ketchikan is blog day it seems

June 19, 2014
I guess blog writing/posting is going to be a Ketchikan thing now. It’s a nice port and all, but there’s not a whole lot to do, but that’s kind of nice since it seems like I haven’t had a whole lot of down time since getting here. There’s just so much to do! Especially since I’ve been helping train two new staff over the past two weeks. Carl left last Vancouver, and another YPC and youth staff got on. Megan is brand new to HAL (she’s actually friends with Christine, the YPC coming on next week). She’s working with the kids, I’m with the tweens, Lindsay’s with the teens and Laurie is floating between us. Not too bad of a setup, but it keeps us all very busy and we’re teaching the two where things are, what we can/can not do, and all the rest of that. PLUS, it’s DWTS at sea theme cruise this week. We haven’t done much stuff with that, but it is there, and we have gone out some at night out and about the ship. One of the troupe dancers actually remembered me from the cruises in January, I was definitely surprised at that.

Juneau day, I got off on my own for a bit, finally got some much-needed supplies like tissues and more hand soap, then when Laurie and Megan got off, I met up with them and we hung out for a while, briefly met up with Nick and Sam (rig tech and club hal I met last time on the zuiderdam, they’re on the westie right now and we’re in port every Juneau together), we got food (Hawaiian pizza crepe for me, YUM), then had to head back for work. Quiet night at work, only 4 kids showed up for movie night. That was very nice since we actually got to watch the movie as well instead of dealing with a lot of other stuff and behavioral problems at the same time.

Skagway was a crazy day. I had the morning port day shift; it was fine for the first hour, but then the day turned into insanity with lots of things going on at once, including a fire (not at work, one of the wires in the gym started smoking) at one point. I ended up staying the entire port day to help out Megan (since it was her first one), good thing too, because the insanity would not stop! I think she was glad to have someone experienced with her since things just kept seeming to go wrong. We were finally able to get off the ship when all the kids got picked up (finally), and it was cold and windy and a bit rainy. Happily, the sun did come out for a bit, and we enjoyed that despite the persistent wind. We went ‘shopping’ around town, she bought a raincoat (she didn’t come entirely prepared for cold/rainy weather), and I bought a new hoodie and a small birthday present for Lindsay (it seems to be the season for birthdays, mine was a few weeks ago, Lindsay’s on Skagway day, and Megan’s will be Vancouver day. We ended up just deciding to have dinner back on the ship so we wouldn’t spend any more money unnecessarily.

Glacier Bay day was almost just as insane as Skagway, but three of us were there to take care of it so it was a lot better.

The DWTS production show was last night, so we took turns at the end of the work night to change into formal so we could run down and see it as soon as the kids left. We stayed out after the show, and hung out at the Northern Lights with some of the dancers and other crew members. It was a nice night, but I was tired, so we didn’t stay out really late.

This morning, I got to sleep in! Only until 8:30ish, but that’s later than I have lately! I went to breakfast with Megan and hung out for a bit until the gangway cleared up, then wandered around Ketchikan for an hour in the rain. We got hungry and tired of the wet, so we found a place to get lunch, and headed back to the ship so she could get to work.

a few ports, a few animals and beautiful Glacier bay weather

June 12, 2014
It’s been a busy week again. There are three of us working now, a new girl named Lindsey, Carl and me. Lindsey is normally a dancer, but is filling in this summer as Club HAL. She’s pretty cool, Carl’s training her in the kids/tweens room and I’m with the teens this week. The Loft has been relative quiet, the first night was very long since it was mostly boys, and they didn’t really want to do anything aside from sit in silence. Finally I got them to play wii until they were ready to leave. And that’s pretty much what we’ve been doing the whole time, playing Super Mario Bros. So far, we’ve made it almost past world 7. Not bad for four days work!
I had port day in Juneau, none of the kids showed up, so I read the whole time. It was looking rainy and cold outside, plus we were tendering, so I didn’t bother getting off the ship. Skagway, I did get off the ship. I wandered around a while, met up with Bonnie and Carl for lunch, then wandered around some more after we parted ways. I talked a bit with Jordan, who was in port in Ketchikan on the Oostie, then the wind started picking up and I knew it was time to head back inside to the warmth.
Yesterday, Glacier Bay day, was beautiful! The weather was wonderful, I was happy in the orange parka, but I saw quite a few people walking around in shorts and t-shirts. When we got to Margorie Glacier, around lunchtime, I was off work, so I spent most of lunch outside. I got to see it calve quite a few times, once a huge chunk fell off, and there was a big splash, quite a cool sight! Later in the afternoon, I went outside with my teens when we heard an announcement from the Captain saying there had been sightings of whales nearby, and bears on the beach. We didn’t see any whales or bears outside, but we did see an otter swimming around in our wake, SO COOL! :)

never a dull moment

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

rainy hike in skagway

June 3,2014: skagway
Today, Jordan and I had made plans to go hiking. I worked the morning port day shift, and had quite a few kids show up, most of which were 3-5 and wanted to play xbox without knowing how, made my morning a busy one running around. Katie found out that she leaves in Ketchikan to be transferred to the Zaandam, so we had to reaarange port day schedules since she was supposed to work that day (I was scheduled to work this afternoon, but am rather happy it got changed to the morning!). Anyway, all the kids left by 11:30, so when I was free, Jordan and I got off the ship, got some lunch, which took a while because it was cold and rainy and everyone on the 4 ships here today decided they wanted to eat ashore, and didn’t want to be in the rain. It wasn’t raining too terribly bad, so we thought we’d continue on with our hiking plans, taking a shorter hike instead of the longer one we’d previously discussed. It started raining harder once we were out there, luckily we’d both brought our raincoats, which kept us a bit drier and warmer. Somehow we managed to make a loop instead of retracing our steps, but we hung out under a shelter for a while, out of the rain, on our way back. We were really cold by that point, so we found a place that was off the main road and had hot chocolate before heading back to the ship to dry off and get warm. Not the best weather so far, terrible for me since last time I was here, it was warm and sunny, and that was 3 weeks ago!! Not what I expected at all.

back on the zuiderdam

June 2, 2014
It’s been a busy first few days on the Zuiderdam. I joined on my birthday, which wasn’t the best day ever. I had to wake up at 5:30 to be ready for the shuttle, then when we got to the terminal, they wouldn’t let us on yet because none of the passengers had gotten off yet, so we sat outside waiting for 45 minutes before we got through security, and had to wait another 30 minutes to get everyone’s forms filled out and collected and for a break in passengers leaving for us to run up the gangway. It was hectic. Then, I get to my room to find that there’s already two people there. They figured there would be confusion when they found out the other girl was staying, so I dropped my stuff off there, and went to breakfast with the librarian Bonnie, Club HAL Katie, Club HAL Jordan, and Christine (who was my YPC on the Nieuw A for the blues cruise, she left but will be back in 3 weeks to take over again as YPC). Thank goodness breakfast was still open! Anyway, it was a long morning of meetings, getting the room situation worked out (I’m rooming with the librarian), and then Open House. I had a massive headache by that point and was nearly at the point of tears. I tried to take a nap but I woke up every 5 minutes, and got up to go to sailaway feeling even worse than when I lay down. There was a few minutes of fear where I thought I was going to be sick any time I moved, but I went up to sailaway anyway, we had to stay there for 45 minutes, during which time we mostly talked with the rest of the on location team. Dinner helped my headache and I was feeling a bit better in time for work. Few kids showed up tonight, so Katie and I combined the kids and tweens programs. I went to the OB for a bit to see people who wanted to celebrate my birthday, but didn’t stay too long because I was exhausted.
Day 2 wasn’t bad, especially for a sea day. The kids were rather well behaved and they enjoyed their time. I didn’t spend any time in the room, from when I left at 8:40 for the HESS meeting, until midnight (because I had stayed upstairs hanging out with Jordan and the teens in the Loft).
Juneau was cold and rainy. I didn’t really have tweens come for the morning session, so I helped Katie with her 5 kids, then ran downstairs, changed and went to the crew office for immigration. Carl, YPC this week, was very frustrated that we had to be down there at 12, when we didn’t even arrive until 1. I did the same thing on the Volendam, so I came prepared with my phone to use while we sat and waited. It was really cold outside, and a bit rainy, but we made it through immigration and got back to the ship with an hour to spare before the newly-embarked crew raft drill. I had nothing to do, so I went up to Club HAL and watched Frozen with Jordan (who was on port day, with no kids showing up), we agreed to get off the ship and get crepes after he got off port day, so after the drill, I went back up there and helped him unlock characters in MarioKart to kill time until 4. Carl, Jordan, and I got off the ship and walked around town for a bit before going to the Viking, where we met some people Carl knew from the Westerdam. We hung out there for a while until I realized I should run and grab my crepe so I could get back and have plenty of time to change and get to work. Not many kids showed up for movie night, which was kind of nice. Easy night for us!