June 21, 2011

Today is the longest day of the year…but that is not true. Yesterday was. Yesterday was probably one of the longest days of my life…it just went on and on…sort of like the ship itself. It started at 6AM and kept going with breaks for quick naps until 3:30 AM this morning. A day in the life of cruise staff…

It started with a morning breakfast with the Dreamworks family of the Madagascar films. I had to host the appearances of King Julien, Alex and Gloria. It was reservation only, and the family members, (do NOT call them characters!), were to go around the tables for photo ops with the children. There was music, dancing by the staff upon the individual entrances. After that the day was on and spanned everything from Trivia games in the Schooner Bar to hosting karaoke, and helping the Activities Manager with the World’s Sexiest Man competition.

This is held in the Aqua Theatre and men, literally of all ages, compete in front of four women judges for the title. There are actually four awards, Sexiest Legs, Sexiest Muscles, Sexiest Dancer and Sexiest Man. There was the usual array of competitors and three men from Colorado that had more muscles than I had ever seen, tanned, tattooed and testosteroned…and a nine year old boy.

The boy was the fourth entrant of ten, and the minute he walked on the stage the crowd went wild. I looked over at the other competitors and said “forget it, you just lost”. Indeed, after the other medals for legs, dancer and muscles were given out, the last one for Sexiest Man went to the boy. He was so small we had to put a chair behind the cutout of the Muscle Man we have so that he could be seen. WC Fields was right…never share the stage with children or animals!

The day finally ended with the Escape Dance in the Solarium. The Solarium is a semi enclosed recreational deck on the forward part of the ship. Deck 15 I believe, so it has a really nice view. As Cruise Staff we had to dance and get everyone else dancing. The theme was Malibu Beach Party, and the place was packed with the young and beautiful. There were four of us on the detail, and so I began to attempt to remember my dancing moves…which are about 20 years out of date. I think I did really well, and there was no reason, in my opinion, that my fellow cruise staffers should find the humor they did in my style. Michael had his groove on.

This went on from midnight to 1AM, we left for a break, and then had to come back at 2AM to break everything down and pack it away.

I have always known that I sweat a lot…everyone who has ever shared a stage with me knows this as well…sometimes to their chagrin when they have to touch my sodden costume. Here it is no different. All I have to do is stand…and I am drenched. It’s become a bit of a joke. And now when I do box office at the Aqua Theatre the staff simply hand me a stack of paper towels. Last night I sweated so much that even after my shower I was STILL sweating for an hour. Nothing wrong with my cooling system apparently.

This morning it was up for more training, but by Thursday I should be done with that, which is good. I would have had the entire day off and been able to get off and see a bit of St Thomas had I been free. Oh well, it is not going anywhere, and there will be many more chances.

I also found out, when I went to the office, that I had already had TWO positive comments by name in the Guest Comments! This is similar to getting your name in the reviews for Trip Advisor. A big thing. Apparently, it is also rare, and we get ‘attaboys’ for it and little perks. It meant a lot to me, and certainly I feel has solidified my role onboard. The fact that they wrote Michael McCoy is not worth mentioning….please abstain from mental references to Love Boat. Thank you.

I am now able to bring my own cd of music tracks to my karaoke hosting. This makes me happy as the tracks they have are not ones I know, or want to sing. I get to sing an opening song, get the ball rolling, and then host everyone else. It’s fun, but the dry air on the ship is wreaking havoc with my chords. I have already spoken to some of the singers on board to find out how they manage. Of course, projecting constantly to guests standing in line does not help.

One of the ship highlights is the Rising Tide Bar, which we all share the duties of monitoring and “driving”/ It is on Deck 5 and is a bar that lifts on hydraulic power to Deck 8, Central Park. There is a console and we make the roundtrip in one half hour. Fifteen minutes each direction. Some of the staff don’t care for this shift, but others, like me, enjoy it as we get to interact directly with the guests. Last week, my first week and second time at the console, I was busy chatting with some guests and realized it was time to raise the bar from Deck 5 to Deck 8. I excused myself, closed the glass safety doors, pushed the correct buttons and walked back to the guests. This is an idiot proof system. There are two buttons you push to clear the safety doors and lock them, preparing for “take off”, and then a choice of buttons for whether you want to go up or down and how long you want the trip to take.

So there I am speaking with the guests and one of the bar servers, a wonderful Jamaican lady, taps me on the shoulder and says in her Island Accent…”are we going to go up, mon?”

 
“Oh, I thought I had pushed it already”, I said and went back to the console.

I pushed the buttons again for an 11 minute ride to Deck 8 and went back to the guests…I paused, waiting for the small jolt to let me know we were rising.

No jolt.

Back I went to the console. Nothing was moving. I pushed the buttons again. Making sure of the duration for the ride, and pushed START.

Nothing.

I have a full bar, all watching me with interest. Calmly I run thru the whole check out procedure once more. I push the buttons. A bead of sweat formed above my right eyebrow.

Nothing.

Now, alarmed but trying to portray total competence and aplomb I begin pushing buttons more vigorously. No jolt. No movement. Full house. Second Day…and I have broken it I am sure.

The Jamaican gal has been watching me with some humor. She calmly leans in and says, “Try pushin’ the UP button, mon!”

With chagrin I realized the whole time on Deck 5 I had been pushing the button for a direction the machine simply refused to go. With what I consider my best hosting manner I pushed the correct buttons, we began to move, and I turned to the guests and said “I am deeply sorry, ladies and gentlemen. I wanted to take you on a tour of the Crew Quarters, but it seems we will be going to Deck 8 instead!”

I love my job.