My flight arrived into Miami at 6:30am, and I made it to my hotel (after being bypassed once by the hotel shuttle bus and having to wait another half hour for the next one) by about 8am. I was one of a few crew members and we were told to wait while they tried to find us rooms. After about half an hour, the lady at the front desk called me up, gave me a meal ticket, and said "Go eat breakfast", which I did, gratefully. Unfortunately I wasn't told that was my only breakfast ticket, and using it meant I wasn't entitled to breakfast the next morning. Not nice! I just paid for it, the company will hopefully reimburse me. I did some shopping, napping, and then met up with an old high school buddy for dinner in my hotel, which was very strange, but nice. The wonders of technology allow me to meet up with people in the most unlikely places!
The next morning, we arrived at the ship by bus at around 8:45am. For some reason, Fort Lauderdale US Customs was really taking their sweet time processing the ship, and everyone was delayed boarding until past 3pm. We got to sit around on the pier for over 6 hours, with no provisions at all, not a fun experience. Luckily there was a bathroom a short walk away, and someone managed to find a few bags of chips to tide us over. Then it was a whirlwind of a sign-on, experience, going straight from signing on the ship to our first training, to our first boat drill, to rehearsal, to the show. Thankfully our wonderful cruise director Mr. Ray Rouse (who joined with us that day) only scheduled one Welcome Aboard Show, andI was able to relax and unwind around 9pm.
Since signing on, we have only had a couple of ports. Nick and I went to the beach and snorkeled in Bonaire, and had a more relaxed day wandering around Aruba. We had a bit of a rainy Panama Canal transit, which shaped up to be very hot later on in the day. I'm really looking forward to transiting the other direction in a couple of months. Today we are in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Nick and I had one goal today: buy some good ground coffee to use in our french press. Costa Rica is known for great coffee, and this will save us money in the long run. We will just make our own coffee instead of buying it by the cup when we go ashore. We enjoyed walking by the seashore, and this is the third day in a row we have enjoyed a mini-picnic of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches brought with us ashore, to avoid stopping to eat anywhere ashore. So far, so good on our saving-money routine!
Last night we got to back up Gerard Kenny, the singer-songwriter who composed a lot of stuff for Barry Manilow, most famously "I made it through the rain." and "New York, New York, so good they named it twice" I am impressed by his credentials, a bit less so by his singing and piano playing. In the first show he panicked and thought he had gone over time, so he stopped after his penultimate song and bowed, and then hissed at us to "play me off with something!!" He was confused about the time, we played something round and round not knowing what to do, finally Nick managed to convince him he could come out and perform his final number. In fact, he had to give him a little push onto the stage. Ahhh, showbiz.
The next morning, we arrived at the ship by bus at around 8:45am. For some reason, Fort Lauderdale US Customs was really taking their sweet time processing the ship, and everyone was delayed boarding until past 3pm. We got to sit around on the pier for over 6 hours, with no provisions at all, not a fun experience. Luckily there was a bathroom a short walk away, and someone managed to find a few bags of chips to tide us over. Then it was a whirlwind of a sign-on, experience, going straight from signing on the ship to our first training, to our first boat drill, to rehearsal, to the show. Thankfully our wonderful cruise director Mr. Ray Rouse (who joined with us that day) only scheduled one Welcome Aboard Show, andI was able to relax and unwind around 9pm.
Since signing on, we have only had a couple of ports. Nick and I went to the beach and snorkeled in Bonaire, and had a more relaxed day wandering around Aruba. We had a bit of a rainy Panama Canal transit, which shaped up to be very hot later on in the day. I'm really looking forward to transiting the other direction in a couple of months. Today we are in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Nick and I had one goal today: buy some good ground coffee to use in our french press. Costa Rica is known for great coffee, and this will save us money in the long run. We will just make our own coffee instead of buying it by the cup when we go ashore. We enjoyed walking by the seashore, and this is the third day in a row we have enjoyed a mini-picnic of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches brought with us ashore, to avoid stopping to eat anywhere ashore. So far, so good on our saving-money routine!
Last night we got to back up Gerard Kenny, the singer-songwriter who composed a lot of stuff for Barry Manilow, most famously "I made it through the rain." and "New York, New York, so good they named it twice" I am impressed by his credentials, a bit less so by his singing and piano playing. In the first show he panicked and thought he had gone over time, so he stopped after his penultimate song and bowed, and then hissed at us to "play me off with something!!" He was confused about the time, we played something round and round not knowing what to do, finally Nick managed to convince him he could come out and perform his final number. In fact, he had to give him a little push onto the stage. Ahhh, showbiz.
