Malta & Night Shifts

Our tour in Malta ended up being pretty cool. They had a minibus rented for us, and then drove us all over the island showing us all the important sights. They had some really pretty churches, and the scenery was very nice. We went to see where they have a blue lagoon, it was such a nice colour, but I'm sure the pictures don't do it justice. It's pretty hilly in some spots, and they have really straight streets (not like at home) so some of the streets look like San Francisco.

It was nice to be on tour with all crew and not have to worry about guests, I must admit. It was a very relaxing day. We even had lunch too, I had a pasta with octopus, but it wasn't all that good unfortunately. The day was very hot, and I managed to get a little bit of sun. But I have definitely lost any hopes I had of a tan, we'll see if I manage to get back to anything in the next couple of weeks.

Night shifts were mostly okay, in the beginning at night it's usually busy, and the same with early in the morning. Aside from that I didn't mind it too much. Except for the fact that it really did tire me out. I even did have a missing person, and I seemed to do everything fine... actually it was two girls, who really just stayed out too late, and their mom's couldn't find them, but of course you have to take everything seriously just in case.

Mom and Dad made it onto the boat okay, but I haven't really seen them aside from the first day after the boat drill for a bit. They arrived taking pictures of me in my nice flourescent green vest, so you've got those pictures to look forward to of me. They've moslty gone out on tours, and when they came back I've been asleep before my shift. They do stop by the desk to say hi though, so I've seen a little bit of them.

Tonight I'm trying to stay awake to get back on a regular schedule, so we've booked dinner in one of the specialty restaurants, Portofino, which is Italian, so that should be a nice meal. They're off to Rome today on a long tour, so they'll have some time to rest once they get back. I guess they'll have pictures to show everyone once they get back, before me. But of course, I've only got one cruise left before I'm home after that, so not too much longer now.

Colourful boats

A Blue Lagoon

The inside of a church.

Scenic view of the island.

The outside of the church we were in.

The outside of a church that we didn't go in. If I remember correctly, they have tonnes of churches in Malta. I think our guide said that they commonly say that they have at least one church for every day of the year, which is a lot for a fairly small island.

A statue outside of the church that I thought looked pretty.

One of the streets in Malta. They said that people often think of the streets as being similar to those in San Francisco. Very long, straight streets that are very steep.

An update since it's been awhile...

Happy Canada Day! (Only slightly late...)

Lately things have been going fairly smoothly. Guests have been alright, pretty much their usual annoying selves. I have finally been put onto the night shift which I was definitely resisting at first. But so far no major issues, it's usually pretty quiet at night, so I've got some time to relax and not have to worry about dealing with too many guest problems.

Last cruise I had a chance to go out into some new ports. I went out in Mykonos as well as Santorini in Greece. Both were very beautiful. I took some nice pictures. Unfortunately I have given up all hope of putting up pictures before I come home, so you'll just have to wait. Santorini is on top of this big cliff, and you have to take a cable car in order to get to the top. I had lunch with Marcelo who works with me. It's actually his last cruise here, in 3 days he gets to go home!

A couple of days ago I also went out for a short bit in Croatia. The city we were in, Split, was very pretty. Lots of palm trees, and very old buildings around the shopping areas, with narrow streets that are pedestrian only. I had lunch (pizza!) with my new roommate Sandie, who is from Denmark. So far we are getting along very well.

I'll actually be coming home soon too, it's hard to believe that I have been here for almost 5 months now. I should fly back on the 28th, but I don't know my flight details yet. So once this cruise is over in 3 days, I only have 2 cruises left. Of course, my parents are coming to visit next cruise, so that will make the time pass even faster I'm sure.

So, while I am definitely sad to leave here and all the great people I've met, I am excited to come home and see everyone, and finally get to post and show my pictures. And of course there's also Carolyn's wedding to look forward to as well. But I have decided that I am going to come back for another contract, which will bring me back to this ship in October if everything goes as planned.

Right now I should go and get ready, we are in Malta today, and I'm actually going to go on a bit of a private "familiarization tour" with the people that sell the tours as well as some other staff. It should be exciting!

The view of Mykonos, Greece from where the tenders docked.

Me in the streets of Mykonos.

An old windmill (I think...) at the top of the hill in Mykonos.

The streets in Mykonos

The cliffs in Santorini, Greece

The cable cars we took to get to the top of the cliffs.

The view of the ship from the restaurant where we had lunch.

The town of Santorini.

Along the shoreline in Split, Croatia.

Pedestrian area of Split.

Our pizzas cooking in the oven (you can sort of see them on the right side).

Statue in the park in Split

(Sort of) Employee of the Month

So, every month or so we have a general staff meeting after our drill for the crew. The captain and some of the managers talk about stuff around the boat, what's going on with the company, what's going on with the ship, and things like that.

They also do the employee of the month. Everyone that's nominated has to go onstage, and then out of everyone you get an employee of the month for the whole ship. So, I was watching, not suspecting anything, when all of a sudden on the screen I see my picture. Was definitely not expecting that. I made my way up to the stage with the other people, and stood in front of all 800 or so staff, and waited. The girl next to me turns to me and said, "this is where we hold hands and cry..." like we were in a pagent, it was funny at the time... I wasn't the one picked, but I did get to shake hands with the captain... I feel special. Kinda wish I'd won, because then you at least get $500 bucks for standing up there.

So, anyway, I guess technically I got employee of the month for our division, which is definitely nice, and makes me feel like I'm doing a good job, even though I do feel lost a lot of the time. Awww, they do like me after all!!

Update

Okay, so it has definitely been a long time since I posted, so I'll try and do this quick and get as much down as I can...

We survived dry dock. We definitely had a good time, but they also had us work lots, or at least sit at the desk. Even though there wasn't really a whole lot to do, their reasoning is that we get paid more, and don't rely on tips, so we should be working. We did all get one day off. Unfortunately mine was early on in dry dock, so I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I could have.

In Hamburg we were docked right on the main river, and in order to get into town, we had to walk down this loooong tunnel under the river. That slowed us down for getting into town since it took about 15 minutes just to get across from the ship.

While we were there the city had a celebration for the harbour's birthday. So all along the river on the pier they had booths set up like at a fair back home. Except it was German style. They were set up for 3 days, and it was nice to go walking all along, and look at what they were selling, and of course to get a German sausage. I think I had too many of those, but they were very good.

Now we're back to guests, and dealing with all of the fun that comes with that. We're working our way over to Barcelona, which will be our home port for the next couple of years while we do our Mediterranean cruises. I was able to get off the ship for a little bit in Portugal and in Morocco. Definitely very different places and very beautiful as well. I would really like to go back sometime and have a better look around.

We're getting two new girls next cruise, which should be interesting since they're both new hires. So I will no longer be the new one at the desk. Apparently one of them gets to sort of shadow me for a bit too, which should be interesting, because I still don't feel like I really know a lot yet. But I guess we'll see how it goes...

Okay, I'm adding in some pictures later, and there are a lot of them, bear with me...

The tunnel we took under the river to get to the main part of Hamburg.

Birthday of the Harbour celebrations. They had all sorts of big ships and sailboats docked along the harbour, I'm sure dad and grampa would have really enjoyed seeing them.

Lisbon, Portugal

Pedestrian walkway in Portugal

Purple flowering tree in Lisbon

Bottom part of a fountain.

The view of Morocco going over in the tender.

Small park in the town.

Hotel on a cliff in Morocco, with the ship in the background

Dry Dock in Hamburg

And the boat is out of the water....

We are now in dry dock. They essentially had us drive into this tank, I guess you would call it, and then drained out all the water. We are apparently resting on concrete blocks with cushioning. I'll try to take some pictures later to show. And now that we're staying in one place for awhile, I think I'll try to find an internet cafe, and finally post some pictures.

So far dry dock has been pretty nice. The guest services crew all decided to buy coveralls so that we don't have to get our clothes dirty while we're here since we don't have to wear our uniforms. The first day we went around and covered all the floors in our areas with plastic so that it won't get dirty. This was actually quite a long process, and we were pretty creative with it...

Since then, we've been doing a lot of cleaning. And we deal with all the contractors on board, so that means that we're still doing a lot of checking in, and checking out as well. This is sometimes difficult since they mostly only speak Polish or German, or some other language than English. But we've been managing.

I haven't managed to get out yet since I've been doing the night shift and am pretty tired during the day. But tonight is my last night, so I guess we'll see. The others went into the red light district the other night, and I heard some iteresting stories from there...

The weather here is much colder too, I wasn't quite prepared for this, it's been as cold as 10 degrees, and it's been pretty rainy. Hopefully the weather is much nicer back home.

The dock in Cork, Ireland, when we arrived in Europe.

We actually arrived earlier than scheduled, due to a guest having a medical emergency (he had a heart attack, I think he ended up being okay though). So instead of arriving in the morning, we arrived at midnight, and all the crew of course decided to get off the ship.

Of course, during the week in a small town, there isn't really too much open... actually, nothing at all was open, much to our dismay.

Luckily one pub owner near the pier realized the profit he could make off the crew, so he opened up, and we all piled in for ridiculously expensive beer in an Irish Pub. From left to right, these are some of the people I worked with: Sara (my roommate) from Italy, Humberto from Mexico, Natasha from Puerto Rico, Karoly from Hungary, me, and Marcelo from Brazil. We're a pretty international department.

Showing our creative side with the plastic that covers the floors. I don't have pictures of us putting the actual plastic down, unfortunately, maybe I'll steal some from people later to post. Let's just say that it involved some rolling on the floor, as well as a process we called "the tiger" to make sure that it stuck...

Atlantic Crossing

Alright, I think I'll make this a quick one. We are now officially on our way to Europe. We left Bermuda today, and we have the next 5 days at sea. We even passed through the Bermuda Triangle, but nothing interesting happened, and we made it out okay.

The guests are definitely demanding this cruise, which we keep hearing is a good warm-up for Europe. Tomorrow I move back to the desk from being the telephone operator for a couple of cruises. Hopefully I still remember how to do things. At least we'll have a bit of a break while we're in dry dock in Hamburg, Germany for a couple of weeks. But of course that also means a really messy/dirty ship while they fix everything up. And lots of training. But of course it also means no guests....

Lifeboats

I was trying to decide just what I should write about since it's been awhile since I've been online. Then I remembered that I had mentioned my new emergency number awhile ago...


Anyway, so with my new emergency number I am at one of the passenger lifeboat station, and I have to participate in the passenger drill (which somehow seems to always be on my break on the first day which makes my day seem even longer, but that's another story...) So, this week, as a part of the crew drill, they had to lower the lifeboats on the starboard side to make sure that everything was working properly. So that meant a lifeboat ride for me!

Not quite as exciting as it sounds really, but still kind of cool. After we had our drill, which for me consisted of pretty much just standing at my station, everyone from our crew had to get into the lifeboat while it was being lowered. I sincerely hope that we don't have any emergencies and actually have to use those things, because they can fit 150 people, but that's only if you get very close to your neighbours.

I was on shift during this time, so it was sort of nice to be able to sit in the lifeboat as they drove it around for 40 minutes. We did have one small incident where we decided to play bumper-boats with another lifeboat, but they are both okay, and survived the incident.

Other than that, things are still going well, I got off the ship the other day and went to lunch in Costa Rica with my coworkers from Mexico. Definitley nice to have some real food for once.

I've been getting a few requests for pictures - the computers on the ship, which are the ones I mostly use, don't have usb ports available because they're very worried about viruses. So, maybe once we're in Europe I'll have a chance to go to an internet cafe to post some of the pictures I've taken. Speaking of Europe, next cruise is our transatlantic cruise, Europe here we come!