How cruising is different from land: Morning Off

Today I worked 8 hours.  That's a small amount for cruise ships management.  Usually, I work 11 hours on a sea day.  On port days, I can work as little as 4 hours a day.  That's extremely rare.  I rarely work less than 6 hours, even on a port day.  The cool thing is what I do with the other 8 hours that I'm not sleeping.

I get to go on adventures before work each port day.  Either I go scuba diving, or climbing a mountain, or I take a trip on a scenic railway, or tour through the capital city of a small country.  These are some of my options on my morning off.  Who needs weekends when you've got this at your fingertips?

The Taieri Gorge Scenic Railway Train

Diving in Savu Savu, Fiji, with the beloved Koru Sun Divers 

A view from near the top of Mount Manganui on a perfect day in Tauranga, New Zealand

A look back at home: the Sea Princess tied up alongside at Tauranga, New Zealand 

The largest water village in the world, housing over 30,000 people: Kampong Ayer in Brunei

The largest mosque in Brunei, the Jame'asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque

As a disclaimer, I usually work 70+ hour work weeks.  For six months (or more) without a single day off.

So you choose between your youtube videos, Skype and unlimited access to Wikipedia, with your weekends off and public holidays and consistent access to ATMs dispensing a single currency, or this life.  Choice is yours.

I've made mine, and it's the pirate's life for me.  Next, I want to join the circus.

How cruising is different from land: Christmas on ships

There's no such things as holidays in the service industry.  Especially on cruise ships, where there are no days off.  Christmas and New Years are times to groan, roll your eyes and buckle down and get through.  They're long, grueling days of extra work, special events, demanding schedules and the added pressure of presenting holiday cheer.  With the depressing aspect of not being able to celebrate with family and friends as your culture dictates.

Happy Holidays, all around.

We put together a Christmas show, and I think it ended up looking quite good.  The guys did an excellent job decorating the stage, and we put many interesting acts together to make quite a show.

Let it snow.

How cruising is different from land: House on fire

Every week, we pretend that our house is on fire.  All 850 residents then react accordingly.

Today's drill started with an engine fire, and the crew's response quickly elevated from checking it out to full-on fire fighting and passenger muster to full-on abandon ship drills.

We do this every 13 days.  No one batted an eye.

We packed crew members into a muster station, simulating passengers, and took them out to their life boats.  We went to our muster stations and then out to our life rafts.  We sent the containment party to their life rafts.  Everyone was accounted for, no one went down with the ship.

Then we all went for lunch.  Just another Wellington morning, nothing to see here.

An Adventure Blog About Real Life

This blog is about my life as an adventure.  And it’s been that way for years.  But what happens when you wake up one day in Bora Bora or Papeete or New Zealand or Lombok, and it just feels like another day?  My lifestyle hasn’t changed since my “life aboard” series of posts, but my past has.  It’s no longer new, it’s no longer different.  It’s everyday life, and I’m getting used to it.  And that makes it less of an adventure.

But only to me.

I’m still wicked proud of what I’m doing, and very happy to report in from wild and far-flung places across the globe.

We got through dry dock and headed across the largest ocean on the planet.  Our 27-day long itinerary took us from San Francisco through Hawaii, French Polynesia, American Samoa and New Zealand before landing us in Sydney, Australia.  Along the way, I went scuba diving with dozens of sharks, saw humpback whales almost within reaching distance, brushed up on my technical French (enough to do a dive briefing in French), meandered a Samoan market, ate at ridiculously overpriced restaurants, wandered by mega-yachts with helicopters attached and went on wine tastings in Australian and New Zealand wine country.

All while working full-time, doing shows every night, repainting scenery, calibrating lighting units, sewing scenic drops, training new crew members, practicing safety duties and filing reports.

Only on cruise ships…

Images from Dry Dock

Life at sea, on land

The Sea Princess recently went through its dry dock, where the ship gets refitted.  Cruise ships are in service 365 days a year.  The day we drop off passengers is also the day we take on passengers.  We get about 2 hours every 2 weeks when we don't have passengers.

So all the things that break and need to be fixed when the ship is out of service go on a big list.  Then that big list gets prioritized, budgeted and slashed.  Then in dry dock, every department completes their list.

At the same time.

24 hours per day.

For 10 days.

This was my first dry dock experience, and it was exhausting.  It reminded me of tech weeks on land, where everyone wants the space, the conditions (silence, darkness, etc), the equipment all for themselves, and they clamor to get what they want.  And when we're done, we're done.  The curtain goes up when we go back in service, and tech week is done.  The show better be ready.

So after a slow start where everyone got everything started, the last few days were a sprint to the finish to get things done, taught and checked off.  And I ended up in the middle of it, for my department, as the department head.

So, a new floor, sound console and main curtain later, the Princess Theater is shining.  The atrium system was completely redone, and all our venues have been health-checked, cleaned and repaired.  And everything, which should be sparkling and shiny and lovely, is a mess.  There is dust everywhere, random bits of kit stashed in corners, tools jumbled and a general sense of disarray and jobs left half done.

Sigh.  So much for the glowing concept of the refit as a magical time to end all worries and make wishes come true.

I'm off to repaint an audio snake to match its white marble surroundings.

Go West Young (wo)man

 From Driggs, Idaho to San Francisco, California, I decided to pick up my 42^nd state.  I went the long way, through Oregon, despite having a very tight time frame.  I left Idaho on Tuesday, August 28^th, and had to join the ship on Friday, August 31^st.  The drive was over 20 hours, and I still needed to rent a storage container and put all my stuff in it.  No worries, plenty of time to see Bend.

So it was onward into the sunset, across blazing hot open range (sometimes literally blazing hot).

I stopped at BLM land to spend the night, pulled well off the highway on a dirt track and pitched camp.  I made myself comfy with a sleeping bag and pad stretched out on the ground, then read myself to sleep.  So much better than a hotel parking lot.  I’m getting the hang of this hobo thing.

Then off to Bend for breakfast, south to California, around the smoky Mount Shasta (woah, that’s tall), and home to San Francisco.

Now to pack up my life into a small locker.  Oh wait, that’s no different than shoving it in a car…

That took less than an hour.  I love not having too many possessions.  Although I was surprised by the way that storage unit filled up so quickly.  I have a fair bit of stuff.  Four boxes worth.  Might be time to purge.