the weather finally was sunny!

May 19, 2013: Bar Harbor
I had to do tendering this morning. So much fun. At least the guests seem to be pretty nice and patient this cruise. I talked to a lot of them and think I made a good impression for the “on location team.” At first it was really slow going, they were giving people tender tickets and sending them straight downstairs to hand me the ticket and get on the tender. About 9:30 more people started showing up and there was a bit of a wait, but no more than 15 minutes. I talked to the guests that were waiting for their number to be called and joked around with them (I collect tender tickets in a blue pumpkin Halloween bucket, so if people give me a funny grinning look before handing me their tender ticket, I say “ticket or treat?”). After an hour, the wait got shorter and shorter and they finally decided to announce open tender. I returned the bucket to the Entertainment Office and met Jacqui and Jenn on the stairs to get downstairs. We agreed to meet in 10 minutes to catch a tender together to shore.

We got blueberry muffins right off the ship, shopped around for snacks/other foods and wandered around town for a bit before Jenn had to get back to work and Jacqui and I found a place to eat lunch. It was a good lunch, the fries at this place were much better than the burger though, and it took a long time for them to bring our checks, so there was a long line at the pier to get back on the ship. That’s the worst thing about tender ports, crew all-aboard is 30 minutes prior to guest all-aboard, but we can’t get in front of guests in line to get on the right tender. At least we made it on the right tender, but I had to run to the room to change and run upstairs to the Crow’s Nest for sailaway party. Not many people were there (why would they be, they didn’t have to be back on a tender for another 30 minutes!) but I found Donna and we mingled with some guests together for 20 minutes before we had to leave to set up for Kids in the Kitchen. I barely had time to help because I had to be in the Loft with the teens there. Carly and Donna did save me a strawberry though! :)

A few of the teens came and we played MarioKart until they had to leave to get ready for dinner. I started working on a puzzle that was in the Loft and worked on that until time for dinner. Dinner was extremely unsatisfactory. None of the meat looked remotely good, even ignoring the fact that it wasn’t food that I would ever choose to eat anyway. I had watermelon soup (really watermelon-flavored water, not up to the normal fruit-soup standards), a few rolls and an apple. Thank goodness for snack in Club HAL!

After dinner, I fiddled around the room for a bit until my cabin steward came by to give me sheets, then I went up to Club HAL to help Carly for a while. I went to the Loft at 8 for half an hour. When none of the teens showed up by then, I put a sign up on the door saying to come get me in the kids room and went to help out Carly. We had them make their “All about me” sheets and were about to start their handprint wall of fame when all the parents came. All the kids were gone by 9, so we cleaned up, checked to see the kid count for next week (13 teens and 11 kids), checked to see what new crew is coming in Quebec and next Boston, then decided we’d waited long enough. None of the teens had come, so Carly just had me lock up and we went downstairs to play Skip-Bo in the OB. It was hour forward night, so not many people were out, but we did get one of the spa girls to play with us. Slowly this ship may be getting more active and fun.