madiera

November 20, 2012: Madeira day 1
We had a fire drill and a general emergency drill this morning. The fire drill was scheduled for 9:30, so I was ready for it. The general drill was scheduled for 10:30, that one includes all crew not on duty. However, a few minutes before 10, they sounded the general alarm. All I had to do was stay in the front office until they dismissed us to our life rafts, but all the musicians are traffic directors so they had to get to their station; really they all had to get up because the drill wasn’t supposed to be for another 30 minutes. It took a long time for them to dismiss us to our rafts, but at least Rachel was there to talk to until then.

After the drills, I only had an hour before I had to be at work which meant I couldn’t get off the ship. Glenn invited me to go up and sit in the Lido with him and Blake since they’d missed breakfast and wanted coffee. I sat with them until work. All the kids were up there, the siblings having just arrived. We played video games for a few minutes before going down to lunch. All they wanted was chips so they had to wait for me to get my food before we all went to sit down. Lunch took a while, despite them only having chips, but we finally made it back upstairs and the girls set off to play house, while the boy and I worked more through Lego Star Wars and watched How to Train Your Dragon.

I was kind of tired after work, and only really had about an hour and a half, so I didn’t get off the ship but took a nap instead. Very few people were on the ship for dinner, but at least the crew had a good view for once, we were actually on the side next to the city, so we could see all the lights.

I went up to work and read a chapter and played solitaire until 9, the kids never came up so I went down to the room to change and catch the end of the HAL Cats show. On the way up, I started talking to Annette, the newish photographer, so I made it up to the Showroom as the band was leaving the stage. I met them back downstairs though and there was a bunch of calling from room to room as we made plans to go out. The band, two of the cast members and I went out. A lot of them walk really slowly so it took us a while to get to a restaurant. Once we got there it started raining harder so we ended up staying there instead of moving to different places. It was fun, more people from the ship showed up later and we all just had a good time chatting.

November 21, 2012: Madeira day 2
I worked 9-12 this morning. The girl came up and played video games with me until the other kids showed up. The girls played house while I showed the boy how to get past one of the levels we’d been having trouble with in Lego Harry Potter. Brian came not long after and I got some lunch before going downstairs. There really wasn’t much to do so I ended up playing games on my computer and phone before taking an unintentional nap until dinner.

As I was keeping Cass company since she got to dinner late, I saw a kid getting dessert. Now no one had said anything to me about someone new coming on board so I was very confused. I was pleasantly surprised as well and as soon as Cass was done, I went upstairs to see what Brian knew. Very exciting! The kid is the son of one of the guest entertainers that got on board today, ANNNNNNDDDDDDD (drumroll please) they’re FRENCH!! I was very happy to find this out! Another kid, which means I have more of a job, and I get to use my French again!

I hung out in Club HAL for a while since I wasn’t going to work out with the ship moving like it is tonight, then changed and went to the show. It was a very good show, the guy sang a lot of Frank Sinatra stuff and the audience really liked it.

November 22, 2012: Sea Day 1
Why do things like this keep happening? I slept in a bit since I didn’t work this morning, but as soon as I got out of the shower, Brian called to see where I was because the kids were up there and I apparently was supposed to work this morning. He’d changed the schedule for the sea days and I hadn’t realized it. So, I got ready in a few minutes and ran upstairs. The girl and the French boy just played video games, it was kind of nice not having to keep them entertained since I was a bit out of it because of the confusion.

After work, I went back downstairs and actually got ready before going up for lunch with the HAL Cats. I stayed up there hanging out with them until time for Bingo. We ended up not having the normal Bingo since not enough people showed up, but I got to run to the Entertainment Office and get some mugs to use as prizes.

After that, I got a call from Brian letting me know that I had to go to the Entertainment meeting at 5:30, so I talked to Cass and read for a bit until then. It wasn’t really anything special, basically they told us to keep up the patience for the last 7 days of this cruise and keep the guests happy because they’re filling out their comment cards and ratings soon. Sam, Cass and I went to dinner after that; they had a special dinner tonight because it’s Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving! I didn’t see what was so different about it from normal dinners aside from there being less for me to eat. But, I did enjoy eating with everyone there (the HAL Cats and the Neptunes and Sam).

I was up at work for an hour before the French boy came up. He played video games with me for a while, then we started up a dance game on the Kinect when his mom came. He wanted to play it a little longer so the mom and I talked in French for a few minutes when the siblings came in. He really didn’t want to leave then, so she left and the three of them amused themselves chasing each other (and me) around the room. I’m definitely going to have to take them out to the Sports Deck tomorrow, they don’t need to be cooped up inside for such long periods of time!

At 10, I ran downstairs, changed very quickly and ran back upstairs to see the show, a clarinet player with the HAL Cats as back-up (as is usually the case for singers/other musicians). He was a good clarinet player, but in my opinion he talked too much between songs. After the show, I went up to late night with Robyn, Blake and Glenn. It’s a lot of fun hanging out with the band, I keep wondering why Kayley never really joins them when they do stuff. No wonder people think I’m her, I’m with the band all the time. We’ve started saying that I’m Kayley’s understudy, which is why no one hears me sing, but why I’m with them all the time.

November 23, 2012: Sea Day 2
I had gone to bed earlyish last night, and slept in kind of late this morning, I was ready to go before breakfast closed though, but that meant I didn’t really didn’t have anything to do until lunch then work. I watched the news for a bit, since Fox News is, yet again, the only thing we can get on the TV. I had lunch with Kayley and Brandi, happily they had fried chicken in the Lido, and it was actually good!
Work this afternoon was interesting. The girl and the French boy came in about the same time a few minutes after I got there. They both wanted to make more picture frames, so they followed me to the cabinet where the box was. The boy suddenly decided to tickle me as I was putting the box back in the cabinet, so I bent down to pick them up; as I stood up, I slammed my head into the cabinet door. It was really painful and I had to run to the bathroom because I didn’t want it to bleed more (it wasn’t really bleeding badly, but it was in my hair and I wanted to make sure it stopped quickly). I think they realized after that that I wasn’t going to put up with them screaming any more today because my head was hurting.

The others came by not long after and they amused themselves running around the room before I took them outside to play tag. They really needed to get some of that energy out, and they did because it was windy and they were running everywhere. Finally we went back to Club HAL and the boys sat down for video games while the girls colored. Cass came by and colored with us for a while. She even went downstairs with us for snacktime. It helped having someone else there, I could take one or two of them to get water or more jello or more ice cream while I knew the others would be somewhat well behaved with someone watching them.

Cass and I got down to the room a little after four and the phone rang just as we walked in the door. Cass answered and as soon as she said the DJ’s name I remembered Bingo, so I told him I’d be right up and ran upstairs to do the math for Bingo since I’d been at work when they sold the cards. After that, Cass game me an ice pack for me to hold on my head for a while as I sat on my bed just to make sure the scrape on my head didn’t swell up any more than it already had (it’s okay, it only did a little bit). It helped having something (the cold) to distract me from the occasional pain it gave me.

I called Maria because she had said a few days ago that she really wanted to do my hair for the Black and White Ball. She looked at my dress and got an idea of what to do and we went to her room so she could fix my hair. It looked really good. She curled it all, then pinned it kind of into a ponytail on the side, adding a black flower. I changed, then went up to dinner. There weren’t many people at dinner. I guess a lot of people, like Kayley and Sam (who I went to see before I went up), ordered room service. I sat with everyone in the photo department; they all had to leave before I was done though so I sat alone for a little while.

After dinner, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I sat in on the first show (both the shows were an hour earlier because of the Black and White Ball). Then, I attended the show for the second run-through. It was a really good show, a singer/comedian. She sang some famous songs, but changed them up some, the song Over the Rainbow was changed to “Over-indulgence” talking about the food on cruise ships.

After the show, the Black and White Ball began. Kayley sang a few songs, and then the Captain and all the officers came in. The guests had to go up and grab an officer to dance with, there were three specific dances where they had a chance to get a prize, depending on which officer had the prize in his/her pocket. It was fun to watch as a lot of guests scrambled to get to a particular person before someone else did. By the hour mark, most of the officers had left and quite a few of the guests; the entertainment department and the guests that know us and talk to us all the time remained until the end.