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!