PROGRESS SO FAR

Today is Wednesday Dec. 12. I’ve officially finished one cruise and I’m about half way through my second. The great thing about doing seven night cruises is that each day and each week are completely different. So I’m not going to the same place every three or four days. Once we visit a port, I don’t come back to that port again until two weeks later. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored!

Okay. Where shall I begin? I have worked and learned so much this past week and a half, I feel like I’ve been on this ship for a month. I can’t lie to any of you. This is hard. I really am having a wonderful time. But this is hard. Just getting used to the ship life in general takes a lot of energy and patience. There are definite pros and cons. For instance, one pro is time. I’m confined to a ship. And although it’s big, there’s only so long it can take me to walk from one end to the other so I can get to work in less than five minutes. This allows ample time for sleeping in as much as possible and inevitable procrastination. Also, if you’re on a quick break from work and you just want to run back to your room and sit down in your own space, you totally have that flexibility because everything is within just a few minutes of you no matter where you are. Another pro is the people. I can’t speak for working on any other ship but here on the Disney Fantasy, everyone is a family. There are about 1500 crew members representing sixty different nationalities on board and it seems as if everyone knows everyone else. As soon as I embarked the ship I had other crew members welcoming me and helping me. We treat each other the way we treat our guests and that’s really special. One con is the fact that you have to share a room. And when I say room, I mean, a walk in closet (I’m exaggerating… a little). I really like my roommate (Vicky from India). He’s very nice and works in the tech department on board. He works LONG hours so he’s barely ever in the room except at night to sleep. The bathroom is the hardest to get used to because it’s extremely small with a sliver of a shower. But it’s all a part of the adventure. Another con is the amount of work each crew member is responsible for. We stay very busy and we also stay exhausted. I’m a very social person. I like going out and partying with my friends. And we totally have that option. But I’ve barely even participated in any group outings because at the end of my day, I’m ready for bed! You know that when Matt James comes home at 11 PM and goes to sleep instead of going to the crew bar, he’s had a long day.

Let me give a rundown of what my time has been like so far and then I’ll give you an idea of what my job entails. The entire first week was filled with HR training as well as on the job training. HR training was all about safety regulations and customer service. We were taught what to do in an emergency and how to handle certain guest situations. We had life raft training where we learned how to use a life raft and where to go if we ever needed to abandon ship. Every two weeks, we have a safety drill so that the procedures are always fresh in our minds. As you can imagine, the HR stuff was pretty boring. But we definitely got some valuable information like how we get paid, where we do our laundry, and where the crew bar is. On top of learning all of our HR and safety information, we were also thrown into on the job training in our specific areas. My area is DCL Entertainment and my job title is Cruise Staff Entertainment Host. So what does that mean? The cruise staff (there are 11-15 of us at any given time) is responsible for all adult and family activities on board. This can be anything from greeting guests as they enter the theatre for one of our main stage shows and facilitating BINGO all the way to performing Mickey’s Pirates of the Caribbean show on the main deck stage. The cruse staff team is all over the ship. Out of those 11-15 cruise staff members, about half of us are Entertainment Hosts. What this mean is that in all of the events and functions that we facilitate, one of the Entertainment Hosts will actually function as the emcee and speak on microphone as each one takes place. We also have our own family shows that we perform in various locations around the ship. As of right now, I’m not hosting anything because I’m still in training. This entire first week has involved a lot of observing and retaining of information. My next step will be to actually receive the scripts and go into rehearsals for each show that we do. Here are some of the shows and events that I will work/host around the ship:

BINGO

THEATRE DOOR GREETER

DECK THE DECK – A holiday show on the main deck

FAMILY FUSION – A game show to see how well you know your family

SUPERSTAR KARAOKE

LONDON ROCKS – A nightclub celebration in “The Tube,” a venue celebrating underground London

PIRATE NIGHT – A series of shows on the main deck featuring your favorite Disney characters (and me!)

DISNEY TRIVIA

MOVIE TRIVIA

DISNEY ANIMATION

MIRROR, MIRROR – A game show featuring Dopey from Snow White

… And the list goes on…

It really is a fun job and I’m having a blast. But as you can imagine, learning all of these events and scripts is a lot of work. And the list of events I’ve posted here is only about one day’s worth. There are seven different nights on each cruise with this number of activities. It can get very intense and very overwhelming.

The ports of call I’ve visited have been absolutely gorgeous. So far, I’ve been to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Grand Cayman, Costa Maya, and Castaway Cay (Disney’s private island). Today, I’m in Cozumel, Mexico. Here are a few photos from San Juan and Grand Cayman. I’ll try to get more photos as soon as I can.

Alright, I think that’s enough for now. I’ll try to continue updating as much as possible as time goes on. I have a big six hour break today so I’m heading out on a port adventure to swim with the dolphins. Because… yeah… I can do that stuff for FREE! Be jealous.

See-ya!