Back to Ship Life!

11/28/08

Hey everyone,

I decided to start writing a blog so that everyone can follow along with my newest adventures, since my cell doesn't work in South America and there are way too many people that I'd like to e-mail! So, here goes.

I arrived on Sunday to San Diego to meet the ship. The Amsterdam just finished a 67-day Grand Voyage through Asia and the South Pacific. I had received an email from Holland America (HAL) saying that over 140 crew members would be embarking on Sunday. It asked us to just be patient, as the Human Resource Officers would be very overwhelmed. When you get on the ship, you have to go through a seperate crew entrace that takes you down to the Human Resource Office. That is where they give you your room key card and all of the
paperwork that needs to be filled out for the specific ship.

I got to the ship around 11:45 am West Coast time (after waking up in Maryland at 3 am East Coast time) and had to attend a safety meeting at 1 pm. In the meantime, I went to my cabin and opened the door to find about 20 suitcases. I was a bit confused and later found out that they had placed me in a room with the other event staff, a guy that is engaged to one of the female dancers. So, she (and a bunch of other cast members) had put all of their suitcases in the room. Usually, if they're going to room you with someone of the opposite sex they have to ask. Needless to say, they moved me to the room next door and I have a big room alllllll to myself! The room that I have has bunk beds with a standard bed on the bottom and a single bed on the top. The single bed folds into the wall, so I just folded it up so I won't hit my head... ya know, since I'm so tall and everything! Haha. Having my own room has positive and negative aspects. It is nice to have two closets to put all my stuff in, especially since I have a lot of formal dresses and shoes and everything. There is also a pretty big fridge in my room. At this point, there is one beer in it cause my friend doesn't have a fridge and she didn't have a place to keep her extra heineken. Haha.

There are quite a few people here that I know from the Veendam, many of them in the entertainment department. Obviously I know Danny (and I had met his roommate when I was visiting him in Cali.) The DJ and Party Planner from my last ship are here too. The assistant stage manager (Alan) is also here. He's this adorable Filipino who always says funny things like "What the heck, man?" One of the Deck Officers was onboard my last ship for a while... annnnd the travel guide (the guy who speaks about the natural and historical significance of many of the ports) and his girlfriend were on the Veendam too. It is nice to have people here that I already know well and am comfortable around.

The Event Manager and Cruise Director are both really nice. The Event Manager helps out a lot and we can go to him with any issues and he's always willing to help. When I first got here, things were done quite a bit differently. Since I've done a couple contracts as event staff already and the other guy is new to ships, they asked me to put in input and gave me the opportunity to make a few changes. The library was quite unorganized, so I spent quite a bit of time just reorganizing everything and changing their system to be more simplistic. I've been working a lot and have yet to get off the ship. I had quite a bit of time today, but we were in Hualtulco, Mexico and there really isn't much to do so I just went out by the back pool and got some sun. It was about 85 degrees today and only getting hotter!

We cross the equator on December 7th and have a fun little "ceremony" to celebrate, the King Neptune's Ceremony. That day, it is tradition that any crew member who has never crossed the equator is a "polliwog" and there are doctors and pirates that cover the polliwogs in slime and food. We do the ceremony on the back deck near the pool. The passengers all come out to watch and they put the polliwogs up on tables a few at a time. They cover them in slime and spaghetti and then make them sit in the heat until everyone is done and jumps in the pool. I guess by the sounds of it, it seems pretty gross, but I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. I think it'll be really fun!

I was worried that I'd only be doing the library here, but they actually have kept some variety so I won't be bored out of my mine every day! I've been running sports activities too, and the other event staff guy splits the library with me. The party planner and youth staff coordinator have been helping too, so I probably spend somewhere between 5-7 hours in the library per day when its a Sea Day or when I stay on the ship all day. Today I'm only here for 3 hours. We'll see how things go...

Thanksgiving was pretty anticlimatic. It was my turn to stay on the ship, so I didn't get to get off the ship in Acapulco. No big deal, I've been here before... it's where Lesley and I went bungee jumping in April. We had turkey onboard for dinner, but I had dinner in about 20 mins cause I had to work more afterwards. I'm happy we celebrated before I left so I could still have some sort of holiday. I'm really hoping they close the library early on Christmas so I can still get in the holiday spirit for it. Maybe I'll watch Elf (the movie with Will Farrell) tonight to get myself excited for Christmas!

Sorry I've been really busy recently... I haven't been around much because I've been trying to get all of my paperwork done while I'm not working. Now that I've become more acclimated to the ship and how things are done here, hopefully I'll have more free time.
I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving. I'll try to write every couple days. Make sure you put this page in your favorites and check back often. For everyone in the office... Bren can help you set up a favorite so you remember to check! Haha. Miss you all a lot and I'll keep you all informed...