I have been on the ship for 5 days now, and it has been pretty busy. The first cruise of the contract is always the craziest because of training and adapting to all of the new policies etc. On sign on day we took a shuttle to the ship and had to go through security to join. Then they took us up the gangway and onto the ship. When I stepped foot on the dock I saw Owen, the security officer I knew from the Constellation. I hadn't known that he would be here. We said hey then I followed the other sign on's to a venue where we took care of our contracts and other formalities for signing on. That took maybe an hour and then we met our managers.
I signed on with the Miami DJ duo (Hector and Mac), which is a DJ and percussionist band. We got along so we hung out until Ramiro, our Band Master came to get us. He is the piano player in the orchestra. I knew that I liked him from the moment I met him. He is very laid back and easy to get along with. He showed us around the ship. This is a bigger ship than my last one, so the layout is pretty different other than 5 things: there's a bow, aft, port, starboard, and an I-95 which is the main hallway in the crew area. I was pretty turned around through the whole tour because I still didn't have my sence of port and starboard, but I did get to see that this ship has some pretty amazing places to go. Right after the tour I was able to get my bags, take them to my room, then go have lunch with Hector and Mac. Then I had plenty of time to get unpacked before I had to go to my next training.
My room is very small, but is my own! It is a little longer than 6 feet and maybe 5 feet wide. When you walk in on your right is the tv and a desk that goes for the length of the room. Above that is the bed that folds up onto the wall during the day and down at night to sleep. There are some drawers under free desk for clothes and a cabinet with a mini fridge in it. On the left is the door for the bathroom, a sink, then the closet. I had heard stories about these cabins that you can do all things at once in the bathroom...this is very true. That bathroom is just big enough to shower in. It connects to the room next door, so that's the only part I share.
View from the door
View from inside
I've been settling in pretty well so far. The social atmosphere on this ship is really great. On the second day a few of the guys in the orchestra told me that on sea days they get together in the staff bar for coffee, so at 2 I went to join them. It turned out that it's a big thing with the whole entertainment department and anybody who can come does. It's been very easy to make friends here. It's not a large circle amoung ship employees so most of us have mutual friends too. I had known before that the jazz quartet from my last ship is on board, but I've been surprised to see several familiar faces. I mentioned Owen above, there was another security crew member from the Constellation who I had never gotten to know, then while I was doing some new sign on stuff Mary (an AV) came out of nowhere, I also saw my friend Kunal from the photo department, and the cruise director we have here now is Alejandro. The other night I was talking to the Sound Engineer and we realized that we met one day in Rhodes while he was on another Celebrity ship.
I started working on day one on the ship. So far we've played the welcome aboard show, a ballroom dance set, our guest Entertainer (Doug Cameron, a violinist), and one production show. I had heard of Doug Cameron before, but never played his show. Everyone that told me about it apsaid that it's a hard show especially for drummers and that he's very hard on drummers. So, I asked for the music on the first day so I could check it out before we played his show. I'm very happy I did because it lived up to it's reputation. There were a lot of very specific things that the drums had to get right. I ran into Doug the day before his show and we started talking. It turns out he's from LA, and used to live about a mile away from where I live now. We got along talking about places around there and of course he used to be a regular customer at Good Neighbor Resturant, which is the restaurant I work at while I'm in town. He said to say hi to Betty and Rick for him.
The next day we had his rehearsal. We did one run through with just the rhythm section and him, then the horns came and we did another. I was happy that I checked out the music, and everybody else including Doug said I did a good job. His shows went great and were very fun to play.
Today was the first day I was able to get off the ship. We were in Skagway, Alaska. I didn't do much, but it was nice to be on land for a few hours. Once this cruise is done I'll have more time to go on some adventures, so check back for more posts!
No comments:
Post a Comment