first time in Sitka

Sitka:
I really think I’d be very willing to work every port-day afternoon. That would give me the morning to do some souvenir shopping and get the free internet with purchase of hot chocolate, and I wouldn’t be so bored when I get back to the ship. I might ask Karyn about that next week.
Anyway, Sitka is a small town; there are quite a few souvenir shops which I visited today. One of them had earrings like I like that I bought in Hendersonville. They’re the same brand as ones I have already and in all colors and styles! I’m very excited about this! I also bought a notebook/journal. Somehow I managed to make it here without any paper on which to write. Now I can leave notes for my roommate, take notes for myself during the day, etc. I found the post office here too, so I definitely know I can at least mail postcards from here. I also was told where there was internet. After my first trip to Sitka, I went back to the ship for lunch and to grab my laptop so I could get some stuff done before final call at 3 for crew to return to the ship. I bought a really good hot chocolate for 2.22 and got to post the last two blogs, check email and Face book. In the last four days, I’d managed to collect almost 40 emails in one of my three accounts! I was only there for about 15 minutes because I was worried about getting back to the ship (I’d caught the last tender leaving the ship with passengers).

I seem to remember Amy asking questions about the other new girl in Youth Staff. Her name is Erica, she’s from Phoenix Arizona. She’d been on a Princess cruise a few years ago to Alaska, so she knows the ports and all that already. She spent last summer in London with a large group of people from her school, taking two classes and doing an internship. She actually had applied for Disney first, and had interviews with them, but they told her that she needed more camp experience. The next day, Holland America called her (about a week before they called me). She’s on this ship for three months, leaving right before it heads to New Zealand. She has no idea what ship she’ll be on next or where it will go. She, like everyone else I told, was amazed that I’m only on this one for four weeks, and I’ve already been assigned a second contract and know where it’s going. Apparently the first contract is typically as long as the rest of them. Mine is easily the shortest, followed by Steven (one of the piano players). He’s here for six weeks because he’s still has a year left at college and this is just his summer job.

I can tell that we’re cruising again, have been for about an hour and a half (they certainly don’t leave much time between last call for guests and leaving port). The ship is rocking again and I can hear waves hitting outside. I think we’re going pretty fast, not as fast as we’ll be going tomorrow afternoon though apparently. There is an unrealistic goal in getting from Ketchikan to Victoria; it was scheduled like that because that’s how long it took in perfect conditions. There are only a few hours in Victoria, and some of that is taken away by our late arrival. A lot of people say that they should switch the amount of time spent in those two ports, that we should have just a few hours in the morning in Ketchikan, cruise the rest of the day and night and get to Victoria earlier in the day.

Tonight was board games night in the Tween Room of Club HAL. After our hour of free time, we got out the board games and cards and began to play. The kids had scrabble, chess, connect four, and a pack of cards/spoons out right away, and we never really switched from there. I had to switch games after the first game of scrabble though, because across the room the kids playing spoons had started throwing cards around at each other, and blaming each other for things. One of my girls asked me to intervene. So, I went over and tried to get them to stop. They wanted to test me when I said everyone holding cards can not throw them; they dropped the cards. I picked them up and walked away. It took a few minutes before they realized I’d tricked them, then I made them promise not to throw things (they were starting to go for the shoes!) before giving back the cards and sitting down with them to make sure they behaved. After that, they did, I had to give one of the boys a look because he started acting mischievous, but he stopped. He even admitted when he ripped one of the spoons out of one of the girls’ hand. I was proud of him for that and thanked him for it.

I was going to go to a show with Cheyan, but it is formal night all over the ship and I realized I didn’t have anything to wear, so I figured I’d make it an early night since I do have Port Day shift at 8 tomorrow morning! Ashley was kind enough to tell me to call her if I need anything tomorrow :) I’m glad she doesn’t have to leave for another week, I think we work well together, she organizes and I get the kids excited about activities. There’s a new girl coming on Sunday named Natalie, so that’ll help a bit with the craziness, so Karyn can spend time with her parents since they’ll be here and she’s been crazy-busy taking care of all her Coordinator stuff and the teenagers.

July 6, 2012
Today was port day at Ketchikan. I started work at 8:00 this morning and only just got back to my room (it’s a bit after 4). That wasn’t supposed to be how my day went though. Apparently Ketchikan is a different type of port day (great thing for someone to tell me BEFORE I work) as we’re only at the port from 8 to 12 noon; Club HAL closes at 12 then reopens at 1. Good to know that this port day we don’t take the kids down to lunch like we have the last two port days. I didn’t know. So, when parents asked me, I used what I’d observed from the last two days and told them that we’d be open until 4, thinking that one of the other girls would come take over for me at 12, like has been the case the last few days. How wrong I was. I called the one room number I know (Ashley and Erica), but no answer. By the time someone came in, it was 12:20. Jordan explained to me and I called Karyn to let her know about my mistake (it is my first week, I should be allowed a mistake or two, right?). She told me to take them to get burgers and stuff by the Lido pool, the other girls were down eating at the buffet and they should help me. Erica and I ended up getting their food and I sat with them while they ate. Then, we got back to the room 5 minutes early, so I ran downstairs to grab a slice of pizza and hot chocolate (which I only just found this morning!). 10 minutes, record eating time for me.
It was a busy afternoon with a free tag/ball game outside, an ice cream eating contest on the Lido deck, and a rehearsal of the skit they’re doing for the talent show.

Hm, I just realized that I don’t think I’ve really talked about what a (normal) ‘Port Day’ is. For the passengers it’s a day on shore, for Club HAL it’s a day of combined groups led by just one of the Youth Staff. The kids and tweens are together for these days and the youth staff divide the day up into two sessions (so we’ll at least have some time to go ashore if we’d like to that day). The first is 8-12; the second is 12-4. The 12-4 session includes taking the kids down to lunch (since the parents might be ashore, but I think a good many of the parents still sign their kids out and take them to lunch themselves.) It’s pretty much free time, there are no scheduled activities and we can decide what to do ourselves. It’s kind of odd having the younger kids because I don’t know them. Having such a variety in a group (3-12) with just me looking after them, hoping they have fun, is odd as well now that I’ve gotten used to only having the 8-12 year olds.