1/29/02: My First Ship

This is a long one, just to warn you...

Well, I'm home from my first cruise ship contract and my first trip to Europe. I learned a lot about myself, and I had some wonderful adventures. I am much richer for the experience, and I'm going back to the ship in four more weeks for another contract. I had an amazing time out there in the great big world.

I found out that I am a really tidy person. When my first roommate was a slob, it drove me nuts. I like everything in its place. I'm not really that way at home; it must be just in small quarters. And boy, was my cabin small. The beds are about 6.5 feet long, maybe three feet wide. The bed is at the end of the cabin, so the width of the room is the length of the bed. There's a small bathroom with shower, sink, toilet. I had my own locking closet and cabinet, and my own shelf in the bathroom. I had a bedside table and there was a communal table with a tv. I was on the top bunk for the first month, then I claimed the bottom bunk when my roommate signed off. My first roommate was Annie, from Canada, a Sports Afloat (aerobics instructor). My second roommate was Mihaela, from Romania, a cruise staff hostess. That was the job I interviewed for, socializing with passengers and doing bingo, theme parties, trivia, library duty, etc. I'm glad they made me a youth counselor. I much prefer it. Plus, I get to do enough cruise staff duties when I'm not with the kids. Like karaoke. Can you picture it? There's a bar on deck nine forward which is a restaurant until 10:30pm, and then it turns into a karaoke bar. I pass out song books and have a karaoke machine and two microphones. And at the beginning, when people are still a bit shy, you have to get them loosened up. So I usually sing a song or two, just to show them that it's not that scary. Throughout the night, if I have no requests, I sing some more. Or Edwin the bartender does. I hate to see an unused microphone. I ran karaoke on New Year's Eve, and that was the best. I kept telling the crowd the whole night that at midnight it would be my birthday. Just before midnight, the room cleared out, up to the 10th deck for the big deck party, and I went, too. The father of one of the kids in my program had given me a birthday bottle of champagne. I joined my friends upstairs for the countdown. After going back and finishing karaoke, I met up with everyone at the disco. What a night.

But I digress. Mihaela signed off, and my third roommate was Kristine, from the Philippines, also a Sports Afloat. All three of my roommates were major sleepers. I mean, they slept plenty at night, and still needed several hours to nap during the day. I didn't understand it. There are beautiful islands out there to explore.

St. Lucia has Rodney Beach. Once, a big group of us went there, and several of us got a banana boat ride. There's a long inflated tube, and you straddle it and get towed by a ski boat. Great fun. We were there on Christmas, and so were some of my family, by chance, with another ship. So I spent Christmas with my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins.

Barbados has the Boatyard, which is a nice beach club. Some of the prettiest sand is there. The same part of my family was here the day after Christmas and they took me kayaking and snorkeling with them. We saw a sea turtle. It was great.

Dominica has a real rain forest. If you've seen Jurassic Park, the steep mountains here look just like in the movie. Trafalgar Falls is there, and it's just beautiful. The water falls are mineral water, and you leave feeling so clean. There are some gardens that you can tour, and two friendly Siamese kittens live there.

St. Kitts is very hilly. The hills are light green and rolling. And though I didn't see any, there are monkeys all over the place.

St. Croix has wonderfully warm water, even for the Caribbean. My friend Melinda and I rented bikes and rode along a road that could have been in the mountains anywhere in America. The landscape was great. Tall trees on either side; very lush. We rode to see the beer-drinking pigs. Really.

Martinique is a French island. I took French in high school, but it's pretty much gone now. I was here for my birthday, worn out from New Year's Eve. There's a really pretty park and a fort.

Antigua has lots of shops right at the end of the dock. There's an old man who goes under a limbo bar just inches from the ground. I took the Millionaire's snorkel trip with Melinda. The snorkeling was beautiful. So many fish that it looks like something you'd see on the Discovery Channel. We ate a steak lunch on the way back.

St. Maarten is great for shopping. Lots of electronics and jewelery shops, and plenty of souvenirs. But good ones. A delicious Indian restaurant here. And St. Maarten is where I finally went scuba diving for the first time.

Tortola is one of my favorite islands. You've got Cane Garden Bay, with it's picturesque beach, a restaurant with a great frozen drink whose name has just escaped me, and a swing at the end of the beach that few people know about. You take an open air jeep that seats 20 people up over the mountain and down the other side. The roads are so steep, you feel sure you'll slip back down. Once, the group I went with filled the whole jeep, and we sang songs on the way back. Loudly. Tortola also has, just a ferry ride away, the Virgin Gorda. This small island has unusual habitat for the Caribbean. Blue cactus and iguanas are everywhere. But head for The Baths. You walk between huge rocks to get there, and the beach is breathtaking. Sail boats are anchored just outside the bay, snorkeling is great, and the sand is colorful. I was here for my last day off the ship. I wanted to stay.

St. Thomas, like San Juan, is usually a utility day. Inexpensive emailing, a post office, phones. But also Magen's Bay, which is just as lovely, and quite similar to, Cane Garden Bay.

San Juan, in addition to emailing and phones, has the mall. A luxury when malls are scarce, even for the non-shopper. One time, I saw some birds being sold on an open lot. They had several large exotic birds (I don't want to think of where they were taken from) but also small birds, in a pen on the ground, with small rabbits. That's right. Birds and rabbits, hanging out together. I couldn't stop laughing.

Ireland was quite a change from the Caribbean. I stayed with my friend Laura, who I'd met on the ship. Another friend of ours from the ship, Ian (from Australia), met up with us a few days after I arrived. Laura's house doesn't have a shower, so we took baths. And you had to flip a switch to get the water heated. Ian rented a car and we drove across the country. It took a few hours to get from Dublin (on the east coast) to the west coast. The whole country listens to the same radio station. We ate fried breakfast, including three meat products, a fried egg, and heavily buttered toast. Laura is a sous chef, and really cooks well, but her two favorite things are butter and salt. We drank Bailey's Irish Cream, and lots of Guinness. We went to Temple Bar in Dublin, which is actually a few blocks worth of pubs and clubs. I had a really great time in Ireland, but was counting down the days when I could come home. Now that I'm here, I'm freezing. At least in Ireland I could borrow Laura's jumpers (sweaters). Here, I foolishly expect San Diego to be mild. I guess my blood has thinned from four months in a hot climate.

Oh, yeah, about my job. Although I love it, I tend to forget about it when I think about my cruise life. The Kids Crew program accommodates children 2-12, and teens 13-17. With the kids, we paint faces, make beaded lizards, draw murals, play games, sing songs, spy on the adults around the ship, make ice cream sundaes, decorate cupcakes, swim in the pool, do scavenger hunts, and basically have summer camp at sea. The program runs on our sea day, which is Monday, 9am-12pm, 2-5pm, and 7-10pm. For the port days, which are Tuesday through Saturday, we have program from 7-10pm. Parents can pay to have us watch their kids during port days or late at night, but the program is less structured then, and if there aren't that many kids on the cruise, we don't get much interest, which is fine with us. The teen program can be a lot of fun when you get good teens. You dance in the disco, go to the shows, eat at one of the restaurants, go on scavenger hunts, go to the deck parties, and play games. One youth counselor also watches the kiddie pool, which is behind the Kids Korner and is filled up for two hours every day. Hardly anyone uses it and it wastes our beach time.

In addition to the program, youth counselors do a few cruise staff duties, like karaoke. We are sometimes scheduled to stand at the gangway and wish people a nice day on the island. Sometimes we stand at the entrance to the Palace Theatre and greet people going in to see the show. All of the cruise staff is on a rotating schedule for all day duty, which prevents one person from getting off the ship that day, so that everyone else can. You carry a radio and have a schedule of crafts, trivia, library duty, scavenger hunts, and escorting passengers to the bridge tour (given by one of the officers), among other things. The amount of cruise staff duties I do gives me enough interaction with adult passengers, and enough variety, but I still wouldn't want to do it full time. I love being a youth counselor. I can tell that my patience level has gone up, as has my enjoyment of children. I'm also becoming much more crafty. You should see me with glitter glue.

I hope this (long) email has helped you see what I've been doing for the last four months. Having the time of my life. I'm looking forward to spending the next four weeks at home, but I'm also looking forward to being back on my ship, the M/S Norwegian Majesty.

Kiss kiss,
Genoa
World traveler