I'm on a Boat

Worst Blogger Ever.

2011-08-29T05:44:00.001-07:00

I’m 100% positive that I am the worst writer of a blog that any one has ever read. Well, thats actually saying a lot since there hasn’t been anything to read in 4 MONTHS! I apologize to all 5 of you. Some of you might actually be up to date with what has been going on, for for those who are not, I’m hoping that I will be able to make justice for 4 months of blood, sweat, and tears all in one blog. Bear with me...

So in my last update, the cast (or cats, as it was in my last update) hadn’t even arrived on board yet..... let me start somewhere close to there. We immediately started rehearsals for the Magic Show, ‘Destination Unknown’, as soon as the cast was on board. The cast had already been working on the shows for 3 months, so they more or less had the shows choreographed and rehearsed. All that is missing is the lights, sets, and sounds to make the thing a finished product. However, they had a guest choreographer come in for Destination, who has done some work for Carnival in the past so they knew her style of work but boy were we all in for a treat. We spent well over 2 weeks putting this one show together. She kept changing her mind and coming up with these “amazing ides” which hadn’t been discussed in the 10,000 pre production meetings that the staff had had prior to the cast even starting rehearsals. It seemed like the show would never come together, but alas it did and it was the only production show we had to offer the inaugural cruise since we were so far behind due to the ship being behind in the yard. (I’ll just note that we are actually going back in to rehearsals next cruise to change all sorts of things in the Magic show, so this will be round two of this torture.... luckily, SHE, is not coming back)

With Destination under our belts, we moved on to ‘Groove Line’, a Seventies review show, which came together in less than 4 days. Thats when I was really able to see just how this production team, who has put more than 30 shows on ships, worked like a well greased machine. This is when time started to fly and before you knew it we were 4 cruises deep and we had ‘WIN!’, the Game Show... show, open and all the office personnel were starting to leave. Four cruises might not seem like a long time, but when you are doing 9 and 12 day cruises, its an eternity. This is the point where we slowly began to regain our freedom. at this point, I don't think I had stepped off the ship for some 30 odd days. I was in dire of food that didn’t come from a food line and a few cold brews.

As for life on board up to this point, it has been pretty easy. Nine and Twelve day cruises give us plenty of time between shows and more than enough time off. However, the crew bar here sort of sucks so I haven’t been partaking in too many drinks down there. However, I have spent way too much time in our new Red Frog Pub. We are the first ship to have it, and it is actually something that Carnival did that is actually cool. Caroline did come and cruise for a 9 day, so that was wonderful getting to see her. Wish it was longer but she had to leave a few days later to sign on to the Victory out of San Juan.

The ports are amazing. I’ve seen all over Italy: Rome, Venice, Pisa, Livorno, Naples, Capri, Savona, and some others. I’ve also seen Monaco, Marseilles, Mallorca, Dubrovnik, and Barcelona. I’m sure I’m forgetting some others, but needless to say I never thought I would have seen this much of the world by my age. Something I have to sit back and not take for granted every once and awhile.

All in All, I’ve had an amazing time and I wish I could sit here and give you every detail of every day but frankly I’m tired and it’s almost 4:00am. The only thing I can say to sum it all up is I am very thankful to have had this opportunity and would in no way ever give back the chance to have done this.

Hard Hats and Plastic

2011-04-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

Well I’ve been in Italy for over two weeks now, and I haven’t written anything about it. My apologies, but they do love to keep us working over here. Let’s start this off with a recap of my flights, I started in San Diego at 2:22pm on April 1st. I flew to Minneapolis, from there I flew to Amsterdam, from Amsterdam I flew to Rome, and from Rome to Trieste. I arrived in Trieste at 6:20pm on the 2nd. That was one heck of a journey. They gave me the option of going back to the Hotel or coming out to dinner, I chose dinner since I had only been eating airplane food for the past 24hours. We met everyone else at La Rocca, which was a tiny little italian restaurant in the heart of Monfalcone; my home for the rest of the month. The dinner and wine was amazing and after a bit more wine over at the wine bar I finally made it into bed for a well deserved sleep. (Mind you I have never been able to sleep on planes, so it’s been awhile) The next day I woke up bright and early, but i didn’t head into work, it was a sunday, so they had taken the day off and invited me to join along on their trip to Slovenia. It took us almost two hours to get there but it was a beautiful day so it was worth it. We made it to Bled, Slovenia and it was amazing. The town surrounded a huge lake which had a church built on an island out in the middle of it and it even had a castle on top of a cliff which overlooked everything. It was nice to have this relaxing day to let my body adjust to the 9 hour time difference I had just been through.

On Monday, we started work. The rigging was still being commissioned, so there wasn’t much for me to do automation wise. I helped out the lighting guys for a few days, until we finally got our hands on the control desk and could start moving stuff around. Scenery First showed up on Monday along with the first container of scenery and we started getting things put together and hung in the air. After the first day, I think we had about 10 drops in the air; almost half. Not too bad! We’ve had a few more containers since hen and have just been working away at getting everything ready. It’s a pretty cool process to see everything go from little pieces that can fit through all the doors into giant 16’ x 30’ drops. It’s like a really big lego set. We still have a few more containers of scenery and one that full of all the illusions for the Magic show, so there is still a lot more to do and time is counting down. Did I mention the cats get’s here in two days and we’re supposed to start rehearsals on the 20th?! Yikes. We moved onto the ship on the 8th, it was nice being in the hotel, i wish we could go back. The water has been out for two days, so I’ve been brushing my teeth with the bottled water they gave us. It sure is interesting. At least the Ar conditioning is working.

I finally got to see Caroline as well, she came to visit me last Thursday and stayed for a whole week. It did kind of suck that I had to be at work everyday at 8am and didn’t get back until 6ish, but we made it count. I had last sunday off as well so we took the train over to Venice and spent the day there. We had a great time seeing everything and ended the day with dinner along the Grande Canal as the sun went down. It was nice to spend my first time to Venice with her, as apposed to it being when we get there on the ship.

It’s a really neat process to see the ship come together like this. Most of the outside work has been completed but there are hundreds and hundreds of people working on all the interior things, from lighting and plumbing in the rooms, to the trim and carpeting. There are just so many people wandering around all with a specific task, it’s kind of incredible how things get done. Everyone is saying that we are pretty far behind schedule, that this will be a close call, but everyday it seems to be leaps and bounds better than the previous. I do have to say, I haven’t seen the full beauty yet, everything is still covered in plastic and such, but you can tell she is going to be an amazing ship.

Going Down?!

2011-02-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

Well, Looks like I’m going to be on the Spirit a bit longer now. The shipyard is a bit behind schedule, so the dates may be pushed back into April now. Not really much to complain about, just glad I’m not on vacation.

Times on the Spirit are so far so good. Good people here, plenty from other contracts, so good times are easy to come by. I’ve already gone out to the Disco one too many times, need to slow down a bit and start saving my money since word on the street is you save nothing in the Mediterranean.

Funny story! I got stuck in a lift… sorry, elevator last week. That’s was loads of fun, let me tell you! We were on our way back down to Deck A after a night at the Disco and grabbing some early morning pizza and we got stuck between decks 4 &5. I won’t lie to you… I might have had something to do with it. Something about my Job and buttons always makes me want to push them; the good news is we now know they work just fine. We were rescued by the engineer on duty and had to slide out onto deck 4 since the lift was stuck right in between the two and wouldn’t move. Good times.

in the Spirit of things

2011-01-17T13:03:00.001-08:00

Well Folks, here we go again! I just signed back on to the Carnival Spirit, out of San Diego, which is where I was about this time last year. Not much has changed around here: shows are the same, cruise director is the same, and my cabin is the same. Ports are different! Instead of doing the 8 day run down to Acapulco, Ixtapa, and Manzanillo; we are doing 9 and 5 day runs to Cabo, Puerto Vallarta, Ensenada, and Mazatlan. So far we have only made it to Puerto Vallarta, so I haven’t seen much. The other run was discontinued due to people being beheaded or something like that. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t guests or crew, but apparently people don’t like to vacation where there is a lot of drugs and violence. Maybe that’s why Cube has such a low tourist count.

As most of you already know, I won’t be on the spirit for long though. I will be leaving here on March 11th and heading to Monfalcone, Italy to be a part of Carnival’s new Build, the Carnival Magic. Exciting, Right?! I’ve heard it’s going to be a lot of work, but I’m ready for it. It will be something new for me, which is always a good thing.

Bringing in The New Year, 2011

2011-01-10T21:35:00.000-08:00

Well, yet again, I'm days away from signing on to a new ship. My vacation days have slipped away again, but I secretly look forward to signing on to the Spirit this Friday. Truth be told, I miss running shows and actually doing something with myself. What have I been doing over my vacation you ask?! Too much.

It all started off with a little trip through Oxford. I got to see my professors and a few good friends, always nice to get in touch with the people who actually made college worthwhile. I left Oxford on route to California and made the trip in only 2 ½ days, Yikes! (After that I could easily say I’m over driving back and forth across this country.) Once I got back to California, I didn’t stay long and started my preparations for the UK. I left on the 17th, the same day Caroline left the Triumph and met her in the airport in Birmingham, England for her brother’s wedding. What a fast forward weekend that was, having met almost her entire family and trying to take in my first trip ever to the UK. I survived, and turned the tables on her. We both flew back to the states on the 24th and drove down to Indio to spend Thanksgiving with my Dad’s side of the family. We returned to Glendora and I showed her around Hollywood and LA, we even made it to Universal Studios. On December 1st we hopped in my truck and drove up to Cambria to see the new coastal property my step father has thrown his entire life into. After a day out there we made it to Modesto where we spent a few days before heading into San Francisco the day before she had to leave. We spent the day doing all the touristy things and sopent the night at the Marine’s Memorial Hotel, Thanks to my Grandmother. We got up the next day to go Ice Skating in Union square and she got on a plane to fly home that afternoon. (Haven’t been able to see her since) When I got home that evening I learned my Mom was going to have to Sacramento the next week to see a specialist about her ankle. Long story short, it took only three weeks from her initial Doctors appointment to her ending up at home with a reconstructed ankle. The good part about it was Ally and Chris got a chance to come out for Christmas which was not previously planned on so we were able to spend Christmas together as a family, which hasn’t happened for a few years.

Ally and Chris returned home and I brought in the New Year babysitting my Mom and nursing her back to health. I cleaned out my room there at my Mom’s house and threw out and recycled a BUNCH of stuff. Not sure why I keep so much stuff, but I do, and just end up getting rid of it later. I left Modesto on the 1st and returned to Glendora that evening where we drove all the way down to Indio to have a late Christmas with the Grandparents. Now we’re back in Glendora and I’ve spent the past week going through all my stuff in storage and again getting rid of and recycling a bunch of CRAP. I even got a chance to go through the ole Pez collection to update myself on what I really had, since it’s been packed away for so long and I’ve been collecting on thoughts of what I have and didn’t have. I’ve also gotten a few chances to watch Lindsay play soccer this past week. I sure do miss playing but it’s fun to watch her, she sure has turned into a really good player after all these years.

However, the time has come and I have once again started to pack. I’ve got all the important stuff done (my tools) and I’m not really looking forward to packing up all my clothes again, but I guess I can’t really complain since I’m going on vacation for 8 months.

Happy 2011!

Bad Weather

2010-10-28T08:49:00.001-07:00

Well well well, it’s about time that I catch up on this thing. My apologies for the looooong break between this and the last, but this ship has had more than a normal.
My new friends Paula and Richard have been keeping all of us here on the Triumph pretty busy. I can’t even remember the last time that we actually did the itinerary we were supposed to. It all started about a month ago, when we almost didn’t make it into Cozumel due to Engine problems, but I guess they got everything fixed and we made it in a little later than expected. Shortly after that incident we couldn’t make it into Cozumel on one of our 7 day runs through Belize. We ended up making Cozumel into an extra “Fun Day” at sea. As you can imagine, it’s not as “Fun” as it would seem, or at least not as “Fun” for those of us who spend every day at sea. Guests were a little upset, but most understood that it was their safety that we were looking after. That same week we got a new cruise director, as the other left for his vacation. The same week he took over, is the week we met Paula and boy was she a……. well yeah. We had to turn a 5 day cruise to Progresso and Cozumel into a 5 day cruise to Key West. This is where we finally met some angry guests. Apparently people get pretty mad when they take a cruise from the USA to the USA. As one lady put it, “I’ve got family in Florida, so if I wanted to go to Florida I could have just driven down to visit them”. Not much you can say to that, other than…. tough shit. The seven day following that, we lost our new cruise director to a family emergency back home, and our ACD took over for the rest of that cruise and the current 7 day that we are on right now, and what a cruise to take over on. This week we played tag with Richard. A small tropical depression that quickly grew into a hurricane that put a stop to most cruises going on in the gulf. After hearing that we might not make it to all our ports, we were told that we were also running out of water. Joy! The only place we could fill up on water was in Cozumel; which was at that point, 4 days away. A glimmer of hope came when on our first sea day of this cruise, they told us we would be switching up our ports putting Cozumel first and ending with Belize, hoping that we could outrun Richard as he tormented the gulf. As you probably figured, that didn’t happen. We made it to Cozumel and Roatan, but on our way out of Roatan the Captain came over the PA to tell everyone that we would not be able to make it to Belize. Due to the weather, and the fact that it’s a tendering port, would have just made it miserable. Instead, he said we were heading to Costa Maya. Seemed pretty exciting to most of us because no one had really been there before and it wasn’t a tendering port, so the trade seemed alright. We woke up that morning, to the rumble of the thrusters (which to those of you that don’t know, those are the side propulsion motors which help us dock in ports) and the sound of mooring lines being cast overboard, right behind our headboards. Now, if you’ve caught on to our trials and tribulations up to this point, you are probably thinking that we didn’t stay, and I’m glad to say to those of you who caught on… You’re right!! About 20 minutes after casting the mooring lines, the captain came over the PA…. again… and to the moans of awakened guests and crew, informed us that we are going to have to call Costa Maya off and return to yet another “Fun Day” at sea due to the bad weather making safe docking measures clearly impossible. At this point in the cruise, we are looking to finish a seven day cruise with two ports of call and 5 days at sea. Yikes!! Don’t worry though, the faithful Captain Los came over with one of his now famous PA announcements to let us know that we will be heading back to Cozumel for our last port of call. Baha, repeat port, that a first. So here we are, in Cozumel just a few days after already being here on this cruise. “Fun Fun”. All and All, this contract has adopted the title of “Bad Weather”.
Work wise, things are pretty well the same. I must say, the Triumph has thrown every problem that it could possible muster, turning me a bit sour a times, but in the end I have overcome most problems I’ve faced. My replacement showed up last week. Our handover has begun, and up to this point he has taken over 2 out of the 3 shows. He has already run Wonderful World, so that was a easy handover but he only had two cruises to learn Magic because we aren’t doing it on our next 5 day and I leave after the 4 day. All that’s left is Big Easy, and I’m pretty sure he will have that down after tomorrow night. That leaves me with two cruises without having to run any shows, what a deal!! We also started the Cast change this cruise. Only three dancers from the last cast are resigning, so we got a whole new cast last New Orleans. Our singers and supervisors should be signing on this week, so next cruise the cast change will be in full swing.
As for my vacation, I’m really stoked. I’ll be off the Triumph on the 8th and heading up to oxford that night. I’ll start my drive cross country either late on the 9th or early on the 10th and make it home as fast as I can. On the 17th, I head to Nottingham, England to go to Caroline’s brother’s wedding. We’ll be there until the 23rd and head to the states together for thanksgiving. We’ll be down in LA and then heading up to Modesto until the 7th when she heads home. I can’t wait to meet the new puppy back at my mom’s house. Maggie is her name, and she is a beautiful golden retriever! On the 15th, I’ll head to Kentucky to take a flying workshop from ZFX. The good news is, I’ll be home for both thanksgiving and Christmas. Maybe even New Years.

SCC

2010-08-19T09:55:00.001-07:00

Once again, a month has gone by and I haven’t updated this thing. I mean, I think of updating it all the time. That just never happens. As of right now, I only have a little over 2 months left. Crazy how fast this all goes by. Caroline is on her vacation and is back at home with her family. I must admit, going from seeing her everyday to not seeing her at all really stinks. I miss that girl, a lot. Everything else is pretty much the same. We are back on our 7,7,4,5,4 cruise rotation. So our schedule has reached a somewhat steady routine. They have brought laser tag back to our ship, which sucks. It’s like a giant inflatiable labyrinth. Sort of like they jump houses people rent for their kids birthdays, so now we have to set that up and take it down on top of trying to fit it on top of the rest of our schedule.

Since Caroline is gone, I decided to take on some extra training as well. They offer what they call Survival Craftsman Course, which is basically a class that teaches you everything you need to know to survive in a life raft or lifeboat. So far we’ve done a lot of awesome stuff. We’ve learned how to drop a life raft off the ship using the crane, learned how to lower the life boats to the water, and today we even got in the pool and inflated a life raft to learn how to flip it if it capsizes. It’s a three week course, and we have just over a week left in it. We’re also supposed to be driving a life boat at some point as well. In the end we will get a certificate that is good for 5 years, so just another random set of knowledge that I have acquired. The only downfall to this class, is that it is at 9am every day. This is the earliest I have been up for this many consecutive days ever on a ship.

Mom and Grandma came cruising last week. They stopped on their way back to California on their month long road trip. They were only here for a 4 day cruise, but I’m pretty sure I showed them the best time I could. We went on one of those glass bottom boats, or semi submersion sub; whichever you prefer to call it. That was a pretty unique way to see the reef that Cozumel is so famous for.

Senior Tech

2010-07-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

Well this update will be short and sweat. After this next four day cruise I will become the senior tech here on the Triumph. Meaning I get a small raise for the price of filling out a few more reports a week.

Not really that much different than what I already do, but it's a better title.

I also had some bad issues with my system a few cruises ago right before the magic show and it caused me to become fast friends with the electronic officer here on board. He is a crazy Italian, and the conversations we attempt to have together are hilarious.

All and all, things are still going well!

Hurricane Alex

2010-07-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

Good News! This past week went by a lot better than the last few had. There were no big problems, knock on wood, and all the shows went off without a hitch. That always makes this job 100 times better.

Nothing is really all that new. We did have to change our ports around due to Hurricane Alex. We ended up docking with the Dream, which is Carnival's newest ship. That morning we went over to visit and check out the lounges. It's a pretty massive ship. The main lounge is really nice though. I like the layout of everything, and their automation perch actually faces the stage now, which makes so much more sense. I saw a few people that I knew from the Spirit and they showed us around for a bit. As for thea weather, the only time it was really bad was the night we left Cozumel. It was extremely rocky and at first I had expected us to cancel the Magic Show, again. However, the captain turned the ship and put a thruster on to cut down on the rockiness while we did the shows.

Triumphed The Triumph

2010-06-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

If you have ever wondered if I had come to a point where I had been tested to see if I do in fact love what I do, it has finally come. These past two weeks, I’m almost positive this ship has been trying to tell us it no longer wants to do shows, of any kind. It has brought this tech team together and put us through some mighty rings of fire. Ha, and I apologies right now if this comes out across a little preachy. I’m sitting backstage for a Gospel group who is cruising this week and I’m slowly starting to feel the sprit. Haha, they are good people though.

As for the past two weeks, I’m not even sure where to start. I mean, last week we had our power supply for all of our lights burn out which meant we had absolutely no lights in the lounge to do a show. Fortunately our light tech, Corey, was able to somehow bypass that power supply (whether it was safe or not, idk) and get his rig to work just in time for our fly on act that night. The next night, over half his rig didn’t want to power up and we had to hold for 15 minutes and even then we got the ok from the dance captain to do the show with just half the rig. About 15 minutes in he got them to power on, so again, by the hairs of our chiny-chin-chin.

But that was just the start; the fun didn’t really begin until this cruise. On the first night, when two of my drops were being brought in for Bingo, one of them got caught on its track and one whole side stopped coming in while the other kept going causing m y pick lines to slack. For those of you who might not understand, thing of taking a drop, which looks like a rectangle and turning it so it makes a lopsided diamond. Yes, obviously not a good thing, but of course my first reaction was “probably shouldn’t have anyone stand anywhere near this”. Ha, but you know me, seconds later I sprung into action, assessing the problem and trying to get it fixed before the show which was to take place about a half-hour later. Not to mention that this drop is used in every one of our shows and is a huge part of the magic show and without it, that show couldn’t happen. Unfortunately the problem was a bit bigger than I had hopped and I couldn’t get it fixed before the show, so we had to cancel the dancers out of the Welcome Aboard show. However, my tech team and I got the thing back to a safe operating condition after we finished the show. We even had the engineers come in to take a look to make sure it was safe and they gave us the OK. It took some hard labor, but we got it done, and too little praise. After sending an email to our head office explaining the situation, the only reply we got was a thank you to the chief engineer for his services. Gah, all he did was send his engineers when we asked. But enough about that, everyone else said I did a good job. They said most other automation techs wouldn’t have known what to do to fix the problem and would have just said we couldn’t do the shows.

Don’t worry, I’m not done yet. Yesterday, after spending a delightful day off in Cozumel, we came back to the ship to get ready for our Magic show only to find a huge leak backstage. When I say huge, I mean it was raining backstage. One of the pipes that carries collected rain water from outside down to storage tanks sprung a leak and the pipe was 3 decks above the stage floor. This created quite the fountain effect as it hit every beam on the way down. I was the only one that could climb up to the pipe to see the leak and it was literally no bigger than a dime. We got out a harness and everything for the plumbers, but in the end they were too scared to climb that high so they ended up cutting a hole in the wall on deck 6 to get to the pipe. Ha. IT’s pretty ridiculous what they do sometimes, because they think something is too dangerous; all the while I could have literally leaned over and plugged the hole with my thumb. In the end, we had to cancel the shows in the lounge for the night. Then we had toclean up the mess once they got the leaked stopped and let all the lighting equipment dry out since it had gotten poured on from our ran fall. However, we were pretty lucky since the only casualty was another power supply which provided the power for all our color scrollers. All I can say is that I’m sure impressed with ETC source 4 products. We let those lights dry out over night and they are ready to go for the show tonight, as well as our Wybourn scrollers. None of my stuff got wet, since it was even higher than the leak. Thank God for that.

So to say the least, these past few weeks have been a test.

No worries, I passed. I still love what I do. Thankfully.

Green Eyes

2010-06-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Well…. best news ever, cast change is done! Worst news ever, the lounge is now free in the afternoons; which means I actually have to work and clean now. :( Ha. All is good though, I, for some odd reason(one which I think came from my Dad), love to get down and dirty and clean something until it shines, which is good because this ship needs it. Pretty sure backstage has not been cleaned in some of it’s far corners since it was built 10 years ago. I had a supervisor on last week and he was pointing out a lot of things which I need to do, so I’m going to tackle all those hopefully within the next two cruises. I also had SRS, the guys who installed all the rigging, come in for their biannual inspection of the rig. No real problems were found but they did repair a few things and started the process of fixing my Cyc, which right now is the only drop in my rig not working.

I’ve been port manning for the past seven days, so I haven’t had the opportunity to get off in the ports recently. But a few weeks ago, the day we finished cast change, most of us went to a place called Park Royal in Cozumel. It’s a resort on the beach, where we pay $40 for the day and have all we can eat and drink, and just lay out by the pool and look at the ocean. Nice and relaxing, except for how pruned my hands were when I finally got out of the pool. As for today, I skyped with Mom this morning and now I am getting ready to catch a cab downtown to go to Margaretville. Apparently crew drinks for free there. :)

By the way, for those of you wondering about said dancer, her name is Caroline. She is from Nottingham, England. She has Electric Green Eyes with Curly Blonde hair. She is a total sweetheart. Enough Said. ;)

All in all, I’m still enjoying this whole thing. But the longer I’m here, the less likely a third contract looks. But I do love it, and I’m leaving all opportunities open.

Open Seas Birthday

2010-06-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to me! Ha, only a few days late. But thank you for all the Birthday wishes. It was a good time spent here on the ship. We were out at Sea that day, but I got to see Tamara the day before in New Orleans. Good people make for good times, and there are lots of them on this ship.

We are right in the thick of a cast change right now, so most my days are spent shuffling sets around or running shows for the new cast to figure it all out. We only picked up a few new dancers since a lot of the old cat has signed on for another contract, so there will be lots of dancers “swinging” in and out of roles while we spend the next three months in different stages of vacations for them. That probably sounds really confusing, which it is, but basically what it means is that I’ll be doing rehearsals for the next three months as dancers come and go. Blah! We’ve also had the production supervisors on board for the singers and dancers. They sure do love to let us know when our stuff isn’t working or if they don’t remember it “looking” like that.

The ports are pretty alright. Our schedule is a little abnormal right now. We usually have a repeated rotation of cruises we do but we only have one 7 day cruise this month then we are doing a month’s worth of 4 and 5 days. To me, this means nothing. Shorter cruises are more fun, I think, just because it’s faster paced and we do shows more often. However, that means more load ins and outs, but hard labor never did anybody wrong. Except for my back… :( We are docked with the Oasis of the Seas today. It really is one massive ship. Couldn’t even imagine having to work on that boat.

Oh, and I met a Dancer. She is a cutie. Uh oh…. ;)

AbraCadabra

2010-05-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

Well, it just amazes me how time seems to do mysterious things when you work on a cruise ship. Time seems to be once again flying by, yet when I think about it, it’s just slowly creeping by. Ok, now I’ve probably lost you. But what I mean is that it seems like I have already been here for a month or more, with all these rehearsals and changeovers we are doing. But when you stop and think about it, This is only my second cruise. I’ve only been here for about 10 days.

All is good though, other than the fact that I woke up to the sound of running water yesterday to only find out that my room was starting to flood with 2 inches of water. The good news about this is it wasn’t grey water or sewage; it was just the hot water line. There were three other rooms that got some water and by the end of the day everything had gotten cleaned up so after the rehearsals I had a place to nap, thank goodness.

As for the all the shows, I have learned and started running them all. I’m still doing some shows I did on the last ship which are Intro Show, Legends, and The Big Easy. I had those all by the first night, but I had to give a little extra time for the other two. In the first show the singers and dancers ‘travel’ around the world giving the audience a taste of a variety of different cultures, and it’s called Wonderful World. The second show is a Magic Show produced by two guys who fly on every week to do the show. This is probably the most work we do all week, with about an hour long load in, but in the end it has the best pay off. It actually makes me feel like I’m good at my job, since it’s such a fast paced show. Apparently the two guys, Kevin and Gus, have shows on two other ships in the fleet, so they just fly around doing that for a living. We had two tech rehearsals for this show this morning and we are running two times tonight, so after all is said and done I will have done it 4 times today. WooHoo.

As for Ports, I’m TOD, so I haven’t been able to get off anywhere this cruise. Sad, I missed my first Belize.

Back in Action

2010-05-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

I’ll just start this off with a big apology to everyone who is reading my blog on a regular basis. I wrote in my last update that I would come back and sum up my whole experience on the Spirit and give my final thoughts and well, I never did. Heck, I’ve even finished my entire two month vacation already. Real sorry about that!

Well, the Spirit ended on a great note. I had a blast my last few cruises and my handover went over super smooth. Julie pretty much rocked and gave me a chance to sail my last cruise. I ended my last Acapulco by bungee jumping four times. I really am addicted to that now. I haven’t really decided if it is a bad thing that I get the urge to jump when I’m at great heights, I guess it goes along with the job. I really did have a great time on the Spirit though. I learned a lot about myself and a lot about what it is I want to do for the rest of life. I couldn’t have asked for a better hands-on experience doing what I love.

As for my vacation, it mostly consisted of me and my truck. I spent a lot of hours behind that steering wheel over the past two months. When I signed off March 3^rd my Dad picked me up and we drove up to LA where I flew up to Modesto that night out of LAX to see my Mom and get my truck. I spent a couple of nights in Modesto and then turned around to drive back down to Glendora. I spent the next few weeks in LA seeing my friends who live in Hollywood and spending time playing some golf with my Dad. On one weekend, I drove down and saw my Grandparents in Indio. It had been a really long time since I had been down there and I had a great time with them. We played lots of golf and spent some good quality time together, just the three of us, something that hadn’t happened since I was a kid. After spending a few weeks in Glendora and all around, I drove back up to Modesto to see my Mom. Later that week we drove to San Francisco where she had her knee replaced. My grandma and I stayed at a Condo in the city that belongs to my Mom’s friend. I couldn’t even explain how much Geocaching I did while I was there, but it was lots of fun. We spent most of the week there, taking care of Mom and visiting her in the hospital, and then finally got her home where she has made a pretty speedy recovery. I’ll never know how she does it, but she really is my hero because she never lets anything get her down. After I spent a few more days with her back at the house, I again drove down to Glendora to get ready for my road trip. While I was there, Uncle Buck and Jill took me to an Angels game where we set a world record for the most people wearing a fleece blanket in one place. Pretty funny to see 40,000 people all wearing snuggies! That weekend, I packed my bags and headed off on my road trip. My first stop was in Tempe, Arizona to see my cousins at ASU. I wasn’t going to be able to make it to the graduation, but I still wanted to see their school. I spent the weekend with Buck and Jill and my cousins and had a great time seeing the school and the city. My favorite was having dinner at Friday’s in the D’backs stadium as they had batting practice for that night’s game. I left Tempe and drove 15 hours straight and made it all the way to Austin, Texas where I got to see my friends Trevor and Jess from the Spirit and Marie. I love that city and had lots of fun doing all sorts of things there. My favorites were sitting in the ran for a baseball game that was ultimately postponed for almost 2 hours and then staying for the whole game in our soaking wet clothes, Thanks Marie. We also played putt-putt at Peter Pan’s where we wandered around with our cooler of beer sinking some putts. I left Austin and drove to Oxford where I spent 10 days staying with Tamara and catching up with good friends. They even put me to work when I showed up at school.

The biggest news I got from my vacation is that I’ve decided to go back for Grad school. As of right now, there is not much more on that, except that I’m looking at Florida State and would start Fall 2011. So I would be able to fit one more contract with Carnival, if I want.

As of right now, I just finished my first cruise on the Triumph. It feels good to be back, I think that the vacation was just long enough to get away but make me miss it enough to come back. Everyone here is awesome and I’ve hit it off with everyone I’ve met. I signed on the same day as a new cast, so we will be going through a cast change my first few weeks here. At least that will give me some extra time to learn the shows. Not that I really need it, I ran the second show of Big Easy last night and I’m about to go run legends. This has been deemed the ‘Best Handover Ever’ by Jeff, the guy I’m taking over for. The only show I’m worried about is the Majic show, but luckily I’ve got a few tech runs next week to polish it up. As for the ports, Key West and the Bahamas are awesome. Not much more to say.

Near End

2010-02-12T10:13:00.000-08:00

Never thought it would happen so fast, but it is finally coming to the end of my contract here on the Spirit. My replacement, Julie, signed on this past San Diego for a three week handover and she is already running the shows thus far. She has worked the big shows we do on other ships so all I really have to show her now is the little fly-on variety shows we do. That pretty much means that I’ll be sailing for two weeks! Wohoo.

I’m not sure what I’ll be doing for my vacation. I’m going to be in San Francisco at the end of March to be with my Mom when she has her surgery. I’m thinking I might do a little road trip to New Orleans in the later part of April.

I'll be sure to add one more post with all my final thoughts on this crazy little thing we call cruise life.

Moving Fast

2010-01-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

Well, I never thought the day would come when I started counting down, but I've only got six 8day cruises left. Which I have to say seems like a little of a relief. I can't wait until I can sleep in a bed that doesn't roll back and forth, or go someplace where I can actually order something to eat whenever I want. Don't get me wrong, I still love this and I'm still planning on going to the Triumph, but I'm ready for a short break.

We are getting a new Back Lounge tech today. He is brand new to the company too, so I will no longer be the new guy. Woohoo. Trevor will be leaving at the end of January. That will be a very sad day and once he leaves another prepares to go. I think that we will be doing 3 handovers at almost the exact same time. That might get a little crazy. Word on the street is that my replacement has already done all the shows on this ship so maybe I'll get away with giving her the lightest handover ever. But only time will tell.

Holidays

2010-01-01T17:21:00.000-08:00

Well the holidays have come and gone here on the ship and even though I thought it would be strange being out at sea, I’d have to say that you make family everywhere you go. I am truly thankful for all the people that I have met and befriended over the past four months. All the techs that are here have become one of the best groups of guys that I have ever met. I couldn’t have asked for a better group to be around while getting adjusted to my first contract out here. The new cast of dancers has also become another great group of people. Most of them have been out at sea for awhile now and they already know all the tricks of how to have a great time out here and not go crazy being stuck at sea. All together the entertainment staff has really become a second family to me, but I guess we really have to since we’re all away from our families out here at sea.

Christmas was really great this year! Within the first week of December they had an army of decorators come on the ship and it was turned into a Christmas wonderland. They put trees and garland any where they could possibly get it, which really made me feel at home after living with Allison for so many years. On the cruise before the actual Christmas cruise, a group of us from all different departments around the ship loaded up a couple of vans and made our way over to the public hospital in Acapulco. Stu, our cruise director, dressed up like Santa Claus and we handed out a few hundred gifts to all the children in the pediatric care. This really hit home for me since my mom has been taking Ally and I on service trips like this our whole lives. Seeing all the kids in cancer treatment really jerked my heart and I was just amazed about the poor condition of the hospital. It really made me respect everyone that was working there and how amazing everything that they were doing really was. We also did a holiday show for the three cruises in December. Can’t say that it is the best cruise that you would ever see on a Carnival cruise, but they mostly do it for the kids since we bring out Santa and make it snow for them onstage.
The entertainment department did a secret Santa exchange which gave us all something to do for the entire month of December. You would come back to your room after working or dinner and you would have random little gifts waiting at your door. I put that I loved chocolate, so I was never disappointed. We had the main gift exchange on Christmas Eve. We grabbed a couple couches and sat around the Christmas trees they had decorating our lounge. I had Chach, one of the techs, but she left the cruise before Christmas, so I gave her all of her gifts before she left. It took me a couple tries to guess who my secret Santa was but I finally got lucky with my guesses and it turned out being Candice, one of the dancers. The gift limit was $50, but she ended up getting me everything that I asked for and then some, which amounted to far more than $50. She got me a pair of black VANs slip-ons(shoes), LOST(TV show) season 5, a Volcom(brand) shirt, and some funny little signs with different sayings that I flash at them while they’re dancing onstage. My Mom and Grandma sent me a couple more pairs of 5.11 tactical pants, which I have fallen in love with, and Grandma and Grandpa Earle sent me a gift card and a panthers coozie(spell?) and I got another gift card from the Ealre Family in California. My Dad’s household brought me a care package with all kinds of goodies and Tamara P made a donation to a charity on my behalf. I also have been told that there are more gifts coming, but mail sometimes is a bit sketch. However, I would have to say that I have been pretty spoiled this Holiday season and would just like to thank everyone for their gifts and making this holiday season away from one pretty delightful.

As for new years, we had three parties all going on at the same time on the ship. We had the party for everyone who wanted to dance and go crazy out on the open deck. The back lounge band, High Rise from Las Vegas, played up there while the actual showband and some of the singers headed up the more elegant party down in the atrium on deck 2. There was also a crew party in our back lounge where one of the crew members was the DJ for most of the night. Most of the entertainment department and myself brought in the new year in the atrium since we all spent our afternoon filling up over a thousand balloons for the balloon drop that took place at midnight. Watching all those balloons fall 9 stories was pretty cool aside from trying not to spill my champagne while videotaping the whole thing. It was truly a great night which didn’t exactly end until the wee hours of the morning. Let’s just say I was eating breakfast before I went to sleep.

Random

2009-12-12T19:57:00.000-08:00

Drug and breathalyzer test at 9am this morning. Woohoo!

Swallow The Sun

2009-12-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

Well it has come to my attention, with the added help of many of you who actually read this, that I have not updated this in over a month. Which apparently is just far too long?! So I apologize and hope you can bear with me through this update, as it has good potential for being very lengthy.

So, where to start?! Well….. I MADE IT TO THE HALFWAY POINT! That’s always a very exciting thing no matter what it is you’re doing. We are still on this Mexico run, but the more I get off the more I enjoy it. It’s nice to come to Mexico and have your money magically change from $1 to $12 or $13. This makes it really easy to wind up on the beach with a few too many margaritas in you. But Hey, I’m not complaining. I still haven’t been able to get off the ship in Manzanillo, we have just had many things to do on that day, but Ixtapa and Acapulco have been pretty nice. We have a bar in downtown Acapulco that we like to go to called Paradise. During the day you can go and get a table out on the beach under an umbrella and have everything served to you and at night you can eat at the restaurant or get your groove on at the club on the top. It’s usually where a lot of the crew and guests go, so it’s just an extended party from the ship. However, they do have a 50M high Bungee platform; and for those of you who know me, it did not take long before I strapped in and took the plunge. Costing me roughly $40, I was able to cross another one of my goals in life off the list. It’s about a 160ft plunge towards a 4ft deep pool. However, I don’t think I weigh enough to touch the water, but it was still an awesome experience. Plus, they gave me a frequent flyer card and every jump from now on will only cost me $20 and I get a free jump every once and awhile, so that won’t be the last time I find myself on that platform. (There is a video; I’ll try to get it on here, maybe) Ixtapa has to be the most beautiful port that we stop in on this run. We tender out in the middle of a bay and we are surrounded by some gorgeous scenery. A group of us made a nice little hike the other day and found ourselves a nice secluded beach away from the prying paws of all the Mexican “Street Merchants”. We ate some fantastic food and had some delicious beverages and just spent a day in the sun. I know, rough. Dad has come down to San Diego a few times now to visit me for the day, which is always wonderful. Even though it’s only a half day, it sure is nice to have some family around every time and again and to get the heck off this ship.

Thanksgiving was great! They do everything in their power to make you as comfortable as you can, and we had quite the fest that day. I think the staff mess alone went through 3 turkeys while I was there and every bite was better than the last. The stuffing was a bit strange, but I guess that’s what you get when your Indian chefs try cooking staple American foods. However, one of the other techs had the stove top stuffing in the box, so she saved us there. I’ve learned you can’t be too picky when it comes to the food and just don’t ask too many questions and you’ll be alright. There was one point a few weeks back though that the feared “G.I.” caught up with me and I had to battle it out for about 2 weeks until everything finally got back to normal. I didn’t go to the infirmary because any sign of “G.I.” and they sign you off for 3 days minimum. And I can’t really afford that to happen. I also got a good little gash on my head the other day. I was working under one of the sets and was crawling out when I picked my head up a bit too quick and BANG. At first I thought it would just be a nice little bump, but when I felt something warm pouring down my forehead, I took the chance to stop working for the night. I turned a nice white towel to a bright fairly quickly.

Speaking of work, all is going well. Last I wrote my rig was slowly falling apart, but I’ve got it back to a pretty good working order now. I got a WAX card back from the office so now all my drops are running fine, but I’m still only running off of one MC with no backup, so I pray it doesn’t go out every night. SRS, which is the company that Carnival hires to do all the rigging on board, came out to do an inspection this cruise and everything here passed with flying colors; which made me feel good about my rig. They also told me that they don’t want to see me around here again, that I need to go and get a job in Vegas, so that’s always a good thing to hear. The new cast has taken over all the shows and are the only ones left onboard now. They are a great group; love every single one of them. We are always having a good time and getting ourselves into some kind of trouble, but who would we be if we didn’t.

Oh, and I’m moving back in with Brad on the 21st. His roommate is leaving to have her baby and he and I will be moving on to the Dancer hallway. We’ll see what kind of trouble we can get into there. And I finally contacted the office and got a response back and as of right now I will be leaving here March 3rd and signing on to the Triumph in May on my second contract. The Triumph is out of New Orleans and does various runs down in the Caribbean. Not still 100% sure if I will go ahead and do it again, but Right now I’m trying to get my resume out there and see if I can’t find something else. Not that I don’t love being out here, but If I can cut this one step shorter I’ll reach my dream job a lot faster.

New Room

2009-11-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

Well, the title explains most of this blog. I've got a new room and room mate. It's my floor manager, Nate, so it's not like I moved in with someone random. I won't really get into the whole situation of why I moved, but now I live right next door to where I used to live. The room is exactly the same, just swapped. Sometimes I get a little confused. Plus now I sleep on the bottom bunk, so that's always good!

I also had a pretty rough week with all my equipment. I got a part back that I've been missing and when I went to out it back in it wasn't communicating correctly with the Motion Control computer. It wasn't registering what the position of the drop was and was letting move after I let go of the safety switch. Which isn't good at all. Then I was trying to do a little work on the Pit Lift when I shorted out the card. I tried to do some swapping to get it to work but it continued to have problems responding so ?I had to take the card from my back up computer to put in it's place. So I'm now down two cards which have to be sent off for repair, I'm missing one of the drops for a show, and I have no backup MC now. So all in all, yesterday sucked. ha ha.

However, today has been good and I've really enjoyed spending some time in San Diego. But it looks like it is time for me to head back to the ship, so take care everyone.

Mexico

2009-10-28T17:25:00.001-07:00

Well, it has begun. We are now on our 8 day Mexico run. We do the same 8 day trip from now until my contract is up. I haven’t really had a chance to experience any of Mexico yet, I’ve been stuck on board doing a lot of other work. I was glad that I got to see my family a couple weeks ago though. We had a great time and I got to see ‘Where The Wild Things Are’. I showed them around the ship and introduced them to the lifestyle in which I now live.

When I get a chance to get off and check out the ports, I’ll have to give you a much better update than this one.

But everything is going good and we now have our 5th tech so things should slow down a bit. Plus I get my stitches out tomorrow, so that should be fun.

Ouch...

2009-10-23T18:01:00.000-07:00

Well, turns out I actually got two stitches. Ha, I wasn't really paying attention when she did it. Doesn't look to bad, only problem was it was deep.

Knives + Fingers = Deep Cuts

2009-10-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

Well I finally found out what the infirmary looks like on th inside today. The bad news was, it wasn't a tour.

Today, as I was trying to put new soles on the bottom of all the new dancers shoes I decided I should cut my finger wide open. Well, I didn't really do it on purpose but I slipped off the bottom of the shoe and nailed my left index finger. I didn't think you could strt bleeding that fast. Or that much. So I grabbed a nice white towel from the dressing room and walked myself down to the infirmary.

I ended up ging there twice actually. The first time the nurse and I cleaned it out and just put some adhesive strips on it with a lot of bandages. The doctor wouldn't be back for about an hour so she told me that if I bleed through all of the bandages, I should come back to get some stiches when the doctor is there. Which, after about 30 minutes it was pretty obvious I was going to have to go back.

The best part would have to be the fact that my finger was numb as all get out. I couldn't feel anything except for the fact that my finger felt like a giant banana. That was strange.

All and all, I got away with only having to get one stitch and as of right now I'm signed off. So I don't have to work tonight.

Hurricane Rick

2009-10-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

Yup. That's right. We're heading straight for a hurricane.

Well, We're actually going to attempt to go around it by heading further out to sea and then down. We like to think of it as a giant orange road cone zone. We have a sever weather warning for the next 24hours and it's already started to throw us about.

We might miss our first port due to the hurricane, so we might be at sea for three days, which will just be a blast with 30ft to 40ft swells. That just means we have to entertain everyone with more games and trivia. Keepin' 'em happy.

My Office

2009-10-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

This is a look from the floor up at where I sit for all the shows. It's just off stage left.

This is where I work from. It's not a bad little spot. Note all my awesome screens I have to keep my eyes on during the shows.

On We Go

2009-10-13T18:23:00.000-07:00

Let me just tell you, life on the Spirit is never dull. We made it through our five days at sea safely and arrived in Ensenada to drop off all our passengers from the last Hawaii cruise. Once they all disembarked we had a change of location and sailed into San Diego later that afternoon. That day we had a major personal shift within the entertainment department. We have a new Cruise Director, Stu, who has so far turned out to be pretty cool. This is his first time on this class of ship so he is still trying to get bearings straight on such a large ship. He was sick for most of the last cruise so he didn’t get a complete handover from Chris, so that has just added more things for him to try and get a handle on. Chach also left, her handover with Nate went pretty well and now he is running all the shows from the floor. We also had a change in social hosts. Mel, who I don’t think I’ve talked about before, was replaced by Sam who is a 19 year old kid from England. He seems pretty cool thus far. We also have our new Asst. Cruise Director on board, Weezie, who is from Scotland and will be taking over for Mark next cruise. If that wasn’t enough, we even lost our Back Lounge Tech to the Valour. James was supposed to sign off in two cruises but the light tech on the Valour had an emergency so they shipped James off to that ship. That means we are one tech down, so we all have to cover the back lounge gigs. Which is fun! Brad and Nate don’t like dealing with sound so Trevor and I have been setting things up all over the ships. Other than that, not much is new. We just left our first Mexican port on our first Mexican cruise. I’m the tech on duty this week so I didn’t get off, but this is the same cruise I do until the end of my contract so I’m not in any hurry to check it all out.

The Full Hawaiian Story (it's a long one)

2009-10-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

Aloha. My apologies to all those following along, it has been quite a while since I last gave an update. But let me tell you that this has certainly been a blast spending so much time in Hawaii. They set up the two cruises through Hawaii like it was the crew’s vacation too, so that was definitely nice. The techs and hosts shared what we call port manning. At every port there has to be a certain number of crew members left on board to help in the case of emergency. They call this port manning, and for most other cruises you port man for the entire cruise, but for Hawaii we broke it down by the day so that everyone had a chance to get off and have fun in Hawaii. This worked out pretty good and we didn’t have to work all that much. We even had a few nights where we didn’t have to come back to the ship.
The next stop after Hilo was Kahului, Maui; this was our first overnight in Hawaii. Unfortunately we had a show this night, so we didn’t stay off ship. We got off around noon the first day we were there and took a taxi to Hertz because Cach and Brad had rented a car. Our goal for the day was to make it to the beach, and that’s about it. We ended up with a Ford Explorer and spent an hour or so getting lost around Maui. After I busted out the GPS on my iPhone, I got us back on track and we found our way to Polo beach. It was a quant white sand beach on the southwest side of the island. It didn’t take much for us to have a good time so after we threw the Frisbee around for a bit and did a little body surfing we went out in search of Wal-Mart to buy some boogie boards for the next day. On the way there we came across a Panda Express and it turns out everyone else loves it just about as much as I do, so we stopped. After we hit up Wal-Mart we had to head back to the ship so that we could run that show for the night. We woke up the next morning at about 3am to make our way to the summit of Mt. Haleakala to watch the sunrise. This was truly one of the best things we did the whole trip. It was quite cold at the summit, but after we made it back down we warmed ourselves up with some good ole Denny’s coffee. We took a good nap on the ship and then took our boogie boards out to the beach for the rest of the day. We hit up the Big Beach, but we didn’t like it too much so we ended up heading back to Polo Beach and spent the rest of the day there.
The next port we hit was Kona on the big island. This was a tender port, so that means we don’t dock at a pier, instead we “drop anchor” a ways out and ride the life boats to the pier. I really hope that the ship never goes down because spending 15 minutes in a life boat was bad enough, I couldn’t imagine having to spend any more time that that in one. I got off with Trevor and Jess, Trevor is the sound tech and Jess is his girlfriend; who is a host, and we had hoped to find a beach and just relax for the day but instead we found a Mexican restaurant. Once we were finished and our tummies were full we decided that a nap in our beds was a far better idea than trying to find a beach, so that’s what we did.
The next day we woke up in Nawiliwili, Kauai. I actually woke up at about noon and decided to get off board after debating with myself for a good 20 minutes. I took the free shuttle to the nearby shopping center where I heard there was a beach and sure enough there was. I didn’t really plan on doing much,\, in fact I called a few people and was about to head back to the ship when I ran into Trevor and Jess walking down the beach. Trevor talked me into getting in the water and after we spent only about 10 minutes in the water I talked him into renting a surf board. We then spent the next hour or so paddling out and catching a few waves here and there. It was pretty fun, and once we finished that we grabbed a shaved ice and then made our way back to the spirit.
Honolulu was next on our list and I think that this was the stop that everyone was the most excited about. I got off at about 10am and found the group of 30 or so that had signed up to go skydiving. Yup, that’s right, the day had finally come. The skydiving company picked us up and drove us clear to the other side of the island to their private airport. It turns out that just around the corner is where they filmed most of LOST. I didn’t find this out though until we were back in Waikiki. Skydiving was a blast! I think I was one of only two in the group that had ever done it before so it was fun to watch the excitement and terror rush through everyone as they prepared to jump out of a perfectly fine aircraft. It turns out that my tandem master, Marc, had actually learned how to jump in Lodi. That’s where I made my other two jumps, so it turns out to be an even smaller world. It was quite the view of the island jumping from about 13,000ft. You could see from almost one point to the other. This was definitely another favorite moment of Hawaii. Once we made it back I met up with the other techs at the Aston Resort in Waikiki. A few of us didn’t have reservations, while everyone else did, but after Chach and I did some good sweet talking were able to get a pretty good deal on a room with a partial view of the ocean. This was well worth it; I can’t tell you how nice it was to sleep in a bed that I can stretch all the way out in. We ate dinner at Duke’s and a few others had to head back to the ship to run a show, so I ended up walking down the beach at night back to our hotel. Got to love it! We woke up the next day with plans to hit Pearl Harbor early and try to get tickets for the memorial but we had a TERRIBLE run in with ihop. This was probably the worst customer service any of us had ever experienced, ever. So three hours later we finally made it to Pearl Harbor where we obviously too late to get tickets, so we wandered around for a bit, taking in all the memorials. After we finished up there our groups split, and I took off with Trevor and Jess to go to the Dole plantation while everyone else went to drive H3. The Dole plantation single handedly was the funniest thing ever. Not to mention the best thing ever. They have the world’s largest maze, which we decided not to get lost in, and a train ride which goes through the entire plantation. We ended up grabbing our Dole whip, which is basically soft serve that tastes like pineapple (awesome), and grabbed our tickets and went for a ride on the train. Never knew how much work went into growing a simple little pineapple. Once we finished up there they took me back to the Hotel so that I could get ready for our Luau. I had never been to a Luau before, but now I know what they are all about. There was so much to do that I was a little overwhelmed at first, but I eventually settled down to have some fun. The entertainment was amazing and the pork was outstanding! We spent two nights in Honolulu due to the fact that we were doing two Hawaiian cruises. The second cruise we did was the exact opposite of the first, so we spent four days in Honolulu. The only bad part was my time to port man had finally come. So our last day in Honolulu I had to be back on board by 8am. This also meant that I had to take part in some activities with the guests since we were splitting the time with hosts. Never thought playing trivia with the guests would be so much fun. This was also my first day to have a boat drill with guests. Everyone was hot and didn’t want to be standing in the sun, so it was a prime time for me to make everyone I could smile. So the jokes were on.
Once we left Honolulu, we were back in Nawiliwili. This time we got right off and found another Mexican restaurant and hit up the beach again. We didn’t go surfing this time; instead we took the boogie boards out and just played around in the water for awhile. We ended the day again with another round of shaved ice.
With only a few ports left, we arrived in Maui for our last overnight of this cruise. The good part about this overnight is we had it all planned out. We had rented a car and took the road to Hana. This has to be one of the scariest roads I’ve ever driven on. It’s about 35 miles long, with a number of one lane bridges and countless turns and turn rounds wrapping around the edge of the island. It was well worth it though, because we had reservations for a condo right off of the ocean with a black sand beach. Beautiful! We had picked up some stuff at the supermarket before we left Kahului so we had all we needed to have a BBQ that night. My friends also let me do a little bit of Geocaching while we were there, so I found ne a couple miles up the road which took us for a half mile walk along to the coast line which was lined with lava rocks and all kinds of crazy lava rock creations. Beautiful! I ended that night with a huge steak and a 6 pack of Land shark. I woke up early the next morning to again watch a Maui sunrise. This time it was from the beach and it was just as amazing as seeing the one from the summit. Chach cooked us breakfast that morning and we checked out and instead of taking the same road back we took the road that wraps the rest of the way around the island. We stopped at the 7 sacred pools, which is a gorgeous series of waterfalls and pools coming from Mt. Haleakala that go all the way down to the ocean. I was the only one that hoped in to swim and it was well worth it. It was nice to swim in some water that didn’t have any salt in it for a change. We made it safely back around the island, even through the few miles of unpaved roads we had to face. This was definitely the beast part of both cruises.
The last two stops of the cruise were on the Big Island. Hilo again was more of a resting stop for me and a chance to go to Wal-Mart and get a haircut. Our last stop was in Kona and it was my roommate’s birthday. Since it was his day to port man we found someone to cover for him. I got off a bit early to find a post office and do a little last minute shopping in Hawaii. We they finally got off we found the same Mexican restaurant we ate at last time and had some good ole food. We had also signed up to take a tour but since we were the only five that signed up they didn’t have enough to make it so we took a taxi to a nearby beach, which turned out to be the best beach of the trip. It was a fairly small white sand beach and it was packed with a lot of people swimming. Once we got out there we realized why. The water was clear blue and very warm with all kinds of fish swimming around. I borrowed my roommates snorkel gear and ended up having a great time exploring all the nearby reefs and I also ended up a good ¼ mile down the beach. Nothing like it though, for awhile I was swimming with two sea turtles and saw all kinds of fish and a very angry looking eel. This was also on my list of favorites from the entire trip.
All in all, I had a blast in Hawaii. I’m pretty sure I got super lucky landing this itinerary for my first contract and I’m very grateful for that. Wow, sorry this one was so long!

Aloha

2009-09-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

We finally made it to Hawaii today. Thank Goodness! I’m not really sure I could take another day out at Sea. I’m not getting sick, knock on wood, but it’s just the boredom that starts to get to you. I’m working, but only towards the evenings, so I watch the same three movies over and over and over. I now know just about every word to Oceans 13, X-Men: Origins and She’s Just Not That Into You. I never pick them up at the begging either, so it’s like piecing together a puzzle anytime you turn on the television. I’m happy that we do have Satellite TV though. I’m not sure what I would do if I wasn’t able to at least keep up with my Rebels. Thank God for ESPN’s Bottom Line. I did learn a few things while being out to sea for five days:
1st: I love to read! Shocker to those who know me best, but after 20 some odd years I’m actually starting to enjoy it. (Have you ever read I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell? If not, don’t bother. But if you have… can I just say wow, what an A**hole.)
2nd: Don’t question the looks of what they serve in the Mess. It all starts to look the same day after day. Heck, it might even be from yesterday. Just add some salt and Pepper and you won’t starve.
3rd: Running on a treadmill while a ship rocks from left to right can really screw up your equilibrium. When your body thinks you’re moving forward and all of a sudden your weight shifts to the right, you will fall over. And the treadmill will keep going.
We have also had a bit of a sickness scare here on the Spirit. Since we last left Vancouver, there has been an outbreak of GI. It’s some kind of food related illness that doesn’t make your insides like you or your bowel movements very pleasant. They have told the crew that we’re not allowed to eat on lido right now, all the buffet lines are no longer self serve someone has to serve you. This includes our staff dining room. We are not even allowed to put ketchup or salt on our own food. It’s a little crazy. Yesterday morning, the coast guard flew over us in a C-10 and dropped off some medication into the water and they sent some guys out to retrieve it. Then in the afternoon, we stopped out in the middle of the ocean and the Coast Guard came to Medi-Vac one of our guests. Pretty cool to watch, the helicopter dropped the basket down to the sun deck and picked that guy up while hovering just above the ship. Hope he is alright.
Now on to Hawaii and from what I can tell it’s beautiful. Our first stop is Hilo, which seems to be the boring side of the big island. I say boring in the sense that there isn’t much to do without prearranging anything. Some of the other techs rented a car, but it was already full before I could snag a spot so I ended up taking the free shuttle to Wal Mart. I know I know, exciting. I remind you though, that I live on a ship now, though it’s much like vacation, I’ve still got to have the things one needs from day to day. Unfortunantly, there is no store on board for us to get simple things like soap or food. I think when we come back around next time, I’ll get off here and go and check out the volcanoes or the garden. We’re about to get out of here though, time to head to the next island.

Oh, and for all of you who have ever wondered, Yes. They do indeed have cheap parking lot carnivals in Hawaii. How do I know this? Because I just watched them load the Tilt-a-World and cotton candy booth onto the barge next to us. It’s pretty crazy how many cheap amusement rides they can fit on one ship.

Off to Hawaii

2009-09-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

I'm in Vancouver, BC today. Just for a short bit though, I got off to steal some free Internet. The most exciting thing about today is that we leave for Hawaii tonight. It's going to be a very rough journey though. We have like 4 days at sea just to get there. So that's a pretty long time to be trapped on the ship. I guess it's a good thing I like my Coworkers then.

I'm not sure If I've shared much with you about my coworkers. I know I've told you about my roommate, Brad, who does all the lighting. Then there is Kevin, the one who I'm taking over for. (Oh, by the way, he left today. Now I'm all by myself.) Then there is Chach, who is our senior tech. She runs the floor during the shows. Her replacement, Nate, just got on board today, so she be doing her handover during the next few weeks. Then there is Trevor, Who is the sound guy, and James who is the Back lounge tech. He takes care of all the other lounges on board. They are a pretty good crowd. They tried to pull some new guy BS with me at first, like trying to convince me that there was an energy bill that we all had to put money into pay for. I almost believed that one, but then I thought about it and called them out. They also tried to pull what they called "Fog Watch", which was when everyone took turns looking for boats and what not in the water when there was fog. I easily denied that being real. I do enjoy there company though, as well as all the dancers who I am slowly meeting.

Well, IDK about you but I'm stoked to About Hawaii, so I'm going to go get back on board.

Glorified Button Pusher

2009-09-12T21:05:00.001-07:00

Well, the good news is that I’m finally starting to settle down. I’m still trying to get used to all this rocking back and forth, but I’ve been able to hold everything down. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote, like usual. I think that I’m almost done with all of my corporate training. Let me tell you, it is awesome! I’ve watched videos that have been made from just about every decade since the 50’s. Kevin, the guy that I’m replacing, is leaving on Wednesday. So we have been cramming all that training in as well. I’ve been running most the shows up to now. I have the biggest one left to run on my own in two nights. So that will be the big test. We also did some maintenance on the stage lifts, which was a lot of fun. Not.

For all of you who are wondering, my job here consists of me sitting in what we call my “Perch” above the offstage left side of the stage. I sit in front of four monitors and control all the moving parts of the stage. One monitor shows me the front view of the stage, another has four other views of the stage, and then I have a computer to my left, and my show control system right in front of me. I’ll have to grab a picture of it at some point so y’all can see my office. There are 26 automated line sets, 5 stage lifts, a pit lift down stage, and a giant revolve right in the middle of the stage. I have the joy of controlling all of these and not killing any of the dancers or singers in the process. That’s why I get the title of a “Glorified Button Pusher”, because I just sit there and tell the computer when to move stuff. Got to love it.

We do a wide variety of shows. We have 4 large shows that we do as well as a collection of “Fly On” acts which are acts who come on, do a show, and get off. Those are usually pretty easy. The big shows consist of The Big Easy, Jazz Hot, Singing With the Big Band, and The Intro Show. We haven’t done the intro show yet, but I believe we will start it once we hit San Diego.

Other than that, I’ve finished my first tour of Alaska and we are making our second cruise around right now. But next Wednesday when we depart from Vancouver and head off to Hawaii. I’m pretty excited about that. Not going to lie. I’ve signed up to go skydiving, so that will be fun! We also have a few overnights in Hawaii, so we are getting a hotel room so that we don’t have to return to the ship.

First Show

2009-09-07T14:17:00.000-07:00

Well a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. I'll just try and sum up all the good stuff. I've had a great time in Alaska so far. We've stopped in Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. It is so beautiful up here. There are so many mountains and trees. Most this towns and tourist traps though. It's pretty bad. There is usually somewhere between 2 to 4 other ships in port at the same time too, so the little towns are just packed with people. We took a lift up to the top of Mt. Roberts in Juneau and walked around some trails. I saw a bald eagle too, that was pretty awesome. I got off the ship in Skagway and went in search of a bar to watch the Ole Miss game because they only play recorded TV when we are in port. Sat and drank a beer while we kicked some Memphis butt.

I've also been doing all kinds of training. Learning about the rigging and automation control desk I'm working with as well as doing all the awesome corporate training I have to do. We've been doing all kinds of shows the past week. A few fly on acts, and last night I had the chance to run my first show from the desk. It went pretty well and I didn't screw anything up. Thank God.

I Made It

2009-09-02T14:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure where to start. Today has been an interesting adventure thus far. My flights were not too bad. I'm so used to flying in and out of Memphis, that a couple hour flights like I had today just fly by. I got to see an old friend in portland and had a great time hanging out there. When I finally arrived in Canada, I waited in line for atleast 45min trying to get through immagration. Then I found the guy with the sign and rode all by myself in a 13 passenger van to the port. 30 minutes later, we were driving through the city and all of a sudden I caught a big red glimpse of my ship and thats when it finally hit me that I'm actually doing this. Ahhhh.

It took me awhile to get where I needed to go. I went through about 14 metal detectors today and got stopped at one to question why I have a knife in my bag but was later released because I was crew. Hmmmm. Then I was told to find the MSR office. Yeah right. after asking 10 people in 5 different languages, I finally made it to the office and again had to fill out a ton of paperwork.

After my buddy Jim handed me my key I went off in search of my room. They sure do pack them in down here. Once I found it I was nervous to go in but when I entered, my roomate was not home. So I quickly unpacked and was relieved to find that all my stuff fit. Thank Goodness. I then had ro report to the safety office where again I found 3 other languages and had the chance to watch an awesome safety video about the ship. Apparantly I will have a test on it all next week, so I better start craming. Then I met Mark who introduced me to the Cruise Director Chris and then ended up showing me around the ship. It's a big place, but luckily it's all right here.

Thats where I am at so far. They have a boat drill later on today, but I don't have any duties yet so I just have to show up at the meeting in the theatre that follows the drill.

The Night Before

2009-09-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Ok. So, I leave tomorrow morning. I fly out of Sacramento at 6:00am. Yikes. I'll get into Portland and have a few hours for a layover and then take off for Vancouver, Canada. I'm supposed to get picked up at the airport and be on my way to the ship. I'm supposed to look for someone with a sign that reads "Carnival Cruise Employees", so that's exciting. After that point, I'm not sure what to do. Guess I get on the boat and do as I'm told.

I've packed two bags and a back pack. It is really strange to pack for 6 months but know you have to pay for it all at the airport, so only the really important stuff makes it. I think that I did pretty well though. Sometimes I have to let the boy scout out of me and not take everything I could possibly think that I might need. Stupid weight restrictions.

So yeah, I'm packed and ready to go. Not sure what’s next, but I guess that’s the joy of it all. Thank God for this opportunity and I hope that I don’t screw it up. Haha.

Before This All Gets Started

2009-08-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

Hello all. As I already told some of you, I decided to start a blog before I leave for six months on The Carnival Spirit. I figured this would be the easiest way to keep everyone up to speed on how things are going and what my over all thoughts on the experience are. I'm not sure how often I will be able to update it, but hopefully it will be more than this one time. I apologize right now for my spelling and grammer. Due to the nature of my job I'm sure most of my posts will be at odd hours and after a long day of work. Hopefully you'll enjoy them.

Right now I'm trying to get everything squared away with my life before I leave. I've never had to pack for six moths before, nor have I ever tried to fit all that in one or two suitcases. This should be interesting. I finally got my truck insured today, since I haven't been since November, so now I can drive my truck again. Not sure what else I need to do but I don't leave until the 2nd so I have some time to think about it.

I apologize right now for my spelling and grammer. Due to the nature of my job I'm sure most of my posts will be at odd hours and after a long day of work. Hopefully you'll enjoy them. I leave you with this fun and inspiring video. It's the edited version because I didnt want to offend anyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOvaCV6uQp8