fun times in Monaco

July 28, 2013: Monaco
I had to help with tendering this morning again. So early. It wasn’t too bad though, we basically just sent everyone straight down to a tender as they got their number, so we were at open tender by 9:30 again! I like that part. Linda and I had breakfast, then we got off and went to the aquarium and oceanic museum that we’d seen last time. That was fun, we spent a lot of time there, taking pictures of the fish, reading about them and stuff.

It was a fun time. By the time we left, it was past lunchtime and we were extremely hungry, so we found a somewhat cheap restaurant and got sandwiches and had a quick lunch before going to a supermarket. Linda needed “snacks to share” for a party tonight, and we ended up finding a lot of good stuff in the supermarket. I managed to finally find some Dr. Pepper!!!

It was interesting getting back to the ship. Getting on the tender was fine, but it was really rocky as we made our way to the ship; we had fun and got a bit splashed in the process. But, when we got close to the ship is when it got more interesting. We had to make about 5 tries to get close enough to the ship for them to tie us to it, and after those 5 we had to make another few attempts before we got the back of the tender securely fastened to the ship. Then, we discovered how incredibly rocky it was. We kept slamming against the platform, hearing cracks as the tender hit metal rings, the water level kept going way down then way back up and we kept going somewhat far away from the platform before quickly slamming back against it. It took at least 15 minutes to get everyone off. They basically picked me up and handed me to the people on the platform because they were worried I might fall in I guess. (There were two people on the tender helping people get over, and two on the platform). It was a fun adventure! :)

I went through my pictures and deleted the many many blurry ones (the light was bad in the tanks in the aquarium) until dinner. We had Tamarind tonight because it’s Jenny’s birthday. I enjoyed it; I still think my favorite part of the meal is the crackers and sauce they give us at the start though.
Tonight in the Loft it was Improv night. We let them hang out and chat for about 45 minutes to see if anyone else would come, then started with Random Lines. We ended up doing Random Lines for an hour or so, then snack arrived so we took a break for that. No one seemed really to want to do anything else, so we gave up on the idea of charades and let them talk. They all left by 11, so Jenny and I cleaned up some, then played MarioKart. A few came back around 11:30 and stayed for a few minutes before leaving again, but that was it. Kind of nice for us because it meant we could close up a little bit early. Livorno tomorrow; Linda and James are both IPM so I’m probably just going to get off for a little while and get internet.

back in France again!

July 27, 2013: Marseille
I had breakfast before going back to the room to change so James and I could go to Marseille after his drill. He didn’t have a lot of time because it was formal night and he had to set up to take formal pictures early, but we wandered around for a while, got some lunch, and did some shopping before coming back to the ship. Sometimes even if it’s not for long, it’s just nice to be away for a bit. I finally got a rug for my room so I don’t have to step onto the cold floor first thing every morning!

Once back on the ship, I decided it was time to upload pictures, so I spent an hour of my internet card talking to Mom while pictures loaded. Lots of pictures! It was nice though, I avoided thinking about how much that time online cost me.

Work tonight was fun. The teens hung out for a while to see if any more would show up to make the boys and girls teams even for our Gender Wars night. Trivia questions were interesting, one of the boys actually knew a lot of them, and the girls knew absolutely nothing about most sports or cars. Going through all those questions took a lot of time, so we had snack once we got through them all, then moved on to Balderdash. A lot of them left during that because they have to be up early for excursions tomorrow, so for the last hour we had a very small, some played Xbox and the rest played MarioKart, not such a bad night! :)

Barcelona embark day

July 26, 2013: embark Barcelona
I got to breakfast just in time this morning, it was 9:30 and they were already closing because it was embark day (I’d forgotten it was embark day, thank goodness I wasn’t any later). It was kind of funny actually, I got there and ordered a waffle and then they closed the curtain for the line next to where I was standing. So, I stood around next to the closed counter for them to finish making my waffle; I’m glad they seem to like me in the kitchens because they could’ve just refused to make me one since they were closing up breakfast.

After eating my really good waffle (freshly made, just for me, haha), I went back to the room to wait until lunch then Open House. I met Miranda, one of the two new Club HALs at lunch. It was a quiet first hour of open house, I think people had just started getting on the ship. The next two hours though were busy. I kept going back and forth between talking to teens who’d walked in, answering questions from parents, and writing the Club HAL room phone numbers down on the registration forms. It was nonstop until we closed at 3. We had a short meeting, then Leah and I took the wristbands down and waited for the drill. Some of the officers and boat commanders ended up kind of doing my job for me during the drill; I’m supposed to check and make sure all the kids have the correct color wristband with the correct boat number on it, and give them one if it’s incorrect or if they don’t have one. The boat commanders actually did the searching part for me, so I just had to give wristbands to the kids they pointed out to me. After that, I was free until the Entertainment Department meeting at 5:45. There’s a ‘new’ EM now, she was here, but left for vacation and it seems like everyone that knew her before this loves her as an EM. That’s a good sign. The meeting was basically the same old stuff that doesn’t really apply at all to Club HAL, but it was short so we got a nice length dinner. I just read after dinner before going up to the Loft early.

The Loft tonight was busy. There’s over 150 teens on board, and I think we saw around half of them. The first night is always a bit awkward, a bit more so this time because Jenny (the other new Club HAL) has never worked with the teens before, so she was just following along with what I did. I had a few games of Apples to Apples going on until they got tired of that. The second group had started playing MarioKart, so my group ended up talking for a while. It was kind of odd, I’d ask them questions and they’d hesitate to answer, then ask me. They seemed very interested in my life, but I did get them talking to each other eventually. We played “Move Your Booty” for an hour before “Two Truths and a Lie.” By the time we got through with that, it was much less awkward and snack had arrived. So, it was a much easier night after that. I sat and chatted with some Canadians about French and travelling, and got a group chat going on. Slowly they all left, most still pretty jet-lagged, so Jenny and I cleaned up and got to leave a bit early.

Barcelona

July 25, 2013: Barcelona
It was a bizarre day. My head was still hurting from yesterday but I went up to breakfast in an effort to find anyone who might have plans I could join in on for the day, but no one was around. No one was around all day actually. I took my time getting ready after breakfast and started laundry when Kristin called, she had a bunch of kids and needed help getting them lunch and I was the only one still on the ship. So, I helped her and kids get through lunch. I finished my laundry and decided that I needed to get off the ship, even if my head was hurting and I had no one to get off with. So, I got off. I met a girl from Housekeeping getting off at the same time and she was all alone so we decided to band together and walk around for a bit. We took the shuttle to town then walked down Las Ramblas, looking at the stores and all the souvenir stuff they had. We didn’t even walk all the way down before we headed back; it’s a long street. I had dinner, then wandered around the ship for a bit before going back to the room to wait on Jessie to call me to tell me the plans for tonight, Ana’s last night on board. I never heard from her, so I ended up falling asleep. Early, boring night for me, but at least I felt better today than everyone else did!

stuck on the ship in Marseille :(

July 24, 2013: Marseille
I didn’t get off the ship today. We had a Child Safeguarding training at 1 and I wanted to sleep in a bit, so there wasn’t enough time to take the shuttle 20 minutes to town and 20 minutes back. Not fun. So, I ended up reading/sleeping most of the day. I had meals at least, but other than that I just read and slept until work. The training was basically common sense for those of us that work with kids: tell each other if a child is acting strangely, don’t let kids sit in our laps, use the rule of 3 for trips to the restrooms, etc. I bet it was kind of annoying to Security though, since most of the situations we were supposed to discuss in groups were Club HAL situations.

It was Pirate Night in the kids room! Fun and exciting times were had by all. It went well I think, we only had 6 which helped. We gave them face paint, had them make a sign and hats, made a treasure map of our own, read a story, then went off on our treasure hunt because the awful Pirate Pete (from the story) had stolen our treasure chest when we weren’t looking! It was a short treasure hunt but they loved it anyway. They all behaved as well, which is odd but great!

long but nice day in Monaco

July 23, 2013: Monaco
I had to be up really early to help with tendering this morning. I got to stand at the stairs and collect tender tickets. Surprisingly it went really smoothly. There was no wait except for right at the beginning when a few shore excursions went off at once, and then it was only a short wait. So, since everyone was just getting a ticket and walking straight on to the tender, we were discussing going into open tender at 9 (we started giving out tender tickets at 8). At 9:10 they made the announcement for open tender, I had to stay at the stairs for a few extra minutes to collect the rest of the tickets but then I got to go up and have breakfast with Linda. Breakfast was nice and relaxing, I felt like I’d already been productive and that it was going to be a great day!

After breakfast, we went down to change, met up with James and got off the ship to explore. We walked up lots of stairs to a garden and palace. There were some pretty views and we got to see another ship come in from there (they were docking which is why we had to tender). We took a lot of pictures around the garden, of the view from the wall, of the buildings around, of the random statues in the garden, etc. It was fun. We started to get hungry so wandered more into town to see what was there; we happened to catch the last bit of the changing of the guards. We were wandering around up there and I ended up buying a laptop bag like the Paris bag I bought two years ago; I’d accidently left mine at home so have been using my bookbag to carry around my laptop on days when I carried it out with me. All the restaurants there were kind of expensive, so we made our way back down the hill closer to the marina. Linda remembered a meeting she was supposed to attend, so went back to the ship leaving me and James to find lunch. We found a place to eat and I had a crepe (yum!). It was a bit funny because James hasn’t heard me speak French much, so he was a somewhat surprised when I talked to the waitress.

We got back to the ship and I didn’t do much until dinner. Right after dinner we had Kids in the Kitchen, so we met the kids at Slice (the pizza area on the back deck of the Lido) and they put together their own pizza. Only 5 of our kids showed up, but 20 of the tweens were there. We gave the kids some free time when we got up to Club HAL, then started Olympic Night. April and I didn’t want to spend the whole night outside, so we had them get into teams and decorate flags, come up with a secret handshake and song, then we talked about favorite sports for a while before going outside. Once on the Sports Deck we discovered that it was pretty windy. We played a few games out there anyway: an obstacle course, races, relays, sharks & minnows, etc. Finally things just got a bit hectic and it didn’t seem like anyone was having much fun anymore so we headed back downstairs to play 4 corners.

I was on after-hours duty tonight. It wasn’t so bad, three boys played Super Mario Bros, one of my kids was there for a little while and we bounced a balloon around, then two more came and they watched a movie until one of them decided she didn’t want to watch a movie so we went through 4 or 5 different games before her parents came. Not so bad of a night, but I am so tired, I was up before 7 this morning, and now it’s after midnight!

sunny day in Livorno!

July 22, 2013: Livorno
Today was a great, simple day! I had a lazy morning; got up and ready, had breakfast, took a nap then went out to Livorno with James. We walked around, he exchanged some money and I found an ATM to take money out. After that, we found a pizzeria and had lunch before walking around some more. It was nice not to have anything really to do and just hang out and enjoy being in Italy with no definite plans.

I came back, attempted to tackle the 300 pictures from Pompeii but ended up taking a nap until dinner, I dreamed about finding Dr. Pepper in a port and bringing a case back to the ship. Yeah, there are some very simple things I miss, drinking carbonated drinks other than Sprite and Fanta.

Dinner was quick and then it was off to work. Free time was interesting tonight. I think the kids are getting bored with coloring posters for the theme every night; they were at least excited about making puppets with paper bags. Finally we got to start our second movie night. We still haven’t gotten cups for our snacks, which is a very big problem with 300 kids on board. After one bag of popcorn, all the kids were asking for water, so we decided just to pause the movie and take them down to the Lido for water. After all that, most of them didn’t even finish one glass of water. Once we got back to Club HAL, they were all worked up and wouldn’t sit still at all, we kept having to tell them to sit down, stop talking, stop asking us what we’re doing after the movie, etc. Most of them got picked up before the movie ended, which was nice

unproductivity

July 21, 2013: Civitavecchia
I had an extremely unproductive day today. I had breakfast and intended to go out and maybe get some internet or at least lunch, but I ended up going back to bed and staying there most of the day, I think yesterday just tired me out. Most of Club HAL had gotten excursions to Rome, so I didn’t have anyone to go out with either, so that added to my lack of motivation.

Tonight was our “un-birthday” party. We had them decorate hats, kept a balloon in the air, played musical chairs, decorated a ‘cake,’ decorated signs for birthday 4 corners, then played 4 corners. A rather successful night. It was definitely more successful tonight than it was with the tweens last cruise! This is one theme night definitely designed more for the little ones

POMPEII!

July 20, 2013: Naples
I went to Pompeii today!

I slept in this morning, had a nice breakfast with a few of the HAL Cats, James, and Linda, then changed and walked around for a bit before the crew excursion at 1! I didn’t know who was going, but I was happy to find Jessie and Voirry on the bus! Jessie and I caught up on the bus ride since we somehow haven’t seen one another this cruise. I was so excited when we got there that I was jumping around.

It was a good tour, it was a guided tour and I was pretty amazed at how much stuff he had memorized. I learned so much through the whole tour, and I wasn’t paying attention half the time because I was walking around and taking pictures as well. I can now say I’ve drunken water from Pompeii, Jessie brought a water bottle which we shared and filled up in the drinking fountains along the way. We saw both theatres, the bathing areas, houses, shops, temples to gods, and so much more. One of the main things I remember learning was that Vesuvius is exactly north of Pompeii, and they built their roads straight East to West or North to South. It was very surreal in some ways, realizing I was walking the same streets as so many did who were killed by a volcano erupting, stepping in the ruins of their treasured homes, the decorated public areas (some of which the decorations partially remain). It was kind of creepy in a way, but really cool and educational at the same time. Makes you think how quickly things change; they weren’t expecting a volcano, they were going on with their daily lives, and yet within a day everyone was killed by the eruption.

I came back, showered and took a nap before dinner and work. Tonight was ‘games galore’ night, so we had a list of games we could play with them. We played ickle bickle for a while, where’s my shoe, river bank, made an attempt at playing Sorry, and of course we had to play the crowd favorite: 4 corners. Pretty easy night, it helped that only 4 of them showed up!

sea day

July 19, 2013: Sea day
Just another day at sea. I wonder how many days I’ve spent at sea by now. 4 a cruise on the Zuiderdam, quite a lot on the Maasdam, around 8 on the Oosterdam, 5 on the Veendam… Anyway, sea days never really change: working 9-11:30, 1-4 and 7-10. Hardly enough time between sessions to do anything.

It was a pretty quiet morning at first with only 3 kids there, for all three English is not their 1st language. After our first 4 activities, another few kids came in and it got a bit more hectic, suddenly none of them wanted to do the activities planned.

We tried to avoid going to the Sports Deck in the afternoon, but our numbers kept increasing so we ended up having to go up. It was extremely hot out, with hardly any wind to help cool it off. After about 15 minutes, half the group was sitting on the sidelines watching and waiting for time to go back in for water and ice cream. Going to the lido with 11 little kids is a bit frustrating I discovered. I stayed with them and started to get waters for them all while April took orders and then went to get the ice cream. They didn’t seem to understand that I couldn’t fill up the glasses any quicker, so they had to wait to get water, then they had to wait to get seconds of water until everyone had a glass. Then April came with half the ice creams and went to go get the rest and I had to deal with some complaining that April only brought vanilla. I was happy when we finally got everything sorted out and they all stopped asking me for everything. It was a very long afternoon

The good thing about today was that it was movie night! We made a movies poster for them to color during free time, then we passed out popcorn before starting Brave. We had a few accidents with spilling bags of popcorn and half-full cups of water so had to stop the movie a few times. After a while they seemed to get bored of the movie and kept talking, and walking around. We had to stop the movie for a few minutes then to get everyone calmed down again. At least it was calmer than this afternoon

port day in Corfu

July 18, 2013: Corfu, Greece

I was very grateful when Ryan told me yesterday that he’d made a mistake on our schedule. We didn’t arrive until 9 and he’d put me working port day at 8. Extra 30 minutes of sleep for me; of course, it was hour forward as well, blech. I had breakfast then went up for the day in the tween room. One of my kids came up right at 9, left at 10 immediately thereafter two of the tweens came, followed by a few more of the tweens. All was good until lunch, they played video games the whole morning. Two of the kids joined us during lunch, they’d already eaten even though it was only 12, so they had to sit and were bored while the rest of us ate. Needless to say, I didn’t get to eat a lot because I was looking after 8 of them. After lunch, most of them played some version of house for a while around the taxi and I played Uno with the others, then they begged to go to the Sports Deck, but the second we got outside, one had to go to the bathroom, another had forgotten sunglasses, and the rest wanted water, so we went back to the Lido for water before staying in Club HAL the rest of the afternoon. It was a long afternoon, add to that the fact that one of the parents didn’t come until 4:20. I was exhausted so went right to the room and attempted to take a nap until dinner. Hopefully no one else has to do after-hours the night before their port day on an hour-forward night, it’s not fun.

In the kids room, it was Under the Sea night. We made it fun instead of just tons of crafts. After they played sea charades (difficult when half the group doesn’t know English), and made fingerprint-scaled fish, we went up to the Sports Deck and did some fish-y relay races (crawl like a sea turtle, hop like a mermaid, crab walk, etc). Then we decorated fish with sequins and googly-eyes. I was glad that took a long time and we had just enough time only to play 4 Corners/Fishes. Parents came then to pick them up so April and I were pretty happy. Sea day tomorrow, it’s our last one for 12 days!

Kotor, Montenegro

July 17, 2013: Montenegro
Cabin inspections were supposedly this morning, so I went up to the Lido to have breakfast with James and Linda so we wouldn’t have to be in the room to deal with that (they say we can be in our rooms, but not on the bed; other than the bathroom, where else can we be other than on the bed!?!). I signed up for the crew excursion to Pompeii and hung out on deck 3 for a bit, admiring how pretty it is here, then went back to the room and took a nap until 11. It was tendering today and Jessie told me at breakfast that it was a long tender ride because we anchored very far away for some reason, so I didn’t really feel like I had to get off the ship today (I’ll be back a few more times before the end of my contract). Instead, I did laundry and watched a movie with James.

I wasn’t very hungry at dinner because I’d had a late lunch after my laundry finished, but I had a small dinner before going up to work. It was alien night, so during free time April painted faces and I helped color in the sign we’d made for the kids to decorate. It was a pretty good night; we made rockets, built our own alien, and played 4 planets (they really really love 4 corners, so we now play it every chance we get).
It was my turn to work after-hours, so at 10 instead of leaving I moved to the tween room. Five kids stayed, four played video games for a while and I put on a movie for the other one. After a while, all 5 were watching the movie, that one ended (I started it where they’d left off last night) so we started to finish another one they’d started the other day. Not too hard of a night, they were all quiet and sleepy.

Old Town in Dubrovnik, Croatia

July 16, 2013: Dubrovnik
The Captain changed our arrival time last night from 11am to 12:45 pm, so instead of closing Club HAL early and reopening for port day, we went through with normal sea morning hours. This also meant that we had to make sure to tell parents the new schedule every time anyone came in. It was a kind of hectic morning, not helped by the fact that I’d set my alarm thinking (for some odd reason) that I didn’t have anything to do until 10 instead of 9. This morning we played games on the Wii, played Red Light Green Light on the sports deck, did some puzzles, and played Memory.

After work, I decided to wait a bit before going to lunch, so I went to the room and took time to actually get ready (since I’d been in a rush this morning), then went to lunch about the time everyone started to get off the ship, so the Lido wasn’t nearly as full as it had been at 11:30.

After lunch, I checked on April to see how things were in port day, then hung out for a bit until James and Fruzsi (another photographer, she knows Anett who was on the Maasdam with me last fall!) were ready to go out. We went to Old Town and checked to see how much/how long the cable car took, it was a bit more money that I had at the moment and it took a while, Fruzsi went up since it she leaves in Barcelona and it’s her last chance, while James and I walked around Old Town, exploring and taking a few pictures. It was a nice, relaxing afternoon.

It was sports night in Club HAL, so we just took all the kids and tweens upstairs after free time and snack and just played games up there. It was a bit difficult because none of the older kids wanted to play what the little kids wanted to play, and the little kids were just running around.

I'm free again!

July 15, 2013: Venice
I got cleared a little after 10, but breakfast was already closed, so I ended up just staying in the room waiting for Meghna to get back since she was cleared about the same time as me. She finally came back and we talked about how boring it was being isolated, then went up for lunch. I was a bit overwhelmed when I got to the Lido: people, natural light, noise, open space, food! One of my tweens from last week who’s staying on for this cruise too came up to me and hugged me. That startled me a bit, but I recovered and she told me about how she fell in the Canal this morning. I had a nice lunch (much better than all that room service!), then went up to work. I was still a bit disoriented because I don’t know this kids room very well, and because I’d been stuck in a small room for the last 24 hours; I accidently kept running into walls. April and I had about 10 kids show up, one was a bit frustrating because she hit the other kids, and refused to do anything we asked, we had to talk to her parents when they came, she may not come again. The others were great though, some are related and they’re from all over: North Carolina, Australia, Denmark, Sweden and Ukraine. It’s interesting working with these younger ones because about half of them don’t speak English or don’t speak it well. It’s going to be a very strange week. They all had fun at least!

I took a nap during my break (all that lying about yesterday made me tired today), then I went up to the Queen’s Lounge to help decorate for the Venetian Ball tonight. Lots of tying of balloons, I got a cut on my thumb from tying up so many. Then we had to put them up everywhere. I was given the task of standing on tables and attaching them to the ceiling (because we knew the table wouldn’t break with my weight). By the time we finished (it was me, Ryan and two of the beverage staff who came to help us actually put the balloons on the walls/ceiling; other people were supposed to help, but no one showed up) it was already nearly 7 and I hadn’t eaten, so Ryan let me be late for work in order to get some food. I ate a small meal really quickly; I felt bad because April had already been alone with the kids yesterday. Camp Night was successful. We had them decorate a sign during free time, then we had them make bears, went on a bear hunt, then took them to show off their masks at the Venetian Ball (where we discovered that they all like to dance), then came back to Club HAL and played dancing 4 Corners. We had them dance to the music for a while, then turned it off, closed our eyes, counted to 5 and then chose a corner. They all really enjoyed that and didn’t want to stop even when their parents came.

embark day and isolation

July 14, 2013: Venice
Meghna was up early this morning because she was sick. While I went to the entertainment department meeting at 10:15, she went to the Medical Center. I got back to the room and immediately got a call from the crew doctor saying that Meghna’s been quarantined in the infirmary and I’ve been isolated for 24 hours. So, tomorrow at 10, they’re going to call to check if I’ve shown any symptoms; if not, then I’m free. But what am I to do until then?! It’s been less than an hour and I’m already bored. The TV in our room doesn’t work, and I only have a few movies on my computer that people have lent me. I guess it’s going to be a day of sleeping now.

It’s the first day of the cruise too, so Club HAL is down two staff for Open House and the first night. This also means that I can’t get off the ship at all this time in Venice, because all aboard will probably be 11 tomorrow which would only give me an hour once I’m cleared to leave the room.

The day was pretty boring. I slept, watched a few movies, stared at the wall, got room service, talked to people on the ship’s phone, and wasted about half of the remaining time on my internet card. Not a fan of being isolated.

another sea day

July 13, 2013: Sea day
Sea days seem so different here, especially as the last day of the cruise. This morning was relatively quiet. Only a few kids came, but they were all very awake. We played some board games, UNO and a few other things; we couldn’t go up to the Sports Deck because it was being cleaned, a few of the tweens were upset by that, but they were happier when I told them we were going up this afternoon as well.

After a quick lunch it was back to work. This afternoon dragged on a bit. Nothing too exciting happened. A lot more of the kids came, which was odd because it was a nice day to be in the pool. We played lots of games, went up to the Sports Deck, and wrote some Thank You letters. That last was pretty entertaining. Ryan had messed up with the scheduling and we’d written Letters to the Captain on the first day, and he had it on the schedule again today, so we changed it to thank you letters. We told them they could write it to anyone they wanted: their parents for taking them on the cruise, their room steward, their waiter, anyone. It was fun to see who they actually wrote to. A few wrote notes to us, a lot wrote notes to Dave (the Cruise Director), and one girl wrote to someone very different: “Emma’s Mum and Dad.” So, that’s on my wall right now for you until I get home, haha. :)

I read for a while, then took a nap until nearly time for dinner. I went up a little early and ate with James during his break before the long last-night-of-the-cruise-picture-buying-rush in the photo gallery.

Pajamarama party was fun. It was a bit crazy during free time because some weren’t there for long and they all wanted to play one of the same three games (Super Mario Bros, Lego Star Wars, and Forsa Motorsports have been extremely popular this cruise). Snack arrived and we gave it out, then talked about the cruise: their favorite things in general, favorite ports, cool stuff they did, and stuff they bought. After that, we put in Madagascar for them to watch while we put together all their crafts to take home and started putting up the names for the tweens here next week. Pretty easy night.

Argostoli

July 12, 2013: Argostoli, Greece
Another late arrival day. We had the usual morning programming, until 11 at least, and then started port day even though we didn’t get there until about 11:45. So, after 11, I was free. I went back to the room and read for a while before going to the Lido for lunch. Jessie was at lunch, I hadn’t seen her since Istanbul so it was good to hang out some again. Because it was a late arrival, she had work to do this afternoon. The rest of Club HAL had disappeared so I decided I’d complete the training that I’d supposedly not done yet, then get off and find internet since I hadn’t been online for an extended period of time since Naples. I stayed a while at lunch, not wanting to go all the way to the training room, then finally got motivated enough to go. Once I got there however, I found out that I’d already done the training, so I just needed to tell the HRM that it was done. Awesome! I went back to the room and got ready to go ashore. Just as I was about to head to the gangway, my phone rang. Jessie had finished work and was given permission to get off! So, we ventured out together to find some internet and reconnect with the rest of the world. It was nice, but next time we’re definitely going to the beach! We found a café and got Sprites and cheese croquets (mozzarella sticks in ball form). It was a nice afternoon, just relaxing and talking to Mom for a while.

I didn’t do much the rest of the afternoon and had a light dinner before work. It was “Brave the Night,” so we went up a little bit early to plan out our activities. The kids were skeptical about it at first, but then they got really into it, especially after we told them they could choose their own groups. Because the last few nights had gotten a little out of hand with the tweens not listening to us, we added a “because we can” section to the scoreboard. The threat of losing points for talking over us kept them quiet for most of the night. They all had so much fun, no one wanted to leave, and we didn’t even finish everything we’d planned to do!

It was formal night, so Meghna and I changed and caught the last few minutes of the show. Jessie and Voirry found us there and we all went up to late night since the three of them had missed dinner. After that, we walked through the Northern Lights to see if anyone was there, but they weren’t so I left to change and Meghna went straight to the OB. It wasn’t very crowded at first, especially considering it was hour back and formal night, but more people slowly came, I got tired though and left early, glad for that extra hour of sleep before a sea day!

Santorini

July 11, 2013: Santorini
I had breakfast with Linda this morning and then went back to bed to wait for Open Tender. It wasn’t a long wait, but Linda had to reboot the lighting system in the showroom so we didn’t get off for a while. Santorini apparently doesn’t like ships to use their own tenders, so we got to ride in their comfortable, bigger ones. It was a short ride, then we had to take the cable car (or a donkey, which was more expensive, at least for crew) up to the top where the town was. It’s a pretty cool town, we did some shopping, had some lunch, did some more shopping and photo-taking before deciding it was about time to head back down so we didn’t get in the crowd as all-aboard time got closer. Good thing too, because the line for the cable car was already 10 minutes long, and it was over an hour before last crew tender!


I didn’t really do much until dinner. Club HAL theme night was Improv. Some of the kids were really into it, others weren’t. The ones that weren’t were extremely disruptive and then complained about us not doing anything; we weren’t doing anything because they weren’t letting us explain the activity. It was a somewhat frustrating night. After the first two activities (we ended up only doing three), most of the disruptive ones had left, so the last activity (random lines, a good one anyway) went smoothly and they all loved it! We even got the ‘audience’ to stay in their seats and watch instead of scream out ideas and stuff.

movie day

July 10, 2013: Kusadasi
We had a General Emergency Drill this morning at 10:30, so a lot of people were at breakfast today, making sure they were up in time for it. After the drill, most everyone I knew left for a crew excursion (which I knew nothing about until this morning). James had IPM today, so we ended up watching a few movies together since I didn’t really want to get off alone. He had to go to work at 5, so I came back to the room and went through some more of my pictures until dinnertime.

Club HAL tonight was easy, it was movie night. Once we got everyone settled and heard quiet for the first time since the cruise started, Leah and I started working on writing letters to all the kids that have come. We get creative with the decorations on these letters, so we decorated while they all watched Wreck-It Ralph. We finished most of them, which is nice because it lets us do other things over the next few days.
I went up to the OB because Linda insisted I come hang out with her because it’s one of the techies’ birthdays and she didn’t really want to spend her whole time up there with them. So Linda, James and I hung out and chatted until I decided it was time for me to head to bed, even though it’s tendering tomorrow and I don’t have to do anything until 7pm.

Late arrival + tender port = angry guests and no crew shore leave

July 9, 2013: Lesbos

Today was by far one of the longest days I’ve had on ships. I had a quick breakfast before Kids in the Kitchen at 9 this morning, then we went up to Club HAL for the two hours remaining of sea morning activities. The kids were all a bit crazy, they didn’t want to do anything other than play Wii. We did at least manage to get them to half-heartedly play scattegories and decorate picture frames.

Right after we finished our sea morning at 11:30, I had to go down to the Entertainment Office to help with tendering. There were four of us: Meghna, Brittany the librarian, Santana the party planner, and me. Meghna went downstairs with an easter basket to collect the tickets while the rest of us went to the Queen’s Lounge to give out the tickets. We weren’t even anchored yet and we weren’t even scheduled to be anchored until 12, but there was a giant mob waiting in the Queen’s Lounge when we arrived. As soon as we got to the table and tried to put order to the madness reigning around us, and start giving out the tickets, everyone began to crowd forward, pushing the table into us so we almost ended up falling over onto the stage behind us. It was crazy. We gave out all the blue tickets in the first 15 minutes, and had to start giving out the reds right away because there were still too many people in there waiting. At this point, they hadn’t even started tendering! They finally called a group down, and we soon ran out of red tickets as well. Brittany had to run downstairs to get the basket and some of the blue tickets so we could start giving out another group of blue tickets. That was confusing, because they were still calling the high blue numbers and we were giving out the low blue numbers again. The flow of people coming to get tickets never really slowed down until around 1. At that point, the Queen’s Lounge was full of people waiting for their number to get called, and it was at least a 45 minute wait to get on the tender after tickets were given out. So much insanity. There were a bunch of guests that came up to the three of us to get us to do something to make everything go faster, or to complain about the wait, or to tell us that this is appalling and they’re never cruising with HAL again. I was seriously about to cry, because these people were screaming at us while others were still trying to get tickets. That caused the people getting the tickets to ask questions, get frustrated and start yelling at us as well. My go-to line for this situation is now: They just told me to come hand out tickets, I have no idea what goes on downstairs or with the tenders, they don’t tell us anything. About half the time it calms people down, and it also means I don’t burst into tears while they’re screaming at me.

We went through all the blues and reds three times before Open Tender was finally announced at 2:30. No crew shore leave though, after all that craziness I don’t think anyone really wanted to risk going ashore and dealing with the line to get back. I can’t even imagine how crazy it must’ve been for guests to board the tenders to get back to the ship. At least ashore security is there, in uniform, which generally makes people not act so crazy, mean and childish. We were supposed to leave at 5:30, but when I left dinner to go up to Club HAL at 6:45, we were still not moving. Insanity. There’s talk that we won’t stop there again. As much work as sea days are, I’d much prefer a sea day to repeating that.

After we finally got to leave the Queen’s Lounge, the four of us returned the stuff to the entertainment office and talked with Dave (cruise director) for a while. He had a bottle of champagne left over from The Marriage Game the other night, so he opened it, someone got glasses and we split the bottle to celebrate our survival of the madness. We sat there for about half an hour, recovering before we all went our separate ways. I came back to the room, watched a movie and then took a nap before dinner.

Tonight in Club HAL wasn’t quite as much insanity as the afternoon was, but it was pretty hectic. Free time was fine, all the boys who’d been complaining about not playing Super Mario Bros this morning got to play it tonight, and I played Skip-Bo with a bunch of the girls. After snack, when our Olympic Night started, that’s when things got crazy. We had 25 there, 10 of them boys, so to make it fair, we decided on groups of 5 with 2 boys per team. That didn’t go over well, the boys wanted to be one team against all the girls. After a few minutes of them arguing with Leah over that (I’d been cleaning up snack), it was too loud for me to even hear myself, so I got their attention, then just took over in organizing the groups since they weren’t doing it themselves. I yelled for two boys to come see me, then three girls, then I told them to go sit as a group and get to know their teammates. It was much quicker and there was less resistance than letting them choose their own groups. Finally we made it to the Sports Deck. Once we were there, we had to spend a few minutes putting them BACK into their groups, and then adding the little kids to the groups. I’d lost my loud voice by then, so Meghna had to take over (Leah is pretty soft-spoken as well, and Betty was taking one of the kids to the room to call their parents because she felt sick). The first activity was the human knot, which was confusing because the older kids all knew how to do it (we’d done it a few nights ago), but the younger ones didn’t understand. So, it ended up two groups finished untangling before another two groups had even created their knot. We kind of ignored that fact and went on to free throws. I was under the basketball net to make sure each kid got it in before running back to pass the ball to the next member of their group. The little kids had a hard time with it, so I gave them the rule that all they had to do was hit the net, not necessarily get a basket. That helped make it even. Slowly more and more of the tween boys dropped out, and other kids got picked up, so for hula hoop relays, I stayed on the sides and entertained the kids that were sitting out. Thank goodness it was almost time to go by then, we just played a circle clapping game, and bounced a tennis ball to each other. I think all of us counselors were very thankful when it was time to head downstairs to wait for the rest of the parents. I was absolutely exhausted from today. Hopefully Seattle approves the Captains decision to make it a sea day instead of repeating this crazy tendering again!

working port day in Istanbul

July 8, 2013: Istanbul
It was my port day today, so no getting off the ship. I had to wake up early because one of the families had an excursion at 8 and had asked if it was okay to drop their kids off early so they could make sure to get there on time. Being at work at 7:45 was weird, there was a surprisingly large number of people in the Lido as I ran through to grab a yogurt and milk to take upstairs. I guess everyone wanted to take advantage of as much time as they could in Istanbul. The two kids were the only ones there for the first two hours, we watched Winnie the Pooh and Monsters Inc. I actually almost fell asleep a few times in both of them, so I got out Lego Star Wars to play to keep my mind occupied.

A few other kids came before lunch, so I had a few to get food with. Thank goodness they all wanted pizza so we didn’t have to run back and forth between midship and Aft to get burgers/hotdogs AND pizza! That was actually the quickest lunch I’ve had on a port day with kids. We were back in Club HAL and back to our games by 12:45. It was a fairly quiet time for a while with the kids playing Lego Star Wars, Connect 4 and just playing in the taxi. As the afternoon wore on, more kids came until I had around 15. I feel kind of bad, but I was really glad it was mostly tweens there, because they’re so much easier to deal with on port days, they know exactly what they want to do or else they’re find playing Wii, Xbox or cards! It’s more difficult with the littles on port days because it’s just free time, and they don’t like to do anything for more than a few minutes and don’t know what to do until you give them a few games to play and they decide they like a game you don’t have out.

I was extremely exhausted by the time 4 came around, so I went straight to the room and to bed. When my alarm went off at 6, it scared me. I’d been sleeping so deeply I hadn’t heard Meghna get up and leave and it felt like it should be 6am. It was weird going to dinner just having woken up, but I managed to find some fruit to eat before going up to work.

Tonight’s theme was Games Galore. Leah had actually only ever done Games Galore as a board game night, but I’d had the kids make up their own. We ended up letting them get into groups and making up their own game. Oddly enough, none of the boys complained about it, they were all pretty into making their own game, as simple as some of theirs might be. Of course, most of the girls were very into it, asking me to give extra time so they could finish decorating their board. All of them turned out pretty good, some much more complicated than others, but all in all unique. With only half an hour left, we let them play one of their favorite games- Ickle Bickle (kind of like sardines, but there’s a little lego person you hide that they find, then return to their seat once they’ve found him).

Istanbul

July 7, 2013: Sea day/Istanbul
Happily, it was a quiet morning, only about 10 of our tweens showed up, and they were fairly content to follow the schedule. We couldn’t go to the sports deck because it was too windy, so we ended up spending more time on Trivia and more Mad Libs instead. We ended up giving up on Adverteasers because all but one that showed up this morning was from Australia, and we discovered that they don’t have the same ad’s that we do, so they had no idea what I was talking about with some of the slogans.

After a quick lunch, we went back to it. More kids showed up this afternoon, so it was a bit hectic, again it was really windy, but we took them out to the Sports Deck for GagaBall anyway, partially so we could watch as we pulled into Istanbul. We did puzzles instead of more Trivia, because they’d gotten so bored and confused with the trivia this morning. We arrived to Istanbul early, so quite a few left as soon as we docked. That made it a bit calmer. None of them really wanted to learn to play Spoons, so we let them use the movie mats and bean bags to make forts and let them play in their forts for the last half hour.

I was off until tomorrow morning, so I waited for Jessie to call so we could get off and walk around together. Voirry didn’t get off until 5, so the three of us got off around 5:30 and took a taxi to the Old Town, where I’ve never felt so blonde. Voirry and Jessie are blonde as well, so we were a blonde trio walking around amongst many women with dark or covered hair. So much for my usual thing of blending in when I’m walking around exploring. I definitely can not achieve that here. I guess I hadn’t really thought much about where we were until I actually got off the ship and was walking around. In a way, it’s almost a tangible difference, but in another way, there’s not that much difference. Not everyone is dressed traditionally, I saw many women (not just tourists) in shorts and tank tops, but the majority are rather traditionally dressed, some more than others. But, despite the difference in style, walking around town is basically the same as any other place I’ve been (aside from the frequent looks/words about us being blonde). People go about doing their daily shopping, though it’s more markets than stores, and spend time as families in the parks.

We avoided the main square because Jessie and Voirry had been all but ordered by the Captain to not go there, because that’s where the protests have been happening. We did find a market, but not the Grand Bazaar, which was closed because it was Sunday. They bought some stuff, while I just took pictures of the mosque across the street, the stands in the market, and the vendors practicing their art. I was getting hungry by then, so we stopped at a restaurant and got some dinner for me, and a light snack for them since they were going back out later with some of the rest of Club HAL. Then, we headed back to the ship for them to pick up the others and for me to stay. I had made plans with James to hang out and watch a movie since he had IPM, and since I’m working port day tomorrow. We ended up watching Despicable Me because he hadn’t seen it!

Such a busy day, I feel like I did so much. I worked all morning and afternoon, wandered around Istanbul in the late afternoon and watched a movie in the evening.

Piraeus

July 6, 2013: Piraeus
I made plans to get off the ship with James and Meghna today, but we all kind of wanted to sleep in a bit. I ended up getting up somewhat early to get breakfast, then went back to bed for a while until Meghna was ready. I called James and the three of us got off around lunchtime. We didn’t really want to go to Athens today since we were only off for half a day, so we decided to walk around Piraeus. There’s not really any touristy things to do there, so we mostly wandered around, looked in shops, walked in a pet store and looked at all the puppies, bunnies, and fish there. After a while, we decided we’d just stop at a café and get internet for a while since we’d seen a lot on the way into town. On the way back however, most of them were closed. We did manage to find one and spent a while checking things online and chatting before heading back to the ship before all aboard.

There wasn’t too much time until dinner, so I read and deleted pictures until time to head upstairs. Dinner was okay, I remembered (for once) that the pizza line at the Aft Pool is open most of the day, so I ended up getting pizza instead of the Mediterranean Cuisine that had taken over the Lido.
Our theme tonight was Un-Birthday party. Odd to put an entirely crafty night right after an entirely active night I think. The kids decorated cut out birthday hats, candles, play tape the candle to the cake, and played a game called “islands.” They were definitely not as interested in it as they have been other theme nights. I understand their lack of enthusiasm though. At least everyone enjoyed snack: cookies and frosting!

I met up with James and Linda in the OB and we spent most of the night looking through Linda’s pictures from the Eurodam in the Baltic. She had her camera because she’d taken pictures of the show tonight, a ballroom dance couple, so I saw a few of those too. It was fun for the three of us to compare stories about places we’ve been and things we’ve done.

celebrating july 4th in European waters

July 4, 2013: Sea Day
My second 4th of July on ships. This one was definitely more interesting. Last year, it was kind of ignored on the ship, but here, I got an invitation to attend a party in the Northern Lights followed by “all American buffet” in the OB. That was interesting, but more on that later.
The morning shift was good. We played games, played with model magic and went to the sports deck. One girl was there 15 minutes early, which was odd, but only about 10 of the tweens came in total, so that made the morning easier. They all had fun and didn’t want to leave when we closed at 11:30. I had a somewhat quick lunch, then back to work for the afternoon. We had a lot more kids come this afternoon. They all were pretty happy with pathfinders, and the craft activities, however a few of them were not happy with me when we did Gaga Ball. About half the group had played before, either yesterday or back home, but half had no idea how to play. While I was explaining the rules, a few of the boys who knew how to play already kept interrupting me, even knocking the ball out of my arms. He did stop finally when I threatened to not let him play. After that, they generally played nice with each other.
Dinner was quick, then it was back to work once again for Spy Night! After making spy IDs, we went on to the scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt took over 45 minutes; that was unexpected. For some reason, they just had a really hard time finding the clues and then realizing that we were serious about the rules about finding the clues first, then the answers. By the time they got to their spy gadgets, they were all very frustrated with their teams, so we made sure that didn’t take long. After, I did Chinese Numbers with them. Some had been on cruises before so they remembered the trick, and they were very bad about not telling it the rest of the group. It was an interesting night overall, but I think once they got over frustrations they were all pretty happy.
Once we superSan-ed, we all got ready and went to the Northern Lights for the 4th of July party. It was pretty fun, most people were standing around drinking though, so Meghna and I didn’t stay too long. We went to the OB for the “all American buffet,” there were a ton of people there, and some of the entertainment department had decorated, so the OB looked really cool with stars everywhere. They had punch, hot dogs, hamburgers, ribs and sandwiches. It was by far the biggest crowd I’ve seen at the OB. I hung out with Linda, James (a photographer), and Regina most of the night.

katakolon

July 5, 2013: Katakolon
I got up early-ish this morning to get my key fixed, since Meghna and my keys have both been de-actived every time the other gets activated. After I got that worked out, I got some breakfast before calling James since we’d agreed to get off and wander around Katakolon today. We were off by 10:30 and weren’t hungry enough yet to get lunch and wifi, so we walked down the main road and eventually found a beach. At the beach, we collected some seashells, splashed around in the water, sat on the sand and talked for a while before we decided to head back towards town. Once we were back in town, we walked around the shops for a bit, then got some lunch. The wifi wasn’t working, but the lunch was good at least. After that, we ended up sitting on the pier talking for a while because we didn’t want to get back on the ship quite yet and had a while before all aboard time.

I took an unintentional nap the rest of the afternoon, then had a light dinner, since I wasn’t really hungry after lunch yet. Tonight’s theme was Sports of all Sorts. We went up to the Sports Deck and played lots of games there with the younger kids.

venice day 3

July 3, 2013: Venice day 3
I had a lazy morning. I had to go by crew office to get my key card re-activated, and of course I had breakfast, but other than that I didn’t do anything. I went up to Club HAL to get the wristbands for the passenger drill and ended up hanging out with some of my tweens there until the drill. Kristin and I each took a side and made sure all the kids had a wristband. One family confused me a bit. I was on the odd side with green wristbands, but these kids had an even number red wristband. The grandmother didn’t seem to understand the fact that the kids needed to either be at the lifeboat with their parents (the number on their wristband) or have the wristband for the lifeboat with their grandparents. So confusing, my main question is why aren’t they all in the same boat!?

As soon as the drill ended, Kristin and I were in the Lido getting lunch, followed by all the passengers because it was about 12:15. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as I thought it’d be since the drill was at 11:45, an odd time for it because it’s the middle of lunch! It was still pretty crowded though, so we teamed up in getting food and drinks so we didn’t have to wait in so many lines, and so we could get to work on time.

This afternoon’s session was good. The kids were really into the games, and now there’s a few more boys so it’s more even. I keep wondering how one of the girls is 10 when she acts 5 or 6. She looks about 6 as well. She’s extremely impatient and doesn’t want to do any of the activities we plan, then complains about being bored. Not quite sure how to handle that just yet. About 20 kids showed up and stayed most of the afternoon. “Pineapples” definitely kept their attention for a while; a few of them actually managed to come up with about 70 words, out of the 130 or so we know! I was impressed.

We had Lights, Camera, Action tonight. We started off with the usual free time, then went on to make stars and play Celebrity Heads. That pretty much kept them all occupied until the end of the night, which was nice.

embark day in Venice

July 2, 2013: Venice day 2
Embark day. It was kind of an odd day. Kristin told me last night that she was going to get off in the morning and go out until our meeting at 3 and I said I’d come with her since neither of us had to work Open House. She never called me this morning, so after I got up and ready for the day, I ended up crawling back into bed for a nap until lunch.

Meghna and I had lunch together, and Regina came by (HAL Cats vocalist from the Zuiderdam, she embarked today), so I sat with her after Meghna left. Then Jessie came! She’d already eaten, but we stayed while Regina finished, and then we took a tour of the ship since Jessie’s buddy was off-ship. We hung out until my meeting at 3. It was the same meeting I’ve had lots of time already, ship safety. They have to refresh us every 90 days, funny considering I go less than 90 days between refreshers since I change ships so often. After the meeting I called up Jessie and we met up for some hot chocolate and catch-up time in the Lido.

After that, I grabbed my stuff from the room and went to dinner, then work. My first cruise with just tweens in 6 months! Leah and I are working together this week. At first it was a bit weird, we both weren’t sure how we worked together, but then it just flowed. We had free time, then assembled everyone in the ‘skate ramp’ to make announcements, had snack, made our Contract of Fun, then just played get to know you games. It was mostly girls, and they didn’t want to leave at the end of the night, so we’ll probably have our hands full all week. But, they’re a good group, it seems like they’re all well-behaved and kind of know how it goes when it comes to ‘kids club.’

1 year with HAL

July 1, 2013: Venice
So marks my 1st year with HAL! And what a great way to spend it, on a ship, in Venice!

It was a sea morning, so we had hot chocolate up in the loft while we played Scattegories and Super Mario Bros. It was a nice, quiet-seeming morning. After that, I had lunch and stayed there for a really long time.

People kept coming and going and I stayed the whole time chatting with them since I didn’t know what I was going to do off-ship. Two of the HAL Cats, Tai and Jonny, were there at the end of the lunch rush and we talked for a while and ended up getting off together. We took the ‘people mover’ (aboveground metro with three stops) to the city, and wandered around the streets and over bridges trying to find St Mark’s Square. My camera battery died after two pictures, so Jonny let me use his. I now have lots of pictures of buildings and bridges and gondolas and water.

We looked in a few shops as we wandered, admiring the many different kinds of masks around. No photos allowed in the mask shops though sadly. It was fun hanging out, talking, getting to know one another, and just away for a while. For one of the first times (aside from yesterday in Croatia) it really felt like I was somewhere foreign that I’ve never been before, that I could get lost in while hanging out with friends and laugh about it because it’s all so new and awesome. It’s different from anywhere I’ve been before. I’ll admit though, it is somewhat different than I expected. I expected there to be more water I guess. I always kind of imagined Venice being completely water based, the buildings basically just islands, and the ONLY way to get around on small streets with bridges and boats. There are quite a few streets that aren’t even connected to water though, we walked around for about an hour or so trying to find the Square, and we couldn’t see water for at least half that time. It’s still amazing and beautiful, and there are tons of bridges and water!

Once we found the Square, we walked around for a bit, taking pictures, walking through the market with art and the typical souvenir stuff, and then walked in a circle back to where we started in the Square. The square is a rectangle more so than a square. Running along three sides of it is a huge kind of open mall. Tall buildings with big columns, and walkways, with shops further in. There are also a few restaurants mixed in with the stores, all seating is in the square outside, and there’s a few live bands playing while patrons sit with their coffees and watch all the tourists walk around. The fourth side of the square is taken up by a giant cathedral- I guess it’s St Marks’. There’s a long line of tourists waiting to go in to the cathedral, which has a section that is also a museum. One corner next to the cathedral is a tower of some sort, which tourists can pay to go up. I have no idea of the significance of this tower, and the line for it isn’t nearly as long as the cathedral museum. People at the top were waving down at someone they knew, but when I looked around, no one was waving back, so Jonny, Tai and I waved back at them. I think a few more strangers have pictures of me, waving at them.

Jonny wanted to go to the music store that we’d seen on the way, so we started to make our way back that direction, but ended up getting distracted and going a different way. At least we didn’t have to be back on the ship anytime soon! Tai left to go get some wifi to see if his family was in Venice yet since they’re getting on the ship tomorrow. Jonny and I walked around, taking pictures, talking and admiring Venice and all the gondolas going around. After a while, I saw some familiar shapes sitting at a restaurant and accidently shouted “Club HAL.” April and Leah looked up, so I went to go talk to them for a bit while Jonny talked to one of the cast members I hadn’t noticed who was sitting at one of the other tables. We joined tables and chatted until Leah and April left. Larissa, the dancer, ordered something to eat which made me and Jonny think about food, so we split a pizza before the three of us headed back in the direction of the ship. We found Tai again, as he was heading back to the ship as well and we all caught the ‘people mover’ towards the port. One of teens and his family were in our car, so I spent the ride talking to them.

It had been a nice afternoon, but I’d walked a lot, so was pretty tired by the time I got back to the ship so I took a nap until nearly time for work. Work tonight was good. Most of the teens came. We played card games, foosball, air hockey, they took some group pictures and then the group started to leave. It funnily enough ended up with a group of boys playing Halo, while a group of girls had a dance party on the other side of the room. They were all enjoying themselves though, and didn’t want to separate when I had to kick them out at midnight. I stayed late to put up names on the wall of all the teens next cruise and take down those from this cruise. That took a bit longer than expected, mainly because I had to cut up lots of tape!

'ledge-hopping' in Croatia

June 30, 2013: Dubrovnik, Croatia
Today was a great day. We’d actually discussed plans last night, so everyone knew what the plan was. Kristin wanted to go cliff diving, and a few of the others were thinking about it, and the rest of us were going just to watch. So, we agreed to have an early (11:30 as soon as it opened) lunch, then head out at 12 when Viorry got off work (she’s a cadet officer). So, I slept in, got ready and piddled around in the room for a bit before lunch, then had a great lunch of pasta before coming back down to change and get off the ship.

There was a bit of confusion with currency exchange and bus tickets, but we made it to Old Town by 12:45! We wandered around in the Old Town and eventually found one of the places Kristin’s friend had told her about, it was closed so we went to the other one. It was pretty beautiful. We went through the wall surrounding Old Town and the bar and ‘beach’ are were right off the wall. The “beach” area was a lot of rocks, some with flat tops good for sunbathing, and sets of steps down to each level, all the way down to the water. We found a spot, put our stuff down, and most everyone jumped into the water almost immediately. I did manage to get pictures of April, Meghna and Viorry as they were jumping in. We had a fun time just swimming around, jumping off the rocks and taking pictures (Kristin bought an underwater camera the other day, which we used all the film on today). It was a good afternoon just swimming and laying in the sun chatting.

Too soon we had to head back to the ship, so we wandered slowly back through Old Town to the bus stop and made our way back before all aboard.
I didn’t do much the rest of the afternoon. I went through pictures to finally put up when I get a chance next then took a nap. After dinner and some more time going through pictures, I finally got to go to work. Meghna wanted to finish writing letters to all the teens, so she did that in the tween room all night while I ran Casino Night. I didn’t really have to do much for Casino night other than play cards and give chips. They all really enjoyed it. Of course they did, the teens seem to always love Casino night, no matter the group we have. It was a very good night!