Workin' It!

October 5, 2011

I’m pretty tired tonight so I’ll just make some bullet points:

--Bora Bora was pretty cool. I got off the ship, walked around, bought some post cards and a beautiful charm with a Tahitian Pearl on it, and then took a 2 hour bus tour of the Island. Totally worth every penny!

--We are now on our way to New Zealand! We’ve got some rough waters ahead of us though, apparently, so, we’re looking out for that.

--Tonight, we gain an hour! Yay! I like sleeping!

Sorry for the short post, y’all, just feeling extra tired!

Missing and loving you all

B

October 7, 2011

I finally used the gym today! We have a crew gym and then there’s a (much nicer) guest gym, but the crew gym is being “renovated” right now, and we’re allowed to use the guest gym anyways, but I’ve been refraining because of the virus that’s been going around the ship. I figured that the chances of people washing their hands before and after working out was pretty slim, and earlier this week there was a woman who threw up in the gym, so I was staying far, far away. But, we’re down to 1 guest case and I think about 5 crew cases of the virus, so, I felt safer giving the gym a go today. Did some elliptical, some biking and then weight training on my legs. I could use the weight training on my arms, but, it’s more important for my legs (y’all know why) and by the time I was done with legs I was pretty tired, so, that was that! Not too bad though, spent a good hour there. Definitely the start of a good trend in my habits! That plus eating 3 times a day (trying to make sure I have vegetables and fruit with every meal) might make me into am even more fabulous version of me by the time you all see me again! Huzzah!

Tonight we cross the International Date Line! Whoo!

There’s also apparently a big oil spill in the bay next to the bay where Auckland is, so there’s a possibility that if they can’t get it cleaned up/contained before we arrive, we may have to divert elsewhere. I will try to keep you all posted!

Otherwise, not too much has been going on! A girl from another department came into the production office the other night and asked who I was replacing and Jason replied and she was  like “ohhh ok! How’s it going for you, Brit?” and I said “Pretty good so far, still trying to get the groove of things, but, you know, working at it!” and then Jason goes “She’s working out pretty well!” and that made me smile. We did one of our production shows the other night and after the second show (which meant I had done the show all of 3 times—two shows and one rehearsal) Jason was like “Great job tonight, Brit”. YAY! That was great to hear because I had messed a few things up, but, I guess it was still good!

I don’t know if I’ve explained this yet, but, here’s how our shows kind of work. In our big theatre we have a different show every night of each cruise, so that the entertainment changes for the guests. We have the Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers, and they perform in the Production Shows, which on our ship are called “Piano Man”, “City of Dreams” and “Tango Buenos Aires”. The first two are similar in style, they have lavish costumes and drops to make various locations, and the content is various songs that are performed by the singers and danced to by the dancers. I think Tango is the same way, but, we haven’t done that one yet. After those shows, we have comedians, singers, musicians and other performers each night. Generally they cater to the older audiences, with performers that I’ve never heard of but these people seem to love. We’ve had Marty Allen, Karon Kate, Jason Chase, Johnny Thunder, Amber Jade and some others as well…if any of those names mean anything to you!

I think that’s all I’ve got for now, much love to you all up there in the Northern Hemisphere

B

Moorea and Bora Bora

October 4, 2011

The good news is that today was BEAUTIFUL!! The bad news? Despite my sunscreen, I still got some sunburn….sigh. (Don’t yell at me!!)

Anyways, I woke up this morning and went to my last training session which involved donning a life jacket and jumping in to the pool on Deck 11, then hopping into a sort of life craft. Fun stuff!

Then I met up with Thomas, Danny, Amanda and Ian (3 people from Cruise Staff and the orchestra’s drummer) and we headed out and went to Moorea! When we got off the little boat that took us from the ship to the island (we couldn’t pull right up because the ship was too big for any of the ports) we had decided to go on a snorkeling tour! So we paid a respectable amount of money and we boarded a boat and set out for another part of the island where we stopped on a sandbar, got out, and swam with sting rays, Black Tip Reef sharks, and some other random fish! I wish I had an underwater camera, but, Thomas has one so I’m hoping I can get some of his photos.

After that we were taken to a remote little lagoon and we had a Tahitian lunch of rice, chicken, freshly cut (and probably freshly picked) pineapple, fish, sausage, bread and beer! Delicious!!!

Then we hung out there in the lagoon for a while and swam and snorkeled and such, then we came back to the main part of the island and subsequently to the ship. I also saw the mountain that they used for Bali’Hai in “South Pacific”! Very cool stuff.

Tomorrow is Bora Bora, yay!

B

October 5, 2011

I’m pretty tired tonight so I’ll just make some bullet points:

--Bora Bora was pretty cool. I got off the ship, walked around, bought some post cards and a beautiful charm with a Tahitian Pearl on it, and then took a 2 hour bus tour of the Island. Totally worth every penny!

--We are now on our way to New Zealand! We’ve got some rough waters ahead of us though, apparently, so, we’re looking out for that.

--Tonight, we gain an hour! Yay! I like sleeping!

Sorry for the short post, y’all, just feeling extra tired!

Missing and loving you all

B

Tahiti....

October 3, 2011

Well, we arrived in Papetee, Tahiti this morning and when all of the guests got off the ship we started a Full Barrier Clean because we’ve had so many guests get a gastro-intestinal illness called the Norovirus or the Norwalk Virus. It’s pretty common on cruise ships, especially long cruises like the one we’re on right now. This makes me worry a little bit for the rest of my contract, but hopefully we won’t have to deal with it in later cruises.  So basically we had to use this special chemical to clean everything on the ship, every crew member had to clean their area and it took several hours. Not too fun!!

Anyways, we were able to get off the ship around 1pm, but it was kind of rainy and cloudy—not like how you’d expect Tahiti to look! But, we braved the elements and a bunch of us got off the ship and wandered around the city. Everyone was very happy to have me with them because I was able to speak French and translate things and ask for directions and whatnot. Of course all of the shopkeepers and such pretty much speak some form of crude English, but, one woman was elated to have me speak French at her! She even asked me if I came from France, mwahahaha.

Now I’m back on the ship, I have to work in 45minutes, but, I thought I’d do a quick blog, shower, and then go get some food! Tomorrow we are going to a nearby island—Moorea—and I think we are going to try to go snorkeling. Hopefully the weather will be nice and sunny! After that we hit Bora Bora and then it’s 5 more sea days and then an overnight stay in Auckland, New Zealand! We also cross the International Date Line on our way to New Zealand so we are going to go to bed on the 7^th and then wake up on the 9^th!! October 8^th will not exist for us…crazy!

Just got home from work and a midnight snack with the guys, the show tonight was pretty cool—Tahitian Dancers, so basically Hula Dancers but much cooler. It was inside so they didn’t have fire and flames and such, but, it was pretty cool nonetheless. I talked to a couple of the guy dancers and some of the musicians in French and that was entertaining.

Here are some photos from the trip so far!

Tahitian Girl Dancers

Tahitian Boy Dancers

My lovely ship!

 That's all for now, mostly because it's taking too long to load them!

Love you all like French people love bread!

B

All aboard!!

September 28, 2011

It’s my third day on the ship and what a whirlwind it’s been! Let me start at the beginning.

I signed on to the ship around 4:45 on Monday the 26^th, after receiving a phone call at my hotel from the Crew Administrator on board the ship asking me where I was. I told her that my driver told me I was to be picked up on Tuesday morning and taken to the ship then, but she corrected me and said nope, can you take a cab to get here tonight? And I said of course! So here we are.

I met Erika, the Crew Administrator, who works in the HR department.  She took me to the medical center where I handed them my GIANT folder of paperwork and the woman looked at me and said “What did they DO to you??” and I briefly explained what had happened and they just looked at the pile of paperwork bewildered and said “Well…ok!” I thought that was mildly entertaining.

Then Erika called Kerwin, who turned out to be my immediate supervisor aka Head Stage Staff. He’s a very nice guy, and he took me to my cabin and showed me the ropes. My cabinmate’s name is Lauren, she’s one of the dancers in the shows we do. She’s from Nebraska and is really nice so far—I  feel awful for her because the day before I got here she hurt her foot/ankle in a lift (dance move) and hasn’t been able to do a whole lot. She’s had to put ice on it and couldn’t go ashore in Hawaii, poor thing!

Anyways, I have been training and working and working and training! Here’s how my immediate department (as we can call it) is set up as far as chain of command goes (as I know it right now and as it pertains to me)

Top: Cruise Director (Bobby from Scotland—he’s pretty much in charge of anything and everything related to the guests and entertaining them.

Next: Production and Stage Manager (Jason from Oregon)—He’s my boss. He’s awesome!!! He’s from Oregon and has taken to calling me “Ohio”

Next: Head Stage Staff (Kerwin from The Phillipines)—my immediate supervisor. Makes my schedule, and also lives around the hall from me.

Next: Stage Staff (Me, Rafael (USA) and Adrian (Romania))—we are the stage staff! And yes I am the token female..

There’s also our Sound Tech, his name is Greg and he’s from Hungary, and then our Light Tech’s name is Nick and he’s American, too.

Mind you, these are the people I will work with on a regular and daily basis. This doesn’t include the all of the dancers (who are all American, go figure!), the band and orchestras, and other miscellaneous people I work with from time to time. There are over 900 crew members on this ship, and I don’t even understand all of the ranks and chains of commands yet, but, I’m sure I’ll get there eventually.

Also—OH MY GOSH is this place confusing!!! I have gotten lost I don’t even know how many times. There are so many stairs and halls and secret doors that go from guest areas to crew areas and they lead to all these different places and I have to know how to get everywhere. Oh my goodness, it’s exhausting trying to figure it all out.  Here are some important things for you,  my beloved readers, to understand because I will probably refer to these places or use these terms more often than not:

Decks:  the floors of the ship. They go from 0 (all the way at the bottom) to 13 (all the way at the top...not including the Bridge)

The Bridge: where all of the important people who make the ship run, like the Captain, do their thing

“The I-95”---is a long hallway on Deck 2 that runs all the way Aft to all the way Forward. It’s the best and easiest way to get from one end to the other.

Aft---the back of the ship

Forward---the front of the ship

The Mess---the cafeteria for staff and crew members.  I’m considered a Staff member which is a higher “rank” from crew members, but, we’re all considered crew members regardless. It’s kind of confusing but, it is what it is.

Cabin---where I sleep and live and shower and all of those things. For those of you who were at Allegheny with me, my cabin is basically the size of my Caflisch single with a bathroom attached. A bathroom that is very tiny, and you can pretty much use the shower, sink and toilet all the the same time! Very time saving! Mine is on Deck 2

Aurora and/or Aurora Theatre---the main theatre where I work

The Centrum---the big center of the ship where the guests love to hang out. We set performances there every now and then

The Rock Wall---sometimes we have to help at the rock wall because there isn’t a sports staff on this ship. So we help harness in the people that want to climb and then do the cabling and such, too

I’m sure I will come up with more as I go, so, I’ll keep you posted.

 As of now I haven’t learned too much about how many of the basic things work like mail, but I do know that you only have to send things as far as Miami and then RCCL takes care of things from there. That’s good news because sending things to Australia would be crazy expensive!

In general though everyone is really friendly and I’ve also learned that, according to my boss Jason, the ratio of men to women working on this ship is like 10:1, so, the odds are in my favor there! I’m not surprised at this though, just looking around I can tell that’s true.

We are at the end of day 1 at sea on our way to Papetee, Tahiti, French Polynesia, and the waves are a little rough right now and they say it’s only going to get worse. I don’t know how it is up in the guest areas but down here on Deck 2 in my cabin I can definitely feel us rocking back and forth. It’s worse up on the theatre, so, I imagine as you go up the worse it gets, even though Deck 2 is still above water technically. Right now Jason estimates that the waves are around 2-4 foot swells and they say that as we get closer to the islands it will get worse and somewhere between the islands and New Zealand….or maybe it was New Zealand and Australia….either way somewhere in that area the waves may get up to 20-30 feet!!!! I am a little nervous for that, but, I guess we’ll see how it goes!

This post is already ridiculously long so I’ll leave you all to it.

Much love from somewhere in the Pacific!

B

September 29, 20111

So this morning I had another round of safety training and we learned about Crowd Management and how to deal with guests in an emergency situation. Our trainer is the Chief Safety Officer, whose name is Chris Bean (England), showed us some videos and then took us to a random guest area and told us that he was a panicking guest and that we were responsible for taking him to a safe place on Deck 5 (where the lifeboats are). He was testing our crowd mentality to see who would be a leader, a sheep (just following whatever anyone else said) and a panicker. Well, he had had us point out where the nearest escape routes were and then he said okay, now, GO. So we headed out and we needed to turn left in this door and the people ahead of me kept walking and I was like wait….we need to turn here! And then Chris was standing behind me and I said “Don’t we need to go this way?” and he smile and called everyone back to us and then we proceeded my way and then I led the way out and he laughed and chastised the group saying “Brittany, the NEW HIRE, got us out here faster than those of you who have been on ships before. Tsk tsk!” It was awesome!!

Then we had a tech run of one of our production shows called “Piano Man”, which isn’t a show per se but it’s 90 minutes of musical numbers and props and stuff….so it’s a show but it doesn’t have much of a plot or anything. It’s good though! I only messed up a couple of things which was good, considering it was my first time. We’ve got two real shows tonight and those should be pretty well attended because it’s raining right now.

Tomorrow we will cross the equator and apparently there’s some ceremony/performance type thing, which will be fun!

Much love from somewhere even further in the Pacific!

B

Cleveland-Dallas-Hawaii

First things first: I had to get up at 4am today, UGH!  As most of you know, I am not a morning person so that wasn’t quite pleasant but, we have to do what we have to do! Got to the airport, did the whole song and dance there, and then my flight to Dallas wasn’t too bad at all. I dozed in an out and listened to my iPod, there was also a magazine in front of me that had something about taking a trip “Down Under” on it, and it made me smile. I will post a picture of that that I took on my iPod sometime soon.

Once I got to Dallas I found my gate, found breakfast, and sat at a cyber lounge with my computer plugged in and watched some stuff on there to keep myself entertained.  I ate breakfast at my gate, though, and there were mostly a lot of couples waiting, which makes sense.

The flight to Hawaii wasn’t too bad except for the fact that I was in the middle of a middle row, ergo had very little space to wiggle without bothering the guys next to me. In my defense though, they were each taking up the arm rests that were next to me so whenever they happened to move their arms I planted my arm there and took my rightful ownership of said armrest. So, hah. :P 

 Flying into the islands would have been better with a window seat but it was still gorgeous!! And being here is so great, I just can’t decide what I want to do with my little bit of free time!

Here's part of Waikiki Beach and the Pacific Ocean!

This afternoon I strolled around the beach and then I went to dinner. Royal Caribbean gave me meal vouchers for breakfast, lunch and dinner for two days but they only apply to the hotel’s restaurant which happens to be a Chinese buffet kind of place. It wasn’t too bad actually!

Then a girl joined me in my hotel room, her name is Anna, she’s from the Philippines. She’s been working for RCCL for 8 years so she already gave me a lot of great tips and advice. I’m so happy I already have a friend! She’s a supervisor in the Casino so she’s in the Entertainment division as well, just a different department. She’s been dating a guy for 6 years that she met on RCCL, he’s from Trinidad and they go to their ships together and share a cabin. He is flying in tomorrow (Monday the 26^th) and will be joining the Radiance as well. Anna seems really nice, so, I hope that’s a good sign for the future! 

Also, here's a link to my ship's website (kind of) The Radiance of the Seas and if you go to the right hand side where it says "Find a Cruise" you can put that ship in the ship category and hit search and see where I'll be whenever! Just make sure you're looking at the right year, I've done that a few times.

Not sure what I am going to do tomorrow, but, it’s off to bed for me now. It’s 10:07pm here, but, my body thinks it’s 4:07am on Monday and I’ve been up since 4:00am on Sunday, so ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!! Aloha, my loves!

B

More red tape..........

Well, y'all, still trying to be cleared (medically) to board a ship. Because of my accident they keep making me do all these tests and get all these letters saying that anything I do on board the ship won't exacerbate my injuries. I understand why they need to make sure, but, lemme just say, it's a huge pain in the butt.I PROMISE to let you all know as soon as I know when I'm leaving, where I'm going, what's going on. I appreciate all of you asking me how things are going, but, I don't ever have anything new to report! It's no fun! Keep crossing your fingers/praying/lighting candles/whatever it is you do in order to make this all work out for me :) I really think this is what I'm supposed to be doing, I just WANT IT TO HAPPEN ALREADY!

In other news, I was in Meadville last weekend visiting some friends I have up there and some people who were in town for a wedding. That was a whole lot of fun, but also a little weird because there are now officially more people there that I don't know than ones that I do, so, it's bizarre.

I've been working at the country club, same as usual, nothing new there. I am super lucky to have that job though, they're so flexible about when I can work and they're being way awesome about this whole Royal Caribbean thing, being like ok! Just let us know when you can't work anymore! And just generally fabulous. My bosses are glorious, my co-workers are sweet, it's just been a great job to fall back on for the last 5 years.

Also, it's now officially 9/11/11. I won't belabor this point too much, but, everyone take a moment today to pause and think about the people who fight for our freedom and safety every day. Pause for those men and women fighting at home and abroad, those policing the streets, patrolling the airports/subways/trains, putting out fires, rescuing people, and any and all those who do heroic things that I haven't even mentioned. Thank you, to all of those people. A warm, genuine, thank you.

That's all for me folks, have a good one!
B