Cruising The Seven Seas: The Last of the Last

The Last of the Last

25^th October 2011

Here we are. Our day has finally arrived. Well, nearly. For Hernan, David and I, this will be our last day of work on the Mariner of the Seas… and Reuben was determined to make us work! The other photographers signing off usually finished at 17.00, but Reuben was making us work until 20.00. We felt cheated that we couldn’t start drinking and celebrating before 20.00.

All three of us were working from 7am until 11. We were all, absolutely shattered and willing the day to move on quicker so we could, hopefully have a quick nap to catch up on the lack of sleep. That however, was wishful thinking.

After displaying all the photos from formal night, we opened the gallery and watched the early bird float in. Selling wasn’t going too badly though to be fair. At least we had a chance of getting our wages up a bit more before we signed off.

After an hours break for lunch I was back in the gallery, selling. 14.00 came by and I was back in the cabin packing some more things into my suitcase. Sandra was watching me which always give you a heavy heart because you’re in two minds about leaving. Over the moon that you’ll soon be “free” but sad because you’re going to be leaving some great people behind, not knowing when you’ll see them again.

At 14.30 the three of us headed up to the Staff Mess for the sign-off meeting. I was surprised by the amount of people who would be signing off in Civitavecchia! Raissa from Bar, Anna from Spa, Alberto from Explorations! It became apparent that this was going to be a massive turn around before the transatlantic. A whole new team would be coming onto the ship. It was quite an eye-opening experience.

After the meeting we all had a list of things to complete before we could sign off tomorrow. The one thing everyone had to get sorted were their suitcase. David, the over excited sod, was already packed. Hernan hadn’t even started and I was half way through.

After a couple of hours we’d managed to squeeze and cram everything into every nock and cranny in our suitcases. David had already taken his luggage to security which was going to be in a lock up for the night. Hernan and I would take our cases during the second window.

We all popped along to medical to collect our papers, only to find we’d collected them a month ago. Oops!

Next stop was getting a signature from security to say we didn’t have any keys to be handed over. Some of security were surprised to see us three going. “Miss Blue” as they called me was leaving the ship… and they thought I was here for longer. “I wish!” and “you’ve gotta be kidding me!” were floating around in my head. It's like having a split personality!

Our final, two hour stint in the gallery was going at a snail’s pace. At one point, I honestly thought the clock had ran out of batteries. It hadn’t. Time was just moving that slowly. Going into Reuben's office we all wanted to do our appraisals before the end of our shift. No chance. We had to do it after. That was a royal bum note as we wanted to start the party early.

As soon as the clock struck 20.00 there was a sudden burst of cheers, whooping, and jumping up and down before Hernan, David and I sprinted out the gallery and down the stairs to the Photographer’s Corridor.

That’s it. Our work on the Mariner of the Seas was done. Contract over.

Whitney was outside the cabin waiting for me. She sat around talking to me while waiting for the security to start scanning bags. Come 23.00, I was ready to fall to sleep with boredom of waiting. Time was slowly ticking by.

Whitney helped me take my luggage over to security. Prashant was on the nightshift and looking a bit of a sad sight. He seemed sad that I was leaving. He’d been a good friend while I was on board. Prashant helped me take my luggage to the lock up once it’d been through the scanner. Just before leaving, he told me he’d come to Back Deck and see me before finishing his shift. No doubt he’d be there to end the party!!

Once that was done, Whitney, Hernan and I headed back to the corridor. All we had to do was wait for the others to finish work and we’d be hitting Back Deck for the sign-off party!