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!