Cruising The Seven Seas: Duty Free Paradise

Duty Free Paradise

14^th February 2012

First thing in the morning, I was in the lab with Bjanca setting up. I’m still a bit confused about the process. The darkroom side of things I know, but the computer part is what’s confusing me. Slowly but surely I’ll get the hang of it.

While setting up the team had a meeting about improving our customer service ratings. Straight after, Dave went into our targets. My target percentage was 63%, I needed to get it up to 75%. Mark, a new hire, got the highest percentage with 83%. Andie from Image sent a message congratulating him for his hard work. Dave asked Mark to give us a tip and tell us how he consistently reaches his targets. His reply was classic “forget quality, just shoot, shoot, shoot. Shoot everything”. Diva’s, our AMP, face dropped, gobsmacked. Dave looked miffed, to say the least. The rest of us, well, we were a mixture of annoyed, shocked and amused someone had the nerve to say such a thing.

Carolee (Jamaican P3) piped up gave a long speech about a number of pointers that most people in the team agreed on. One, if a new hire is constantly shooting character (you’ll always surpass your target shooting character) how can you be compared to a P2 or P3, if you’ve been given a quite studio? Studios vs. Disney character – Disney character will always win and take away most of the studio’s traffic.

Secondly, more experienced photographers watch guests through the lens before shooting. We watch and wait for the moment to shoot, in order to get a decent, worth-buying photographer. On the other hand, some people have just been shooting “unsellables”. Who wants a picture of their child walking over (capturing the back of their heads) to meet Cinderella? I can understand why Carolee was annoyed and in all fairness, she had a right to voice her opinions however, they did seem to fall on deaf ears. Dave seemed to miss the point, or ignore it and go around her opinions.

Today was my first crew drill on Disney Magic. Unlike on Royal Caribbean, you don’t have to wear your uniform but you do have to have your lifejacket on. Thankfully, the drill only lasted 45 minutes, I’m not going to lie, it felt longer and the life jacket works as a great place to rest your chin for a little snooze!!

We’re in St. Maarten so I had to get out and explore. Meeting up with Aideen and a few other girls from Spa we headed out into the port. People were right, it’s duty free paradise!! As tempting as it was, I didn’t check out cameras. When window shopping with no money, you’ll always find something you want at a good price!!

We walked to a bar called Green House, which the girls said, was great for cocktails, food and wifi but it could be really slow depending on how many people were surfing the net. When I ordered a Mango Piña Colada, one of the girl’s forgot to add one small detail - it was happy hour! Two rather large Piña Coladas came my way and I had work in 2.5 hours (we cannot have any alcohol in our blood while working) and bloody hell were they strong! Freaking moreish though! One of the girl’s had two Baileys and banana smoothies. Now Baileys and banana smoothies is a drink you could easily knock back, all day!! Beautiful!

After having something to eat, I left the Spa girls and went for a short walk around the island. I only had an hour and felt the need to give the camera a whirl. Everywhere you looked there was a photo to be taken. The island of St. Maarten is beautiful! White sandy beaches, tourquise blue, crystal clear water and mountainous scenery surrounding the beaches. It was something out of a magazine. The port and sea front are obviously incredibly over commercialised.

Bumping into Real from Medical, we both commented on how great it’d be to see the other side of the island, or another area where it’s not aimed at tourists. A chance to see the country for what it really is. However, I’m not complaining, what I saw was amazing and if the non-commercial area is even more beautiful, then it’s got to be a real jaw-dropper! I’d love, love, love to go exploring there with my future Canon 5D Mark II. According to Real, who has been all over the Caribbean, there are far more beautiful places than St. Maarten. I cannot wait to see more!

The sun was beating down, a hot, dry heat that reminded me of back home in Spain. I missed Spain and the previous life that I had. Who would have thought that today I’d be walking along the sea front of St. Maarten, working as a cruise ship photographer while only a couple of years ago I was telling a friend, Patricia that I wanted to be a photographer. If someone had told me I’d be doing this, I’d have laughed in their faces!

Unfortunately, I had to return back to the ship to get ready for work. Getting off the ship and getting some fresh air always recharges your batteries. Walking back, I generally thought the place was fantastic, overly commercialised or not.

Taking my time to walk back, there were islanders singing, dancing, promoting sun loungers, selling sarongs and beachwear while carrying 10-15 sunhats piled up on their heads. Like I’ve said many times before, it was like stepping into a different world.

Plenty of guests were poking around the shops and making the most of the duty free, especially when it came down to the jewellery. Stopping off, I of course had to by some magnets – it’d be rude not to! I got a couple as there’s one in particular that I want to send to my parents in Uruguay. I’ll have to start getting a package together for them.

Back on board I wanted to give the parents a quick call to make sure they were okay but unfortunately, I didn’t have time. It is pirate night so the studios had to be set up.

I was working on the Pirates of the Caribbean backdrop. Originally I thought I was shooting Captain Jack Sparrow (a friend of mine) so I got pretty excited about seeing him in action. I’d only seen the pictures, apparently he’s does a great impression of Jack Sparrow.

Unfortunately, I wasn't shooting Captain Jack Sparrow. Having said that, once I got into the swing of shooting Pirates of the Caribbean, I was soon knocking up my image count and had a massive long queue of guests. Even one of the character greeters tapped me on the shoulder to point out the large crowd forming, waiting for their portraits to be taken. Overall it was a good night and I hit pretty much all my targets.

Finishing up for the night, I sat having a drink with Bjanca or Bjancovich, as I call her. We are both dog tierd and reminiscing, telling stories about our days at Royal Caribbean. We have some great memories! Both of us miss the crew lifestyle at Royal Caribbean but what the hell! We are planning on making the most out of our time on Disney Magic and having the best time we possibly can!