Princess Gathering

Princess Gathering

7^th February 2012

It was another early rising for us Disney new hires – more training. Yesterday, we had an hour on the subject of paedophilia, as you can imagine, a Disney cruise ship can be the perfect hunting ground for a dirty pervert!! Dare I say it, but as you can imagine, there have been cases in the past, but that I cannot go into. Sorry!

Today we had to endure an hour long, American-cheese video about health and safety in the work place. To be more specific: slips, trips and falls. To avoid such happenings in the work place you must follow the Three A’s: Awareness, Attitude and Action.

The only part I willingly paid attention to was the American trying to mimic the English accent (overly posh and badly) while carrying a large, over filled box. “I’m the butler and taking this box downstairs to the pantry”, as Russell Peter’s once said, you can’t mock the English accent without pulling the most ridiculous facial expressions. Needless to say, the Butler got his comeuppance for his poor English accent by taking a rather nasty fall down a steep staircase.

The two hour break was glorious! After being cooped up in a dark room or floating tin with no windows, it was great to get out to the crew swimming pool area and see the light of day. Grand Cayman looks stunning from the ship. I’m jealous I didn’t have time to get off. It’s a tendering port so by the time I set foot on island, I would have to turn back. Maybe next time.

Looking around there were about six ships alongside us. Two in particular stood out, Celebrity Solstice, where Gudrun (a friend from Miami training) is currently working and Voyager of the Seas where my previous BM Jomar was transferred to. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to meet up with Gudrun, it’s been a long time since Miami training. Seeing another Voyager class ship (same class as Mariner of the Seas) made me miss my previous photo team even more. The idea of jumping off Disney Magic, swimming through shark infested water to get to Voyager of the Seas to announce my arrive as a new photographer coming to work on the ship, popped into my head. If it wasn’t so idiotic, it’d be romantic fairy tale scene from a Disney film! That, or Disney’s magic and pixie dust is turning my brain cells to mush.

Afterwards we had a two hour break before meeting in Top Siders;  the guest’s buffet area, what Mariner of the Seas called Wind Jammer. Our little training team had a team lunch date. A chance for us to stuff our faces with good food one last time before returning to the pulpy mess served in the Mess.

Running down from the training team lunch we had an hour of life raft training. How to launch a life raft, what can be used to attract attention, what we should do once we are away from the sinking/sunken ship, etc.

Next Clarita and I were running from training to set up. The AMP wasn’t happy with me for going straight to set up. Apparently, I was supposed to get my camera and pentab first which is the opposite to how everyone I know usually does it.

Today would be my first chance to shooting a character so I was pretty excited yet nervous in case I cocked up. Princess Gathering happens once a cruise. All the Disney princesses grace the hoard of guests with their presence and there just so happen to be a handful of professional photographers standing by, armed with studio lights and cameras. The princesses featuring in this week’s Princess Gathering were Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Snow White, Cinderella, Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Tiana (Disney’s first black princess). I was shooting Arura and second in line. Once the guests started coming, we snapped away endless amounts of time, quickly racking up the image counts.

Strangely enough the princesses all decided to leave 30 minutes earlier than scheduled. Bjanca and I got on with setting up LSP (Lifestyle Portraits) where I’d be shooting this evening. Set up for me, on Disney Magic is particularly hard, the ceilings are so much higher and attaching the lights to the autopoles without a ladder is proving to be difficult. I had to ask another photog, Carolee (Jamaica) for help. According to her “short while girls can’t reach anything, but Filipinos are smaller than you white girls and they can reach the tall heights”. I was starting to feel inadequate and for a few minutes cursing my height, something that has never, ever bothered me.

The AMP came up later to check everything was okay. When I told her I was leaving for an hour break she got on the phone, changed the schedule around and told me I’d be shooting a session of LSP instead. Now. My break was then scheduled for two hours later. Somehow there was a misunderstanding. My schedule says “Setup LSP”. Somewhere in the two words I misunderstood, set up LSP… and shoot for 1.5 hours.  I did as I was told, took my break 2 hours later and in total shot three sessions of LSP.

Popping into the lab, Clarita asked how comes I was allowed to wear the daytime uniform. The reason being was that on Disney, if you are shooting casual LSP, you wear your grey trousers and black “day” shirt. As soon as she said it, the AMP began questioning whether or not I could wear my “day” jacket. The BM asked me why I was wearing it, “because I have a cold from the air conditioning. One minute I’m hot, next I’m freezing so I’ve been slipping the jacket on and off all day”. A very unimpressed looking manager then instructed me that it was an Image policy that no one could wear their day jacket on the ship, even during the day. The jacket was only to be worn while working on the gangway. Without wanting to sound overly moody or sensitive, since yesterday (formal night) I’ve been under the impression that the BM has taken a thorough dislike to me. After what happened to Becks, I’d better keep my mouth shut, head down and cover my arse!

During a 45 minute break I went and sat up on the forward part of the ship, by the crew swimming pool. To be fair, I was feeling incredibly down and completely on my own. I missed my Mariner of the Seas photo team.

Once the night was finally over, the photographers had a meeting with the characters (entertainment) department. We were introduced to the crew who are “friends” with certain characters. I could tell who Cinderella was straight away. The person who threw me the most was Aurora, she looked completely different!

By the end of the night I was completely drained and slumped into bed. Tomorrow is another day and to top it off, I’m not working until 15.00!

Princess Gathering from Above

The Princesses - Belle, Tiana, Cinderella, Aurora and Snow White