Wellington, NZ

So I'm sat in Starbucks, a welcome escape from the heat outside. It's un-usually hot today, Wellington is famed for being cold and rainy, but the last 2 times we've been here its been scorching! So you'll usually find all of the crew who have the day off in Starbucks, in the A/C with a frappucino. It's some un-written rule, your can only order a frappucino and you will not talk to each other, you will sit and make the most of your 30 mins free Internet!

So what's been going on, the usual partying. Ended up getting to bed around 4am this morning, which isn't so bad since I'm not working today until 7pm. This is the norm usually. Not working the next day? Get pished up and go 'hangover shopping'.

I'm trying to come up with costume ideas for the upcoming crew party, it's an 'out of Africa' party so costume ideas are a little difficult. And to top it off the costume shop here on Wellington has moved to a different city, helpful!

We've got a new team member joining today, she's a new hire which should be interesting. Not that I mind of course, they've sent another girl so I get to keep my own room, awesomeness! The team is going to be changing a lot soon, lots of people leaving, and then new people coming. Big changes!

We've not got 3 more New Zealand cruises, and then we start a 28 day Australia cruise, cannot wait!! And then after that Asia!!! I've also applied for local leave in Bangkok, I'm supposed to be flying home from the anyway and if it gets approved e company will just book my flights later on so I can stay in Thailand for like 10 days before coming home. I have to pay for hotels etc of course but in Thailand it's not exactly expensive to find a bed.


So Wellington, it's just a big city really. Famously where the weta studios are that created the lord of the rings trilogy and more recently the hobbit, but also things like avatar, the life of pi etc, we also done here. But other than that it's the same as any other city, shops and restaurants everywhere, people, traffic, the usual! Oh and there's a small beach. Which today is completely heaving!

Working tomorrow and then I'm going on a shore excursion to the set of hobbiton, from The Lord of the rings movies. Should be fun.

Ciow ciow
Xxxx

New Years in New Zealand

So the last cruise was the New Years cruise, and what a cruise it was! Right from the word go we could tell that we were going to be busy.  Every bar on board was full to capacity on the very first night of sailing, so we had a taste of what was to come over the New Year’s period. For example, the first formal night was so busy that even though there was no formal party in the schedule, we all got paged by the boss asking us to stay in the night club until midnight. It does make sense to have a party on the first night of a new year’s cruise, but needless to say no-one had prepared for a big party night so it was a bit of a surprise,  so we were all dancing away until the early of hours, at the end of which were all kind of doing the ‘step-dig can’t be bothered any more’ dance, mostly because we had all been on our feet since 9am that morning, but hey that’s the job we signed up for!

New Years Eve, this is the night when the ship basically goes into crazy, wasted party zone. We had a balloon drop party in the Atrium, and we were supposed to give out the New Years hats and horns etc for midnight. We started outside the theatre and I don’t know what happened to those people, it was like instinct took over, they grabbed and they shouted, pushing each other out of the way, starting fights, all over a paper hat......they were animals! One of the girls I work with is very small and she got the worst of it, we have 2300 passengers on board and they all descended on her, its amazing she wasn’t hurt. Physically I mean, she was pretty upset afterwards.  So at midnight they dropped the balloons and everyone had a good time.

At the same time as the atrium party we had the open air deck party; basically we can’t fit everyone in the atrium so everyone else went upstairs to party with the band, I actually thought that the deck party was more fun, there was more people in more space, a live band and most of the crew went to the deck party as well, loads of fun! 

Also, on a side note. I have awesome new swimming shorts. Just sayin.

However, while all this was going on I was stuck in the ‘calm’ lounge. There was still live music with a singer but I was a little disappointed because just before midnight everyone decided they would rather be where the part was, so I saw the New Year in by myself on the microphone watching senior citizens making out on the dance floor. Let’s hope that’s not how the rest of my year turns out!

Then I head to the crew bar, and there is a boy, I won’t call him a man, because in my book men don’t act like this, who...well let’s say he likes me. However, its awkward now since new year’s because he had a little too much to drink and decided he was going to molest me in the middle of the crew bar, then after I turn him down he calls me in my cabin asking me if I want a massage, it’s about 3am by this point so of course I said no. But since then he gets very excited when he sees me and I am really not interested, so to be honest, I have no idea what to do.

So thats that, nothing much more exciting going on, as I said before this is an unusually quiet ship!

Christmas cruise & Crayzee passengers

At last! Christmas is over! You know I thought joining on an Xmas cruise would be fine, and for the most part it was! But I forgot just how busy things were the last time I did it. 

Embarkation day, so this day starts at around 7am with the regular’ get off my ship’ procedures.  Then, we clean everything and prepare the ship for the next cruise, and then it all starts again. Now for the Xmas cruise of course there are decorations everywhere, and we had 3 girls dressed up and singing acapella carols as people board the ship. I distinctly remember one guy coming up the gangway and yelling ‘carols....really!’ Why the hell would you come on a xmas cruise and then complain about the xmas stuff..... I don’t get it! One guy explained later on that they had come to sea to escape xmas, well to be honest they would have been better off in their house, because we go full out cheesy xmas here.

Now to be fair, the Australian crowd is SO much nicer than the American, I’ve done over 2 years on American ships and the aussie passengers are simply here to have a good time, and thats exactly what they do. Amercian attitudes can be a little, shall we say challenging. Not all of them mind you. 

So myself and another staff member are the choir directors again and we directed the xmas choir for the past 13 days, somewhat stress full because didn’t have any of the music for the xmas songs so we were pretty much directing as we went along, it was pretty successful though.  However, I was expecting some good comment cards from the singers, they were full of praise after the show and yet we only got 1 official comment. We were a little peeved to say the least. 

Christmas day was insane, we started with mimosas in the office and bacon rolls, little bit of drama with kitchens but nothing major. Secret Santa happened, lots of fun, aided by mimosas of course. Then off to work, we did a ‘Ginger Bread House decorating competition’ very, very busy but so much fun! Also, all of the officers sang carols in the atrium, very cheesy but also, surprisingly fun.  

Now for some reason, on Boxing Day everyone was so miserable! My theories are that they knew they were going home in a few days and realised they were never going to experience my amazing enthusiasm, obviously.  But to be honest usually that does happen on an xmas cruise, for some reason that I really can’t think of, the day we get the most complaints is xmas day. Weird.

So now begis the new years cruise, lets see what crayzeeness this will bring!

Booze Cruise and start to Xmas season

What a crazy couple of days! I joined the ship a few days ago on a two day ‘booze cruise’ sailing from Sydney to Melbourne. I’ve never seen a cruise like it! Passengers are basically there simply to party, one passenger described it to me as a ‘cruise fix’. Cruising can be very addictive I suppose, is such a relaxed way of travelling. Everything is done for you right down to the finest detail, and its actually cheaper than travelling on your own due to all the stuff that’s included in your cruise price. So people do tend to come back again and again, we must be doing something right then.

Anyway, this short one was insane, the night club was going until 4.30 in the morning when usually due to the industries demographic of a more ‘senior’ clientele, the night club doesn’t usually even go until 1am most nights. Well, that and all the early mornings in port, people are slightly less inclined to party all night usually. However this one, right from the word go we were having problems with intoxicated passengers. For example during the safety demonstration we had 2 guys who wouldn’t take their life jackets off when they were asked, he was slurring all over me and smelt like a homeless person. He claimed he thought we were sinking. Anyway we dealt with it but that’s just one example of what happens on a ‘booze cruise'.

Ooh and speaking of the safety stuff, I’ve gone up in the world. I am now 2^nd in charge of my muster stations, this basically means its my job to check off the crew who manage the passengers when they arrive to make sure they’re all accounted for. And then if for some reason the 1^st in charge doesn’t make it to the station, I then take over. No pressure!

Oh yes, and I also have my own room now which was a nice suprise when I arrived, only because the office sent a guy and a girl as the juniors and obviously we cant share, I feel bad though, she has to share with a purser.

So yesterday we sailed out of Melbourne, Australia. Bound for New Zealand, and its the Christmas cruise! So far passengers seem very friendly, not particularly energetic but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But we did have to turn back to Melbourne after we had sailed because a lady fell in her cabin and injured herself so we had to get her to a hospital in a tender boat, fairly dramatic but such is the cruise life!

I’ve been talking to a few people who have been here for a few months and they say that this is a really quiet ship, and I can see where they’re coming from. The crew bar has been empty 3 nights in a row now, maybe that’s because its been a hectic few days at work I don’t know, but this is very disappointing. I’m used to crew bars having at least more than 5 people in them in the evening, regardless of work stuff.  Oh well, there’s a big crew turnover in the new year so maybe it will liven up, the people here have been here a long time so I suppose they’re over it

.

Anyway those are my musings, at least the jet lag has gone :)

See ya next time!

Flights, hotels and sun burn

So really quickly before my 30 mons of free Internet runs out.

Flight was okay, Korean Air very hospitable, top notch customer service. But really bad turbulence, particularly over the equator which is apparently normal.

Met a new friend in the hotel lobby since we arrived early so they hotel hadn't got our rooms ready yet, out of our frustration we bonded over a rant about hotels....very British of us but there we go.

We then decided not to waste the only full day of Sydney we will have this contract and went to visit the opera house and darling harbour. Had a fantastic time! It's crazy how you an meet someone in a completely random situation and then make an awesome day out of it.

Forgot to put a memory card in my camera though, my bad!

Completely unprepared for the heat, walking around Sydney all day and then experimenting with the hotels disturbingly unimpressive pool, has resulted in a mild case of lobster face. That'll make a good first impression tomorrow.

Now abusing the 30 minutes of free Internet in the lobby, after being disturbed in the shower by an impromptu fire drill by the hotel staff...fun fun.

Got a room mate for the night, from Canada. Teen Dj, nice guy.

Running out of net time now, so ciow xxx

And so it begins....

So I'm leaving for Sydney, Australia tonight.

I've spent the best part of 2 weeks packing for this and I'm still worrying about whether I've forgotten anything. All the familiar anxieties are kicking in, for example..

Will my bags be over weight?
Will the flight get delayed?
Will we get stuck in traffic and miss check in?
Do I have enough cash on me for food?
Etc etc etc

The thing is, after all this panic I know that once I get to my seat on the plane it wont matter any more. So the panic really wasn't worth making myself sick over it all. Still, its a family trait. We like to travel but when we do we turn into quivering wrecks!

Mother's been equally crazy in the last few days, since I'm leaving so close to Christmas she took it upon herself to throw a big Christmas party for the whole family yesterday. So instead of enjoying our time together in my last few days we've been stressing out and at each others throats half the time.

Anyway, right at this moment I'm trying to finalise my packing without the dogs seeing the bags, last time I got the suitcases out they literally sat in front of the door and refused to let me leave.

So tonight I've got a 25 hour journey with 3.5 hours in Seoul, South Korea to break it up. Flying with Korean Air, supposed to be pretty good but we will see.  Here's a taster.

Then a day and a night in Sydney so I'm gearing myself up to hit Sydney big time. If I've only got a day there I am going to make the most of it!  Plan is to get the train into the city, I'm making it my mission to see the Sydney Opera House up close before I join the ship.

So wish me luck, I'll post again once I've made it to the hotel.

Hmm I wonder if I will be sharing a room this time....

'Hello Sailor! Gays at sea!

Firstly, apologies I did a small vanishing act from the blogging world. I've been a little busy keeping myself entertained for the past few weeks, that and house work. A small example of the waiting game in between contracts I spoke about previously.

Anyways those who know me will know I am a big flaming homosexual, and my experience of being such while working at sea is somewhat dramatic to say the least.

Okay, now depending on your rank, you are likely to have a room mate who you share pretty much everything with. Now I've had both gay, and straight room mates and I've never had a really bad experience with a roomie with regards to my being gay, i think if your going to work on a ship your automatically the sort of person who is fairly open minded so usually the gay thing isn't a problem. However, I find that having a straight room mate is far easier, a straight roomie will go out of his way to make sure I know that he doesn't have an issue with it. They tend to be more careful about bringing a girl back, they're not bitchy about silly little things in the cabin i.e mess or leaving the bathroom light on. Generally I've gotten on better with a straight room mate. This is because, with a gay room mate it feels like you are in constant competition with them. The ratio of gay to straight men on board doesn't exactly swing in my favour so there is a natural competition for the attention of guys. Jealousy becomes an issue, meaning bringing someone back to the cabin is of course out of the question. Now I don't mean to pigeon hole my people but the gays tend to be bitchier than the heterosexuals, so when two are sharing a room and a bathroom it gets horribly dramatic. The stupid little things keep coming up, with little remarks and comments until one day theres a massive argument and you end up having to move down to deck 3 because you can't stand to look at him.

Working in the entertainment department as you can imagine is a hell of a lot easier for the gay man. Again I don't like to pigeon hole but there are an awful lot of us in the industry. In the scheme of things I haven't been doing this for long but I can say, that while I've been in the entertainment side of things I haven't had a straight male boss which I'm not going to lie, did make me more comfortable at first. However, for whatever reason, I have ended up very often being the only gay on the team. The bosses are usually big flamers but I've seen more straight guys than ever in the 'lower ranks' of the department than gay. Maybe that's because gays tend to get promoted faster, maybe we live in an increasingly open minded world and more straight guys are applying for the job, I don't know, but there you have it.

 Pic 1 - Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. It's a hard life...

 Now the gay scene on board is actually, pretty fantastic! The company of course has a discrimination policy and an on board human resources manager so even the tiniest hint of homophobic behaviour and that person is on the next flight home. Which is great. It leaves you totally free to be who you are. However, obviously there are a huge amount of nationalities that work on board, and some of these nations are more accepting than others. They know what the rules are and so never actually express their views, but certain cultures tend to keep to themselves. I wont say where these people are from, but there's more than one group that do this. They generally won't interact with people who are not from their own country. This is still a minority but it does happen. Now within these groups guys tend to be less comfortable being themselves as obviously, the culture of their people doesn't accept it as much. But these few individuals then find their place amongst everyone else and then its all good. I've never seen any extreme homophobia on board, another reason why I love my job! I can even DJ in the crew bar, dressed in drag as dolly parton and didn't even get a second glance, its completely the norm. As I said earlier, attitudes on board are extremely open minded across all departments, so the social atmosphere is extremely good fun!

 Pic 2 - The infamous DJ Dolly from the crew's 'Diva Party'
Pic 3 - Hat party from my first contract, no idea who the guy is.......but i blanked his face just in case.

You see what I mean! FUN!

Finally, obviously cruise ships travel. You're usually in a different country every day, and of course some of these countries are less liberal than others. So, you do sometimes need to be careful depending on where in the world you are. For example, I wouldn't walk down the street in Columbia holding a guys hand or Ii might not make it back to the ship alive. One story is from somewhere in the Caribbean (I don't remember which island) I was out browsing the market stalls and I came across a little wicker hand bag which I thought my sister would like, I was with a friend and I made a joke about how if I bought it everyone would know I was gay. The woman behind the stall gave me such a look it made me step back, she then started hounding me saying things like 'god made 1 man and 1 woman in the beggining' and 'do I think that's a good way to live' I just told her that I thought it was a fantastic way to live and went on my way. Not particularly violent but uncomfortable none the less. Now this is just some countries, obviously if your cruising the USA or Canada your not going to have that problem.

Pic 4 -Cartagena, Columbia. Cannon straddling.

So that's it for today, a little slice of gay life for you. I'm still waiting at the moment, I've got my contract through but just waiting for joining instructions and then I'm heading off to Australia!!! 3 weeks and counting!

ta ta!
xxx