Small World of Ship Life

Small World of Ship Life

6^th April 2012

Ani is moving into my cabin today, after my Spa roommate disembarked this morning. It’ll be a laugh having Ani in the cabin and no doubt we’ll be having a movie night, or something along those lines, soon.

This morning, I was on Morning Sale and as usual, I was the only person who turned up on time. The rest slowly sauntered into Shutters in between 06.10 and 06.20. I could have had an extra 15 minutes in bed, went through my head. Today it was just Inna, Kate and myself. Cintia was signed off while Rama was at Immigration preparing to disembark.

The queue was massive but we slowly and steadily working our way through it. Rama, later on in the morning, joined us and gave us a huge hand. Having an extra pair of hands was needed. At the end of Morning sale, we stripped the remaining photos off the wall as fast as we could. Unfortunately, we were at least an hour behind, due to the huge queue of guests and being one person down. It all adds up, especially when it’s coming out of your break.

The good news about Morning Sale: we’d managed to bring in $11,000 in only a couple of hours. That was unbelievable, especially when we usually made $4-5,000.

Finally getting off the ship at 11.00 with Kate, we jumped in a taxi to the Mall. In Port Canaveral, you either go to Walmart or the Mall. After faffing around with some paperwork Kate had to get sorted, we nipped into Books-a-Million to get a world map. Finally, I had one to stick to my cabin wall.

Settling down in an internet café, popular with other crew members, I got online to talk to the parents and catch up a little. Lee came online and asked how things were. We were chit-chatting as usual.

“Where are you?”

“Port Canaveral. You?”

“Port Canaveral too. Where are you?”

“At the Mall. Where are you?”

“At some shitty internet place by the Mall.”

“Hold on a minute…”

Walking outside and looking around, I didn’t see anyone. “Lou!!” Looking to my right, Lee was there! Running over I gave him a massive bear hug! It’d been so long since I’d seen him and out of the blue, we just so happen to be in the same place, at the same time. I was absolutely over the moon, in my element!

Joining Lee, it was brilliant to be able to talk to him again and have a proper catch up. I missed having a mate like Lee around. Plus he’s now working with Zoran and later on, I found out Chet (from my Miami training group) is on Monarch of the Seas too. I couldn’t believe it. It really is a small world but this just took the biscuit. This is the even smaller world of ship life!!

Hearing stories of life on board Monarch of the Seas, it made me miss having a team like the Mariner of the Sea’s photography team. The team on the Disney Magic aren’t as fun or out-going as my other team, or Lee’s, for that matter. If I’m absolutely honest, I only get on with 3 members of the team. The others, I can leave. I missed being around up beat people who went out of their way to have fun. It made a tough job easier. At the end of the day, when you sign off, all you want (apart from sleep) is a pocket full of money and endless amounts of great memories.

Speaking to Lee, I decided to go back to Csaba and request to be transferred to Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas. They worked hard, partied harder and earned good money. That was what I wanted. My mind was set.

Unfortunately, time ran out too quickly and we had to get back on the shuttle bus to the ship. In two weeks’ time we arranged to meet again (next time I’m on morning sale). Lee told me he’d pull a few strings and get Zoran to drag his arse out of bed. I can’t wait.

I miss Zoran and Lee so much!! It’d be fantastic to see them both again. Thinking about it, the last time I saw Lee was when Mariner of the Seas and Vision of the Seas went out together during the overnight in Istanbul. That was six months ago!!! It seemed like a lifetime!!

Saying goodbye to Lee, I bounced back to Disney Magic, over the moon to see a friendly face again while at the same time, not wanting to go back to my dull ship and even duller team. Looking on the bright side, my next morning sale is in two weeks and I’ll soon be seeing Lee and Zoran. A double whammy and I couldn’t wait. Yes, I’m going to be like a kid counting down the days until Christmas!!