Next Contract

Wow, what a month.  Was I ever right about it being the busiest.  Everyone is now mostly settled in.  We ended up getting one brand new stage staff in Studio B, and one that transferred from Liberty of the Seas, so it was a better situation than I expected (2 new hires).  The final new stage staff came on last Bayonne.  He is a new hire but only filling in until one of our regulars comes back in April, then he goes to Oasis (yes, I'm very jealous).  Interestingly, although I expected the experience to be totally different when working with a different team of stage staff, I've discovered that not only does it not change very much, but actually the "black shirts" as a whole have been getting along much better since the change of staff.  Of course, the only person left to go on vacation at this point, is me.

On the upside, in the last couple of days I received and accepted my next contract.  Unfortunately for all the Explorer regulars out there (and I know there are many), I will be going to Serenade of the Seas starting on July 4.  Since I leave Explorer on April 10, that leaves almost 3 months of vacation!  I better start seriously saving some money.  Serenade does exactly the itinerary I wanted for my first contract, so I'm very excited to have that itinerary for my next contract.  Below are the two most common itineraries for the Serenade in 2010:

No more annoying trips up the east coast of the US to get to Caribbean ports!  Yes I know there are many people who like to sail the Explorer just because it leaves out of Bayonne, NJ to avoid the need to fly, and I can appreciate that.  But it sucks for us crew, all of whom endure up to 10 severe climate transitions every month.  It's difficult to deal with,  because the human body simply isn't built to handle that kind of rapid change all the time.  Not to mention, there is a lot more motion up and down the east cost of the US in the winter months and I'm certainly looking forward to leaving that behind.

As I am only about a month and a week away from the end of my current contract on the Explorer, I met with my production manager once again to discuss my progress toward lighting technician.  She suggested that it would show great initiative on my part to go out and get training on the Wholehog lighting console at the manufacturer (High End Systems) during my vacation.   Unfortunately, there are no training classes available during my 3 month vacation, but I have instead opted for a private training session at their Austin, Texas office.  It is a bit more expensive than the shared class but I'm very much looking forward to having private instruction so that I can ask all my questions and soak up as much knowledge as I possibly can.  Then I will continue my lighting maintenance on the Serenade as I have been doing on the Explorer and hopefully after a few months I will be able to submit my paperwork for promotion and get an interview for the lighting tech position.

On another topic, during our last visit to Labadee, Haiti I helped to offload 150 mattresses for the people in need after the earthquake.  There were also several pallets of medical supplies and food.  The next call to Labadee (two days from now) will see more medical supplies offloaded as well as 29,000 servings of food, the latter paid for exclusively from the proceeds of crew events.

I will continue to post as often as I can think of something to write about.  Many thanks to those blog readers who have come up to say "hi" to me during their vacations on Explorer of the Seas in the past few months.  It's great to know that so many people appreciate what I write.