Counting down the days ‘til dry-dock

Today is Christmas eve but I have to say it definitely doesn’t have the same feeling as at home.  I’m going to talk to my family on the phone tonight so that should help but in many ways it’s just not possible to replicate the home Christmas experience.  Many of the crew members on board have children at home and I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to be away from them at this time of year.   Christmas cruisers expect everyone to be at the top of their game and they expect a great deal of extra activities, a tall order when so many crew members are missing their families.

Explorer of the Seas will be presenting a Christmas variety show on Dec. 25 (tomorrow) featuring the Ice and Production casts and the Cruise staff.  In terms of crew activities, Christmas dinner will be served in both the crew and staff/officer messes.  Following that, there will be crew ice skating offered in Studio B and then a midnight party on the back deck.  It should definitely be a fun night.

In addition to the chaos of the Christmas and New Years’ cruise dry-dock also looms, starting January 3rd.  Many supplies have been brought onboard already and we’ve all been briefed on the procedures of dry-dock and what to expect.  I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to hear that we should be working about 8 hours a day (9-6), I had been thinking more like 10+ hours per day just because of the shear amount of work to be done in only 10 days.  Nearly every entertainment venue on the entire ship has SOME form of work planned, many receiving new lighting and/or sound equipment.  It’s going to be a lot of work for us.

I should also add that I’ve definitely been taking advantage of the free room service for 15 days that I won in the crew auction.  It has been great being able to relax in my cabin and have dinner brought to me for once.

Crew Auction

Last night we had a charity crew auction, run by our art auctioneer John. It was pretty well-attended which was good because large crew events can be very much hit-or-miss. There were a number of items/services/people up for bids and the proceeds all go to a children's charity in Dominica. Among the many things up for auction were:

• Various Crew members volunteered to be put up for auction for a dinner for two with the winning bidder at Portofino.
• Bridge tour
• Engine Room tour
• Learn to drive the rescue boat (we have two small rescue boats on board)
• Eat at Windjammer free for 15 days (excluding breakfast, since it's very busy)
• Various art pieces donated by Park West to be auctioned for charity
• 24 hour Room Service free for 15 days
• A Balcony guest stateroom for one cruise (only if one is available)

Most of the items got surprisingly high bids, the highest bid for the night was $1000 for one of the two balcony staterooms. I bid on a small number of things and ended up winning the Bridge tour and Room service for 15 days for $150 each. A rather large purchase for my pay bracket but I know the money is going towards a great cause (and on and island we visit so that we can see some results).

The Bridge tour is no ordinary Bridge tour. Rarely do our guests get such an opportunity and even then they get the same Bridge tour that every crew member gets when they join a new ship as part of safety training. Apparently I'll get to sit in the captain's chair, blow the ship's horn, and other things that can only really be offered on a private tour. As a technical kind of guy I think it will be very interesting and a great experience. Once the 15 days room service was bid up to $175, the auctioneer made an offer for anybody who will pay $150 for it to bid that much and he would give it to all of us, so that is what I did. I think it will come in very handy on the upcoming 14-day Christmas and New Year's cruise as it's a very busy time for all who work onboard and having some meals delivered to my cabin will be a real treat... not to mention my coworkers all want in on it too haha.

In addition, all who registered bid cards were entered in a raffle to win some art pieces and I ended up winning one of those too... the one I won was my favourite of those raffled so I think I'll enjoy it. Park West is going to ship it home for me free of charge.

That's all I have for today... I start duty again tomorrow and then we go into the Christmas cruise, then right into Drydock. There will likely be another post before Christmas and a couple during drydock with some pictures of the work going on around the ship. It's possible that the ship may not have Internet access and I may not have time to take my laptop ashore to post them so rest assured that I will type them up during drydock and post as soon as I can.

Update:

As I published this post, John started his daily crew announcement and informed us that the total raised by the crew auction was in excess of $10 000, not a bad donation at all.