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.

Lighting, Lighting, and More Lighting

I am just coming up to the end of my second month here on the Explorer of the Seas. It’s been an adventure so far but definitely an enjoyable one. I’m thinking it’s likely I’ll stick around on ships for at least a few contracts, if not more.

For the past few cruises I have been doing as much lighting work as I possibly can, so that I’ll be a good candidate for promotion to light tech when I get close to the end of my contract. So far that has involved doing lots of maintenance and some repairs on automated lights, and reading the control console manual cover to cover. A new light tech is working in Studio B now and I’ve been working closely with him whenever possible to get more lighting experience. The Studio B light tech has (from what I can tell) the largest responsibility for maintaining lighting fixtures (as opposed to the light tech in the Palace Theatre), because they are responsible for 3 different venues: Studio B, the nightclub, and Royal Promenade. All of those add up quickly when you look at the number of fixtures (each of which must be thoroughly cleaned out and re-lamped (change bulb) every 3-6 months).

For the technically inclined, here is a summary of the lighting-related equipment in those 3 venues (note quantities may not be exact but are very close):

Studio B	18x Cyberlight SV 12x Martin MAC 500 16x Martin MAC 600 14x Martin MAC 250 Wash (4 of which sit on the ice during shows) 30x ETC Source 4 ellipsoidal (most have Coloram II scrollers) 8x 9-lites (with Coloram II scrollers) 18x ETC Parnels 16x Martin Robocolor 400 (powering fibre optic star cloths) 6x Wildfire Long-throw UV lights (with scrollers) 4x Snow machines 4x Antari ICE low-fog units 2x MDG hazers several of strip lights which will be replaced with LED strips in dry-dock (these light the edges of the ice rink) Wholehog II control console Richmond ShowMan show control
Royal Promenade	18x Martin MAC 600 16x Martin MAC 500 8x ETC Source 4 ellipsoidal 10x Chauvet Colorado II 2x hazers Wholehog II control console Richmond ShowMan show control
The Chamber (nightclub)	6x Martin MAC 600 14x Martin MAC 500 8x strobes a bunch of non-functioning DJ lights that are all being replaced with Martin SmartMAC and Mania fixtures in dry-dock Martin LightJockey controller

When you add all that up, it’s quite a large responsibility. But, it’s also a great opportunity for me to get my hands on as many fixtures as possible because it’s important for me to have that experience.

In addition to maintaining and repairing fixtures, I am also about to start working on programming shows and learning about ShowMan show control. It’s great that stage staff have a few more hours of free time than many other positions because it enables me to spend this time learning about the position I want.

Last cruise the ship started to get decorated for Christmas. As my job involves trips to the galley on occasion, I had an opportunity to watch the production of the gingerbread houses that make up the gingerbread village which I have seen on a previous Royal Caribbean cruise vacation. It’s a big job and I could tell many different chefs were pitching in to help, not just the pastry team. The huge Christmas tree was also installed in the Royal Promenade.

Rough Seas

Last night was definitely an adventure.  While I was speaking on the phone with my mom yesterday I mentioned that we had fairly rough seas the previous day coming back from Bermuda.  I felt bad for the passengers on that cruise because it was pretty rough on the way to and back from Bermuda.  it’s unfortunate that many people lost 1 or 2 days out of a 5 day vacation due to seasickness, but it could have been prevented by taking some Gravol or similar medication ahead of time… don’t take chances.  Little did I know, that weather coming back from Bermuda was NOTHING.  It’s days like yesterday that make me very happy to be on a larger ship because I know how much worse it truly can be.  Last night we had waves over 20 feet high and winds at 60 knots gusting to 70 knots.  It should be noted that this was the first time since I’ve been on this ship that I felt seasick.  Took lots of meds though and I felt better in minutes.  The worst weather started right around 9pm, and we had the sail-away parade coming up at 10:30.  As should be expected from such a situation the parade audience was pretty dismal and some of the performers weren’t looking too well.  I would recommend anyone sailing out of Bayonne during the winter months to take something to prevent seasickness.  Don’t wait until the ship starts rocking, as that is sometimes too late (and it’s right around dinner time too).

The production manager for the Palace theatre returned today so Leslie is back with us in Studio B and Junior has headed back to the Mariner.  In a couple of weeks things will change up again as Jamie joins us in Studio B and Leslie heads out for her well-deserved vacation.  On land a stage manager would stay with a particular show/theatre for months or even years,  so it’s interesting having 3 different people in the same month running the same show.

That’s about all there is to write about for now… Oh! I get paid tomorrow, so already I know that tomorrow will be a great day.

Halloween on the Explorer

As someone who has cruised several times as a passenger before, I have to say that I never considered what a Halloween cruise would be like. It just never occurred to me, really. I’ve been on several new years’ cruises, so I know what those are like, but never Halloween.

In addition to decorations around the ship, the cruise staff organized two large Halloween events: a costume parade and a dance party. Both were extremely well-attended. Anyone who dressed up for Halloween was given the opportunity to be in the parade, and many opted to do so. At least 200 passengers in addition to several crew and staff members participated in the parade, and I would estimate over 1000 were there to watch. The parade started at the forward end of the ship and headed toward the aft, and down the Centrum staircase into Studio B, where the dance party was to take place. This resulted in a very full dance party as we just kept sending folks down the stairs into Studio B. The party only lasted about an hour but I was astonished by the level of attendance.

I got a few photos of both the parade and the party, but of course the lighting was fairly dim so the quality of the photos is not the greatest (click the photos to view full-size). Some of the scenery for “Spirits of the Seasons” came in quite handy for this party.

St. Maarten

Today is one of those days when it hits me again that I love my job. There are parts to my job I dislike, I think everyone experiences that to some extent, but the fact that I'm living on a ship that visits warm caribbean islands every week is still sinking in. I'm used to going on vacations to a caribbean destination one or two times per year, but getting used to being here almost once a week is a bit different.

Had a lazy day so far today. Only had to wake up to work at 11am, and even then all we had to do was take down the dashers along the ice rink which are used for passenger skating sessions. The next thing I'm scheduled for doesn't happen until 7:15pm, so I have plenty of time to just wander around St. Maarten. So far I had a lunch consisting of conch fritters, jerk chicken and ribs, and 2 wonderfully strong drinks.

Unfortunately I'll be going on duty again tomorrow, which means I won't be able to get off the ship for a week. But at least the Blades install is over, so I won't be called upon to make ice at all hours of the day.

New Roommate

It's another busy Bermuda cruise, although thankfully the second-last one until April. A lot of effort goes into packing a lot of the same things from the longer cruises into a short 5-day Bermuda cruise and in addition to that I'm booked on several nights in the theatre to teach the shows to our new stage staff in the Palace theater, Rex.

Rex is my new roommate, he is from the Philippines and it sounds like he's been with Royal Caribbean for a number of contracts now. Other than the slight language barrier, it's been quite easy teaching him the 3 palace shows he needs to learn because he's so experienced as a stage staff. As soon as I get him to understand my description of what he needs to do, he's able to do the whole show start to finish.

I did some lighting maintenance in the Palace theatre yesterday, going to try to as much lighting work as I possibly can because getting promoted to a lighting technician is a high priority for me. I'd say I'm pretty good in my role as a stage staff but it isn't really stimulating at all. There's no creativity to it, just a matter of getting tasks done over and over each cruise. It's interesting to me that it seems so many of my stage staff coworkers are happy where they are and don't seem to have a desire to move up. I guess it is a fairly easy job so that must be what they want.

I saw something interesting in the crew area this past call in Bayonne; stacks and stacks of LCD TVs. Perhaps a sign of good things to come for Explorer passengers?