first days on the Maasdam

Sunday August 19, 2012

Yesterday was a pretty busy day, starting at 7am. The bus was pretty full from the hotel to the ship. When we arrived, it turns out that the ship hadn’t even docked yet. You’d think they’d plan for this sort of thing and let us sleep in just an hour more or so. It was low tide too, so that meant it was even longer before the crew gangway could be put out. So, after signing contracts and turning in passports and stuff, we just had to stand there and wait. Luckily, I’d made friends with a girl named Brandi on the bus. She’s a solo guitarist, on the ship until the end of November (10 days before I leave); so, we ended up talking a lot, me telling her about ship life. Finally we were able to get on.

It took a while for everyone to get through security but we finally made it and went straight into our first meeting. It didn’t last long and then we had a security walk before going back and meeting up with our buddies. My buddy wasn’t there, I actually didn’t even know who my buddy was supposed to be. So, one of the officers took me to the HR dept and they found out who my buddy was and called him to come get me. Jacob is a YPC who’s currently just youth staff but will take over as YPC when Chrissy, the current one, leaves next week. He let me drop off my stuff and took me on a tour of the ship, then dropped me off back at the room to wait until I went to lunch, then up to Club HAL for open house. I just sat around in the room kind of bored; I watched the news.

Finally I decided I could go eat. Jacob was eating with his wife and Chrissy and Alyssa (the other youth staff) were both off ship, so I had resigned myself to eating alone. When I got to the elevators though, I met up with another guitarist, a man named Glenn, who was headed to lunch too. He was having a bad day because he didn’t have a room and his buddy had just left him on his own. I was very glad I generally knew my way around the ship so I could at least get us to the Lido for lunch. I was not impressed at all with this Lido. I got pasta thinking that it would be alright, but the noodles had already been mixed with vegetables, so I had to pick out all the peppers and stuff, yet it still ended up with a weird taste. This Lido definitely does not have kids in mind when making the menu. No pizza either. I might have to get sandwiches every day for lunch. At least I had someone to talk to.

At 1, I went up to Club HAL to work open house with Jacob. The kids and parents came in waves, so occasionally we’d sit there and talk about Club HALs on other ships and occasionally we’d be swamped by families. I did get to look around and see what all we had. This Club HAL is very different from the one on the Oosterdam. There’s no wall separating the kids and tweens, a lot more games and chairs and tables, and xbox connect instead of a Wii. There’s also no Loft. The teens just have to move around to different rooms during the day, then take over Club HAL after the 3-12 year olds leave. I did get to use my French skills during open house! A family from France was on the ship and I got to explain Club HAL and the registration form to them! It was very exciting. I think they were relieved someone could understand some of the questions they had in French. Apparently there are quite a few families from France on the ship this week; I’m excited to meet them.

After open house, Jacob and Alyssa did the wristbands and I was told just to go to my room and rest. My favorite thing to hear. I didn’t want to unpack because of what happened the first day on the Oosterdam, so I ended up sitting in bed reading and watching the news. The news is extremely repetitive. Alyssa did come by to ask if I wanted to go to dinner with her, so we ended up going around 6:30 (she has a tendency to run late, 5 minutes usually ends up being 15 she told me).

Though we arrived in Club HAL at exactly 7 (we’re supposed to be there 15 minutes early), Chrissy wasn’t there so Alyssa had to unlock the door. For about the first 20 minutes or so it was just me and Alyssa talking. Chrissy came and a few kids came, but not many. Since there weren’t that many, we just kept the groups together even after free time ended. One girl attached herself to me as soon as her parents left. She was interesting to play with because she would start to get sad and ask to call her parents to come get her, then she’d start playing something and be perfectly fine. I was worried when all the kids were washing their hands for snack, she came out crying for her mommy. I asked if she wanted snack first, and she nodded yes so I took her to wash her hands and she was fine. I think she’s okay as long as she has someone’s attention, because the second I left her alone she began to get upset again. So, I had a hand around my fingers most of the rest of the night. According to Alyssa, we had a lot of kids; I think we had 8 at one point. I guess that is a lot for the rest of them because they just got back from a 35 day Europe trip where there were about 8 total on board. For me though, this was a tiny group! By 10, we only had 2 siblings. They pulled out Clue and started making up things to do with the pieces so I sat with them while Chrissy and Alyssa sat at the computer and cleaned the other room. There’s a computer in this Club HAL! And a printer. There’s coloring sheets, our time clock and all sorts of stuff on there for us to use.

At 10, we left and “made the rounds” as Alyssa called it. We walked through the lower decks- the library, the shops, the casino- and talked to all the crew working. We stopped for a while at the photo gallery because Alyssa is friends with one of the girls there. While she talked to Lauren (her friend), I talked to another new guy named Edison. He lives in Florida and has been to various places in North and South Carolina, so we had plenty to talk about.
I ended up watching the end of Transformers on TV before Alyssa came to get me to go out and meet some more people. I didn’t stay out long because I was really tired, but I did at least meet some people.

Today, I ended up skipping breakfast because I woke up with a headache again. I did eat a cookie (thanks Mom for sending them with me) and took an advil. Now I’m just waiting to go to HR again to turn in my new-crew form, get my new ID card and to go to work Port Day at 12. Not sure how many kids will be there since it sounded like all these parents wanted to take the kids on excursions or just into town. Different from the Oosterdam when the parents usually left them with the grandparents or with us.

Monday August 20, 2012

Yesterday was another busy day. I woke up with a really bad headache, luckily I could just sleep in a bit; I didn’t work until 12. I ended up going in a little early because I got bored in my cabin. There was only one kid up there, so Jacob asked if it was okay for him to leave, which it was. The one kid hardly spoke English, he spoke French!! So, it was very exciting for me to ask him stuff in French. As the afternoon went on, two siblings came in and the French boy left. The girl kind of likes attention and if she’s not getting it, she starts to cry and say s he wants to lleave. Halfway through the afternoon she decided she wanted to go, I had to chase her down to make sure she didn’t get out the door. I called her parents, but they didn’t answer; she said she didn’t want to do any activities and other kids were coming in, so I let her do what she wanted: sit on the floor doing nothing. What else could I do, it’s what she wanted to do. Quite a few of the kids who came in spoke French too, so I got to communicate with them. I need to learn some video game vocab now, so I can explain things; and I also need to learn how to work some of the games on the Xboxes so I can explain them as well. Most of the kids are very polite, and their parents are very nice. When I had to close up and parents were playing games, they were very apologetic about staying so late playing with their kids.

It was only when everyone left when I realized that Jacob hadn’t left me the key to lock up, so I called Alyssa to come (there are three keys, I guess when Chrissy, the YPC, leaves next week, I’ll get her set). She took me down to the crew area to show me where the snack food is and we ended up talking to people in the hall for at least an hour. I watched about 30 minutes of Pirates of the Caribbean on the TV before dinner (we have TNT Dad, if only I wasn’t working last night, I could’ve actually watched Leverage, although it wouldn’t have been as fun not talking about it with you). Dinner was better than the first night, I was really hungry though because I hadn’t had much for lunch.

The night session was very small. Only about 8 kids showed up, so for about the first hour and a half we played video games, then went on to combine the theme nights: Camp night and Alien night turned into Alien Camp. It was interesting. There actually weren’t that many activities; basically it was just crafts: making a planet, making an alien mask and creating a camp on a different planet with a group. Nothing too exciting sadly. Alyssa and I left at 10 and made the rounds before going to the show. Then we changed into formal wear (I got to wear my new black dress!) and went to late night snack to socialize. I met quite a few people before we headed down to our cabins. I was exhausted.

This morning, I didn’t have to work, but I did have to go to a safety meeting (the last new-crew meeting; YAY!). I met up with Alyssa afterwards and now we’re at a coffee shop getting internet!