Warnemude, Germany

My first... sort of... day off.

Well, it was a day off in the sense that there were no shows being produced in the theater today. But a lack of shows does not turn off my deck phone, cell phone, email or boss. So there you have it. A moderatly administrative day.

I managed to get off of the ship for about 4 hours in the afternoon and for another 2 hours in the evening. We were at port from 0800-2359.

When you walk off the ship, after going through a customs inspection, you immediately stumble upon a overly-touristized shop - where, on my perfectly tourist cue, I bought a postcard and paid about 3x as much for it as I would have if I had waited about an hour into my walk.

What was the coolest thing about this souvenir shop/restaurant that was surrounded by giant sand sculptures. They were absolutely fantastic and there were 5 of them (each depicted below). Oh, and you might notice that vertical pictures are now oriented correctly. I finally figured out how to turn on my brain and realized that I could modify them on my personal computer and then upload them from my office computer. Sheer genius I tell you. Sheer genious... *sigh of exasperation*











I am actually really glad I got a picture with someone standing in front of it so you can begin to grasp the scale of these rediculous sculptures.


Strange seating gondola things outside of the restaurant/souvenir shop.


So I took this picture because I wanted to share the sign advising parents to keep a hold of their children. The hidden gem, you might notice, is the Brautwurst sign. True German Brat stand. No, I didn't have one. I'm trying to get back down to my natural birth weight, thank you very much.


The little smooth gutters between the handrails and the steps allows people to easily push their bick up and down stairs. I watched someone try to do it with one side of a 4-wheeled stroller. That was an entry for FailBlog, not here.


A little river running right through town was super pretty.


An atmosphereic street shot.


I just thought this street was so lovely with the cobblestones and the trees perfectly placed.


This building had the coolest modern architecture. It was a hotel.


This was my initial viewing of the beach. A very nice and welcome change from the inside of the ship.


Awesome beach trampoline setup for kids.


I couldn't figure out what was up with the weird chairs at the restaurant/souvenir shop until I saw this. You rent them from a little stand. Very cool and movie-esque.


When you look at postcard racks in Warnemude, it becomes immediately obvious that they are known for their collection of lighthouses. So I decided to make it my day's adventure on foot to visit all three of them. And visit them I did. This one was absolutely beautiful.


A slightly closer look.


The plaque at the bottom of the lighthouse. You had to pay to go up to the top so I decided my view from the bottom was perfectly adequate. I'm saving up for a down payment and all, ya know?


This picture in particular is for Roger. I'm not even sure if he reads this or not. But it was too perfect to pass up.


The red and white lighthouse was actually inaccessible by food - though I gave it a good old fashioned college try. But I went out on the closest pier I could to snap this shot.


I could get right to the base of the green and white lighthouse. Nothing particularly special, but EVERYONE seemed to walk to it - the boarwalk leading to it was just packed. Along the pier were the dispatches for local tourist outings. On the ship we are warned to be very wary of locals offering tours by boat/bus/etc. There are certainly horror stories out there. However, you have to wonder how much of the information is factual vs. how much they are just trying to ensure that if you want to go sightseeing you book their tours so that Celebrity gets the income. Food for thought.


The view from the green and white lighthouse back to the beach.


Just thought this was cool. Being a squid lover myself.


This building was stunning. I'm a bit bummed that I didn't manage to get the tops of the Corinthian columns in the picture, but they were beautiful. I may try to retake this photo when I am back there next week.


I thought this poster was hilarious. Reminds me a lot of the Home Alone picture.

On my way back from the beach I didn't take the same route I took there because I wanted to see different things. I managed to stumble across a grocery store where I bought a much needed bar of soap - and a much less needed tin of amazing German chocolates. Yum!

I also managed to get SEVERLY lost. I ended up passing the port by about a mile and a half. and it took me forever to find my way back. After about an hour of aimless wandering on a port walk that should have been about 2 hours shorter than it was, there was the most beautiful sight:


Certain words are distinguishable in any language. Thank goodness!

I do realize that had I gotten lost at a normal port (where embarkation is usually 4pm) I would have been royally screwed. Luckily, that was not today.

OPP Level 2 (Code Red)... Uh oh...

Currently the ship is at OPP leavel 2. "What does that mean," you might ask. Well, let me tell you. Nothing good.

OPP Levels are measurement of the severity of GI (Gastro Intestinal or Norovirus) cases on board. There are percentages of crew, passengers or occurence rates that can trigger certain OPP levels. Level 2 means that the entertainment department gets to scrub the theater house, stage, staircases, backstage, dressingrooms, and technical areas with a special cleaner called Oxvir. Imagine how happy a cast is about reporting at 9am for cleaning duty after getting done with work at 1am the night before. Not. Very. Happy.

However, much better than being at the next OPP level. At which point, the house keepers and cleaners are so busy sanitizing and sterilizng, that all other departments become food servers, laundry attendants, and auxilary cleaning staff. I can't wait until I'm dawning a hair net and dishing out fried rice. Woo hoo. So anyway, the cleaning steps we are taking now are in the hope of preventing it from getting any worse. Also in our favor is that OPP Level 2 was triggered on a turnaround day, so all the sick guests got the hell out of here, and we had an empty ship for about 3 hours so all departments could sterilize their areas from top to bottom, and hopefully get the gross out. We'll see.

About the uniform... (since my mom asked...)
Everyone has a day uniform and an evening uniform. My day uniform is black cargo pants and a black polo shirt (with name tag and hair pulled back, of course). And my evening uniform is a black suit with dress shirt and an awkward kerchief thing.

... I think I should rephrase all of that by saying that's what my uniform *should* be.

However, they had absolutely no female production manager uniforms in stock. So I have illfitting black mens cargo pants and two ill fitting black mens cargo shirts (with sleves past my elbows... real classy) that I wear day & night. The uniform attendant said he could order the suit, but it would take 2 months to get here *sigh*. So I complained to Julie who managed to find someone who said they could get it here off another ship by... well... today. So I will visit the uniform department tomorrow to see if it has shown up or not. I just thank my lucky stars that I packed one pair of dress slacks and two passable nice shirts that I can wear at night. But I am pretty pissed that I was specifically told to bring practically no clothes since I would be in uniform 24/7, and alas no uniform. Ugh.

But, to lessen the blow, laundry is $1 for a wash/dry/fold dropoff/pickup service. I drop of at 10am I pick up at 5pm. Totally worth the dollar. (Not to mention that Erin left me with a laundry card that still had a dollar on it, woo hoo!)




At port in Amsterdam for turnaround day (disembarkation of voyage 315 and embarkation of voyage 316). Things to note: The really long line of people on the sidewalk are waiting to be processed for embarkation. Also, the segway store.


Another view of our Amsterdam port. Port engineering must really be quite a feat, because we are such a HUGE vessel, and to be able to anchor so close to land or structures really makes you wonder how much underwater excavation and architecture it is to make everything safe and stable (including the hull of the ship!).


You can see a bit of the downtown skyline.


Thar she blows! (Or sits, I should say, since we were at port).


Another closeup :)


You can almost tell how big she is in this picture, which actually caputres the entire ship.


Me... simply showing off my good hair day.


A picutre of my new birth from the entryway.


Showing off my AWESOME cabinets! I love them :) and sometimes it's the little things.

My First Turnaround Day

At port in Amsterdam for turnaround day (disembarkation of voyage 315 and embarkation of voyage 316).

Pictures... Part 2

So, luckily, I am not very prone to sea sickness. I did, however get off the ship today in Amsterdam for a brief walk and got a little "land sick." You get used to slightly swaying constantly so standing on firm stiff land feels very odd. I can't think of a better way to explain it other than the earth felt very hard and unyielding.

About my job...
The most difficult part of my job is wrangling a cast of 17 on an hour-by-hour basis. However, the most time consuming part of my job is scheduling. scheduling. and more scheduling. I am in a constant state of scheduling for the next type of cruise (right now it's the Mediterannean), the next voyage (starting August 14th), the next pay period, the next week, the next day, and mentally the next hour. It's a bit overwhelming. So many departments run on very different time frames. For the most part entertainment runs on a cruise-by-cruise basis. Cycling a 12 day program schedule. Payroll, however, operates on a bimonthly basis for some paperwork, and a weekly basis for others. (Days of the week, by the way, mean NOTHING to me anymore).

Why I felt stupid one day...
During training, we had a basic diversity discussion one day. It was interesting to watch a video breaking down the demographics of Celebrity Cruises (mostly they hire people from all over the world to do all kinds of work on the ships). Sadly, I believe they do this because they can get away with hiring people from other countries at remarkably low salaries. But that is not really my business. The reason I felt stuipid, was at the end of the video, we went around the room, annouced our name, where we were from, and what languages we spoke. I was the only person in the room who did not speak at least three languages. I didn't even try to save my self by trying to pass my broken spanish as a second language. I immediately felt below-par in the international category.

My roughest day...
On July 30th, the show that night was a variety night. It consisted of a feature from our onboard orchestra, a human statues piece by our aerialists, and a long feature from one of our guest entertainers, Craig Dahn, who is a concert pianist (with a twist). Craig's playing is very modern, and his set ended with a video cued to an audio track. For some reason, even though we had rehearsed it about seven times, the video froze about 10 seconds into the 5 minute long piece. It froze on a snapshot of a stormy sky, so I just left it there because - in my opinion - it looked like an intentional backdrop.

Needless to say, the performer did not agree. When his set was over he refused to bow, and ran off the stage screaming at me repeatedly, "You're pathetic! You're pathetic! You're pathetic!" ... more times than that. And more loudly and scarily than I can type. Eventually the activity manager intervened and backed me up on my decision and told the guy, basically, he was being an a-hole. I was entirely stone-faced about the whole thing. About 5 minutes later I almost had a total breakdown backstage in the guys dressingroom talking to the FOH engineer. I managed not to. No crying onboard yet. Thank goodness - not a good impression on my first cruise. But I did realize that NO ONE had ever spoken to me that way in a professional setting before. I was really upset. About an hour later, Craig was oozing with apologies and pomegranate martinis. Which is good considering we still have one more show to do together.

A slight perk...
Guest entertainers (of which there are 4 per cruise), have the option to sell merchandise. When they do, it is the PM's responsibility to be the seller. Well actually, it is the gift shop's responsibility to be the seller, but we do it instead BECAUSE we get TIPPED! A lot! Like, Craig Dahn will sell merchandise 3 times while he is onboard. And he will tip $20 per time. That's $60 for standing at a table for a grand total of 30 minutes. Some artists time as much as $50 per selling. It just depends (then again, some don't tip at all...). But hey, that's my spending money. It will cover my phone cards, which are expensive - and the one I had ran out while I was talking to Brian last night (sorry lovey!).

Fun facts...
There is a major hallway on deck 1 that is nicknamed the "I-95." It's cute when everyone thinks they have to explain to me what that is referring to, since the I-95 has been a part of my everyday life since I fell out of my mom. But basically, since head office is in Miami, that's where the nickname comes from. And I suppose people just get used to explaining it since almost everyone here is from the Philippines.






This is the final picture I took of my first sailaway. The canals in Holland are very industrial for the most part. Not very photogenic.



July 24th was the first day I got off the ship to visit a port. And it was here in Flam, Norway. A very lovely (and VERY small) town. Some very cool nods to viking history. Like the pub Erin and I went to had iron dragon heads on the roof peaks.


I took this picture to get a shot of the adorable bridge in the town.


So pretty!


A view of the bridge (ship control center/brain) and the strangest prenant ape statue I've ever seen. Right now you might be thinking, "wait, you've seen more than one pregnant ape statue?" and my answer would be "what happens in a fjord, stays in a fjord." So there.


A Norwegian Fjord!


Same fjord, different view.


Different fjord.


This is the perch where I call the production shows. It is stage right about 20' off the ground. Allowing me a view of absolutely nothing. Hences the gagillion TV monitors I am observing throughout the performances so I can take my cues off of onstage action.


Geiranger, Norway.


The famous waterfall of Geiranger, Norway. It's hard to tell in the picture but it is absolutely HUGE and runs right through the middle of everything.


Another shot of beautiful Geiranger.


Me in front of the Geiranger waterfall. This picture was shot from deck 10 aft. I had dinner out here the other day on a sea day so no land was in sight. It was a very surreal and awesome experience. And to think I can do that everyday. Very very cool.


My temporary cabin. This shot was taken standing in the entryway. I stayed on deck 5 forward until Erin moved out of her cabin. At which time I moved into 2315!


A shot from the bed looking toward the doorway.


An aerial view of my bathroom layout. The fact that I can take an aerial view should clue you in on how small it is. But at the end of the day it is very functional and I make a HUGE mess when I decide to shave my legs.