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!

8.3

It was hard getting up this morning at 730 after going to bed around 230, but I drug myself out of bed for MORE TRAINING! This morning was fire safety training. After going over some materials in the conference room, we went up to the aft mooring deck to learn how to use different types of fire extinguishers and hoses. It was really awesome shooting the fire hoses off the back of the ship. They had so much power that the safety officer had to put his hand on my shoulder so I didn't get knocked backwards from the water jet! There was a Carnival ship mored directly behind us and we could shoot from our ship and hit their bow (not sure if Carnival would approve of this)!

After training I went to get some lunch. I saw someone that was on my Quest team from the night before so I sat with Cynthia who is from Brazil. It's nice not to eat alone! We were also joined by one of her friends, Ian from Chili, who is the ship's International Ambassador. Part of his job is to translate for the Captain, so every time the Captain makes an announcement over the PA system, he repeats the announcement in five different languages. Amazing!

It's currently 1215 and I'm debating whether I want to take a nap or go exploring in Barbados. I don't really have any work to do until 1900 and it feels great to just sit in my bed and do nothing.

Edit: I went on land in Barbados, hence this being posted now!

8.2

Last night I went to the Captain's Reception, a formal event where guests can have their picture taken with the captain, get FREE drinks (this is a popular event), watch some entertainment and meet the first officers. As this was a formal event, I had to wear a tuxedo. The event began at 1900 and as of 1700 I didn't yet have one. Val pulled some strings with someone in HR and I was able to get one from the uniform shop in time for the event. I only had to get the jacket, shirt and bow tie because I'm just going to use my pants and shoes. After we shot enough footage of the event we went up to the broadcast room and edited the segment for the Cruise in Review DVD until around 2330.

Today is a sea day and the Captain made the decision to go to Barbados tomorrow so hopefully the weather will hold out. The seas have been rocky on and off but as I write this things are relatively calm. The cruise director has asked us (the broadcast techs) to display weather maps on one of the TV channels so guests can understand why we have been altering our course, so at least I'm always aware of the latest and greatest weather developments!

This morning I had, you guessed it, more training! This training was about protecting the marine environment and telling us everything RCI does to ensure safe disposal or discharge of all waste products and chemicals. It was actually pretty interesting to learn how they process all the grey and black water for discharge into the ocean. They also discharge the leftover food after it's been processed. Coming from Ithaca I am very experienced in separating my garbage into 4,000 different categories, so I'm sure I won't have any problem abiding by their policies. We also learned about different chemical reactions and proper sterilization techniques. Disease outbreak is taken very seriously and there are so many different places around the crew areas to wash your hands.

This afternoon we shot the International Men's Belly Flop Competition in the deck 11 pool. Luckily the weather held out so we were able to hold the competition. After that we shot some footage on the sports deck before it started raining. From there we went to the Vortex club to shoot this thing called "Gotta Dance" which apparently is this hip hop dance started by the Nicks cheerleaders who then sold the dance routine and music to RC. Today they taught people the dance and then tomorrow at 2000 in the Centrum (midship area that is an open area 10 decks high) they suddenly turn on the music and the passengers start doing this routine they learned similar to a flash mob. Should be interesting.

This evening we shot a short video with the cruise director explaining and highlighting some day 5 activities. Later after dinner they held this rock and roll event with a dance contest in the Centrum. It was pretty crowded and all the guests seemed to have a great time.

After the rock and roll event was over we dumped it into the Avid and then I went back to my cabin to change for a crew party starting at midnight. The event was called Crew Quest, which is a spin off of a game that is played with the (adult) guests in the Safari Lounge. Basically it's a team scavenger hunt where the host asks for different items or actions. Once the team finds the item or performs the action for the host they get a certain number of points depending on the order that they completed the "quest." I joined the Activities Staff team as I had met one of them at lunch earlier that day and they invited me to be on their team. The crew version of this game was, as you can imagine, a tad bit more intense. It started out with things such as "two different colored shoe laces" or "currency not in the form of USD" and towards the end was essentially things like "two guys each wearing a bra on their hands and knees barking like a dog" and a girl wearing men's clothing so I'll let imagine what happened as the night wore on… It was all really fun and my team won!! In fact we crushed everyone by 26 points!

8.1

This morning I woke up around 645 and hopped into my mini shower. As I was showering I suddenly noticed that I was standing in water. Not a small amount of water that normally collects when you shower, but probably about 3 or 4 inches of water. It suddenly occurred to me that my drain was not draining. I quickly turned off the water to assess the situation. I was standing there covered in soap not able to see a thing without my glasses but didn't want to turn the water back on as I had already begun to flood my phone booth of a bathroom. So soaking wet I quickly tiptoed into my room and grabbed a cup. I began bailing my bathroom floor into the toilet. After a few minutes I had taken the water level down enough to turn the water on a bit to get the soap off of me. Now I was running late so I quickly put on my uniform and ran to the other end of the ship for my training session.

It is amazing how much safety training I am required to attended. This morning I again had about four hours of safety and security training. I got to met the captain (Captain Karen). Last night I found out she is the first woman to be captain of a cruise ship! We were also introduced to the first officers of engineering, security, safety, medical and HR. There are so many acronyms and code words my head is already starting to spin. Announcements over the PA system such as "Alpha Alpha Alpha, zone 5, deck 7, port" means Alpha=medical emergency and zone 5 = fire zone 5 (there are seven fire zones on the ship created by bulkheads and fire and watertight doors). Every employee has an emergency card that declares what the crew member's duty is and the location they should report to in each type of emergency (medical, fire, grounding/collision and security threat).

This morning the first safety officer showed us how to operate fire and splash doors. We then went outside and I had completely forgotten we had changed locations and walked out onto the deck to see beautiful water and the island of St. Croix. I could also see a ball park right off of the beach! We were shown all the different types of life and rescue crafts as well as the passenger muster stations. Later in the week I'll also be trained in fire, survival, crowd control and first aid. It's going to be a busy week!

7.31

I woke up this morning around 620, showered and shaved so I didn't look like a mountain man and then proceeded to grab some breakfast and wait for the shuttle to the pier. There were probably about 15 or 20 people who were waiting to join Serenade that were staying at my hotel. Most were speaking other languages and I looked to be the only American. It was pretty clear that most had done this routine before and maybe 2 or 3 were new hires like me. The shuttle arrived and took us on a short 5 minute ride to the pier. As we neared the pier I could see 2 cruise ships and instantly recognized the Serenade from pictures I have seen.

We drove along the pier and I got my first look of my home for 7 months. She's a huge ship. I've never been up close to a cruise ship before and they are very impressive looking! As I ogled at the ship the vans stopped and we all got out and grabbed our luggage. We were met by two officers who checked our passports and employment documents. Then this massive garage door opened and we went inside this warehouse type of building.

We put our bags on X-ray machines and had them scanned. They found my Letherman and other tools (which I'm allowed to have), but I had to check them in through security and will pick them up later. We then lined all of our lugged up in a long single file line and stood shoulder to shoulder against a wall facing the line of luggage. Three officers each with a dog walked up and down the line as the dogs sniffed each and every bag multiple times. It was a pretty intense process but they didn't find anything. We then went to another section of this massive building to go through metal detectors.

After all of the security we finally boarded the ship through the crew gangway on deck 2. We went up to a conference room on deck 5 where we received some paper work and had our medical records double checked. I was given my room key and an emergency card the tells me my position and duty on the ship if there is an emergency. I was then met by Paula, who works in the entertainment division (it has some name but I forget what it is). She told me she was going to show me around because the other 2 broadcast techs were busy at that moment. It turns out there are only two broadcast techs on the ship and I am replacing one of them. There will be three of us for about two weeks and then the person I am replacing will leave.

Paula gave me a quick tour of a few guest areas and then we descended into the crew areas. There is a main passage called "I-95" that runs the length of the ship on deck two. This is the main artery where the crew can move laterally in the ship without going into guest areas. Paula showed me to my room which is forward on deck four. I'll be staying in an ECC (extra crew cabin) for about two weeks until the broadcast tech leaves and then I will take her cabin.

The ECC cabin is very small. It's probably a little smaller than Allison's bathroom and has bunk beds, but I'm told I'll be the only one staying in it. I have a TV and small fridge as well as bathroom with shower. The bathroom sort of feels like something you'd use in an RV.

I'm currently just hanging out in my cabin waiting for Kurtis (the head broadcast tech) to give me a call so we can meet up. This afternoon I will pick up my luggage and attend safety meetings. I'm told my training schedule will be a little different than they normally are this week because RCI executives from Miami are onboard for a few days until we drop them off in Barbados. They are holding meetings that the higher ups who typically train new hires have to attend, so my schedule will be a little screwy.

I met up with Kurt and he showed me the broadcast room as well as the cinema and other areas of the ship where screens are located that we manage. Kurt's a nice guy and has been working with RCI for twelve years. He's friendly and pretty much carries the attitude of "I've been doing this on various ships around the world for twelve years so I'll do whatever I what."

That afternoon I met Val, the other broadcast tech. She's really nice and is actually from PENNSYLVANIA (a small town near Pittsburgh)! She was super pumped to actually meet someone not only from the United States but Pennsylvania. She's worked for RCI for about 2 years. I'll be shooting and editing events with her this week and next. Unfortunately both Kurt and Val will be leaving in two weeks, so I'll be working with some broadcast tech from Romania.

We left San Juan last night and our first port was suppose to be Barbados, but there is a tropical storm forming so the captain made the decision to not go down to Barbados but stop in St. Croix instead. It is unclear where we will be going next as they are still monitoring the storm system. I believe tomorrow may be a sea day until a decision can be made about the next port.

This evening I sat in the broadcast room for the Welcome Aboard show, which takes place in the main theatre. We record the show's using remote cameras and then broadcast it again later though out the ship. Shorty after the ship got underway, I sat in my rolley chair and realized that I could actually feel the ship moving. When you move throughout the crew area's you never have to see outside so I had no idea we had left San Juan. As the show was going on we got an e-mail with the subject line "Secure for Seas." Apparently this e-mail gets sent when the ship may encounter some movement that could cause unsecured items to shift. It seemed that the tropical storm was starting to stir up with waters. The broadcast room is high up on deck 11 so the movement is sometime amplified.

After the show I went back down to my cabin around 00:15 and headed to bed. I actually really enjoyed lying in bed feeling the ship rock and listening to everything creak and moan.