Mission Waistcoat Accomplished

Mission Waistcoat Accomplished

24^th March 2012

This morning on Morning Sale, we had masses of people coming to pick up their kiosk orders. The queue was massive and we couldn’t get through the people quick enough!

While taking down all the photos from the cruise, in order for us to start a new one, Rama was checking the figures. We’d already passed our target, it was just a question of by how much. The announcement soon came. We’d gone over our target by 5%. The more you go over target, the better your bonus will be.

Gathering my stuff together, I met Rama on the 1-95. Little did I know, Inna was coming too. To put it nicely, we aren’t the best of friends and only stand each other for work. Outside of work, we don’t even acknowledge each other’s existence. Getting in a cab, we were at the mall in about 10 minutes.

The BMs have been banging on for weeks about us newer (to Disney) people to buy ourselves waistcoats. It’s not part of the Disney Look to wear the blazer Image supplied us with. Quite frustrating, especially if you’re a new hire and already paying $200 for your uniform.

Ani had tried getting a waistcoat the week before, but couldn’t find one that’d fit her. Everyone else has managed to get one from JC Penny. Rama showed me the way to JC Penny and the men’s waistcoats.

Slipping on a small, it fit me okay; a little baggy around the shoulders and snug on the waist but it wasn’t too bad. Any bigger and it’d have been falling off me. Handing over $40, I had my uniform partially sorted. Rama and Inna left me to get some lunch so I had a wander around the store and picked up a few bits and pieces. There have been plenty of whispers about Inna and Rama. I'm not sure what to make of it all, but they sure know how to add fuel to the fire!

Most of my white shirts are short sleeved, I needed to get long sleeves to go with my uniform. Getting on the bus I needed to stop at Walmart to get some shopping for Carolee and myself, as well as pick up some white shirts, if possible.

Putting my headphones in, I drifted into my own little world. What seemed like a couple of minutes later, I was being prodded in the shoulder. “You are from Disney, yes? We are here.” Crap! I’d fallen asleep and completely missed Walmart. I didn’t have time to go back either. I had to return to the ship empty handed. What a mess!!

Later on during the evening, at work, I trained Ani how to shoot LSP. It was strange in a way. I remember Stu, Fede and Luci teaching me how to shoot LSP and now here I am, doing the same. Obviously, I’m nowhere near as good as they are, and we don’t have any type of props to use in the studio, but all the same. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was the new hire, learning the ropes.

After work and the weekly meeting, we headed into the crew bar for a drink. Today was Csaba’s first day on the job as BM for Disney Magic. Sitting around, the crew bar is awful compared to Royal Caribbean’s. It’s a small, dinky, dark room with a couple of tiny portholes. No one was there, the place was dead.

Csaba, Carolee, Inna, Rama, Maryna, Ani, Kate and Daniel (a Peruvian bar tender) sat around, having a few drinks until the Officer’s came in at 2am to the turn all the lights on and remind us it was time to go. We sat around for another 30 minutes before calling it a night.

Good job it’s an hour back tonight!

Surprise, Dave

Surprise, Dave!

22^nd March 2012

It’s another day at sea and as usual, we had our weekly cabin inspection. As usual, my new cabin passed. In the meantime, I sat out on Deck 5 forward, in the strong winds talking to my Mom and Dad before shooting Princess Minnie outside the Walt Disney Theatre.

As it’s a sea day we’re having Semi-Formal night which is basically another formal night. Unfortunately, I missed my target by about 50 shots. I was shooting the Mickey Statues and Stairs. Realistically, I need someone posing the people for me while I shoot. The guests are situated too far away from me to hear or understand me. So, putting down and picking the camera up to go over and pose them takes time. Secondly, as soon as the dining room doors open, people start herding in, meaning I either have to wait for them to pass or if Dave’s around, he’ll hold back the traffic for a couple of seconds, while I take a photo or two.

Going up for dinner, we had a surprise for Dave. He’ll be leaving on Saturday and transferring to the Wonder. After 25 years of working for Image he is ready to retire, but before that he wants to take his wife to Alaska. I think that’s the only place he hasn’t been to in all his years working for Image.

Once everyone was sitting down, waiting for pizza, most of us knew what was going to happen. Dave had no idea.  Rama came over “Sorry, we’re going to have to move. They want to clean the floors here”.

Everyone got up and walked behind a screen to a large table, all set up for us. As soon as Dave came around everyone burst into cheers. Dave’s face was a picture, he couldn’t believe it. He honestly thought we were pulling his leg and that the table was set up for the officers or captain.

Before tucking in, we had a group photo taken, Ressi style of course. I haven’t seen it yet, but when I get my hands on a copy, I’ll upload it. During dinner we were all laughing and joking about previous events, funny things that Dave and Rama have said and done in the past.

Carolee topped it off though with her impressions of us shooting. Mark always looks like he’s doing lunges while shooting. Inna has a bow and arrow style of shooting and Cinta just looks damn frustrated every time she’s taking photos of characters. Her impressions had us crying with laughter.

Even though it was a chilled event for a send-off party, it was a good one. It was a great way to end the evening and an even better way to wave Dave off.

Old Banger

Old Banger

21^st March 2012

Cozumel, here we are! The day has finally arrived!

Five of us had arranged to meet, rent a car, tour the small island of Cozumel, Mexico and snorkel. I went to set up the lab at 8am rather than 9 so we could get off the ship as soon as possible. While making a cup of tea in the Mess I noticed we were still moving. Why? Our schedule says 7.30am arrival.

In the lab, at about 8:30, Ani wandered in and told me we weren’t arriving until at least 9.30. Just my luck. On top of that, there was a delay because of the strong winds coming into the port which made docking difficult. Just our luck. Then there was an even bigger delay as we had to wait for another delayed cruise ship, NCL Epic, to pull up alongside us. Now this was just bad luck for everyone!

Waiting and waiting, Rama, Inna and Maryna, didn’t turn up to meet us. Rather than cancelling things and waiting for others to get their act in gear, Ani and I got off the ship intending to have the best day we could… and boy, were we in for a treat!

There were two choices of car rentals from this particular company. The Jeep was $60 or the Volkswagen at $35 for the day. As there were only two of us we went for the cheap and cheerful option. That wasn’t the final price though. There was an additional $15 for insurance. It was optional, but I thought we’d better get it in case anything happened. After all, we didn’t want to be footing the bill if someone bumped into us or vice versa. On top of the insurance came $10 of petrol. We had to return the car with a nearly full tank, which we expected.

Waiting on the sea front for the car to be driven over to us, we were keeping our eyes out for Volkswagens. None. All of a sudden, Ani got all excited, laughing “Noooooo, it can’t be”. Yes it was! We had just rented an antique Volkswagen Beetle that made a rust bucket look luxurious! We rolled up. Ani had tears running down her face!!

Getting in the car, I couldn’t get my car seat forward to touch the pedals. The guy who rented our car said “allow me” before physically hammering the seat about and almost picking it up, before putting it a smidgen closer to the steering wheel. Oh boy, this was going to be interesting! Looking for my seat belt, the guy said “Seat belts aren’t mandatory in Mexico… so we didn’t install any”. Looking at the pedals, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I thought I’d driven some heaps of crap in my time, but this was taking things to an entirely new level.

About to pull off, I checked my right mirror, only to discover that it didn’t exist. No right hand side mirror, no seat belts, tiny pedals, too far for my stubby legs to each and no handbrake… Ani and I were glowing with enthusiasm and confidence! We later discovered that the brakes were just about useable – we’d be screwed if we had to do an emergency stop. Needless to say, we were left thanking our lucky stars we’d said "yes" to the addition insurance!!

Pedals

Driving along the main coastline road, there were numerous snorkelling points, some private, others public. A favourite place for many to visit is Chankanaab. The cost to enter is $20 which will cover entry, snorkelling, sun loungers and umbrellas. There’s also different water sports from parasailing to jetskiing and swimming with dolphins, all of which come at an additional cost.

Travelling along down the coast, we stopped off at Punta Sur (South Point) and then Bob Marley’s Place (if you are a fan of reggae and/or Bob Marley – go!). The sea was rough and impossible for snorkelling.

We were trying to find the lighthouse, where we were told, you could see crocodiles in their natural habitat. We’d driven past the lighthouse somehow. Asking for directions, I was told to head back the way we’d travelled and head down the old road.

Getting back on the road, we headed back the way we’d come before joining the old road. There are two roads circling the island, the old and new road, so we didn’t think it’d be too hard to find the lighthouse. Of course, we were very wrong. Once again, this time on the old road, we’d driven past the lighthouse. Confused, we checked the map. According to the map, there is a small dirt track we need to take to get to the lighthouse. We’d been looking out for it since we set off and hadn’t seen anything of the sort.

Unfortunately time was ticking. We had to carry on our journey in the direction of the ship. You never know, we might be able to try again, next week. Stopping off at a small beach bar, we decided to spend the last hour chilling before Pirate Night.

Snorkelling

Dropping our stuff, we could see a number of people snorkelling a little way out. The bar tender told us that if we have our own equipment we could just go right on in and start snorkelling.

Stripping off and grabbing our snorkels and masks, we waded into the water. Only a couple of metres from the shore we dipped down into the shallow water and started swimming out. You didn’t have to go far until you were amongst the coral. Fishes were literally swimming straight towards us. I’ve never seen schools of fish come so close to me, some very nearly touched my mask. Others were circling Ani, almost intrigued to investigate what was going on. It was absolutely amazing to see. The disposable underwater camera we'd purachased onboard certain came in handy!

Swimming around there were fish of all shapes and sizes. Some were so brightly coloured. Blacks, yellows, purples and even reds. The bravest fish, the ones swimming around us were silver with a bright yellow line stripe down the side. Seeing a “pothole” in the sea bed with swaying coral, we spotted a massive lobster poking out from the rocks.

Turning around was an enormous red, orange and silver fish  swimming along before throwing itself into the seabed. Then it’d poke it’s face around, looking for food, before swimming along a little further and repeating the seabed bashing. Everything looked so surreal.

Floating above the coral, taking photos, I didn’t realize just how big the coral was… and I bet it’s tiny compared to what you could find if you went out further into the sea, scuba diving. The large deep purple corals were swaying with the current. Hidden away were more fish. One resembled an Angel fish, coloured in black with two yellow and purple strips.

Another resembled the Japanese Fighter fishes I once owned. They didn’t move very much and had a similar colouring, black with a red or purple tint to their scales and some had a dark red fin, while others had bright yellow.

My descriptions really aren’t doing the fishes, coral or entire experience, much justice. With a bit of luck, the photographs come out half decent. First though, we need to finish off the film before getting it developed, probably in Port Canaveral.

Getting out the water, Ani munched on fajitas before it was time to take the rust bucket back to the car rental store.

I’ll  never get used to driving a car with next to no brakes! We were still laughing about the car on the way back to the drop off point; especially when the car stopped going into third gear and doing bunny hops along the road. In the end, I had to speed the car up as much as I could, skip third and jump into fourth gear, something the car didn’t particularly like by the sounds of the rattling, roaring and banging going on inside the engine. Both Ani and I were expecting the engine to drop out at any second, or the wheels to fall off! We’d have to get the car back Flintstone style!

Dropping the car off, the guy was good enough to take our photo with our Herbie Banger. Running back to the ship we had 30 minutes to get ready for set up and then we were straight into Pirate Night.

Although tired from an action packed day, we were strangely enough feeling refreshed and ready for a night of pirates and photos.

One thing is for sure, it was a great day out, probably the best of this contract, so far. Hopefully, it won’t be long until episode two begins! Next time though, we’ll try and gather more people together and rent a Jeep. Or, at least a car with fully functional brakes!

Our Herbie Banger!

Inside

Where's the radio?

Our Rust Bucket for the Day

Help

Driving Through Cozumel

Cozumel Island Map

Check out the view

Too Rough to Snorkel

Oops!

Cookie Jar

Cookie Jar

20^th March 2012

Clocks went back an hour last night, so I had a nice little lie in until 9am.

All the photographers were in the lab at 10am for fire fighting training. This is all in preparation for the US Coast Guards inspection in Port Canaveral. The early Coast Guard inspections are all thanks to none other than Costa/Carnival. Because of their recent mishaps with sinking and stranded ships, the US Coast Guards are stepping things up a gear, going to extra mile to make sure nothing else happens and that we regularly have guest and/or crew drills.

After the training, I was off until 15.00. A couple of things desperately needed to be sorted. The first was my bank account. Since being on vacation, I’ve had nothing but troubles with my bank account. To apply for a new debit card I have to “pop into my local branch” which becomes a mission when staying in Uruguay! Dartford, England is a bit too far to “pop over” to.

Later I had to telephone the bank about my credit cards being denied. That got sorted, after lengthy periods of waiting. That was finally sorted.

My bank’s website address has been blocked by the ship’s internet, so I passed my details onto my Dad. That way he could keep an eye on things for me. What happens? The silly sod, only enters my password in wrong and gets the account blocked. Nice one father! I thought the idea of getting him to keep an eye on things, would have been easier. Now I’m starting to wonder.

Calling the telephone number I was given, on Ocean Phone, I was told that for $20 I only had 10 minutes. What the hell!? After numerous attempts, I got through to someone and played a game of 20 questions. The only question I wasn’t asked was “what colour is your underwear?”

Finally, after what seemed like ages of keeping a beady eye on the time, hoping my money doesn’t run out, the account was unblocked and things back to normal… all at the grand cost of $22.

I swear, if my Dad buggers things up again, he’ll not only be footing the bill but have a rather annoyed little daughter who will cause murders :-D.

Thinking about it, banks only work when you’re nearby a branch. Maybe I should just go back to an old-school way of saving my money, by hiding it all in a cookie jar on top of the fridge or in the cupboard?

Im The Boss Here

I’m the Boss Here

19^th March 2012

As expected, I was shattered today, after going to bed at 2am. To make matters worse, it was formal night and the can of Monster I have in reserve, in the back of my fridge is coming out to play. Yes, I know, I promised myself that I’d never drink the stuff again, but I had to take extreme measures to rid myself of unbelievable tiredness!

Before the big night began, there was one of the two weekly Princess Gatherings. Again I was shooting Princess Tiana. There was a slight change to the shooters too. Maryna/Inna had been switched with Aniko. With Carolee, Ani and myself shooting, everything went smoothly and there weren’t any massive backed up queues for a particular Princess, caused by slow shooters. It made the entire event so much easier for everyone involved, Princesses included.

Formal night was much quieter than it had been on the previous cruise. It's worrying as we want to earn as much money as possible and today is the biggest seller. I missed my target by just 20 photos which grates a bit but what can you do? I was shooting as fast as I possibly could.

While in Ressi I was moving way too fast thanks to the Monster. I was trying to go as fast as I could as Inna was taking her sweet time, shooting her section in the dining room. It’s frustrating when certain people go slowly knowing that someone else will finish off their job, once you’ve completed yours. It’s becoming an reoccurring matter and grating on a few of the more experienced photographers.

Trying to cover everything with a can of Monster in my system was making me sloppy. My cropping was terrible. I even went back a few occasions to make sure my cropping was correct, that of course, slowed me down a bit. My mind was going on a rampage and limbs had a mind of their own, again.

In the lab, I apologized for my cropping and Diva asked what happened to me. My cropping was too tight. “Monster” was my only reply. “Oh” and a smile was all I got back. Seems like I’m not the only one with a problem!

A group of 11 came into my studio. Asking for a Key to the World card from each stateroom the man said “No. We’ve already spoke about this.” To who? Because it certainly wasn’t to me! I explained that we needed a Key to the World Card from each stateroom to allow everyone to see their photos on the kiosk. Also to make sure the photos are logged into the right stateroom. Really it’s so people can’t swindle the CD package, by including photos from multiple staterooms (the CD package is per stateroom). “Look, you’re not having any more cards. I’m paying for it all and it all goes on my card”. All I said next was that it’d make things easier for everyone to find their photos. “Look, I’m the boss here! You’re not getting any more cards and you do as I say. Take our picture!” I didn’t think I’d be snapped at like that so deleting the card swipe, I quickly fired off the camera three times, abruptly thanked the guests and gracefully pointed them to the studio exit. Next couple...

In my studio, I AM the freaking boss!!

Queen of Hearts

Queen of Hearts

18th March 2012

Please welcome... Her Royal Majesty, The Queen of Hearts.

Carolee, Me and The Queen of Hearts

Off with her Head!

Pleasing the Queen

Southernmost Point

Southernmost Point

18^th March 2012

Originally I was due to have the day off in Key West, but that didn’t go to plan. I was working the evening.

We docked late, so meeting Ani and Maryna in the Mess, we hurried off the ship as quickly as possible. It took time as the crew have to wait behind a curtain, peeping through, until there were no guests coming.
Security gave us a wave and a sudden burst of crew members quickly rushed over to the gangway exit. The moment guests started appearing, we'd have to wait again. Frustrating isn’t even the word!

Looking at the map, we didn’t have a lot of time, two hours, so we decided to walk down to the Southernmost Point. The name says it all really, but it’s the Southernmost point of the Continental United States of America. It’s location is only 90 miles from Cuba but 150 miles from Miami. On a clear night you can apparently see the lights of the shore streaming along the horizon. I’m not 100% sure whether it’s just at night, but it wasn’t clear enough for us to see anything during the day.

We stopped off at a shop on the way there and I ended up walking out with three pairs of earrings.

Moving along, we found Key West’s Butterfly and Exotic Birds Conservatory. Walking in, we saw the price list, $12 for adults. Walking over to the lady, I asked how much it was for crew, thinking we might get at least a bit of a discount, if we were lucky. We were more than just lucky, for crew, it’s free plus there’s a 20% discount in the gift shop.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go in as we wanted to get to the Southernmost Point. The lady at the Butterfly and Exotic Bird Conservatory told us to get there quickly as there’s usually a queue from here to Cuba! She gave us a stamp anyway, suggesting that if we have time, to pop in and have a walk around.

Arriving at the point and there was a long queue, but not as long as we’d expected. Apparently it’s usually much longer. We waited about 15 minutes and got two girls behind us, were nice enough to take a couple of photos of all three of us together before we returned the favour.

Heading back to the ship we stopped off at a small café to get a drink for the walk. The owner seemed confused by the mix of our accents and asked where we were all from; England, Hungary and Belarus. "How do you know each other, being from different countries?" "Cruise ship crew members." People are always intrigued by us crew members and have dozens of questions to ask. The main question, "what’s it like to work on cruise ships" and "how much time do you get off?" People are also shocked when we say around three hours and no days off. Mind you, we always get a mixture of sympathy and “hats off to you” for doing 6-8 month contracts with no days off and limited free time.

Back on the road, and Key West changed from modern day America to Old-Age America within a snap of your fingers. Key West is a place that intrigues me. It’s completely different from any of the other places we stop at. Plus, two sides of Key West are two completely different worlds. One part is a normal, slightly tourist America where the most advertised item is Key Lime Pie. The other side is full of souvenir shops promoting t-shirts and other clothing items with KEY WEST scribbled across and novelty slogans. I still haven’t found a better slogan than on the shirt in St. Thomas "You can have me chest, but don’t touch the booty!“ However, I’m not paying $20 for a strap top!

Maryna wasn’t working until later on in the evening, so she headed off in search of the supermarket while Ani and I walked back to the Disney Magic. We were both on set up.

There are still plenty of places for us to visit in Key West, the only problem is, we doubt we are going to have enough time to get around everywhere… and that’s just on the main land.

Back on board, it was the last time we were going to be in Key West for two weeks. Next cruise, another Western Caribbean, is a 6 rather than 7 night cruise. We’ll be skipping Key West and sailing straight to Grand Cayman.

The rest of the night was spent in between LSP, deserted as usual, and helping Cinta shoot chracters which to be fair, was a disaster. Dave came down to watch and asked how she was getting in and it wasn’t good. As we were watching it took her 13 attempts to focus the camera before shooting. It was painful for everyone watching!

Later on, I was told by the greeters that Cintia was snatching the guest’s Key to the World Cards and snapping at them. Why? I don’t know. What do you do? Again, I don’t know. I’ve been on her case all night about cropping and not shooting the backs of kid’s heads so I really didn’t want to point out something else she was doing wrong.

Everyone except Cintia is now a Photog 2 so Rama told me my wages were to be lower than before, when we hit target. Basically, we have more people to share with. Rama, trying to be encouraging, told me to hurry up and get sorted for Photog 3. This through me into a bit of a rage though. My competencies are done, I was told to learn to print and I have. I’m hitting my targets, helping the new hires, taking responsibility. What more do you want from me before I can have my checklist for photog 3? Rama apologized and said there was nothing he could do, but he’d speak to the new BM Csaba.

Later on, Csaba, Dave's replacement, came over and asked who was P3. Only Carolee, who was leaving soon. Rama quickly piped up and said I was ready for P3, I just needed to do my checklist. To this, Csaba nodded and said he’d get something sorted when he takes over. Looks promising and all thanks to Rama!

At the end of the night, a few of us went upstairs to Deck 5 for a drink. It was pitch black which threw Csaba. He knew parties on Royal Caribbean. Now he's arrived on Disney Magic and learnt Disney’s way of partying. Drinking on the front deck in absolute darkness, expect for security’s occasional torch light, when they made their way around everyone, making sure we were behaving well and still sober.

Speaking to Csaba, he asked why I wasn’t Photog 3 already, so I explained everything that had happened recently. Asking me whether I can set up, I said yes. Printing Ressi, I told him I probably could print Ressi but have never done so before. Then it came to the crunch. They need a Photog 3 because Carolee is leaving soon so someone has to replace her and Csaba wants someone with experience.

Not only that, Diva the AMP is leaving in two weeks and there is no one to replace her. We’ll be without an AMP for maybe weeks up to a month as Image hasn’t sorted anything out in terms of replacements. By the looks of it, I might be promoted to Photog 3 to do the AMPs job. There was me thinking I was going to become the new lab rat. Instead, it looks like I’m going to be the lab rat filling in the AMP’s shoes and Diva has very large shoes to fill. She`s another machine, like Dione, who whacks prints out in no time. Me, I’ll be spending until early hours of the morning printing!

Southern Most Point - Maryna, Me and Ani