Holidays at sea!

December 29, 2011

Well Happy Belated Christmas, everyone!
I hope you all had a great holiday, mine here on board wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, actually! Christmas Eve we had a party in the Crew Bar and I wore the one green t-shirt that I bought at a K-Mart a few cruises ago. We had a blast and I think I finally got back to my cabin around 4:30am, and then I was woken up by my roommate’s alarm at 9:00am (which ironically didn’t wake her up at all) and so I turned that off, went back to bed for a little while, and then got up to start working my first day on duty. I gave my coworkers their presents (they were all thrilled!) and we spent all day eating candy, having a drink every now and then, and of course each of us working when we needed to. There was a morning party going on in the hallway where my cabin is with Mimosas and people hanging out in their PJs so I was at that for awhile with some of the dancers and musicians and that was fun, too! Then that night we had the Christmas show featuring the singers and dancers of the cast and then after that I sat in on the cast’s Secret Santa gift exchange, complete with food and a small Christmas tree and one of the boy dancers dressed in drag and hosting the event…it was HILARIOUS. Jason also bought some beer for everyone and then various cast members brought bottles of alcohol to share with the group—the party basically never stopped! After the gifts were all opened, we set up the giant projection screen in the theatre and we watched “A Muppet Christmas Carol” (which we borrowed from the kid’s club manager since nobody had any Christmas movies on DVD).  Then, when the movie was over, we cleaned up the theatre and proceeded to party in the cabins of our lead female & male singers…I got home around 5:00am…again…oops! But, it was all totally worth it! Lauren, Jason’s wife/Musical Director, let me use her phone to call my family for free which was really nice, even though it was kind of early for them.
Since then I’ve been detoxing and trying to catch back up on sleep so that the cold I managed to fight off doesn’t come back and so that we can party again on New Year’s Eve! I’ve been on duty for the last 5 days so I haven’t gotten off the ship which has sucked, per usual, but, that’s how it goes! Also, Jim Carrey’s “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” has been playing on one of the crew channels and so I’ve been watching that---I really think that’s one of my favorite Christmas movies!
This is completely unrelated to ship life, but, it’s something I’m excited about—Chelsea (my brother’s fiancée) asked me and my sister to be Bridesmaids in their wedding! I am SO excited! It means that if I decide to do another contract I’d have to tell them I had to be around for the wedding, but, that’s totally ok by me! As of now I’m still unsure if I’m doing another contract, so, I think it’s all going to work out nicely!
Otherwise, life has been pretty status quo around here. I’m working on making short videos of random things around the ship and I’ll be emailing them out to people when I have some free internet. I can’t post them on Facebook because they will feature some crew-only places so I can’t post them in public, so, I have to email them to all of you. So far I have about 3 videos I think, but I plan on making more…possibly tonight!
I spoke earlier of how “…the Grinch…” has been playing on one of the crew channels and that reminds me of something I was thinking about the other day. Correct me if I’m wrong, all those who have read this book, but I think in the book 1984 by George Orwell they talk about the TV channels and such being regulated and showing the same things over and over again (since the book is about “Big Brother” and all) and I seriously feel like that’s how it is around here sometimes! They show the same movies all day on the same channel and then it rotates but eventually all the same movies come back and you begin to go a little crazy! Now, I know the Christmas movies will disappear after New Year’s, but, the same will still apply with the regular movies! At least, this is what I’ve found to be true since being on the ship. It’s the same with the movies we show on the big screen to the guests—it’s the same movies each cruise and then within the cruise you can watch the same movie several times a day in different venues (the theatre, the cinema, the pool, and on your stateroom TV!).  I understand that it’s hard to have a wide array of movies available all the way out here but...I just find it quite interesting. Big Brother is watching us!!
I think that’s all I’ve got for now folks! I miss you all like crazy!
B