Don't worry, I'll post more about my second week later, but for now...
With this job comes lots of time spent in what I've come to call 'limbo.' Stuck between one place and the next. There's airport limbo, hotel limbo, de-bark limbo... It's one of the things that, despite... 8 contracts now? I have yet to get used to.
There's nothing we can do about it, it will always exist. It's the 'in-transit' (I guess that's the technical term?) time that must be passed in order to get from one place to another.
I haven't decided which is worse.
Boarding the ship, you're stuck first in airport limbo, then hotel limbo. It's not so bad, especially if they give you a direct flight or a semi-short layover, but it still is generally an entire day of travel, which might not seem that way, but it truly is exhausting. Once you finally arrive in the home port city, you must wait and catch a shuttle to the hotel. But once you're in the hotel, what do you do? Occasionally they flight you so early you have a good bit of time so if you're not feeling too tired and are feeling brave enough, you can venture out and explore the town, oh, and if the weather is cooperative. Usually though, the hotel is so far away from the airport, and from the town the other direction that it's a big task to get anywhere.
Most of the time, however, the plane lands in the mid to late afternoon, and you arrive at the hotel around dinnertime. So, the only thing to do is get comfortable, find dinner somewhere, and then wonder what to do with the rest of the evening until a reasonable time when you can get to sleep. At least the hotels usually have free wifi, so you can surf the internet for a time, maybe watch a movie on the TV. Usually I just end up going to sleep early for lack of anything better to do.
Leaving a ship is another set of limbos. First of all there is the de-bark limbo (rather, disembarkation). You have to get up with the sun to go to the crew office to wait in line and get paid, and typically there is nothing to do after that until meeting in the crew messroom to disembark. That's about three hours. In that time, new crew members come on board and take over your room, and of course breakfast is closed early because they don't want guests hanging around when they should be leaving. There's not really anywhere to go where you're not in the way of something else going on. Most all your friends are sleeping in or going off in port, so you've said all your 'goodbyes' the night before. Nothing left to do.
Finally, the ship is at what we call '0 count' which means all the passengers have gotten off the ship, so crew are allowed to go through immigration. After immigration, there's a shuttle ride and then the airport. Depending on the season and the airport, there may be no checking luggage until 2 hours before the flight, and we've usually been booked for flights later in the afternoon so we're stuck outside the security lines. Not all the time though. When we can get through security, we at least have one less bag to look after, though two is sometimes still too many. There's a few hours to kill, staring at the same seats and restaurants and gates. Again, usually airports have wifi, so it's a great time to catch up on all the news you've missed while away, but you can only do that for so long, and you don't want to take a nap in the airport for fear of someone stealing your stuff or missing your flight. And of course, you never want to wander far from your gate, just in case something changes...
So, now you know about 'limbo.' It's unavoidable this job, but I'd much rather it was consistant at least!
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Friday, May 9, 2014
Vancouver embark day
May 7, 2014: Vancouver
Home port day. One week down, one week to go! Not that I’m way too excited to come home, just this past week was really hard on me. I need one night where I sleep the whole night through without waking up, and where I might be able to sleep past 8. That might cure me. That I needed that wasn’t helped by the amount of energy it took me to work with the kids. I have realized that I may find working with the little ones so difficult and exhausting because the first time I was ‘alone’ with the little group, I had that sinus infection and felt horrible all week; and now I just associate the two: the littles and being sick and tired. Maybe.
Anyway, I had to go gangway farewell this morning at 8:30, so I was up early yet again. The good thing about it was that I only had to be out there for half an hour! Once I finished that, I came back on the ship, changed, and Dianne and I got off the ship for a late breakfast. We hung out in the food court across from the ship for a while using the internet, before I had to come back to change again to do Open House. Teleya and I worked open house, and no one showed up until the end of our time, when Dianne and Danielle showed up to take over. We ended up staying an extra 20 minutes to help them with the flood of families that came in at 1:30. Very hungry by this point, we got some lunch and hung out by the pool for a while. I tried to take a nap once I got back to the room, but I didn’t manage to fall asleep. When Dianne got off, she showed me where the laundry room was and we washed some clothes between then and the entertainment department meeting and sailaway.
I’m on tweens this week, so after sailaway and a quick dinner, I went upstairs to get stuff ready for the night. The tween room got crowded quickly! I had over 20 signed in by snacktime. Luckily we had just enough chairs for everyone. We made it through making the contract of fun and ‘all about me’ sheets before most of the parents came to pick up their kids to go to the show, so for the last 45 minutes, I had 5 kids. We played ‘move your booty’ that entire time because they figured out they loved it. It’s a good group of kids. As always, there’s the one crazy one who influences some of the others into being wild with him, but other than that, I like this group of tweens, they’re willing to do the activities and are all pretty creative.
Home port day. One week down, one week to go! Not that I’m way too excited to come home, just this past week was really hard on me. I need one night where I sleep the whole night through without waking up, and where I might be able to sleep past 8. That might cure me. That I needed that wasn’t helped by the amount of energy it took me to work with the kids. I have realized that I may find working with the little ones so difficult and exhausting because the first time I was ‘alone’ with the little group, I had that sinus infection and felt horrible all week; and now I just associate the two: the littles and being sick and tired. Maybe.
Anyway, I had to go gangway farewell this morning at 8:30, so I was up early yet again. The good thing about it was that I only had to be out there for half an hour! Once I finished that, I came back on the ship, changed, and Dianne and I got off the ship for a late breakfast. We hung out in the food court across from the ship for a while using the internet, before I had to come back to change again to do Open House. Teleya and I worked open house, and no one showed up until the end of our time, when Dianne and Danielle showed up to take over. We ended up staying an extra 20 minutes to help them with the flood of families that came in at 1:30. Very hungry by this point, we got some lunch and hung out by the pool for a while. I tried to take a nap once I got back to the room, but I didn’t manage to fall asleep. When Dianne got off, she showed me where the laundry room was and we washed some clothes between then and the entertainment department meeting and sailaway.
I’m on tweens this week, so after sailaway and a quick dinner, I went upstairs to get stuff ready for the night. The tween room got crowded quickly! I had over 20 signed in by snacktime. Luckily we had just enough chairs for everyone. We made it through making the contract of fun and ‘all about me’ sheets before most of the parents came to pick up their kids to go to the show, so for the last 45 minutes, I had 5 kids. We played ‘move your booty’ that entire time because they figured out they loved it. It’s a good group of kids. As always, there’s the one crazy one who influences some of the others into being wild with him, but other than that, I like this group of tweens, they’re willing to do the activities and are all pretty creative.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
admiring Creation in Glacier Bay
4 May, 2014 Glacier Bay
Today was one of those days where I find it crazy that people don’t believe God created Earth. I didn’t really know much about Glacier Bay until today, but everything I saw and found out just amazes me. It’s such a wonderful Creation! I can hardly even begin to describe.
Of course, for us, today is barely more than just another day at sea. For passengers though, it is a day of scenic cruising. The outside decks and even the Lido pool have an ongoing commentary by a ranger on the ship about what’s around the ship, any animal sightings, names of glaciers we pass and random information. The outside decks were full of people, despite the cold weather. I, however, was stuck inside most of the morning. We did get to take the kids out and walk around for about half an hour instead of the usual sports deck time. It took my breath away the beauty of what was surrounding us. It was freezing out though, I had on the bright orange Club HAL uniform parka and most of the parents had actually read the schedule and dropped their kids off with their jackets, but some of the kids were not dressed warmly at all, so we had to cut our outside time short so they could get back inside where it was warm.
(pictures to come when I can finally get them to upload
During lunchtime, I spent the time outside on the deck with my camera, listening to the little bits of commentary they were still doing (not as constant, just every few minutes telling about the two major glaciers at the dead end where we were headed to turn around), and was still outside when we turned around at Marjorie glacier. Apparently, the ship usually stops moving and just drifts for a while while there, but there was so much ice in the water today, which meant we had to move slowly to get safely through, and we had to do the same going back out of the bay, we literally just turned the ship around and started making our way back out.
I managed to get a slice of pizza for lunch before running back up to work for the afternoon session. The ranger who’d been making announcements came to Club HAL and gave a speech to the kids as one of our activities, a nice break for us, especially since our kids were strangely well-behaved while he was talking. The afternoon went by pretty quickly, and Dianne and I got some food from the grill and sat watching us leave Glacier Bay before heading down to the room to rest before dinner and another session of work.
I had Un-Birthday party as my theme. It was a rather interesting night, odd in many many ways. First of all, there were no kids waiting for me before we actually opened. At 7:30, I only had two of my kids there, whereas usually I have all 10 that’ve been showing up. They finally all showed up a few minutes later, but snack hadn’t arrived by 8, so I had the kids decorate their party hats while Danielle called about the snack. While that was going on, one of the little ones had an accident in the bathroom, so I had to stand at the door (on this ship, the bathroom is outside the kids room) as she went on a search for the mom who we couldn’t seem to get a hold of. Snack finally arrived, and that situation was handled. It was 9 by the time I finished handing out snack, which left very little time for activities. I had to sit my kids down again to stress the importance of listening so we might be able to get through a few of the activities. No luck with that at all. When I tried to explain the next activity, they all started talking and guessing and telling me stories yet again. Finally, we played two rounds of musical chairs before moving on to their favorite: 4 corners (which is a great game as I can use it on any and every theme night, tonight I had a cake, party hat, balloon and present as the corners instead of plain numbers). They played that until all their parents came to pick them up.
Another exhausting day; Danielle, Dianne, Jenna (who’d come to help the teens eat their snack) and I sat in the Loft for about an hour before we finally got the energy to make our way downstairs.
Today was one of those days where I find it crazy that people don’t believe God created Earth. I didn’t really know much about Glacier Bay until today, but everything I saw and found out just amazes me. It’s such a wonderful Creation! I can hardly even begin to describe.
Of course, for us, today is barely more than just another day at sea. For passengers though, it is a day of scenic cruising. The outside decks and even the Lido pool have an ongoing commentary by a ranger on the ship about what’s around the ship, any animal sightings, names of glaciers we pass and random information. The outside decks were full of people, despite the cold weather. I, however, was stuck inside most of the morning. We did get to take the kids out and walk around for about half an hour instead of the usual sports deck time. It took my breath away the beauty of what was surrounding us. It was freezing out though, I had on the bright orange Club HAL uniform parka and most of the parents had actually read the schedule and dropped their kids off with their jackets, but some of the kids were not dressed warmly at all, so we had to cut our outside time short so they could get back inside where it was warm.
(pictures to come when I can finally get them to upload
During lunchtime, I spent the time outside on the deck with my camera, listening to the little bits of commentary they were still doing (not as constant, just every few minutes telling about the two major glaciers at the dead end where we were headed to turn around), and was still outside when we turned around at Marjorie glacier. Apparently, the ship usually stops moving and just drifts for a while while there, but there was so much ice in the water today, which meant we had to move slowly to get safely through, and we had to do the same going back out of the bay, we literally just turned the ship around and started making our way back out.
I managed to get a slice of pizza for lunch before running back up to work for the afternoon session. The ranger who’d been making announcements came to Club HAL and gave a speech to the kids as one of our activities, a nice break for us, especially since our kids were strangely well-behaved while he was talking. The afternoon went by pretty quickly, and Dianne and I got some food from the grill and sat watching us leave Glacier Bay before heading down to the room to rest before dinner and another session of work.
I had Un-Birthday party as my theme. It was a rather interesting night, odd in many many ways. First of all, there were no kids waiting for me before we actually opened. At 7:30, I only had two of my kids there, whereas usually I have all 10 that’ve been showing up. They finally all showed up a few minutes later, but snack hadn’t arrived by 8, so I had the kids decorate their party hats while Danielle called about the snack. While that was going on, one of the little ones had an accident in the bathroom, so I had to stand at the door (on this ship, the bathroom is outside the kids room) as she went on a search for the mom who we couldn’t seem to get a hold of. Snack finally arrived, and that situation was handled. It was 9 by the time I finished handing out snack, which left very little time for activities. I had to sit my kids down again to stress the importance of listening so we might be able to get through a few of the activities. No luck with that at all. When I tried to explain the next activity, they all started talking and guessing and telling me stories yet again. Finally, we played two rounds of musical chairs before moving on to their favorite: 4 corners (which is a great game as I can use it on any and every theme night, tonight I had a cake, party hat, balloon and present as the corners instead of plain numbers). They played that until all their parents came to pick them up.
Another exhausting day; Danielle, Dianne, Jenna (who’d come to help the teens eat their snack) and I sat in the Loft for about an hour before we finally got the energy to make our way downstairs.
little town of Skagway
3 May 2014 Skagway
I had the morning shift of port day. It was uneventful for the first hour, I just read a book, but at 9 some of the officers came in, checking out the area because a fire drill was taking place in the Loft at 9:30. I had to call Danielle and figure out what to do about that. Since I still didn’t have any kids, she told me just to hang out in the Lido until the fire drill was complete. So, I got a cup of tea and sat with Jim and Dan as they had breakfast. Once the drill ended, I wandered back upstairs and had just a few minutes to myself to turn the wii’s and music back on before all my little ones came up for port day. They kept running back and forth from coloring to the wii’s, and complaining that I didn’t have all the coloring sheet’s they’d started the day before in the other room. Finally, I managed to get them all settled watching or playing MarioKart, just about the time Teleya came up to take over and help take them to lunch. I will admit, it is kind of nice not having the Slice on this ship when we have kids on port days, because we can just get all their meals at once instead of having to visiting a few different places.
I sat and ate a light lunch with them, then joined Dianne as she passed by going back down to the room. She invited me to come ashore with her and the CAC host Barbara and her husband Bob, so we waited for them to finish Pinnacle lunch and all wandered into town together. We stayed together for a while, then just ended up wandering into different shops and got separated, which we figured would eventually happen anyway. So, Dianne and I wandered around together talking and basically just enjoying the day. We kept moving from sunny bench to sunny beach, getting ice cream and ever-so-slowly making our way back to the ship. We moved to different benches closer to the ship every 15 minutes, and still made it back by 5:30. It was nice though, we got to sit in the sun and just enjoy being outside on a pretty day for Alaska (I was bundled up in my coat, two shirts and a scarf, but in the sun I was happy).
We had dinner, then it was back to work. I had Alien night, which my kids enjoyed despite the fact that I kept having to gather them and spend ten minutes to make them stop talking in order to explain the next activity. This group just doesn’t want to listen at all. The best thing about tonight was that I found out a game they actually enjoy!! At the beginning of the week, they quickly tired of “where’s my shoe” and even stopped asking about hide-and-seek when I let them play and they discovered there really wasn’t anywhere to hide in that room, but by then I didn’t remember any other time-killer games that aren’t too complex for this age group. But tonight, I found out that they love playing 4 corners! We spent 20 minutes playing and they begged me to keep playing even though all their parents were picking them up! I’m very grateful I finally figured out something they actually like to do!
After work, we quickly cleaned up, and Danielle, Dianne and I went to the show with Jenna, the librarian. It was the first time this show has been performed on this ship, and the first performance for this cast. It wasn’t a bad show, a bit weird at times and I could tell a few times when they messed up, but we enjoyed it. After the show, we decided that it would be a good night to stay out a bit and go to the OB, so we hung out at the OB until we all realized how tired we were and how early we have to get up and work tomorrow.
I had the morning shift of port day. It was uneventful for the first hour, I just read a book, but at 9 some of the officers came in, checking out the area because a fire drill was taking place in the Loft at 9:30. I had to call Danielle and figure out what to do about that. Since I still didn’t have any kids, she told me just to hang out in the Lido until the fire drill was complete. So, I got a cup of tea and sat with Jim and Dan as they had breakfast. Once the drill ended, I wandered back upstairs and had just a few minutes to myself to turn the wii’s and music back on before all my little ones came up for port day. They kept running back and forth from coloring to the wii’s, and complaining that I didn’t have all the coloring sheet’s they’d started the day before in the other room. Finally, I managed to get them all settled watching or playing MarioKart, just about the time Teleya came up to take over and help take them to lunch. I will admit, it is kind of nice not having the Slice on this ship when we have kids on port days, because we can just get all their meals at once instead of having to visiting a few different places.
I sat and ate a light lunch with them, then joined Dianne as she passed by going back down to the room. She invited me to come ashore with her and the CAC host Barbara and her husband Bob, so we waited for them to finish Pinnacle lunch and all wandered into town together. We stayed together for a while, then just ended up wandering into different shops and got separated, which we figured would eventually happen anyway. So, Dianne and I wandered around together talking and basically just enjoying the day. We kept moving from sunny bench to sunny beach, getting ice cream and ever-so-slowly making our way back to the ship. We moved to different benches closer to the ship every 15 minutes, and still made it back by 5:30. It was nice though, we got to sit in the sun and just enjoy being outside on a pretty day for Alaska (I was bundled up in my coat, two shirts and a scarf, but in the sun I was happy).
We had dinner, then it was back to work. I had Alien night, which my kids enjoyed despite the fact that I kept having to gather them and spend ten minutes to make them stop talking in order to explain the next activity. This group just doesn’t want to listen at all. The best thing about tonight was that I found out a game they actually enjoy!! At the beginning of the week, they quickly tired of “where’s my shoe” and even stopped asking about hide-and-seek when I let them play and they discovered there really wasn’t anywhere to hide in that room, but by then I didn’t remember any other time-killer games that aren’t too complex for this age group. But tonight, I found out that they love playing 4 corners! We spent 20 minutes playing and they begged me to keep playing even though all their parents were picking them up! I’m very grateful I finally figured out something they actually like to do!
After work, we quickly cleaned up, and Danielle, Dianne and I went to the show with Jenna, the librarian. It was the first time this show has been performed on this ship, and the first performance for this cast. It wasn’t a bad show, a bit weird at times and I could tell a few times when they messed up, but we enjoyed it. After the show, we decided that it would be a good night to stay out a bit and go to the OB, so we hung out at the OB until we all realized how tired we were and how early we have to get up and work tomorrow.
relaxing in Juneau
2 May 2014: Juneau
Juneau is a late arrival port on this run, so we had the normal morning programming. It was of course, a busy morning with the kids, they were running around wanting to play on the slide and climb on the paintbucket instead of the activities on the schedule. Danielle helped out a bit, she’s been going back and forth between the kids room and the tweens room, spending most of her time in the tween room, but she did come up with the idea of putting the slide to ‘sleep’ with a sheet over it to stop it being such a distraction. Things calmed down a little after that, at least the little helped me keep my sanity even if it didn’t really make that much difference. Anyway, we had a very quick lunch, and Dianne went upstairs to cover for Danielle’s port day since she, Teleya and I had to join the rest of the new crew and go through immigration. They told us to be in the crew mess at 12:15, and the ship wasn’t even docked until 1. At least most of us had our phones and had signal there.
Finally, we moved, but we didn’t make it far because the guests were crowded around, up and down the stairs around the gangway, the crew officers had to clear a path for us to get by to get out and to the office where we had to be. It was a really small office, so they only let in 5 of us at a time. We went through quickly though, and afterward, we decided just to stay off the ship for a bit. I went to the Viking with Jim and Dan (they’re two members of the Neptunes band, I know Jim from the Maasdam) and the three of us hung out there, got internet and talked for half an hour or so before they figured they’d head back so Dan could get all his online new-crew training done. I went back with them and met Dianne on the gangway, perfect timing since we had planned to get off together but hadn’t made our plans definite. She waited for me, while I ran to the room to grab my purse, then we and the acupuncturist Amanda went back to the Viking to hang out. It was fun, they have lots of pool tables and video games and stuff on the second floor where a lot of crew go to hang out, and we ended up playing Mario on the Nintendo for a good long time before Amanda had to head back to the ship and then Dianne and I decided we were hungry enough to find the pizza place we’d been told about. We found it and had a nice midafternoon dinner and basically just hung out there the rest of the afternoon. We got back to the ship and relaxed for about half an hour before I had to head back to work. Danielle had given Dianne the night off since she’d been covering a lot for us, with the meetings and immigration, and later the new-crew drill.
It was movie night, so rather relaxed. Though, with this group, it never really was that relaxed, they were constantly talking and asking questions, moving around and ‘singing along.’ I had to tell them that I’d never seen Frozen before in order to make them be somewhat quiet so I could know what was going on. It helped only slightly. But at least we made it through!
We supersan-ed quickly and I just went to bed since I was kind of exhausted from the last few days still.
Juneau is a late arrival port on this run, so we had the normal morning programming. It was of course, a busy morning with the kids, they were running around wanting to play on the slide and climb on the paintbucket instead of the activities on the schedule. Danielle helped out a bit, she’s been going back and forth between the kids room and the tweens room, spending most of her time in the tween room, but she did come up with the idea of putting the slide to ‘sleep’ with a sheet over it to stop it being such a distraction. Things calmed down a little after that, at least the little helped me keep my sanity even if it didn’t really make that much difference. Anyway, we had a very quick lunch, and Dianne went upstairs to cover for Danielle’s port day since she, Teleya and I had to join the rest of the new crew and go through immigration. They told us to be in the crew mess at 12:15, and the ship wasn’t even docked until 1. At least most of us had our phones and had signal there.
Finally, we moved, but we didn’t make it far because the guests were crowded around, up and down the stairs around the gangway, the crew officers had to clear a path for us to get by to get out and to the office where we had to be. It was a really small office, so they only let in 5 of us at a time. We went through quickly though, and afterward, we decided just to stay off the ship for a bit. I went to the Viking with Jim and Dan (they’re two members of the Neptunes band, I know Jim from the Maasdam) and the three of us hung out there, got internet and talked for half an hour or so before they figured they’d head back so Dan could get all his online new-crew training done. I went back with them and met Dianne on the gangway, perfect timing since we had planned to get off together but hadn’t made our plans definite. She waited for me, while I ran to the room to grab my purse, then we and the acupuncturist Amanda went back to the Viking to hang out. It was fun, they have lots of pool tables and video games and stuff on the second floor where a lot of crew go to hang out, and we ended up playing Mario on the Nintendo for a good long time before Amanda had to head back to the ship and then Dianne and I decided we were hungry enough to find the pizza place we’d been told about. We found it and had a nice midafternoon dinner and basically just hung out there the rest of the afternoon. We got back to the ship and relaxed for about half an hour before I had to head back to work. Danielle had given Dianne the night off since she’d been covering a lot for us, with the meetings and immigration, and later the new-crew drill.
It was movie night, so rather relaxed. Though, with this group, it never really was that relaxed, they were constantly talking and asking questions, moving around and ‘singing along.’ I had to tell them that I’d never seen Frozen before in order to make them be somewhat quiet so I could know what was going on. It helped only slightly. But at least we made it through!
We supersan-ed quickly and I just went to bed since I was kind of exhausted from the last few days still.
first day on a new ship
1 May 2014
I was definitely right about this group of kids, they’re a noisy, easily distracted handful. This morning I had a wide variety of ages, but we mostly managed to stay following the schedule, probably because they were rather tired and there were only 6 of them, some of them shy. We had a quick lunch and then it was back up to Club HAL. At 12:45 (we don’t open until 1), I had 4 kids waiting outside for me. By 10 after, I had 3 3-year olds and 3 6-year olds signed in and attempting to do model magic. At least that seemed to keep their attention for the most part. Well, one of the ‘3’ year olds really was two, his parents made a very big deal of his not being able to come, and apparently corporate has given permission for him to be allowed in, he does after all turn 3 in 10 days (and is better spoken than some of the 6 year olds). That slide though is definitely a problem and a giant distraction. Danielle came in to cover for me as I had to attend the HESS meeting for new crew (she’d gotten out of it since we at least needed two of us working at that time, and Teleya-my hotel roommate-and I had to go to the meeting since we’re NEOPs).
The meeting lasted a very long hour and a half, but at least I’m pretty much done with NEOP stuff now. I made it to Club HAL for the last activity to find a bunch of kids running around doing various things. We covered up the slide, saying it needs a nap, to try to stop that major distraction and it kind of worked a bit. I did at least get most of them to sit down in the paint bucket when I asked. Although, this group does have a very difficult time with the whole “close your eyes” thing, which makes games like ‘where’s my shoe’ hard to continue. I was very glad when the afternoon session ended, even those last 30 minutes felt like it was taking an entire afternoon’s worth of energy.
I was definitely right about this group of kids, they’re a noisy, easily distracted handful. This morning I had a wide variety of ages, but we mostly managed to stay following the schedule, probably because they were rather tired and there were only 6 of them, some of them shy. We had a quick lunch and then it was back up to Club HAL. At 12:45 (we don’t open until 1), I had 4 kids waiting outside for me. By 10 after, I had 3 3-year olds and 3 6-year olds signed in and attempting to do model magic. At least that seemed to keep their attention for the most part. Well, one of the ‘3’ year olds really was two, his parents made a very big deal of his not being able to come, and apparently corporate has given permission for him to be allowed in, he does after all turn 3 in 10 days (and is better spoken than some of the 6 year olds). That slide though is definitely a problem and a giant distraction. Danielle came in to cover for me as I had to attend the HESS meeting for new crew (she’d gotten out of it since we at least needed two of us working at that time, and Teleya-my hotel roommate-and I had to go to the meeting since we’re NEOPs).
The meeting lasted a very long hour and a half, but at least I’m pretty much done with NEOP stuff now. I made it to Club HAL for the last activity to find a bunch of kids running around doing various things. We covered up the slide, saying it needs a nap, to try to stop that major distraction and it kind of worked a bit. I did at least get most of them to sit down in the paint bucket when I asked. Although, this group does have a very difficult time with the whole “close your eyes” thing, which makes games like ‘where’s my shoe’ hard to continue. I was very glad when the afternoon session ended, even those last 30 minutes felt like it was taking an entire afternoon’s worth of energy.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
airplanes and embark day
30 April 2014
Possibly two of the longest days have just passed, finally. It’s been so long, even though it’s only been two days.
Yesterday was full of airports and airplanes. I got to the airport first thing, but when I went to check-in, a message came up saying that I was too late to check-in with my bag. The lady behind the counter was not happy and informed me that they need at least 45 minutes for checked baggage. Luckily she was nice enough to get a tag and get mine on the flight. I made it through security and to my gate just as they were calling my zone to board. No breakfast in the airport for me, not like I was really hungry at 7am, but still. Anyway, 4 hour flight to phoenix, they gave us drinks, but snacks were only for purchase. I read/slept the whole flight. We landed early, I was awake for that part, from above, outside of Phoenix kind of reminded me of Greece, the mountains all rocky and empty, just surrounded by dirt and flat land instead of water. Like I said, we landed early. However, we landed so early, the flight leaving the gate we were coming in to was still there…. And then of course, they took off late, so we sat outside near our gate for 25 minutes before we could get start getting off. I was at the back of the plane, so had to wait another 10 minutes to get off myself. By that point, it was nearly boarding time for my next flight.
I pretty much ran through the airport, and made it to my gate when they were making announcements saying they would board in a few minutes. So, I quickly went back to a coffee place I’d passed, grabbed a pre-made sandwich and a drink and ran back to the gate. They were making announcements saying they had to check everyone’s documents (I guess for customs) and stamp the tickets before we boarded. I got that done, and then got in line to board. So little time. I was on the very back row on the plane, ate half the sandwich quickly while everyone else was boarding. Everyone wts on the plane when I realized that no one else was in my row (three seat row, I was in the aisle). The flight attendant asked a little bit later if I minded letting a mother and her 7-month old take those seats, so she could give the baby her own seat for a bit. I, of course, didn’t mind at all since I was absolutely shocked no one was in those seats anyway. The little girl was very cute and I helped distract her some during the flight. And I talked with the mom, who’s from Victoria BC. The flight was another long one, 3 hours, but at least I was kept occupied between talking to the mom, helping with the baby and reading my book. We finally landed and the flight attendant was surprised to see me grab the mom’s bag from the overhead bin for her while she got situated with her baby. That actually surprised me, that he was surprised. A mom carrying a baby off a plane shouldn’t have to fumble around and reach into the overhead compartments for a bag when there’s plenty of other people there to help!
Anyway, I got off the plane, went through immigration (I accidently filled out some of the form wrong since I wasn’t really sure how it worked. However, the immigration officer was really nice about it and corrected it for me, smiled and let me go on my way), and made my way to the hotel.
Then was the frustrating part. My headache was getting worse, and when I checked into the hotel, they informed me that the internet wasn’t free, but the internet in the airport was. So, after a semblance of a 30 minute nap, I went back downstairs into the airport to try to message Mom to let her know I’d made it there. No luck, the internet in the airport just wouldn’t load for me. I had some food and gave up, going back to the hotel. My head was really hurting and I wasn’t feeling so well, probably from the sandwich I had at lunch, so I slept the rest of the afternoon away off and on, waking up with my stomach and head competing to be the one that hurt the most. Mom called the hotel to talk to me and I felt a little bit better after that, and ended up falling asleep for a while finally.
When I’d checked in, they informed me that I would be sharing a room, but when no one had arrived by 9 when Mom called, I figured that something had changed. However, at 2 am, I heard banging of bags against the door as someone came in. They really should plan better for things like that. They hadn’t told her someone would be in the room, so she kind of freaked out when she saw me sit up in bed. It was a long time before either of us got to sleep, her because she had a lot to do to get herself settled (including calling the office and complaining that they hadn’t told her about me), and me of course because she was there wandering around the room doing stuff.
Morning came and again, I had to get up at 5:30 to get ready before I left. My head was still hurting really bad, but I managed to get ready and get downstairs on time. I checked out and had to wait around as they made more bags for breakfast. There I met my new YPC Danielle as she was checking out as well. We sat next to each other on the bus and talked some, but we were both pretty tired so zoned out on the ride. I got onto the ship just fine, but they didn’t really do anything for those of us that hadn’t been on R-class before, just set us free to go find our rooms and be at the meeting in an hour. Luckily Danielle helped me find the room, I briefly met my roommate (another Club HAL who’s been on for a month or so) before she went ashore for a while. The meeting was painful, my head was still pounding, but it was only an hour long. I had an hour before lunch and open house, so I went back to the room for a nap. They hadn’t put sheets on my bed yet, so I curled up under my jacket on top of the mattress and tried my best to sleep a bit so I could last the day.
It was a really busy day. Danielle, Diane (my roommate) and I had lunch together before going up to Open House. I’m on kids, but I had no time to look around the room because Diane was helping Danielle learn where everything was, then Danielle had to run around doing things, and needed the two of us to stay in the tween room registering people. We had a pretty constant flow of two or three families in to register at a time.
We had 30 minutes after Open House before the Entertainment Department meeting, so we just got some tea and sat in the lido for a bit. After the meeting, me and Diane had 30 minutes to kill before the drill, so we took our phones up to Club HAL and she made hers a hotspot so we could both use the internet for a bit (only 10 minutes by the time we got up there). After checking wristbands, which lasted the entire drill because half the kids didn’t have any and the other halves were too tight and needed to be replaced, we went back up to Club HAL to continue use of our phones for the 20 minutes before we had to be at Sailaway. We wandered around for the required 30 minutes (this cruise director and EM actually show up to sailaway and make sure we’re doing at least a semblance of invasive mingling) before we made our way to the Lido, ready for it to open for dinner. I wasn’t really hungry and my head was still hurting, so I ended up just forcing myself to eat some ice cream just to get some sort of something in my system, hoping that’d make me feel like eating anything else.
I’m not entirely sure how I made it through the night, it kind of helped that 45 minutes of my worktime were spent in line for the crew office to get my ID and forms signed. I’m on kids this week, and though they all seem really cute and sweet, they’re definitely a handful, a very easily distracted and non-listening handful. Though, when 10:15 finally came around and we were done cleaning up and waiting for someone to pick up the snack trays, I did feel better enough to eat two small slices of pizza- the first time today that I’d really felt well and hungry enough to eat! Diane and I went back down to the room to discover that I still didn’t have sheets, so she took me to housekeeping and we told them and they brought some to the room and made my bed for me. I unpacked a bit as they were doing that since I wasn’t really sure what else to do at the time. Once they left, Diane and I pretty much changed and went straight to bed, thoroughly exhausted.
Possibly two of the longest days have just passed, finally. It’s been so long, even though it’s only been two days.
Yesterday was full of airports and airplanes. I got to the airport first thing, but when I went to check-in, a message came up saying that I was too late to check-in with my bag. The lady behind the counter was not happy and informed me that they need at least 45 minutes for checked baggage. Luckily she was nice enough to get a tag and get mine on the flight. I made it through security and to my gate just as they were calling my zone to board. No breakfast in the airport for me, not like I was really hungry at 7am, but still. Anyway, 4 hour flight to phoenix, they gave us drinks, but snacks were only for purchase. I read/slept the whole flight. We landed early, I was awake for that part, from above, outside of Phoenix kind of reminded me of Greece, the mountains all rocky and empty, just surrounded by dirt and flat land instead of water. Like I said, we landed early. However, we landed so early, the flight leaving the gate we were coming in to was still there…. And then of course, they took off late, so we sat outside near our gate for 25 minutes before we could get start getting off. I was at the back of the plane, so had to wait another 10 minutes to get off myself. By that point, it was nearly boarding time for my next flight.
I pretty much ran through the airport, and made it to my gate when they were making announcements saying they would board in a few minutes. So, I quickly went back to a coffee place I’d passed, grabbed a pre-made sandwich and a drink and ran back to the gate. They were making announcements saying they had to check everyone’s documents (I guess for customs) and stamp the tickets before we boarded. I got that done, and then got in line to board. So little time. I was on the very back row on the plane, ate half the sandwich quickly while everyone else was boarding. Everyone wts on the plane when I realized that no one else was in my row (three seat row, I was in the aisle). The flight attendant asked a little bit later if I minded letting a mother and her 7-month old take those seats, so she could give the baby her own seat for a bit. I, of course, didn’t mind at all since I was absolutely shocked no one was in those seats anyway. The little girl was very cute and I helped distract her some during the flight. And I talked with the mom, who’s from Victoria BC. The flight was another long one, 3 hours, but at least I was kept occupied between talking to the mom, helping with the baby and reading my book. We finally landed and the flight attendant was surprised to see me grab the mom’s bag from the overhead bin for her while she got situated with her baby. That actually surprised me, that he was surprised. A mom carrying a baby off a plane shouldn’t have to fumble around and reach into the overhead compartments for a bag when there’s plenty of other people there to help!
Anyway, I got off the plane, went through immigration (I accidently filled out some of the form wrong since I wasn’t really sure how it worked. However, the immigration officer was really nice about it and corrected it for me, smiled and let me go on my way), and made my way to the hotel.
Then was the frustrating part. My headache was getting worse, and when I checked into the hotel, they informed me that the internet wasn’t free, but the internet in the airport was. So, after a semblance of a 30 minute nap, I went back downstairs into the airport to try to message Mom to let her know I’d made it there. No luck, the internet in the airport just wouldn’t load for me. I had some food and gave up, going back to the hotel. My head was really hurting and I wasn’t feeling so well, probably from the sandwich I had at lunch, so I slept the rest of the afternoon away off and on, waking up with my stomach and head competing to be the one that hurt the most. Mom called the hotel to talk to me and I felt a little bit better after that, and ended up falling asleep for a while finally.
When I’d checked in, they informed me that I would be sharing a room, but when no one had arrived by 9 when Mom called, I figured that something had changed. However, at 2 am, I heard banging of bags against the door as someone came in. They really should plan better for things like that. They hadn’t told her someone would be in the room, so she kind of freaked out when she saw me sit up in bed. It was a long time before either of us got to sleep, her because she had a lot to do to get herself settled (including calling the office and complaining that they hadn’t told her about me), and me of course because she was there wandering around the room doing stuff.
Morning came and again, I had to get up at 5:30 to get ready before I left. My head was still hurting really bad, but I managed to get ready and get downstairs on time. I checked out and had to wait around as they made more bags for breakfast. There I met my new YPC Danielle as she was checking out as well. We sat next to each other on the bus and talked some, but we were both pretty tired so zoned out on the ride. I got onto the ship just fine, but they didn’t really do anything for those of us that hadn’t been on R-class before, just set us free to go find our rooms and be at the meeting in an hour. Luckily Danielle helped me find the room, I briefly met my roommate (another Club HAL who’s been on for a month or so) before she went ashore for a while. The meeting was painful, my head was still pounding, but it was only an hour long. I had an hour before lunch and open house, so I went back to the room for a nap. They hadn’t put sheets on my bed yet, so I curled up under my jacket on top of the mattress and tried my best to sleep a bit so I could last the day.
It was a really busy day. Danielle, Diane (my roommate) and I had lunch together before going up to Open House. I’m on kids, but I had no time to look around the room because Diane was helping Danielle learn where everything was, then Danielle had to run around doing things, and needed the two of us to stay in the tween room registering people. We had a pretty constant flow of two or three families in to register at a time.
We had 30 minutes after Open House before the Entertainment Department meeting, so we just got some tea and sat in the lido for a bit. After the meeting, me and Diane had 30 minutes to kill before the drill, so we took our phones up to Club HAL and she made hers a hotspot so we could both use the internet for a bit (only 10 minutes by the time we got up there). After checking wristbands, which lasted the entire drill because half the kids didn’t have any and the other halves were too tight and needed to be replaced, we went back up to Club HAL to continue use of our phones for the 20 minutes before we had to be at Sailaway. We wandered around for the required 30 minutes (this cruise director and EM actually show up to sailaway and make sure we’re doing at least a semblance of invasive mingling) before we made our way to the Lido, ready for it to open for dinner. I wasn’t really hungry and my head was still hurting, so I ended up just forcing myself to eat some ice cream just to get some sort of something in my system, hoping that’d make me feel like eating anything else.
I’m not entirely sure how I made it through the night, it kind of helped that 45 minutes of my worktime were spent in line for the crew office to get my ID and forms signed. I’m on kids this week, and though they all seem really cute and sweet, they’re definitely a handful, a very easily distracted and non-listening handful. Though, when 10:15 finally came around and we were done cleaning up and waiting for someone to pick up the snack trays, I did feel better enough to eat two small slices of pizza- the first time today that I’d really felt well and hungry enough to eat! Diane and I went back down to the room to discover that I still didn’t have sheets, so she took me to housekeeping and we told them and they brought some to the room and made my bed for me. I unpacked a bit as they were doing that since I wasn’t really sure what else to do at the time. Once they left, Diane and I pretty much changed and went straight to bed, thoroughly exhausted.
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