12 days left!

Greetings everyone,

We just finished the lava sailing and its time to take aquick break. 

 

Yesterday I woke up around 7:30 am so I could head to theAla Moana mall.  I needed to pickup some clothes for Europe and the Jade and a suit for the part B of thetrip. 

 

I showered and got dressed and headed up to the crew messfor breakfast.  I had a bowl ofbanana oatmeal and some eggs then I headed to the mall.  Most Saturdays I walk to the mallaround 8-9 am and I see all the wide body airplanes taking off heading towardsJapan.  The reason I bring this upis today was the last day of operation for Aloha Airlines.  The main two Hawaiian airlines areHawaiian air and Aloha airlines. Go! Airlines came in and drove Aloha out of business (part of Aloha’sproblems) so today was their last day of operation.  This will probably make inner island travel more expensiveso plan for that.  Aloha airlines was the airline that had the flight when the cabin’s roof ripped off in mid air and the pilot still landed.  See attached pic.

 

Anyway I went to the mall and picked up my things and got ahaircut and went to work.  Around 4Pm I got ready for passenger lifeboat drill and practiced my Titanic jokelaugh.  Drill started and thepassengers started to flood the hallways and something felt different in theair.  I didn’t hear the words Roseand Jack Dawson OR Titanic!  Abouttwo minutes before drill ended someone did say, “I sure hope Hawaii doesn’thave ice burgs!!” followed by several deep “Auh HA ha Ha yes yes yes muah ha”with the turkey neck bobbles flowing. I loved it.  I actually didlaugh for real this time, but not at their joke like they thought.  I was laughing in a good way I justloved the setting.  You would haveto see this group to get the picture. 

 

After drill I headed towards the Aloha Café and got readyfor us to open. Most Saturdays are crazy for the buffet because when people geton a ship the first thing they do is go to the buffet (myself included) buttoday was pretty slow so I took advantage of it.  I observed the sights a little more closely thennormal.  Sometimes I forget howlucky I am with this job.  Todayfor example as we passed the volcano I started stacking the deck chairs withoutreally looking and realized WHAT am I doing here stacking chairs like its nobig deal that lava is pouring into the ocean from the volcano making thisamazing sight and I’m not even going to take a minute to just watch it. Howmany other people right now would do anything to be able to say they watched avolcano from work.  I quickly gotmy own point and watched but more on that later.  Anyway I’m a huge Waikiki fan.  Just those tall buildings light up at night just makes mefeel so good.  I’m really into thatentire thing.  When I was in Vegason my last vacation I just spent an hour standing in front of the Bellagio Fountainswatching show after show and people watching it.  I loved it..i felt amazing so watching the Honolulu citylights at night always makes me feel warm inside.  I can spot the Hilton Hawaiian Village and just wish I wasthere.  I don’t keep it a secret thatthe Hilton is my favorite hotel here. Whenever I meet a few people from cruise critic and I ask “where did youstay?” I get a lot of answers “your favorite place!”

 

Anyway we tossed our ropes and we left 10 minutes early. Irealized that I only had one more sail away till vacation so I justobserved.  The rest of the nightwas uneventful so I went to bed, or tried to go to bed but thinking about thistrip to the Norwegian Jade is making that very hard.  I’m getting lots of questions to answer from the Jade sokeep them coming!

 

Today we cruised past the Volcano and saw some great sightsas normal but I thought I would share a story about a guest and my coworkertoday.  On cruise critic reviewsyou see everyone commenting about the crew but nobody ever says anything aboutthe fellow guests.  I was justreading a entry on John Heald’s blog about something that happened with a rudeguest so I thought I would share my experience with one today.  My coworker was refreshing the breadson the buffet tonight when a guest came up and asked her if she had thisspecific type of bread.  Mycoworker said “no but it will be ready in 15 minutes” and the guest said “okbut can you deliver it to my room?” and my coworker took down her informationand agreed.  My coworker’s job isto stock the bread and the sushi station so this was way out of her jobdescription but she agreed happily. 15 minutes later the bread arrived and my coworker found a pretty metaltray and placed the bread on it with all types of toppings in little bowls fromolives, hummus, roasted red peppers and slices of cheese.  She topped it off with a glass bowl inthe middle of diced tomatoes and a balsamic dip. She was really proud of thisexcellent looking dish and abandoned her station at the risk of getting introuble to go deliver this to the guest in her cabin.  When she knocked on the cabin door the woman answered andsaid “you said it would be 15 minutes 20 minutes ago so I don’t want it” andslammed the door.  My coworker hadto throw out the entire thing and you could tell her feelings were hurt. 

 

That’s all for now.

James 

12 days left.

Off to Europe

Aloha everyone!

 

Today we departed Honolulu ten minutes early kicking off my last regular week till my “Aloha bon voyage” week.  I figure its about time to spill the beans on the first part of my vacation and project.  I can’t say anything about part two yet but I bought a new suit for it so its going to be great!! J

 

As you know I finish my rotation on April 12^th.  I fly home and 16 hours later I will be boarding a flight to New York then on to Athens then Thira Santorini.  Once I arrive I will get on the Norwegian Jade to experience and tell you everything about freestyle 2.0.  The Jade just left drydock and is the first ship to have the full 2.0 upgrades.  Each day I will talk about a different topic from the new menus, restaurants, entertainment, room perks to the welcome aboard gifts!  I will spend about 8 days on the ship so I have plenty of time to try everything out and report it to you.  I’m very excited about this trip and I know a lot of people have questions about 2.0 so from now till the 15^th of April email me any question you might have about the Norwegian Jade or Freestyle 2.0 and I will find the answer once I get to the ship and will give you the answer.  I have created a email address just for this and its

 

shipblogger@gmail.com

 

The next two weeks I will just be getting excited for this trip so I can’t wait till vacation! 

 

I will talk about part 2 of this trip from the Jade.  My entire life I have been obsessed with the cruise line industry/ocean liners so this part 2 is a serious dream come true that I never thought I would be able to partake it. 

 

One last quick note.  This website has cost me a few thousand dollars to run over the past 8 months and a few have asked if they can donate to help cover the costs so I have created a paypal account to help fund the website.  The account email is poajames@gmail.com.  Thanks to everyone who has given me their support in my website and cruise critic work emotionally or financially.  I really appreciate it. 

3/27/2008

Hey everyone. 

 

I just finished work this Thursday night so I thought I would put something online.  Today was a typical Thursday.  I woke up around 7:30 am so I could make some important phone calls to Miami.  Hawaii doesn’t change their clocks with everyone else so we are currently 6 hours behind Eastern Standard Time so it makes it difficult to call people before night.  Anyway after making some phone calls I went up to deck 15 to get some fresh air before crew drill started.  Normally the drill starts around 9:30 but for some reason it didn’t start till after 10 and ended around 11 so I missed my haircut appointment.  I really need one so I will try again tomorrow. 

 

At 3:00 I headed to work.  It turned out to be one of the slowest Thursday nights ever.  I think I had a total of 20 people outside on deck during the 4 hour dinner shift.  I was happy because one thing that makes this job a little annoying are the bones.  We have a system on the ship called the “pulper” and its what all the food goes into.  At each dishwashing station there is a area to drop your food and it goes into the pulper.  The pulper I guess liquefied all the food from smashing it but it can’t smash bones or Pineapple tops so they have to be put into another container.  Tonight on the menu they had chicken, ribs and corn on the cob so lots of unpupable items there.  The worste was the beef and green peppers with wooden sticks though them.  They also make plates impossible to stack.  Anyway the night was slow and uneventful until something huge happened.

 

Suddenly while standing on the Lanai you could hear sirens.  At first it sounded like just one ambulance so we just assumed someone fell or dehydrated but we were about to find out it was much worse.  The Ambulance came past, followed by more sirens in the distance.  Soon we could see a fire truck on the horizon, then a second one.  The next to come was a squad car one of those fire SUVs that belongs to the fire chief or something like that.  So it went from the first sighing of a ambulance to something being ill but with all these trucks and flashing lights and sirens it could only mean one thing… someone’s electric scooter’s battery died and they couldn’t get onto the Wal-Mart shuttle.  This is one of the biggest fears of cruising and today it came true.  It was time to see if all our crew’s training would pay off.  The emergency response team quickly arrived on the scene and after an hour of brainstorming on how to solve this horrific problem they came to a conclusion.  They sent it to the Captain to get the final approval and he approved.  The team decided the best way to handle this scary situation was for the guest to step off the dead electric scooter and walk up the shuttle bus’s stairs.  I must say I was very proud of the crew and now I know all our weekly emergency drills went to good use. 

 

Kidding..the fire trucks didn’t come to the pier just drove past. 

 

So if you have read this for a long time I have put on some funny or stupid questions of the week I get from guests.  Today I will put up a question that was asked on Sunday night from a CREW not guest.  It made me laugh.  I’m going to bed but I thought this would be a good way to end this tonight.

 

“James…what island is the best island to see the Volcano’s lava flow on the big island?”

 

Goodnight everyone!

 

J

16 days left!

Aloha everyone,

I’m still awake writing this for you.  As I said above I have senioritis.  I only have just over two weeks till vacation so I’m getting very excited for that.  My plans will be announced soon but here is the general idea.  Viva around the world, 7 ladies of the sea and the start of the puzzle.

 

One part that is not a secret, I’m going on a 7-day cruise to Bermuda on the Norwegian Dawn.  I have sailed on the Dawn before and she is a beautiful ship so I’m very Very VERY excited to see her again.  I’m going solo but I’m still very excited because some friends are also going.  That’s one of the bad things about working for a cruise line at my age.  I get to go on these amazing cruises but my friends..who I love don’t get me wrong can be undependable with long term plans.  Every 20 year old is.  I will ask “Hey man want to go to Bermuda for a week in April?” and they respond, “yes it will be amazing I can’t wait.”  Then two months later “I don’t have the money” or something else like that.  No worries I’m very excited for this trip.  Everyone who I have talked to who has been to Bermuda said they love it so I can’t wait.  I hope everyone continues to read this over my break even though I wont be on the ship.  I will be starting a big NCL project though so the trip won’t be completely off topic. 

 

Some people from NCL said they will tell the Hotel Director on the Dawn that I’m coming.  I hope they do because I would love to talk to him about the international ship operation versus the American ones.    The Captain of the Norwegian Dawn, David Turner, sadly will go on vacation right before I get on.  He was the Captain of my ship for a while and is a great guy.  Does anyone know who the Cruise Director is on the ship now?

 

One thing that is bad about my vacations timing is I will miss the drydock for the ship but its no big deal.  It will be interesting to see the before and after shots and to see Freestyle 2.0 in full operation.  The other huge change that will happen over my break is the Pride of Aloha will leave the fleet.  Before the Pride of Hawai’i left the fleet we would cruise past her every Friday night around 2:30 am.  This was a fun tradition to see and the week after she left the fleet it was a lonely feeling looking out over at 2:30 and not seeing anything coming our way.  I’m enjoying the last few views I have of the Pride of Aloha while I still can.

 

Hint one for the start of my vacation..it starts in Alexandria Egypt.  

Ship Dates

Greetings everyone,

I really like the clean simple look of this page.  Its just about 2 am on Wednesday.  I have officially entered senioritis for the end of this rotation.  I have 17 days left till a very busy vacation.  I have been getting several questions about if I will be on specific sailings so here is the plan for now. 

 

April 5^th-My “Aloha week” the final cruise of the rotation

April 12^th-Sign off the ship

May 24^th-Sign back onto the America.

 

I have met people everyday for the past week who have seen the blog and the youtube videos so that’s great!  Its been a pleasure meeting everyone and its shocking to me just how many people are coming up to me.  Sometimes I see a guest do a double take of me or try to read my name tag as I walk past them and most of the time it turns out they have seen the blog. 

 

I actually have to get some sleep but I will continue this one later.

 

I’m really getting excited for vacation.

Lava!

Aloha everyone,

Yesterday was Sunday so we were docked in Hilo Hawaii.  As I said in my previous entry I wasn’tfeeling so well the night before so I didn’t get to bed till pretty late so Idecided to catch up on my sleep.  Iwoke up around noon and headed to work at 3 Pm.  Sunday nights are generally pretty boring.  I hate going inside the buffet duringdinner because our carving station has pig and I think they smell horrible.

 

While waiting for the Pub Crawl to crawl onto the Lanai Iwas watching some airplanes take off from Hilo’s airport.  The airport is right across the streetfrom the pier so we can see all the activity.  Small traditions here help pass the time like watching theairplanes in Hilo (they come in the same time every day), the lighting of thetorches at the Marriott resort in Kauai etc.  Well one of the two major airlines here in Hawaii namedAloha airlines just filed for bankruptcy. People are giving them about 14 days left so I’m enjoying watching themfly in and out while I still can. Small things like that help the day pass. My day dreaming of watchingthe planes ends when I hear PUB CRAWL screamed by 100 drunk people coming.Every Sunday we have the Pub Crawl. Its 5 bars, 5 drinks in 50 minutes.  Each bar has a different drink and they play battle of thesexist so its fun to listen.

 

Around 7 Pm these two ladies came outside.  I was talking about my plans forworking on the ship and told them about my blog and my trip to Miami.  They were very interested in ship lifeand I told them a few of my favorite stores of guests I have encountered.  We talked for some time and they said“take a seat for a few” and I had to decline but it was the first time a guesthas ever said that..i loved it!! This was their first cruise and I explained how we were registered inthe United States and how we were different from the other cruise ships in theworld.  They said something abouthow 90% of the people are nice but 10% are horrible..they were talking aboutthe guests so we had a good laugh about the ones that look out for things tocomplain about.  I meant to givethem the URL to the blog but I will next time I see them.

 

Tonight we finally did the volcano lava sailing.  It was the first time we did this inabout 8 months so it made it very special. Normally on the Lava sailings thepassengers are excited but the crew doesn’t really get into it but today itwasn’t like that at all.  I forgetthat we haven’t done this in months, so a majority of the crew has never seenthis before.  Tons of crew were upin their uniforms in the rain taking pictures, from dishwashers toofficers..great to see everyone so excited to see something.  I tried to take pictures but my pointand shoot camera doesn’t do much. I hope down the road to get a better camera like the Nikon D80 orsomething.  One interesting thingabout the lava night is the way the ship bounces.  Due to the temperature change in the water from the lavawhen the ship gets close we bounce up and down like airplanes flying thoughturbulence. Just a interesting random fact.  It’s a good reminder that you’re approaching thevolcano. 

 

Once we finished the volcano sailing everyone cleared out insearch for their 12^th meal of the day.  I started to do my deep cleaning of the beverage stationthen went on break.  I got backfrom break to find a note from my boss saying don’t forget to pull all thechairs off the Lanai.  I completelyforgot this was the night for that. Normally I start about an hour before we close (start at 8 close at 9)but it was already 11:30.  Thistakes a while because you have to clear the 300 or so chairs and pull them offthe deck so the deck crew can wash the floor.  I did this and quickly finished the cleaning.  I have two milk dispensers on theLanai.  They each hold a 6 gallonbox of milk called the cow.  Wellthe big metal handle that you pull up for milk was pressed down so hard that itcut the cow so 6 gallons of milk poured out everywhere.  The worst part was this cow is half andhalf creamer so it was thicker so it took about 20 minutes to pick up.  I feel like making a airline safetycard style direction poster for the milk machine.  I might do it just as a joke.  Once I finished I walked to the elevators while listening toIZ sing to me how I took his land once more and clocked out. 

 

 

I’m getting very excited for my vacation plans and I can’twait to tell you about them. It will only be a few more days I promise.  Four ships in 5 weeks, half a dozencountries around the word, a trip to the birthplace and the start of one bigproject!

Working in paradise isn’t always paradise

Working in paradise isn’t always paradise. 

 

Greetings everyone,

I decided to make this separate blog page.  I’m going to keep my old site up as the “blogs of the past” but I will be posting new stuff here, and then updating the other page with my entries from here.  This way I can post blog entries as often as that cruise line with the big red whale tail funnels has someone fall off their ships…so in other words a new post every day. 

 

So if you can’t guess by the title of this entry I’m not in the best of moods.  Today is Easter and holidays add to that but also vacation is soon and I’m just getting excited to get a nice break. 

 

The ship has been boring recently.  My friend Sashi is on vacation and a few other friends also went on vacation.  I’m just trying to use my free time productively.  Yesterday was Saturday so we were in Honolulu.  I love Honolulu. I love it I love it I love it.  I’m a big fan of the resorts and just the vibe of the city.  Before we set sail today I was standing on the Lanai looking all the hotels at Waikiki all light up.  I could picture what was going on over at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and wished I was there.  PS its funny how people I just met know that’s my favorite hotel here from reading my blog.  Everyone agrees though their beds are amazing!!!  Ok now I’m in a better mood already

 

Anyway back to the day.  I set the alarm for 8 am and after a half dozen snooze button pushes I rolled out of bed and got ready for the day.  I decided to go to Ala Moana mall with my friend Louis.  He was in the same training class as me in Piney Point MD and we are 2 of the 4 or so people left from that class.  We headed to the mall and went to lunch at Ruby Tuesdays.  I felt sick after my first bite and I should have learned my lesson because last time I came here I was locked in my cabin for two days.  I shouldn’t blame that on the restaurant though, I was having lunch with some cruise critic friends and her son gave me that fantastic sickness.  After lunch and a quick trip to Wal-Mart to pick up a few supplies I headed back to the ship and went to the cabin.  I decided why waste the rest of this beautiful day in Honolulu in my cabin so I headed down to Aloha Tower.  As I walked there I was trying to remember if the Pride of Aloha was scheduled to be in port today.  I also realized that the next time I see the ship will be the last time I see her.  I feel like we are in a family full of cancer patients, one drops off as time goes on.  Anyway the ship wasn’t in port so I picked up some water and headed back to the cabin.  I took a quick catnap and got ready for passenger lifeboat drill.  Drill went as planned, informed people where to go..told them how original their Titanic jokes were (they have been playing Titanic for the past few days..It’s funny how everyone watches that movie so much).

 

After drill I headed to work.  I have been a little paranoid about things in the buffet over the past few days.  From time to time they get really serious and strict about FDA rules (and they should be) but here is my problem.  My night job is to deep clean the outside beverage station. We get inspected every morning but then twice a week the ship has a team of people doing the inspection (captain, staff captain etc).  I clean the beverage station from 11 Pm till about 2 am.  During my last contract they would do inspection at 2 Pm the next day and if it was dirty I would get yelled at.  Keep in mind so many things happen to that station from the time I clean it till inspection.  My nightmare is when I just finish cleaning and then I see it coming…the 72-year-old lady who has one and only one thing on her mind..hot chocolate.  I have learned over the past three contracts that all it takes is one hot chocolate powder packet to destroy hours of cleaning.  It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion.  She grabs the packet and doesn’t shake it to make sure the powder is on the bottom..she tears the top open and you see a cloud of the brown powder shoot everywhere but of course she doesn’t notice this.  Step two of this disaster..without holding the packet into a nice cone shape she just turns it upside down over her mug and 50% goes into the cup, 30% around the base of the cup and an impressive 20% goes beyond physics and lands 4 feet away.  At this point a tear starts to form in my eye but I would have never guessed the worst was yet to come.  She takes her mug (its Saturday so we might as well call her Rose Dawson to go with all the Titanic jokes) and fills it with hot water.  I mean fill it..all the way to the top.  Rose sets it down on the counter so a bunch splashes out but here it comes..she reaches for a stir stick.  The situation has gone from code yellow to dark dark red.  She starts stirring her drink like she’s digging for a lost Canadian penny at the bottom of the cup.  When she’s finally finished 75% of her drink is on the counter but she’s marching back to her cabin with a delish beverage.  Rose is a hurricane..everything is peaceful and beautiful till she comes roaring in and just tears that stuff up and leaves it like a battle field.  As long as she doesn’t realize she did this though I’m happy..

 

So yeah that’s why I always hold my breath going into work..you never know what someone will say to you about your cleaning job from the night before.  Wish me luck tomorrow. 

 

20 days left till two VERY exciting weeks and I cannot wait to tell you about it.  The plans are final I just don’t want to post it quite yet but I will in a few days. 

 

 

PS Happy Easter everyone

 

James