serenade as we fired up our engine and motored away. The Serenade looks huge when you're up against her side at water level looking straight up. As we began to move out into the harbor, Captain Karen radioed us and told us to maneuver over to another lifeboat and tether to each other, as we would do if we had to move equipment from one boat to another. So we did as we were instructed and then contacted the bridge when we had successfully attached ourself to the other boat. After we completed the exercise we came back along side the Serenade and were hoisted back up to deck 5 where we hopped out of the boat before it was raised into the ceiling for storage. Mission accomplished. 

9.4

Dear Diary, 

It's hard to believe but it's already been more than a month since we started this adventure together. Where has the the time gone? It seems like just yesterday I was stuffing my shoes with sox and packing my life into one small duffle bag. 

But seriously, I have been working at my new job for over a month and it's hard for me to grasp the fact that an entire month has already passed. I work in a world where it is either Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6 or Day 7. Essentially, I'm back in middle school with "cycle days." That is really my only reference of time. I didn't even know it was Labor Day until my sister mentioned it. Oh yeah, it's September too. I guess this is a good thing as I'm not counting calendar days in a month, just counting on my own calendar that only has one page with one week. I'm told that the last two months of the contract are the slowest because you actually begin to try to keep track of how close you are to the end, but I haven't started the countdown yet so things are good. 

Today I got off the ship in San Juan and took a taxi to this MEGA MALL. I actually wasn't sure I was going to make it to the mall because no one in my taxi spoke English and I wasn't confident that the man who told me to get in "this one" correctly told the driver where I needed to go, but after a short 10 minute driver I was kicked to the curb outside a massive shopping mall. Think King of Prussa but bigger. It was 3 stories and PACKED. I needed to get a pair of pants, a lock for my safe and maybe a haircut, but before I set out to shop I just wandered around to try to get my bearings. They had a ton of stores that I didn't recognize, but also had a bunch of brands I was familiar with like Macys, Sears, Bose, Sony, Apple (can you tell I pay more attention to the stores that sell electronics?).

With my little knowledge of Spanish I was able to make sense of the store signs and find a pair of pants and lock. I was unclear what "haircut" was in Spanish and had trouble finding out how much one would cost, but luckily my translators in Etters were able to assist me. I actually didn't end up getting a haircut because I was running out of time before I had to return to the ship, but hopefully I can try to get one next week. 

8.30

This morning we had a divisional safety meeting. I'm in the cruise division which includes performers, musicians and cruise staff; essentially everyone involved with entertaining the guests. The cruise director went over some safety issues that he was aware of and then people could voice any safety concerns that they had. The cruise director as read us some comments from guests that concern our division.

Following the meeting the ship held a Charlie drill, which is a security threat to the ship. This could be a bomb, stowaway, etc. This drill began because a bomb threat was called in to guest services. There are different stages of the drill and people are assigned different duties according to their emergency number. In the first stage I search the areas I'm familiar with, as it is easier to locate something that is out of place in an area that you often work in. After I've searched the broadcast area, I report back to the cruise director. After stage one nothing was found, so we moved to stage two. During stage two we found a suspicious object in the Tropical Theater so we had to evacuate the theater and the response teams and local authorities (Barbados) came in to investigate. It turned out to be a false alarm. I'm not sure where the object was found, but the entire drill lasted about 2 hours.

8.28

Today was a very busy day. Normally Sundays are slower for me because it is our turn around day, but today was extremely busy. We have a new port and shopping guide, so I had to shoot some video with her in the morning. She's been doing her job for a while so she was very prepared for the shoot which was great and made things move quickly. After I finished shooting with her, I had to go shoot the Miss Olympia candidates that were on board.

This event was very strange. The girls were competing for a television show (Telemundo!). The crew from the TV station only spoke Spanish, so it was a bit difficult to figure out what was going on or where they wanted me to go or not go, but we made things work. There were about 40 girls and they were split into 4 teams of 10 or so. After they ate lunch and pampered themselves, they held a photo and video shoot and did some interviews. After the interviews they held the first event which was a relay race on our track.

So to paint this picture in your head, image all of these girls sprinting around the track in skimpy bikinis and athletic shoes passing the baton to each other, jumping up and down, cheering and just being over enthusiastic. Now picture the shocked look on the guest's faces as they walked out onto the pool deck and looked up at the track one deck above to see this crazy event happening. It was hilarious to see them stop and stare. After all the teams ran in the relay race, we moved on to the next event (after some makeup).

I'm pretty sure the PR people sat around and thought, "What would look good for TV? Girls in bikinis rock climbing?" Yep. The 2 guys who had to "work" at the rock wall were in heaven as they helped the girls put on their harnesses. They kept calling other crew members to rub it in their face. The rock climb was a timed event, so only one girl climbed at a time. I wished they would have raced each other because the wall can handle more people, but that didn't work out for the TV logistics. Just as the last two girls were set to climb it started to rain, so everyone ran inside to seek shelter. I followed as I didn't want the camera equipment to get wet, but I also wanted to eat more of their yummy food! The rain stopped so everyone rushed back outside and the girl was hooked up to the wall ready to climb when it started to rain again, so back inside we went. It was nearing 1700 and they had to be off the ship by 1730, so they decided to move on and shoot the closing interviews. Unfortunately they couldn't shoot the last event which was suppose to be volleyball on our sports deck due to the weather.

Overall, it was a very unique experience. I'm in the process of putting together a 5 minute piece highlighting the event. Right now I'm running a 30 second promo I made last night with the girls promoting the Cruise in Review DVD because I'm going to add this event on the DVD. Hey, girls in bikinis sell and it's more money for me!

8.27

Today was actually pretty relaxing. I finished the CIR DVD last night (this morning) around 300 , so I was able to not set an alarm and slept until almost 1100 today which felt great. I leisurely got up, ate some brunch and then went up to the office to tidy up some things and get ready for the start of another cruise.

I didn't really feel like going out today (St. Thomas), but I felt like doing something so I went to the gym. We have our own crew gym, which is actually pretty decent, but we're also allowed to use the guest gym if it isn't busy. There is hardly ever anyone at the gym when we're in port so I knew it would be fine and I was right. There were only two other people besides me and one of them was another crew member.

It's really awesome to use the guest gym because it is on deck 12 all the way forward and surrounded by glass on three sides. The view is always amazing and it just seems really relaxing to workout surrounded by water. It also provides entertainment while you're exercising. For example today while I was running I was watching sea planes taxi, take off and land in the water directly in front of me. I've never seen a sea plane in operation in person so I found it really cool to watch. Sometimes the view can be a problem because occasionally I catch myself sitting on a machine or bench just staring at something out the windows and suddenly realize I haven't done anything for 5 minutes but sit and stare!

8.27

Check out this picture from our sister ship the Monach. This is the view from the cruise director's cabin. Irene looks pretty intense on the water!!

8.26

Unfortunately I haven't had time to write much of anything, but I thought I'd at least share with you some pictures of the Serenade coming into Curacao early Wednesday morning. Obviously I didn't take these pictures as I was on the ship, but a crew member we were picking up shared them with us!

Things are going to be busy this weekend as we are getting a new "Port and Shopping Guide." The Port and Shopping guides have their own channel dedicated to all things shopping, so we'll have to work with the new one to create material for the channel. Also, on Sunday Ms. Puerto Rico is coming on board (I have no idea why) so I have to follow her around the ship all day Sunday to record her every move. Things could be worse.

8.22

Impending doom in San Juan...

Tropical storm Irene has been looming since Saturday. On Sunday the Coast Guard actually closed the port of San Juan, allowing no ships to enter and we were told we had to leave as soon as possible. Typically on Sundays we arrive in San Juan at 800 and set sail with our new guests at 2000. However, this time we weren't allowed to keep to our normal schedule. Apparently the captain negotiated with the Coast Guard and worked out that we could stay in port until 1700. While we did get to stay a few extra hours, we still had to leave some guests behind because of our early departure. I'm told about 200 guests missed the ship. Major bummer for them.

It was pretty cool to literally watch things go from a semi sunny normal day to a super windy clouds of death type of day over just a few hours. The wind started to really pick up in the afternoon and it started to rain on and off for the rest of the day. The crew was instructed to secure anything that could move on the ship as we were expecting 20 foot seas that night (we typically have 4 foot seas).

At the beginning of every cruise we hold a mandatory guest safety drill in which guests have to go to their assigned assembly stations. Some of these assembly stations are located outside on decks 5 and 6. It was actually so windy that the captain turned the ship off course so the wind was blowing into our stern while the drill took place so it was easier to stand on the decks!

I help seat people in the theatre during an emergency. I stand at the top of the theater and ask to see guests Sea Pass cards as they enter, which have their designated assembly station on them. We have four different zones in the theater and often you get guests that aren't even suppose to assemble in the theatre. As I stood there it was pretty funny to watch guests walk as the came down the hallway into the theater. Everyone was zig zagging back and forth and it looked as if they were marionettes all connected by the same string!

The good news is we are now about 150 miles from Irene, which actually turned into a hurricane. The seas are smooth again and everyone is happy!

8.19

Today I went sailing in St. Maartin. It was a crew tour that I had signed up for a few days earlier hoping I would have time in my schedule to get off the ship. Luckily, I did some extra work the days prior and had enough time to leave the ship for a few hours and man was it worth it!

We stepped of the ship and were greeted by a man on the pier who took us to a small dock where he gave us some information. We were going to be racing sailboats that competed in the Americas Cup. He asked us if there was anyone in our group from Canada (there was) and he made her team captain of the Canadian boat Canada II (KC-2). Then he asked if there was anyone from the United States (there were a few) and he made Allison a team captain of Stars & Stripes (US-55). He then had each of the captains pick crew members for their boat. The captains picked back and forth until every person was assigned a boat. I was picked for the Stars & Strips team (of course).

A tripoon with 40 or so plastic lawn chairs bolted to the deck came up to the dock and we hopped on, each team sitting on one side of the boat. As we putted out away from shore, each person was assigned a position on the boat. There were main grinders, primary grinders, back stay somethingerothers and a few other positions that I can't remember their exact title. I was assigned to be a primary grinder. My job, along with three others, was to crank these winches to move the jib (more on this later).

As we motored along we could see Canada II and Stars and Stripes sailing towards us. We slowed down and Cananda II came up right along side and tied onto our boat. The Canadian team boarded and then we waited for Stars & Stripes to come along side and then we boarded as well. The boat was amazing looking! It had the two wheel cockpit setup and just looked like it was built to race (I know, it was). US-55 had three "real" crew members: Captain Morgan (yes, that was his real name) and two other mates. After we separated from the taxi boat they began to tell us each about our job positions and how the race would work.

Essentially it was a four (or three?) leg race, following Americas Cup rules which means the race begins with a running start, which was really cool. There was a judge in a motor boat who was monitoring the race. He held up a green flag meaning that the race was about to begin, then as soon as a white flag went up, we had exactly 6 minutes before we could cross the starting line. This means we had to tac back and forth at just the right speed so we could cross the starting line in front of KC-2, but not a second before the 6 minutes elapsed. We were battling back and forth with KC-2 and timed it just right so we were on our starboard tac and she had to yield to us as we crossed the starting line.

The best part about this race was that it was really a race and everyone really wanted to win. It wasn't just a generic leisurely touristy sail excursion, it was a let's go as fast as possible to beat these guys race. You could tell the captains of each ship really wanted to win too and were determined to do so. As soon as we were under way everyone was really put to work with their jobs. The captain would command the main grinders as they controlled the mainsail and depending on what tac we were on, the first or second mate (they were in pits on the port and starboard sides) would command the primary grinders. This explanation may not make sense, but the winch we were controlling as primary grinders was essentially a big steel shaft that came out of the deck. Out of the main shaft, extending to the port and starboard sides were 4 handles. Two people stood on the port and starboard side facing forward and two people stood on the port and starboard side facing aft. Imagine 4 people shoulder to shoulder but every other person is facing the opposite direction and there are handles in front of us. Now that I have you thoroughly confused I will move on. The first mate would yell things like, "standby grinders, second gear" and then "grind!" At that point we'd crank our handles as fast as we could in the desired direction (depicted by the gears) which would pull the jib until we were told to stop.

The race was so much fun but by the last leg we were probably 6 boat lengths behind Canada II. We gave it everything we had and as we neared the finish line we actually passed Canada II and were leading by about a foot. Unfortunately at the last minute Canada II crept past us and won by literally 2 or 3 inches. We were devastated.

Despite the loss, everyone had a great time. On our way inland the Captain let people drive the boat which was really cool. We then moored the boats about 300 feet from the shore and were told we were allowed to jump off the boat and swim while we waited for the water taxi to come get us. So we all hurled ourselves off the deck into the water and swam around for a while. The taxi picked us up about 20 minutes later and took us to the ships' office where we were given free rum and, more importantly, FREE T-SHIRTS! Nothing gets me more excited than a free t-shirt! I also bought a picture that was taken from the judges boat as we began the race [see photo of a photo].

Guest Cabin (last week)

These were my amazing living arrangements last week. This week I've moved to the cabin where I'll be living for the rest of my time on the Serenade. Unfortunately it's not quite as nice as this room.

Note: After playing back this video I've realized I sound rather unintelligent and ramble quite a bit. I guess that's what happens when I don't sleep. Try to ignore the narration and enjoy the visuals!

8.13

I apologize to my thousands of readers, but it's been a few days (4) since I've written anything. I honestly haven't had the time or energy at the end of the day to open my computer to write. Even right now I'm struggling to remember what happened the past few days, but in a nut shell here are some highlights.

I continued to work with the head broadcast tech to make some changes to the broadcast room. We really cleaned up the place and it looks and functions better than it did before! This week I created the Cruise in Review DVD entirely by myself. Val was usually around the ship if I needed assistance, but I did it all myself so I know what to expect when the extra techs leave tomorrow. For my first time things went pretty smoothly. We are all still getting used to the workflow with the new cameras and we definitely still haven't figured out the best process yet, but hopefully in the upcoming weeks I can work to find the best procedure.

Because the new cameras can only shoot 16:9 (widescreen), I am going to slowly work to replace the old stock footage that is in the Cruise in Review with new widescreen footage that I shoot so everything matches and is the same quality. There is footage in the CIR that is from the ship's maiden voyage in 1993 so you can imagine the quality difference! It's going to be a fairly big project to reshoot the entire DVD, but it will be rewarding to really make a difference in the product. I had a meeting with the traveling broadcast tech today and he gave me the go ahead to shoot any projects I can dream up and if I make them generic enough (as in it would make sense to play the piece on ships other than just the Serenade) it could potentially broadcast fleet wide! He also told me that there's a good chance I won't be on the Serenade my entire contract, as he'd like to put me on a bigger ship where I could work on even more projects. We'll see what happens!

The highlight of my week happened on Wednesday (I think) when I had a free afternoon to get off the ship in Aruba. I signed up for a crew tour. The ship offers tons of different tours/trips/explorations that guests can sign up to do while in each port. There are a million different things like diving, fishing, hiking, airplane rides etc. Well I found out the crew can also sign up for these tours at a MEGA discounted price. Sweet! In Aruba there was a crew tour, meaning the trip isn't even offered for guests, but only to crew. We went to a water park on a private island that had just recently opened, which is why the tour isn't available for guests yet.

IT. WAS. AWESOME. For $40 we stepped off of the ship and were picked up by a charter bus which drove us to the boonies (there were a lot of cacti and at times I thought I was in Texas) and then suddenly we arrived at a dock. We went to this hut and were given wrist bands which granted us access to EVERYTHING! We hopped on a small boat and motored over to the island. It was really windy and the small boat was really rocking in the waves. It was a lot of fun and we got wet from the waves before we even went to the water park! There were probably 20 of us and it was mostly cast from the shows and cruise staff as those were the people that had some time off. Once on the island we were literally like little kids.

The wrist bands let you do anything and everything. The food was free, the drinks were free (even alcoholic) as were all the activities! They had a water park structure similar to The Boardwalk at HP with slides and water gun things all over the place. They also had the big dumping bucket which was a crowd favorite. Aside from the water park, they also had a huge snorkeling area, banana boat rides (you're towed behind a speed boat on a banana shaped inner tube), private beaches, beach volleyball, a diving excursion thing where they had a bus and other automobiles sunken to explore and a bunch of other things I didn't get to see. Oh did I mention free food?

I received my first Caribbean sunburn while snorkeling. Yes mom, I had put on a bunch of sun screen before the water park, but realized (after it was too late) that going down the slides on my back probably wiped it all off. Well I snorkeled for about an hour and as you can imagine my back was bobbing under the sizzling sun all that time. Yeah… it's pretty red but actually hasn't been that painful! On the plus side, the snorkeling was amazing! I some really cool coral and massive fish which I was told by people who had done a lot of snorkeling in the past were some of the biggest fish they'd seen! I'm on currently on the hunt to buy an underwater camera so hopefully I'll have it for my next excursion!

We returned to the ship around 1630 and I really just wanted to take a nap, but had work to do before dinner. That evening I was going "out" to dinner at Portofino's, one of the fancy restaurants on the ship. Because my team won the Quest game last week we were given a free dinner! The dinner also served as a going away dinner for two members of the cruise staff who are leaving/transferring. There were about eight of us at dinner, the food was amazing and it was a really fun time.

This evening I received my own set of keys, cards and a phone so I have officially replaced the other broadcast tech. I also ran the remote cameras and switcher for the farewell show which was really cool to do. It's hard to use the joystick to manipulate the cameras in a fluid motion as you're also directing the show in your head, switching between cameras, graphics and switching the camera controls from camera to camera, but I started to get a feel for it towards the end of the show and look forward to producing future shows!

Tomorrow starts my first week of "normal" duties so we'll see how it feels. No wait, scratch that, I just remembered we have immigration for the entire crew tomorrow morning. It seem the schedule never turns to true "normal."

8.9

Today was a marathon reorganization/cleaning of the broadcast room. Tim follows the "when in doubt, throw it out" mantra, so we amassed huge piles of things to be thrown out which we will dispose of in Aruba on Thursday. We also demolished a huge storage shelf unit to make the room a bit bigger. It was essentially Extreme Makeover, Broadcast Edition with your host Tim. While we worked to clear out old equipment, Stelian was busy rewiring essentially the entire ship so everything was to his liking. It was a busy day but we made some headway!

Tonight I'm shooting a rock n' roll party at 2230 and then afterwards will try to ingest the footage into the Avid. The new cameras use Sony's proprietary XDCAM codec, so the work flow is going to change completely from our old cameras HDV cameras. The editing process will take a little longer until I completely figure out the best way to transcode the files for Avid, but in the long run it should work out really well.

8.8

Yesterday I had more training in the morning. I thought I was finished and didn't have any today, but late last night I ran into a girl who is a new sign on like me and she informed me that we had it at 800. Bummer. But at least I found out about it because I was planning on sleeping in a bit and would have missed it! I went to the training and then headed to the broadcast room to begin working with Tim.

We went up into the satellite domes on the outside of the ship to check their conditions. There is one dome on each side of the ship aft. The domes look like giant golf balls sitting on a tube and inside there is a big satellite similar to one you might see outside of the a TV station. The domes just protect them from the elements. We had to unbolt a cover and then climb through this little access hole inside the base of the tower. Then we climbed up a ladder until we reached a floor inside the bottom of the dome. It was insanely hot inside and Tim decided the Spa should allow guests to climb inside the dome as part of a Spa treatment.

After climbing into both satellite domes, we did some various work in the broadcast room. After the ship set sail around 1700, Kurtis and Val went hunting for the skid that had the Sony boxes on it. Whenever things are brought onto the ship the I-95 is lined with skid after skid of supplies until they are each put into their final storage spot. They finally though a skid that had a bunch of tools on it but also included our new cameras!

When they brought the boxes back to the room we quickly ripped everything open and began charging the batteries because we had to shoot something in a few hours. The new equipment is really nice and it literally looked like Christmas in the broadcast room. We received two new cameras, weather enclosures, really awesome LED camera lights, enough batteries to shoot for weeks without plugging in and some adapters that will allow us to mount various lenses. I signed onto the ship at the right time!

8.7

Earlier I had written how I loved the fact that everything on the ship started and stopped perfectly on time. Well leave it to the United States to screw that up. This morning I had to meet with CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) at 530. I drug myself out of bed and went to the the theater where I was given back my passport. They hold your passport while working on board so that if CBP boards the ship they can easily see who is on the vessel. It also prevents us from running away.

I was given my passport and then instructed to disembark and proceed to the CBP checkpoint in the San Juan port. So there we were once again in a big warehouse of a building standing outside the steel gates of border patrol, who were apparently still in bed. The ship's officers were milling around squaking on their radios trying to figure out why there weren't any immigration officers at the checkpoint. After performing my patented sleep/stand routine for about 20 minutes, we were told to board the ship and disembark from a different deck to meet CBP again at 715.

So we re-boarded the ship, hung around for an hour or so, then went back to CBP. This time there I could actually see a few immigration officers, which gave me a little bit of hope. After standing around for another 15 minutes, guests started coming down the escalators and lining up outside of immigration. We were then told that they had to get the guest through first and that we should return at 1015. Awesome. Back onto the ship we go. Long story short we were finally able to go through customs around 1100. I later found out that they typically run sign ons (me) through customs in St. Croix, but because our itinerary was changed due to the weather, we weren't there at the normal day and CBP in San Juan wasn't aware we still needed to meet with them until they were were literally called out of bed.

Last night I completely packed up my room so I can move to another cabin for this week. I was spoiled having so many people help me pack before I left! It was a tight fit but I was able to squeeze everything back into my bag. I'll probably get pretty good at packing everything as I get to do it again in 7 days.

After the immigration shenanigans I moved my things into my new cabin for the week. I'm now in a guest cabin with a BIG WINDOW!! I'm going to get very spoiled sleeping in my big bed and having a stateroom attendant ask if I need anything before I go to bed. It's going to be tough to move back into the bowls of the ship in one week. But I'm enjoying it while I can!

Mid afternoon I went up to the broadcast room to begin heating the camera. We have to warm up the cameras before shooting things outside otherwise as soon as you step outside everything fogs up, gets covered in condensation and it takes like 20 minutes for the camera to be operable. While I was waiting for the camera to warm I met Tim, the traveling broadcast technician. I didn't really realize what he did until I spoke with him, but basically he is one of two people shoreside (Miami) who manage the broadcast division. He oversees all of the new ship builds and installations of the broadcast rooms. He also oversees anytime a ship goes into dry dock and receives equipment upgrades. Essentially he is a big cheese and is on board with us this week to make sure things are operating the way they should be and to report any problems shoreside.

A few minutes after meeting Tim I met Stelian, who will become the head broadcast tech when Kurtis leaves in a week. Stelian has a TON of energy and just wants to fix everything and rewire this and couldn't we do it this way and we can reuse that part for this and let's open up this server and put these parts here. His background is in electrical engineering so he's really into the technical side of the operation. He already showed me enough things to make my head explode.

Tim is trying to clean up the broadcast room and throw out a bunch of old equipment that we don't need anymore. At the same time, Stelian is trying to save all the old equipment because he is convinced we might need it or a part from it later. It's pretty funny to watch Tim lay down the law and say "no, we're never going to use this, it's wasting space, throw it out" and Stelian argue, "but we can salvage the hard drive and put it in this system, blah blah blah!"

So after meeting both of them I pulled out the heated camera, rolled some bars on the tape and then headed to the pool to shoot some footage. When I got to the pool deck I switched the camera on. And nothing happened. I turned it off and back on. Still nothing. I removed and replaced the battery. No luck. So I walked back the broadcast room to inform the others that the camera was not working. Oh, did I mention we only have (had) one working camera? We tried a bunch of different things but nothing worked. It is officially dead. The moist salty environment takes a beating on the cameras and eventually they just die. We were suppose to receive new cameras months ago, but the tsunami in Japan has backordered our order for months and months.

But we had a massive stroke of luck when we received a pre-alert (an e-mail telling your department that something they've ordered is arriving) that there were boxes from Sony on a skid arriving tomorrow in St. Thomas. The cameras were finally here! We just had to wait until our skid was loaded onto the ship tomorrow.

My Cabin

Here is a short look at my current room. It is located forward on deck 4. Once the broadcast tech I'm replacing leaves I'll take her room. I also have a small fridge which I failed to show. Sorry the video quality is crappy. I had to make the file really small to upload with the slow internet.

Also, I just found out yesterday that I'll be moving to a GUEST CABIN next week because the ECC cabin I'm in now will be full. It's a bummer I have to pack up and move, but at least I get to live in luxury for a week before I move to my actual cabin!

8.6

This morning was more training!! I think I'm almost done with these morning classes. Today we started by discussing crowd management. Basically different ways to control and manage a large crowd under both normal and emergency situations. It was pretty interesting and will not only be useful on the ship, as some info was very specific to maritime situations, but a lot of it was just how to manage crowds no matter where they're located. After that was over we went down to the hospital to receive some basic first aid training.
It was pretty amazing to see the medical facility. It's much more substantial than I imagined. Did you know they have a mortuary on the ship? I realized I walk by it probably 20 times a day and just noticed it today. One of the doctors walked us through different medical scenarios that we might run into on the ship or anywhere really. Then Rescue Annie came out for CPR lessons. I had to do 100 chest compressions in 1 minute. It's a pretty good workout! The doctor showed us how to help a choking infant and many other things I didn't know how to do properly.

After we finished in the hospital we met back up with the chief safety officer who took us to the disembarking deck (5) to show us around inside a lifeboat. We climbed inside as it hung over the port side of the ship. He showed us all the different medical, safety, mechanical and food ration systems on the craft. Each boat holds 139 guests and 11 crew. They have 1,000 sea sick tablets on the boat and each person is required to take one as soon as they board and then can take up to 5 afterwards. No one is allowed to eat the emergency food for the first 24 hours and are each provided with 3L of water which gets rationed in these space aged packs. The Coast Guard can ask any crew member certain questions about the lifeboats that they must know the answer to. How many flares are in each lifeboat? "6 hand held, 4 parachute and 2 smoke flares Officer Sanchez." We were also bunkering fuel on the port side so I got to see how that process was working as we stood on the outside of the ship.

I'm sitting at a bar beach side in St. Martin as I upload these entries. I might be able to get used to this view...

8.5

I did walk around St. Johns for a bit. I had no idea where I was going so I just wondered up the main street. There were lots of shops and plenty of people asking me if I needed a taxi or wanted to see "a great beach mon!". I decided to turn around when I felt myself entering what I believe may not have been the nicest part of town. On my way back towards the ship I stopped and got an overpriced strawberry smoothie. Though pricy, it was actually pretty good! As I was sitting outside enjoying my strawberries, someone from the ship recognized me and came over to sit with me for a bit. I can't remember her title (something in administration), but I know she was the one who made some phone calls to help me get my tux last minute! She told me about a casino where I could get (slow) internet access which is where I ended up uploading to the blog.

I went back to the ship to get ready for the two evening events we had to film. First was this pirate parade event for kids. There is a young child center as well as a teen center on the ship. They're both really awesome and I'm jealous I can't play in them! The youth center has all these Wii stations and Legos and other cool stuff. The teen center has a night club inside that is only for the teen age group. The pirate parade is when all the young kids in the youth center get their faces painted like pirates, make bandanas and parade around the ship while looking for clues that guide them to "the buried treasure." So essential it's a parade that stops in certain rooms for a scavenger hunt to take place. It was fun to play with (some of) the kids and I got to make my own bandana that I can wear for future parades. Arrrr!

Later at 2230 there was a game show called Love and Marriage. Essentially 3 couples are selected and then the men are taken into a separate room while the women are asked 3 questions like, "the most embarrassing place you've made love." Then the men are brought back out and asked the same question. The couples that answer the questions the same get a point. Then it switches and the women go into a separate room blah blah blah. The audiences thought it was all very hilarious but I had no idea what was going on because I was filming the SPANISH version in the Safari Club while the English version was being recorded with the remote cameras in the Tropical Theatre. It was actually sort of fun to try to figure out what was going on throughout the game. A few times it was difficult to figure out who I should have the camera focused on, but it went fairly well for the first time.

After the game was over I returned to the broadcast room to created DVDs for each of the contestants. Around 130 we finalized the Cruise in Review DVD, exported it and handed it off for the photography people to begin selling the following morning.

8.5

I'm in St. Johns, Antigua and the internet is big bass slow. The satellites are barely working on the island. In fact our satellites on the ship are not receiving any signals right now. We had to switch over to pre-recorded programming on our sat channels. I took a video of my room but I can't upload with this internet so you'll have to wait until I get a solid internet connection. I know you're all on the edge of your seat...

This morning we had boat drill. The crew is required to practice drills every week. Today was a BRAVO drill, meaning they simulated a fire somewhere on the ship. Apparently they set off smoke bombs and other devices to make it as real as possible. I'm part of CHARLIE team which handles security incidents, so I did not have to respond to the BRAVO call. After the team "contains the fire" an alarm is sound (7 short, 1 long) that tells all crew to report to their emergency stations. My current station is on the starboard side of the ship all they way aft. Basically because I haven't completed all of my training yet I'm just in the extra man waiting area. Once I finish training I will be assigned an emergency station that actually helps assist guests to their muster stations.

They make sure everyone is at their proper emergency station by calling out your assigned emergency number. Then we stood there while a safety officer came by asking random people random safety related questions. Things such as: How many over capacity rafts are on the ship? (3 per side), What are class B fires? (liquid, fuel, oil) or what is the capacity of a MES? (430 people).

Then they sound a single (long) alarm that tells us to go to our assembly stations. This is where you get ready to get into your assigned life raft. Once again, because I am a nobody without complete training, I don't even get a life raft. I am assigned to a MES (marine evacuation system). They are these awesome devices that when activated dump off the side of the ship (we are on deck 5) and splash into the water. On contact with water they inflate to form 4 huge life raft devices. It sort of looks like 4 floating inflatable bounce fun houses that you see at carnivals. They are connected to deck five with two tubes that look like enclosed Slinkies. You jump into one of the tubes and the path inside the tube is designed to make you descend in a 360 degree path to slow your descent. It looks like a lot of fun and I think we get to practice it in the upcoming weeks.

During every drill one side of the ship's lifeboats is required to be put into the water. This week it was the starboard side. So all the lifeboats, tender boats (used in ports when the ship can't pull into the port so you must transfer guests between ship and land by these boats) and rescue boats all lowered into the water and putted around the inlet in St. Johns. It was pretty funny to watch all the boats bobbing around in the water. They look like overstuffed bright yellow squash (aka squash from the farm garden!) and their diesel engines sound similar to a prop plane. When I complete my lifeboat training I will be assigned a boat so I can assist guests in an emergency. Once this happens I'll have to be lowered into the water when my side of the ship (starboard) goes in.

After the drill they held cabin inspections to make sure their aren't any fire or health violations in your cabin. They look for excess trash, super dirty bathrooms and who knows what else. I passed with flying colors. Apparently if you are found sleeping in bed for cabin inspections you get in trouble. I don't how this would be possible considering the entire crew was all standing outside on deck 5 ten minutes prior to inspection, but I guess if you really can't stay awake after drill they nail you.

I did walk around the island a bit today, but I don't have time to write about it now. What you've read above I had written earlier today in my cabin. I'm headed back to the ship now to get ready for this evening's activities.

8.4

Last night we shot the performance of "Gotta Dance" (the dance that some passengers were taught at a class yesterday and then held a surprise performance in the Centrum). After that we went the the guest version of Quest. It was a little less raunchy than the crew version, but still a lot of fun. They make sure there aren't any kids in the Safari Lounge while the game is happening so it gets pretty wild! After that was over around 2315, we ran up to the pool deck for "Dancing Under the Stars." Basically the crew staff leads a bunch of line dance type dances. It was really fun and awesome to be outside on the ship at night. I really like being surround by complete darkness. As the event was winding down I walked to the bow of the ship and just soaked in the surrounding darkness.

This morning I had survival training. We learned about the different types of life rafts, survival techniques, etc. I found it interesting that they spent a fair amount of time educating us about sharks. Hopefully that knowledge doesn't need to be used! They also talked a lot about the different emergency transponders that can be activated, both for land and air rescues. It's amazing how many redundant systems are on both the ship and rescue crafts. Of course I'm soaking up all the technical things like what frequency is needed to broadcast to airplanes vs. ships, while I'm sure the other few people were like "who cares!." Another thing I found interesting was this device on the lifeboats that you assemble to make that boat easier to pick on radar from other ships. Because the lifeboats are small and plastic, they won't pick up on nearby radar. However, constructing this big metal frame thing helps bounce the waves back to passing ships. At least that's the idea…

I think the First Safety Officer is starting to like me because today he found out that I knew a thing or two about boats. I got to explain the use of a sea anchor (which is basically a parachute type anchor that drags in the water to slow the craft down and help stabilize it). It's used especially when an anchor cannot reach the sea floor. It's good that he likes me because he'll give you a hard time if he feels you're not up to par. If you're 1 minute late for training he won't let you in the room and you have to attend another session the following week.

Speaking of time, I love how every single thing on the ship starts precisely when it is suppose to. If an event is to start at 1900, it starts at 1900, not a minute earlier or later. The ship leaves and arrives in port at exact specified times and the mess halls open and close on the dot. It's really great because I can literally show up to an event I need to shoot 2 minutes before hand and know that it will begin in exactly 2 minutes. There is no wasted time.

In the afternoon I shot some activities on the sports deck as we departed St. Lucia. They have things such as rock climbing, water slides, mini golf, volleyball, shuffleboard, etc. During the volleyball game someone hit the ball over the nets and into the ocean! What do you do when that happens? Well nothing really, expect we are required to report it to the environmental officer on board who files a report to some agency that keep track of things like that. When I finished I went back up to the broadcast room and edited a short piece with the sports footage.

After dinner (Asian food night!) I did a little more editing and then went to this 70s disco night in the Centrum. It was really well attended and a lot of fun. Durning the middle of the event they drop a bunch of balloons from the ceiling and they float down the 10 stories to the dance floor. It looked really cool!