I can't wait to get to warmer weather

October 2, 2012
Security isn’t so bad, the security guys are nice and a lot of the guests have started recognizing me (despite my having a different hairstyle every day, haha. I’ll explain that later). I worked 12-4 today. I woke up so I could go get breakfast, but as I was getting ready, they made an announcement about a fire drill. This is the second time there’s been a scheduled fire drill that I didn’t know about. I had to go to the front office for my duties with wet hair. On this ship, Club HAL is part of “passenger notification team” which means we go to the front office and hang out until they print and give us signs to put up around the ship to inform everyone of what is going on. That’s a lot of wasted paper because we normally just hang them up, return to the office, then get the announcement that the drill is over so we have to go take everything down. I have a question: if you heard an alarm, would your first reaction be to go to the elevators and read a paper sign that’s taped next to it? Mine wouldn’t, I wouldn’t think there would be enough time to make signs and put them up; and if I saw someone putting up the signs, I’d ask them rather than read the sign. Just my opinion, our “passenger notification team” duty isn’t really practical.

Anyway, Kayley and I went to breakfast late, just before they closed the continental breakfast side. We did have to ask for milk and bananas to put in our cereal though; I like being friends with people in charge in the Lido and various places around the ship, it makes life easier, not having to go up to a stranger to ask for something that’s not out anymore.

I had to go to the gangway after that to work for two hours. The gangway on B deck is a wind tunnel, it’s freezing, even when it’s not outside. I was very cold standing there scanning cards, but at least I had a few layers of clothes on and gloves.

I had an hour long lunch with Kayley, Mack came to join us while he had some coffee, before I headed back to the gangway, I didn’t have much to do because everyone was coming back on the ship and I was the outbound scanner.

October 3, 2012
It was a long day of working at security. I didn’t get to go to Charlottetown, but it was freezing in the terminal so I figured it’d be freezing out as well.

It’s nice sometimes getting to talk to all the guests that come through, quite a few recognized me from helping out with line dancing the other night and from seeing me around the ship every day. That night, I went to the show though I didn’t particularly enjoy it; it was a comedian who played guitar. I only stayed for a bit before going up to the Crow’s Nest for ‘Sing and Dance with the HAL Cats’. There were a lot of crew members there including the cast and a few of the managers in the dining room. I went to the Indonesian Crew Show with Rik (he’s in training in the dining room), and two members of the cast, then to late night snack with them. I’m getting to know new people again, good because a lot of the people I’d known my first weeks are gone already.

October 4, 2012: Sea Day
Not much happened today. I helped with Bingo and On Deck for the Cure again and basically killed time all day. I was by far the most energetic ‘cheerleader’ at On Deck for the Cure. Originally the group consisted of the cruise director, life stylist, DJ, and the youth staff. By the time half the laps had been completed, Jacob and I were the only ones left outside to keep track of laps and cheer them on. A lot of people commented on that, and the fact that I was still jumping around being happy (it was cold, I had to jump around to keep warm).

I went to Encore, which was very different than the last cast; they weren’t really bad, but they weren’t confident, didn’t know the songs well and didn’t have the presence the other cast had. It’s so weird that we’re spending more time with this cast, but get to see them perform less. I had 6 weeks with the other cast and they performed every week. I’m on for two months with this cast and get to see them perform… 4 times at most. They didn’t do many shows this week because they’re still learning about working on a ship, so we had a few guest entertainers. Then, over the 13 day trip down the coast, they perform each show once, then over the 42 day Med trip, they perform each show once, then again once on the 10 day run in the Caribbean. It’s strange to think that I only have 3 more cruises to go.

October 5, 2012 Quebec!
Sadly, it was rainy in Quebec today. I managed to eat a quick breakfast before security. Nothing really exciting happened but I talked to a few of the guests leaving about the weather, the steepness of the gangway today and generally how their cruise was going. Finally, I was off work, so ran up to lunch before going out. I got on the internet for just a few minutes, then walked around for a few hours. It started to rain so I was going to get back on the ship when I ran into Mack, we talked a bit as he tried to get internet (apparently it only wants to work on phones, not computers this time), then we got back on the ship to search for Kayley so we could play cards. We played cards until I had to help with Bingo again.
After Bingo, I went up to Club HAL for a walk through of Club HAL with Jacob and the Event Manager, basically they showed me where everything was and how to do stuff on the computer since it’s my job to show the new YPC (I’m his buddy; it’s only his second ship as well). I’m going to miss Jacob, he’s been a good YPC, he even bought a Dr Pepper for me yesterday!

I went back to the room for a while before dinner. The HAL Cats had rehearsal for their show at 6, so I ended up eating with the Explorations team (librarian, life stylist, Jacob, and the Event Manager). I was getting a headache so didn’t eat a whole lot. I got back to the room and tried to do some stuff, but the headache was getting worse, so I just went to bed.