Dream Meets Magic

Dream Meets Magic

23^rd April 2012

I’d known for a couple of days that Disney Magic would be meeting Disney Dream in Nassau, Bahamas. There was one person in particular that I was desperate to see, my Image step brother, or Hermanastro as I call him, Hernan. Although we’ve been in constant contact with each other, I hadn’t seen him for nearly six months!

We had another early morning start. Most of the photographers were shooting the Princess Gathering. Unfortunately, I had to sit that one out due to my wrist and was stuck on display with Cintia and Steph instead. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind display but I’d much rather be taking photos at the Princess Gathering.

My wrist hadn’t improved, in fact it was getting worse. The doctor I’d been visiting in the medical didn’t know what was wrong with it. It’s frustrating but, what can you do? As far as the doctor and nurses were concerned, I’d sprained my wrist and maybe pulled my tendons a bit. With a puffy hand and sausage fingers, strapped up in a splint, I was only able to use one hand. Of course, my one handedness caused a few laughs as my index finger was sticking up and curling at the knuckle. I was, I have to admit doing the “Captain Hook” look. Very popular on Pirates Night, I can assure you.

With Princess Gathering and Display done, Ani and I crawled up the stairs to our cabin. Slumping into bed, we wanted to get an hours sleep before meeting the photographers on Disney Dream and heading out into Nassau, Bahamas.

At around 11.00, our phone started ringing. Jumping out of bed, cursing under my breath, I picked up the phone. “Holaaa”. I'd recognised that voice anywhere! It was Hernan! Immediately I was wide awake, hanging up the phone and scrambling to get my clothes on. Hernan was on the Magic and waiting for me just off the I-95.

Running down the stairs, I was over the moon and couldn’t wait to see Hernan. Charging over to him, he got the biggest bear hug imaginable… and he recorded it on his new compact camera!

Nipping upstairs, I woke Ani up and grabbed my things, we were heading out. Hernan was impressed by the size of our cabin, the "penthouse cabin" as we call it, but that was about it. Compared to the Disney Dream, our cruise ship was an old rust tin that seriously needed to go into dry dock for improvements. He was right, especially when you consider we have a large wet patch in the middle of our cabin thanks to a new, constant leak that no one has come to fix. That's right! The leak is back... just in another part of the cabin!

Quickly running onto Disney Dream as Hernan forgot his wallet, straight away you could see the contrast in our ships. The Dream was not only newer and large, but better looked after, more luxurious. Even their cabins were slightly bigger but much nicer than ours. For starters, they had space to move around and the drawers inside their wardrobe weren’t broken or hanging off! The lucky sods even had an endless list of movies to watch. All we had to settle with was BBC News and the ship’s shopping channel.

It was the Magic’s first time in Nassau so we weren’t sure where to go. We didn’t have that long so Hernan showed us a place popular with crew, mainly because of its good food, reasonable prices and internet connection. Olives was jam packed with crew members. Crew from Disney Magic were meeting up with Disney Dream.

We talked about everything. Life and work on our ships, where we’ve docked, the places we’d visited, money, where we’re going, vacation and a huge chunk of our conversation was reminiscing about the days on Mariner of the Seas. The laughs we had on that Royal Caribbean ship were endless. By the looks of it, we both love and miss working with the team from the Mariner of the Seas. Sandra, Zoran, David, Camilo etc… all friends who soon turned into family members.

Hernan then had a great idea. Asking a passing waitress for a piece of paper, he scribbled a message down for Sandra containing one of the many private jokes we all shared during our contracts on Mariner of the Seas. Getting my camera out, Ani took a photo of Hernan and I holding up the message.

We then did another one for Zoran and Fede. Photos were taken, uploaded to Facebook and the respective people were tagged in our pictures. It was our way of making fun of them not being there with us in Nassau but, also our somewhat disturbed way of saying “we’re thinking of you and wish you were here!”

As always time flies way too fast when you’re having fun and soon it was time to return to our ships. It was sad going separate ways and saying bye to Hernan. I’m still very used to having him around and/or being in constant contact.

Soon Disney Dream and Magic will be docking in Nassau together, again. With meeting Hernan in Nassau today and on a later date, seeing Lee every other week in Port Canaveral, with the possibility of seeing Chet and Zoran when they aren’t working, things are certainly starting to look up!!!

This is the part about ship life that I love. You never know when or where you’ll be seeing your friends again but in the small world of ship life, but you’ll bump into them again soon. Most of the time you don’t even realize you’ll be in the same country or port until you get on to the gangway and see your friend’s ship docked next to yours. Like I said, it’s the small world of ship life!

From Nassau: Sandra, Fuck You!

In Nassau with a Message for Sandra

This is for you Zoran...

Yep, THAT'S your Message :-)