Cruising The Seven Seas: Shore Pass Search

Shore Pass Search

4^thOctober 2011

Well, we are on our very last trip to Messina, Sicily. It seems strange that we wouldn't be coming here again. It’s a lovely place to come but there’s not much for us crew members to do, unless you’re working on a cruise tour.

Most of us weren’t on gangway. Unfortunately we had a green drill today. The alarm went off at about 9.30 and the drill will last as long as it takes. The main reason for it taking such a long time is simply because some crew members turn up extremely late or not at all! We have to wait until everyone arrived at their muster stations before the second alarm is sounded for everyone to go to their life raft/boat stations. At first a dozen people were missing from the drill. A couple of people weren’t didn’t turn up at all. They’d have to report to the staff captain. The drill, from start to finish, took about 2 hours. Two hours of standing up, waiting, not knowing when you’ll be finished. It’s incredibly tedious! Luckily, while standing at my life raft station I had a handful of the laundry guys to talk to and mess around with.

Bumping into Leandro in the Photographer’s Corridor, he told me Paco had to shoot him on gangway. Leandro was our Japanese/Brazilian pizza chef. He told us about a German guest we have on board. Leandro went up to him and cheering “let’s get your picture” and the guy pushed him away and snarled “no you little shit”. Leandro was shocked and blurted out “what the fuck man!” The German man’s wife turned to Leandro, disgusted, “how dare you swear at my husband”. Paco, our AMS, stepped in and almost mimicked the lady, asking “how dare he call Leandro a little shit”. She said she hadn’t heard her husband say anything of the sort and had a good mind to report Leandro and Paco. This could be interesting! We had a feeling it won’t be the last time we see or hear from these German guests!

Meeting Sandra back in the cabin, we decided to go out for pizza before having a walk around Messina for the last time. Sanela wanted to join us.

Normally an envelope is hanging on our cabin door with everyone’s shore pass. Today there wasn’t. As the others were getting ready, I went in search of the shore passes at M&R’s cabin. There were envelopes for Spa, Casino and Shops but nothing for the photographers.

Making a few calls to the managers, Dione went on a search to find out where the shore passes were. We managed to get our hands on one shore pass, Ivan, our Colombian new hire. Dione came into the corridor about 45 minutes later to tell us that Messina authorities weren’t issuing new shore passes (like they do every time we dock in Messina). Everyone had to use their expired shore pass to get off the ship. Of course, as the shore passes had expired, everyone had thrown them away.

The only people on the team who didn’t need shore passes were Leandro (Brazil), Hernan (Argentina), Zoran (Croatia) and me (UK). I didn’t want to go out without Sandra. Needless to say, she was seriously put out about not having a shore pass, especially for our last Messina. I decided to stick with Sandra and stay onboard with her.

There was nothing left to do other than go up to the mess for something to eat and then sit on the deck outside drinking coffee and chatting. Once back in the cabin I thought I’d take the opportunity to do my laundry… that’s how desperate I was for something to do!