never a dull moment

June 7, 2014
Never a dull moment on board the Zuiderdam! Katie found out on Wednesday that she was leaving in Ketchikan (Thursday) to join another ship for a week before her vacation, so it was a very busy Glacier Bay day with her packing and us all wanting to go take pictures outside and of course it basically being a sea day for us.
Ketchikan was a nice day. I slept in a bit before getting breakfast and killing some time hanging out in Club HAL with Jordan waiting for Carl to be ready so we could go to Burger Queen and get lunch (that’s the popular place for crew to get food here). We had a quick lunch ashore since he had to get back to the ship to work the afternoon shift. I wasn’t blown-away by the food, especially not the prices, so I’m still a bit confused about why that’s the most popular place for crew to get food. Maybe they haven’t found a better place, or maybe it’s just because they deliver wherever you ask them to in town? I now kind of want to take it upon myself to find another (cheaper, but good quality food) place to eat, there are plenty of places to choose from after all. Anyway, I came back to the ship when Carl did, so when Jordan was ready to go, we could wander around town with Ash (the DJ who’s leaving in Vancouver) and Ash’s fiancée.
Again, never a dull moment here, Jordan found out while taking the kids to lunch today that he’s being transferred to the Oosterdam in Vancouver for three weeks. I feel like this is going to be a repeat of January/February on the Nieuw A- never the same staff or YPC for more than 2 weeks in a row.
We wandered around town, just kind of seeing what’s there since none of us had really been there before (I had, but only twice and those were very short days where we only got food). Now at least, we know that there isn’t a lot to do here aside from shop and eat. We stopped at a café and hung out chatting for a while since we weren’t entirely ready to head back and we still had a few hours before all aboard.
My tweens have been great this week, wilder than I’m used to, but they’re really fun kids, and most always excited to do whatever activity is on the schedule. There were a few that came Ketchikan night that only wanted to play xbox, and Carl said it was okay, which was a bit frustrating since all the other kids wanted to know why they couldn’t just play xbox too. However, it makes me happy that a few activities into the theme night, all the tweens in the room were on a team and participating, abandoning their xbox games. I really think half of their obsession is parents influence, the parent tells the kid the activities aren’t fun, and the kid believes them so thinks the only age-appropriate thing to do is play video games. I was very happy when the parents came to pick them up and were surprised to see them participating in the games I was running!
Anyway, the week ended off well with a sea day, none of the kids showed up for the first hour of the morning session (probably because it was hour forward, but it was kind of nice regardless, I love working with the kids, but sometimes it’s difficult first thing in the morning). The rest of the day went smoothly, the weather was nice so we got to go outside to the sports deck (it was raining the other times we were supposed to go), and we all managed to stay on track with the schedule! After afternoon programming ended, I ended up hanging out in the Loft and teaching the teens and Jordan how to make friendship bracelets until about dinnertime. I’m not avoiding my room, I promise, I just haven’t spent more than 30 minutes in it between leaving in the morning and coming back at night every day; too much other stuff to do around here. 