I´m sorry....what?!

That may possibly be you response after reading this - it was certainly mine when the situation arose 3 days ago.

I am not staying on the Spirit until June 17th.

I am now leaving on the second week of April, going home for a holiday (ha!) for a week and then being flown to ´The Destiny´ to work for the summer sailing round the Med.

Crazy how things can change in a week huh?

The Destiny looks like this:

It is bigger than the Spirit but only has the same amount of passengers. It is the new addition to the Thomson fleet and I will basically doing the same job I do now aboard there only with more Stage Management duties and I´ll be sharing the DJing and Tech stuff with someone else.

It was such a tough decision to make but I was really flattered to be offered it and it sounds like it´ll suit me down to the ground.

The down sides are that I´m going to have to leave this team, who I get on with really well, and start getting to know a whole new set all over. I know I do this all the time when I move jobs and contracts at home but for some reason this time it´s different. Still I might get to see them, as the Destiny follow´s the Spirit´s path around the the Med, so hopefully I´ll get to say hello!
Also I only get one week at home to sort my whole life out until November which is going to be a bit of a tall order (as it is probably going to involve moving all my stuff from Leeds back to Birmingham!!). Also I won´t get to do the Big Event in Birmingham and I won´t see my family and friends much :(

Still I would have been a fool if I´d have said no and I spent 2 days agonising over it so now I feel that I have made the right decision by Sense if not by Sensibility!

Fizzy Cravings

In the team meeting yesterday Richard (Cruise Director)informed us that we are half way through our Canary Islands tour - another 8 weeks of this and then we´re off to the Med. He then went through all the ports we will be visiting there and it sounds amazing! Barcelona, Rome, Ibiza, Villefranche and all sorts of other places (most of which I haven´t heard of!) but we get more time to explore when we´re there so it should be cool :)

I´ve had a fun morning with the guys from the ´Freedom Band´ in a music shop. I´ve reserved an electro acoustic nylon stringed guitar, and it´s pretty sweet. It has a thinner body which makes it easier (and sooo much more comfortable) for me to play and it has a great sound. I can´t buy it ´til I get paid next but I can´t wait!

Not that I´ve had a lot of time this week. We had LOADS of kids on (of all ages!) so kids zone needed help with some extra activities inc. Family Bingo and a Junior Talent Show. So much work for 20 minutes - the kids had a blast though so it was all worth it :)

I sang on Karaoke last night. I was the first time anyone on here has heard me sing and I was really nervous! Fortunately there was only the 2 guys doing Karaoke who were in there from the team so it wasn´t too bad. I sang ´Don´t Know Why´ by Norah Jones and I think it went pretty well ;) I think the glass of red wine that David (Ass. Cruis Dir.) bought for me probably helped, although I was still shaking!!

We have appraisals this week, eeek!?!

I´ve given up fizzy drinks for Lent. When I was a kid we were only allowed fizzy drinks on a weekend (in fact I think that still applies at home - mum?) so this should not be a problem. However having worked in bars and having been on this ship for the last 2 months where the drink flows freely (well...almost!) I think I might have gone a little carbonated crazy. Right now I would love nothing more than a long cold glass of coke! I feel like I´m turning into an orange juice I´ve drunk so much of the stuff - I can´t find orange squash anywhere....*sniff*

Anyhoo, must head back and clean some mics, check they´re working, and see if the lighting board is going to co-operate with the manual :)

Mended Footsies

It´s been a year since my Operation. Wow, where did that year go? I still remember vividly having to phone the hospital on the Thursday afternoon to see if they had a bed for me. I was so nervous, my hand was shaking as I lifted the receiver! But the whole thing went pretty well.

It really has made such a huge difference. I spent about 7 years of my life with severe pain in my big toe joint after every day spent on my feet, I was frequently in tears because it hurt so much. My steel toe caps that I had to wear for work/Uni made me cringe everytime I put my feet in then because I knew the pain I was going to be in after a few hours. But now all that is gone and replaced with a ´normal´ ball of the foot pain from wearing the strappy shoes I have to wear onboard that is perfectly dealable with!

I can however predict when it´s going to rain and occasionally my right toe gives me a bit of pain but on the whole the change is amazing!

This week has been good. We had some 2-weekers on from Glasgow who were up in HS every night so we spent time chatting about the happenings in that fair city, apparently ´The Shack´and ´Trash´(the club underneath it) burnt down, scary!

My aim this week is to get to grips with the Lighting Desk upstairs, apparently it was programmed somewhere back in the mists of time and noone knows whats connected to what so there is my challenge!

I was on line dancing with Dom twice this week and I´m down for it again tommorow! You never know I might have actually remembered the dances this time! It´s fun to do some other stuff aswell :)

No...I am NOT Spanish!!!

A guy came up to the DJ booth the other night and told me that he had hesitated in coming over because he didn´t expect me to be English (he was Welsh - not sure if that makes a difference!) he thought I was Spanish. Now as anyone who reads my blog who who has known me for any length of time will know, this is a common occurence. But 3 yes, 3 times in one night.

In this post I listed the nationalities people have thought I am. I can now add Malaysian to that list and the top 2 are New Zealand (Kiwi) and Spanish.

I´ve had a flippin´rotten cold all week and am now left with a cough that sounds like a smoke 40-a-day and hurts! My other wisdom tooth is also threatening to do what the first one did (come out too far) and Dental isn´t covered on my medical - owwww :(

I got Oscar´s (The passenger´s are asked to nominate 3 member´s of staff who have made their holiday special - it means more to the crew as they get rewards!- we just get a warm *fuzzy* feeling) this week and a very cool comment off some passengers so I feel last week went well!

Have been guitar hunting today but nothing has really grabbed me, still we shall persevere!

Daily Routine

Had a good week this week, not much went wrong ang I´ve started sorting some stuff out in HS so it´s easier to use and find things!

Dom´s parents were on this week which was nice. It makes such a difference having people´s friends/parents on. Can´t explain why but it does! We´ve got quite a few coming on over the next few months. Today one of the guys from the office is on checking on us. He´s on for 3 days it was supposed to be a week but we´re getting excellent scores for the entertainment product so they´re not that woried about us.

I´ve realised that I havent really explained what I do all day. It changes everyday but as a general idea:

2pm - Check on Sound System for Quiz

4:30/5pm - Change Background Music (& lights/gobo´s - for theme nights)

7pm - Quiz in HS

9:45pm - Quiz in HS

11:30pm - Quiz/Cabaret in HS

12:00 - DJ ´til 3am-ish

3am - Close Disco, Tidy areas (change music/Lights/Gobo´s - on theme nght)

ON DUTY - 4pm-8pm (Have to be on Ship)

I DJ 4 nights a week, usaully the first 3 and the last 1. Sometimes I haev to do stuff for the main show. On the day at sea I do a backstage tour and then SM "Hobson´Choice" at 1pm. Ohter morning´s I have to put a film on at 10am and if football is being shown in HS I have to set that up.

So there you go. My day in a nutshell. Tomorrow is hard because I have to be up at 9 for a lifeboat drill. I then go back to bed or go and lie on the beach (we´re usually in Gran Canaria) I think the bed option will win tomorrow!

All Change

Been an interesting week.

For the past 2 days I feel like I´ve been in an Agatha Christie novel but can´t go into details for now.

Had a spectacularly bad evening on Tuesday (Technical screw-ups etc) but the next day it was all sorted so am fine with it now. Actually starting to feel like myself instead of whoever I have been for the last 5 weeks! Getting to know people and starting to feel like I fit in so all is going well.

I found out yesterday that the company want to extend all of our contracts until June 17th. This would be amazing as we are sailing around the Med by then (that was news to me too!)but it would mean missing my Mum´s important birthday (!?) so dunno yet......

Today is a busy day for the team.
It´s Dominique´s Birthday
It´s Anthony´s Birthday
Daniella left this morning
Hannah officially starts back today (she broke her ribs during the rehearsal period and Daniella stepped in)

Had a bit of a rough day at sea (Tuesday), a storm was brewing and it was touch and go whether to leave, we definitely made the right decision to go though. The Storm changed direction and headd straight for where we sailed from!

Back in Santa Cruz

well here we are bcak at the beginning!
Here as promised is a photo of my Birthday pressies:

Isn´t the dog cute! I´ve put a fair few more photo´s up on my group so if you follow the "Snap´s, Photo´s and Pic´s" link in the sidebar you can peruse at you leisure.

Had a pretty good week. Am definitely settling down now. The Kareoke machine decided to have a ´moment´last night and I remained calm so I feel I have made some progress ;)

We were docked in Morrocco at some point this week (days have ceased to exist!) and I had an allergic reaction to the water in my shower! I think there must have been to much chlorine in it or soemthing (we take on water from whatever port we´re at) and I got out of the shower to find that my legs and forearms looked like a particularly vicious ant had been very hungry! So I had a slight panic (as it continued to get worse!) and then had to get a form to see the doctor.

Not sure where this doctor is from but he´s obviously not seen many allergic reacitons as he told me to go away and come back at 5pm (crew hours). Now I´m a rational person and I understand that there are crew hours, but when someone is standing in front of you blatantly having a reaction to something you DON´t tell them to come back in 7 hours!!!!! Anyway I stood my ground and he gave me some Clarityn and some gel to take the lumps down. The redness went by the next day so it wasn´t too bad.

Must go and get supplies for the week - Cola and Sweets!

Rollercoaster

Well, today I do have better news!

Yesterday started out horribly (see post below) but the guys on the ship made it into one of the best Birthday´s I´ve ever had!

Dom and Frank took me out for Sangria and a massive ice-cream.

The Band and all the passengers in High Spirits sang to me when I went up in the evening.

The Executive (Head) Chef (who I collect the cake off for the play) made proper pancakes especially for me.

Laura (Kids Rep) made sure I had company most of the day!

Lorna bought me a massive bottle of Bailey´s, a PEZ dispenser and a Kinder Egg.

Reilly bought me "a watch with number´s on it"(I must have said that I needed one about 7 times last week)which has a big disc with a smiley face on it for a second hand!

Dom bought me a nice box of choclates (Lindt, mmmm) and a cool vest top that says "Miss DJ" in sequins (I´ll have a photo up later). She said she wanted it for herself so it was really nice that she got it for me!

The rest of the guys knew about my presents going missing and I thought I knew what they would be. So they went and bought me the ´Travis - Singles´Album. How amazing are they! I also got a musical card off them, hehe!

Dante and Anthony (SM and Sound Tech) bought me a cuddly dog (that has very soft ears *grin*) which I have named Danton. I am also learning Phillipino from them, another language under my belt!

Passengers bought me drinks, the band bought me drink, Lisa and Laura bought me Champagne and Leah and Kim (effectively my neighbours - dancers on the show team) bought me a Bailey´s.

Then this morning one of the regular passengers (he comes on about every 9 weeks and the Ents team sort of adopt him!)Ron, had the most amazing bouquet of flowers delivered for me!

Then I DJ´d until 4:15 this morning. When I decided I´d had enough because I had a lifeboat drill at 9:30am this morning. Me and Dom got slightly reprimanded for laughing - Saftey (Nikos, v. military guy) gave us a stern word. Ah well, he did say our lines were perfect though!

Happy Birthday?

It´s my Birthday today.

Someone between here and England decided to open the Jiffy Bag that my Mum sent me.

And has stolen my presents out of it.

I got my bank statements, my birthday card and some Christmas Cards but that´s it.

Apparently all we can do is report it.

Everyone here has been really great about it.

Maybe next time I´ll have some good news.

Funchal, Madeira

Well hello from what I have just discovered to be...Portugal.

I found out this wonderful piece of information because the phonecard I bought in Tenerife (Spain) yesterday, wouldn´t work here - ah, the joys of cruising!

I have to go and be ´the computer´for a gameshow in an hour and then we have 2 Cabaret acts, Dominique (Dom) and Frank and then those two, plus Amy and Richard (Cruise Director) for the 'Rhythmn and Blues´ one. Then I have the night off. Me having the night off consists of finishing at midnight - basically I get about 3 hours extra in bed!

Last week was a bit hit and miss. It started off shakey and then got progressively worse as the week went on (to the point of me breaking down in tears during one of the cabaret acts because a microphone failed!), everything I touched seemed to break or go wrong, I was PMS-y, I wasn´t at home for Christmas Day (actually it was more Christmas Eve I missed. Me, Jo and Vix sleep in Vix´s room and I read ´Mr Christmas´- with voices, that would be less disturbing if we weren´t 23,22 and 19!) and I still didn´t really know anyone that well. Also we had a certain passenger on who managed to start 3 fights during the week in "High Spirits"(HS) and there would have been another one if I hadn´t rushed out of the DJ booth to explain to his mate what he was doing!

All in all it was a bad situation. On the plus side I feel much better now. This week I´ve actually found time to relax and not felt like I was under scrutiny so much. Also I've had the time to sit and chat with some folks so am feeling a lot more positive. The thing that made it worse was that I´m not usually like that. I usually settle in to places really quickly and don´t really get homesick, so I was getting mad at myself for feeling like that! I´m going to blame it on the hormones!

New Year´s Eve was fab. There was a massive Deck Party (I was in HS DJing though!) on the Lido Deck and we released balloons and fired the confetti cannon and all the ships in the harbour(Santa Cruz) blew their horns. What made it better was that all the passengers from the other ships were watching our party, hehehe! Only the best at Thomson.

Tommorow is our day at sea, last day at sea we had a force 7 storm, now that was fun. The first time in my life I´ve had to gaffa tape a teaset to the table so it wouldn´t slide off!

STRANGEST MOMENT THIS WEEK: Changing gobo´s (small metal discs with patterns in them that go in front of a lamp to make an effect) at 3 in the morning.....Wearing a ball gown and high heel´s.