busy busy

September 28, 2012
Wow, it’s been three days since I’ve written anything! Sorry about that, it’s been pretty busy.

In Charlottetown, Kayley and I walked around town, and found a thrift store where she found lots of clothes to use as show outfits. It was sunny thankfully, so we had a nice time outside on the walk back to the ship.

I got back to the ship after Kayley because she had a set before we left, but I went to listen to them when I got back. Not much interesting happened after we got back on the ship. It was “sing with the HAL Cats” (karaoke with a live band) night, so I went up and talked with the guests there as they thought about what song to sing or whether to sing or not. It was good to be sitting with the guests and talking with them instead of standing around with the other crew in the corner.

Wednesday was Sydney day. I got off and got to go on an excursion “Relive History at the Fortress of Louisbourg.” There was a 30 minute bus ride to get to the former French fortress. The fortress was beautiful, and the weather was really nice. The excursion was pretty much the bus ride with admittance to the fortress, we could wander around on our own once inside the fortress. It was a great experience, there were people acting as members of the forces, wives of officers, blacksmiths, a baker, etc. They all could speak French I think and told us about the area they were situated in. I learned a bit about making lace, baking bread, the army’s living arrangements, life as a servant in the house of the engineer (the 3rd highest ranking person in the fortress), etc. Of course, I also took lots of pictures! We got back near all aboard time, so I changed and went upstairs to get some lunch, a really late lunch.

While I listened to the HAL Cats play, I ate and talked to one of the guests that Kayley, Alyssa and I befriended this week, she’s travelling with a few friends/acquaintances who aren’t quite as active as she is. There were a lot of people sitting by the pool and by the sound of it, they loved Kayley! Lucky thing that I sat with her because it turns out that the dessert extravaganza night was changed this week, it was Wednesday night, not during formal night on Thursday. It was very odd. I went to the show and took pictures because I wanted to figure out the best settings for the HAL Cats performance Friday. Then, Kayley and I went to the dessert extravaganza, lots of chocolate fondue, but they were sadly out of strawberries to dip in the chocolate though. After that, we had bible study. They’d changed the date to make it so it wasn’t the same night as the dessert extravaganza because a few of the people work serving during it. No one had known about the night switch.

Thursday was Halifax day. I went to the mall/WalMart with Glenn and Kayley. We split the money for a cab and shopped. I ended up buying some yoga pants to wear when I’m hanging out in the crew area. We had a fun time, although we were rushed to get back to the ship, especially after stopping for lunch between Walmart and the mall. Kayley and I hung out for a while before her set, then walked around talking to some of the guests. I wore the dress I bought a few weeks ago in Bar Harbor finally, got a few compliments on it too! I actually ended up going to see the show twice because I saw it with Kayley at 8, then again with Alyssa at 10. Kayley left to go fill out a paper after the show, and I was going to meet her, but we kept missing each other, so I found Glenn and Alyssa at the piano bar and hung out with them until the show at 10. I did meet up with Kayley again in the Ocean bar where we listened to the Neptunes play (kind of a jazzy band, they live on our hall too) until they finished for the night.

Today I got to get off in Bar Harbor again. Alyssa and Jacob helped with immigration and tendering, and I was supposed to be a floater; I was supposed to get a call telling me where to go to help out, but the call never came. However, after immigration and ticketed tendering were over, the fire alarm went off, and we had to post announcements all over the ship to practice for the inspection we’re having next week.

Finally we got to get off though, Kayley and I both made some phone calls. She finished before I did and went ahead and bought us ‘breakfast’ from the bakery at the dock. Blueberry muffins (they make amazing ones; we had them last week!), and a piece of blueberry pie. Then we window shopped for a while, and had a quick lunch before going to take a few pictures and get back on the ship. I ended up staying ashore for a while to check emails and stuff on my phone and to call Mom.

It was last night of the cruise. I went to the HAL Cats performance again. It was much better executed than last week, there was a lot more structure, no awkward silences, the audience loved it! I took a lot of pictures that I still have to work my way through. After the show, we all went to the OB because it was the last night for a lot of people, mainly the cast. It was a sad night.

September 29, 2012
Kayley, Brandi and I said our goodbyes to Alyssa and got off early in Boston. We got off so early that we had to wait for the newly embarking crew to board. I met my new roommate (the HAL Cats sax player Cassandra) and we took her stuff to our room before getting off. Robyn’s (Kayley’s band leader) father was picking her up to spend time with her, so she convinced him to drop the three of us off at the South Bay Plaza (where we wanted to go, there’s a target, tj maxx, marshalls, etc); they thought we were crazy because we’d planned on walking there (it’d only be about a 45 minute walk)!

We shopped for a while, then had a fun experience trying to get a taxi back to the ship. Kayley had gone to school in Boston, so knew the number for the taxi service, but the first two times she called, she accidently called the airport shuttle service. Then, she got in contact with one and they hung up on her, then said it’d be a 15 minute wait. We decided to move and see if we could find another while we waited for that one, so we walked down to the other side of all the stores. As soon as we got to the other end, the taxi driver called her, angry because we weren’t there, and he refused to drive down to the other end of the shopping center, we had to walk back to him, then he hung up on her again. Kayley wasn’t happy with that, so we started walking towards the ship on our own, hoping to find a taxi along the way. We did end up getting one about 10 minutes down the road and made it back to the ship about lunchtime.

Kayley had two groups of friends come aboard to visit for the day (a family of 3 and one of her college friends), so the six of us had lunch together and we gave them a tour of the ship before they had to leave. Kayley and I went down to the room and hung out with Cassandra until the two of them had to help with the embark day guest fire drill. I went up for a rainy Sail Away and learned that there really aren’t any kids on board this week, so we’re definitely doing the security scanning at the gangway every day. Great.

After dinner with Cass, a few of the spa people, and photographers, I just hung out until the show; the first time seeing the show with the new cast. It’s very different, it really made me miss the old cast. We’ll see what they’re like as the first few weeks go by.