Castaway Cay and Characters

Castaway Cay and Characters

18th May 2012

Goofy

Chip n Dale and DJ Kurtis

Dale Playing Around

Cartwheels at Cove, Castaway Cay

Pluto

Minnie Mouse

Mickey Mouse at Mount Rustmore

Where's Dale?


Captain Jack Sparrow


At the Post Office

Mickey and Minnie Mouse at Mount Rustmore

Goofy, Pluto, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck

Man Down! Man Down!

Man Down! Man Down!

5^th April 2012

It’s the last day of the cruise and things aren’t really starting to look up. Thankfully, it is the last day and maybe things will be different during the next cruise.

Arriving at Castaway Cay, the sky was grey and the clouds threatened to rain. This is always a bad sign for all the photographers, especially the beach shooters, and I was one of them. If the weather is bad at the end of the cruise, the guests tend to be moody. Believe it or not, and they don’t spend as much as they would have if it'd been a sunny day.

When it comes down to the photo department, I can understand that. Getting a photo taken on the beach with blazing sun makes for a nice photo. Same goes with the family standing in front of the ship, surrounded by brilliant blue skies. Dull skies and grey clouds don’t have the same effect.

While walking on the beach, it was deserted compared to normal. My image target was a little lower than usual, too. Instead of 350, I only had to get 300. That target can still be a struggle sometimes, as I don’t like to overshoot, whereas others get three photos of the same person. None of the managers have said anything about over shooting, but a few of the more experienced photographers have.

I won’t lie, I kind of gave up towards the end of my beach session. Usually the beach is split into sections with a photographer in each. They keep going over the area and snapping photos of the new arrivals, etc. By the looks of things, as there the beach was quiet, the other photographers had been wandering into other people’s sections.

Walking up to one lady, I smiled and cheerfully called out “Ma’am, let’s have a smile” and received a sharp reply “No! You’re the fourth photographer to come get my picture. Three is enough.” Of course, if you’re trying to relax on the beach, you don’t want to be constantly bothered by photographers, asking you for photos, so I completely understood why she was annoyed. I would be.

I only had 200 images which was incredibly poor. Speaking to Inna, she had 100 images more than me at the time, but said “I double shoot” before shrugging and walking off. We always look bad when we come back with (like today) 200 images when the newer photographers have 350 and it’s all because they shoot multiples of the same people. It doesn’t sell. Usually the doubles would be removed by the lab manager and only singles counted, but not on beach.

Giving up, I met Ani to go into the shops and get Diva a leaving present. We decided to buy her a Castaway Cay t-shirt and have everyone sign the back of it for her.

Back on board, we walked into the lab to see Cinta with a bandage around her arm. Asking what happened, she told us that she fell off the tram which transports crew and guests around the island.

Later on, we found out the truth. Cintia had got on one of the trams, wanting to go back to the ship to drop off her memory card. Instead, she’d got on the tram to Serenity Bay and crew beach. Realizing she was on the wrong tram, she jumped off, just as the tram started moving. Jumping off the tram, with $2,000 worth of equipment, she went crashing to the ground, slicing her arm open.

Csaba wasn’t in the greatest of moods and making a series on phone calls from the lab. Slamming down the phone on a few occasions, making some of us jump out of our skin, he was trying to find someone to stitch up Cintia’s arm.

The first aid centre on the island just wrapped Cintia’s arm up in a bandage and said she’d need stitches. As she wasn’t an island crew member (or more to the point, a guest) he wouldn’t stitch her up and instead sent her back to the ship.

The medical centre on board Disney Magic was closed for another three hours. The doctor on the island told Cintia that she couldn’t call the emergency number as needing stitches “wasn’t an emergency”. Csaba was furious at this and finally, taking Cintia with him, managed to find someone to open the medical facility to sort her arm out. Fancy having a gash in your arm and the doctor saying “you’ll have to wait until 15.00 to get stitches as it’s not classified as an emergency.” If Cintia was a guest however, you can guarantee things would be the complete opposite.

Bumping into Cintia later on, she’d been signed off from work for at least 48 hours. She wouldn’t be able to lift a camera for a very long time though. In the end, it’d taken ten stitches to close the slice, so it must have been a big/deep cut.

Speaking to the others in Shutters, a few people were saying the girl should be sent home. No doubt she’ll be out of action for a week or more while waiting for the stitches to heal. In ship terms, a week or a cruise is an incredibly long time. Also, we were questioning Cintia’s common sense. Who the hell would jump off a moving tram, especially with so much equipment on her. The equipment wasn’t damaged, which was lucky but, we don’t have spare parts, so if something had happened, we’d be up Shit Creek without a paddle!

Now it’s just a case of waiting to see what will happen to Cintia. Will she be sent home? Or as Image like to put it: Chicken or Beef?

Photographs from previous sessions shooting beach.

Ani - Wading Out to the Climbing Frame

What we do to get a high image count!

Castaway Cay Climbing Frame

We Made It!

 
Setting Exposures


Test Shots with Mark

The Deal

The Deal

29^th March 2012

Another day at Castaway Cay, Bahamas.

Before we docked, I was in the lab for 30 minutes matching up reprints and kiosk orders so that everything was ready for this evening (last day of the cruise).

Gathering my camera equipment and heading towards the ship’s gangway, I saw a lot of people heading off the ship. They were guests! The ship had arrived earlier than 9 and already the guests were getting off… I had to leg it, squeeze into the crowd and get off the ship and set up.

Setting up as quickly as I could, I was only half way through and people were handing me their Key to the World cards to have the photo taken. Changing my aperture and shutter speed, I started shooting on the memory card, until I had the pentab (computer) set up and running. Only then could I swipe people’s room keys.

Anyway, by the time I’d finished I had over 300 images which was my target. Unfortunately my pentab battery had died so I’d shot half on the camera’s memory card. Diva wasn’t going to be happy with, as it gives her more work to do. Next time I’ll have to charge a second battery.

Taking my camera off the tripod I checked some of the photos. I don’t  know what made me look, but something clicked in my brain. My ISO. Checking the settings, I hadn’t changed my ISO from shooting stairs last night. Instead of using ISO 200, I’d shot at ISO 800! What the bloody hell was the matter with me!? I should have checked!

Mentally kicking myself as I walked back to the ship, I went into the lab and dropped my stuff off. Telling the new BM, Csaba what had happened, he got annoyed “didn’t you think your apertures were too high?” “No, because last week, it was so bright that we had to use those apertures anyway to get a good exposure and our ISOs were 200”.

Carrying on matching reprints, Diva came in and got the news from Csaba. Some of my photos were overexposed. Not burnt, but over exposed. Now it was time for Diva to give me an ear bashing “You do realize this is a $500 event? Like portraits. You’re losing us money”. Excuse me? I was annoyed enough with myself, without anyone else having a go at me. Yes of course, I knew that it’d lose people money and I don’t need to be told that. After all, at the end of the day, I don’t come here to earn ANYONE but myself money. With this job, while earning your own wage, you also earn for others. That is why I am here, to earn money. So do you really think, I’d want to lose myself money? Of course not! Keeping my mouth shut, I slipped out of the lab, feeling about as bright as a cloudy, rainy day.

It wasn’t just about money. I love, love, love getting excellent photographs… so when you get a bad batch, it really gets you down. Last but not least, by the looks of it, there’s very little chance I’d be promoted for Photog 3 - because of my mistake.

Diva and Csaba came down pretty hard on me yet, other members of the team have been repeatively making mistakes and nothing gets said to them. I take it personally, if I make a mistake. Some of the photos team members bring back are laughable. Completely burnt - the sand and sea are pure white, for example! Yet, those team members, if something is said to them, just shrug their shoulders, mumble “okay” and walk off, without giving it a second’s thought. They don’t care. How I envy those people on occasions like these!

Walking into my cabin I felt darn low, mainly because I’d mucked up, but also because of what had been said to me and the tone of it. Like I said before, some people mess up and nothing is said to them while others get a royal ear bashing.

Once Shutters was closed, Csaba told me to go to the crew bar for a drink with Rama, as he was leaving 

tomorrow. I was still working, delivering reprints and CDs to staterooms and printing.

Quickly running around the place, delivering as quickly as possible, I finished work at 2am. By then the bar was closed. Anyway, getting a drink from the Crew Mess I joined them in the Crew Bar. To  my surprise, only Cintia, Inna, Rama and Csaba were there.

Sitting down, Csaba told me that the new AMS, Stephanie, wasn’t coming for another week. We’d be left without an AMS. “So this is your time to shine. You’ll be AMS for the week, take Rama’s phone and do his schedule after embarkation tomorrow. If you do well, I will sign your checklist and you’ll be Photog3 from the following cruise.” Deal! Shaking hands, I was over the moon, yet nervous. There are still the odd things that I’m not 100% sure about in the gallery, but I was ecstatic about being given the opportunity to be a “stand-in manager” for the week. It was a chance to prove that I could do things and that I am worthy of the Photog 3 position.

Slipping into bed that night at 3am, I was one happy girl… a complete contrast from earlier on!

Wet Drill

Wet Drill

17^th February 2012

Once again, here we are in Castaway Cay, formally known as Gorda Cay. This week Clarita and I are participating in the new hire’s wet drill as we missed last week’s due to our work schedules.

Not far from the ship we had a scenario of being stranded on the rapidly sinking ship. The life raft had to be launched but how? One of the quickest ways is to chuck the life raft into the sea and pull the rope attached to the barrel containing the raft. Within a minute or so the barrel was cracked open and life raft inflated.

Up first was my group. Putting on our life jackets, one by one, we stood on the edge of the pier and walked off. It was only a three metre drop so all was good. I jumped first followed by an Australian new hire. Both of us wanted to jump for a second time! Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to. There’s a particular way of holding onto the life jacket when jumping so the impact from the sea doesn’t cause the jacket to upper-cut you in the chin. Apparently it can do some serious damage to your chin and jaw, even breaking it!

Three out of five in our group were good swimmers. However, we did have two who were terrified of water and couldn’t swim at all. They panicked once they hit the water. The Australian girl, from Youth Activities, and I had to swim along dragging one of the two who couldn’t swim. Total disaster. One of the safety trainers was horrified and even went as far as telling them both, if they are so terrified of water and can’t swim, maybe they should rethink where they work. In a disaster, if they panicked so much, people were going to leave them to die. Not a nice thought but in a real life emergency, I can see where he’s coming from.

Wet Drill

Next up was flipping the life raft over. Getting on top of the capsized life raft was harder than it looked. Standing up with Mohammad, we held onto the ropes attached to the top of the raft and began to lean backwards to topple it over. Mohammad started to lean sideways a little, leaning into me. This caused me to slip off the edge of the raft and back into the sea. Coming up to the surface and the life raft was falling towards me. I had to quickly duck under but the underneath of the life raft caught my head… and boy did it hurt! The sea water I accidently gulped wasn’t particular nice either!!

Stage three was climbing into thermal body suits which expand allowing you to float once in the water. That was probably the most unpleasant part of the training. It’s incredibly hard to swim with the jump suit on, it positions you in a star fish position. It was a funny sight though!! I can’t deny that.

Stage four was lowering people from a height, such as a deck and into the life raft. The shorter you were the harder it was, so for me, it wasn’t particularly easy as I had probably the longest drop to fall and hope someone catches me! Afterwards we had a bit of a talk inside the life raft, shown where to collect rain water, storage space (water, sea sickness pills, flares etc.) The good swimmers could jump out from the life raft while the ones who couldn’t or didn’t want to swim, had to climb up the wall. Being able to swim, I took the easy option: jump out the life raft and swim to the ladder. Only a few people chose to climb up the ladder.

Wet drill was finally over. The sun was shining, sea was lovely and cool, crystal clear and Castaway Cay looked like an OTT Disney paradise. For me, wet drill was great fun. Although it’s hard in some areas and I’m sure a few of us will be walking away with bruises, it was an excellent experience and laugh.

Marcus, Me and Mohammad

Next up we met Marie our trainer, for a tour of Castaway Cay. The island is pretty big but very commercialised and American. In a way, it’s like taking parts of America and the cruise ship and sticking it onto a Bahamian island. I didn’t realize approximately 100 people live and work on the island for six month contracts. Nice job!

At the end of the tour we ended over to the opposite side of the island, the crew beach. Oh my word, it was gorgeous! White sand, crystal clear or turquoise water, hammocks attached to palm trees, volleyball court area, a canoe and kayak. There was an abundance of sun chairs which most of entertainment had nabbed and taken into the sea to sunbathe.

The crew have a barbeque every time we are on the island, it’s pretty much like the mess food but with burgers and hotdogs. Meeting Kate, we chilled out with Clarita and Aniko in the sea before catching some sun. Looking around, it was pure bliss!!

Kate

Kate, from Essex, was talking to me about working at the O2 in London before joining ship. We both said the same, who’d have thought that only a few months (Kate) to nearly a year (for me) we’d be sitting on the beach in the Bahamas, where we travel to weekly, for free. The thought alone made you smile. Just 10 months ago I was doing a no end job at ASDA, to simply pay the rent and for my studies. Now, I’m working as a cruise ship photographer, doing a job I was trained to do, travelling the world and getting paid for it – not very much, but still getting paid rather than doing the paying.

While taking it all in, someone had found a large, orange-red star fish sitting on the sea bed. There was a bloody massive pelican swooping in and out of the water catching fish. It was a very, very surreal moment. Being there didn’t feel right. It felt like I should have been somewhere else in the world, like at my parent’s in Uruguay rather than sitting on a beautiful beach enjoying myself.

Aniko

We were all back on board to begin work at 15.30. All of us were scheduled for long shifts in Shutters as it is the last day of the cruise, the main selling day. Bjanka even got told to come up and work in Shutters until the early hours and she’s signing off tomorrow to be transferred to Disney Dream. Poor Bjanka hadn’t even packed her suitcase yet.

Shutters was incredibly busy and there was an abundance of frustrated people who had left everything until the last minute and couldn’t find their photos. They expected us to walk around the gallery, holding their hands, finding every single one of their photos for them. No way José!

At the end of the night we had one lady who was insanely pissed off because two photos hadn’t been added to her GTP package. The photos in question weren’t even of her, but of her teddy bear! This particular lady who is easily in her 40’s and travelling with her mother, couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t have put it on her CD! We didn’t know where to put the photos as they weren’t actually of anyone’s face, who was staying in a cabin. We couldn’t locate the face to the cabin. This went over the lady’s head but in the end the problem was resolved. There are some odd duckies around!

While in Shutters I saw a red light flash in front of me. Curiously looking up, it was Jenn with her daughter Jade taking a photo of me working. They are my favourites guests on this cruise and were entered in as my Magical Family. Jenn is only a couple of years older than me and lovely. She’s a good laugh. Plus, she makes my photographs look great - a bonus! For the past couple of days they’ve been getting me to jump into the photo with them.

Papped by Jenn! 

Formal Night on Black with Jenn and Jade

 
Jenn and Princess Jade are two of the very few normal guests we have on board this week. Boy, did we get some wierdos! Even Wes from Entertainment popped over to my studio, asked what I thought about this week’s guests and gave his opinion – they are "simply odd wierdos".

By the end of the night I’d shamefully only sold 7 folios, something I was far from impressed about. In fact, I was damn right pissed about it!! That’s only $7 on top of my basic wage. Pathetic. I did ask every single guest if they wanted a folio and as Kate said, sometimes it’s just luck of the draw. Going down to the lab, I picked up my schedule for the following cruise. Morning sale, 06.00 start and it was currently 23.30. Guess that’s the price you pay for a couple of hours of enjoying yourself on the beach!

Jenn's Photos

Princess Poses

Formal Night on Disney Magic with my Magical Family

Princess Snow White-Jade and Myself

Last Day of the Cruise for Jenn and Jade.

How tanned do we look?!

Disneys Private Island

Disney’s Private Island

10^th February 2012

Disney seem to have everything from a TV channel to cruise ships to a private island!

Today we’re on Disney’s private island Castaway Cay. The island is a lot bigger than I originally thought it would be and of course it’s pure Disney style.

Luckily for me, I’m back to work. I was almost pulling my hair out sitting in a tiny cabin from 11.30 – 08.00. After a night of films, I was ready for work and feeling much better.

Today I was shooting the closet thing Disney Cruise Line have to a gangway: characters next to the beach. My shooting shot was Mount Rustmore. First up was Pluto, then Minnie in her beachwear and finally Mickey Mouse. There was no need to smudge as the kids came stampeding to have their photos taken with the characters. When things got a little quieter I jumped in for a quick photo with Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Depending on the internet connection in the next couple of ports, I’ll try and upload the photos. After two hours shooting I had about 450 images surpassing my target of 400!

Carrying the equipment back to the ship was hard work, I’m definitely going to have some muscles when I sign off at the end of July!

Back on board, I’d arranged to meet Clarita to head out and explore the island. Clarita wanted to go to the beach which was fine by me. An hour and a half of relaxing on the beach, swimming in the crystal clear waters was a perfect plan in my eyes. Just as I was gathering my stuff together, Clarita cancelled because “she didn’t have time to go to the beach” so she was staying in her cabin to sleep.

Ship life is always fast paced, even when you are on your break. So if you are off from 13-15.00 you make the most of the time, get off the ship and do whatever you have/want to do. Either way, you’re running from place to place to get everything done on time, whether it’s getting back on board to have a shower, ready for work, or grabbing prints from the lab, legging it up the stairs to get to the gallery on time. That’s just the way ship life is. I don’t think Clarita has fully grasped the idea yet.

Heading up to Deck 5 Forward where the crew swimming pool is located I thought I’d have a little down time typing up my blog entries, catching some sunrays and chilling. I need to recharge my batteries before an evening in Shutters (photo gallery) selling as much as possible.

I know my wages this week aren’t going to be great thanks to training so I need to boost the amount up as much as possible. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s the same promotion we had on Mariner of the Seas: buy four 10x8” photos and get a folio with a photo of the ship - free. It was a great incentive for guests to buy an extra photo, get a free folio and you bag the commission. It's only $1 but the amount soon starting racking up without you even realizing.

This morning I was talking to a guest who was interested in the photo packages we had to offer. There are only three packages.

The first is $299.95 which is the GTP! (Get the Picture!), same as we had on the Mariner. Only difference is here on Disney Magic you only get the photos on a CD. Printed images are not included, instead they come with a 50% discount.

The guest pointed out that Disney World offer the same package for just $99. I didn’t want to point out that Disney didn’t have to charge as much as Image does simply because every penny spent at Disney World goes straight into their pocket. So by spending $99 on photos is almost like a top up charge.

Think about it, you’ve spent hundreds of dollars on accommodation in the Disney Resort, paid more for multiple day entries, food, drink, souvenirs etc. The photos for $99 to Disney is just another service they can say they provide and another way for them to get a little more cash out of you. Image, on the other hand, are different, especially as they have to pay a large chunk of their money to Disney Cruise Line to be able to photograph the guests and sell them on board. Royal Caribbean took roughly $16 for each photo which we sold at $19.95 each. Do the math.

The second and third packages are Credits. The cheapest of the credits is $149.95 and gives you 20 credits. One 8x10” image is worth two credits while an 6x8” is one credit. The maximum saving is $50. The third is $249.50 and gives you 50 credits. But if you buy the third package, you might as well buy the GTP! Package. I’ve been looking at the packages and thinking how the hell can I push and sell them or even find a way of using one package against the other (it’s one of the many ways of closing and enticing guests to buy a particular package.)

As it’s the last day of the cruise, I’m hoping there’ll be a sudden rush for folios and packages – anything to boost our money.

Tomorrow I have to be at the Walt Disney theatre at 05.45 for immigration. As a non-US citizen I need an I-95 which is a visa allowing us off the ship when in US owned ports (Key West, Port Canaveral, St. Thomas etc.) Tomorrow, is also the day that I start going to the gym again, so I’m expecting to be sore for the next couple of days. As they say… no pain, no gain!

Minnie Mouse


Minnie and Mickey Mouse