The Crossing

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My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

After working for Princess for two years now, two months stand out as unique experiences that I will probably refer to an annoying amount of times in the future:  Wet Dock and the Crossing.  While I enjoy the opportunity to hone my craft with repetition, it’s nice to have a month that stands out just because it is so different from the rest of the contract.

I loved Wet Dock because, for 30 days, we didn’t do our regular work.  There were no guests on board, so I not only got a break from the trivia and the game shows we did every cruise, but I got a break from being ‘on’ all the time. I loved getting the chance to get enough sleep, to have unscheduled days to meld as I pleased, and to have evenings where I could entertain just myself instead of entertaining others.  It was delightfully indulgently easy.  The Crossing stood out as the opposite.  With the same guests for 30 days and very few port todays, we were constantly needing to come up with new things to do.  I would leave for Zumba or sign-ups for something in the morning, and then spend the rest of the day in activities or preparing for activities, only resting at the dining table. 

During my first contract I worked with a couple of people who were leaving the company so they gave me all of their specialty trivia and game shows on a hard drive.  I didn’t take the time to go through these activities because there were so many of them. Instead, I just put them on my list of things I could do for the Entertainment Director. During my first two contracts, all of these extra activities were completely ignored. We did our best stuff every 7 days, and if we had a surprise sea day, there was our second best stuff to throw in. Now, almost two years into the job, I found myself in similar circumstances that I had been in when I first started– every day I would get my schedule for the next day with something I had never done before. Luckily, this time there were enough things that I had done before that EVERYTHING wasn’t new, but I did spend a lot of time going through that hard drive quickly preparing something that someone else had put together years ago and trying to make it look like something I knew how to do. On top of that, as a team we had to come up with new game shows, so we would spend about an hour a day coming together as a team putting those things together.

Not only was most of our time outside of activities spent preparing for activities, but now we had SO MANY SEA DAYS. In the Caribbean we had 2 or 3 sea days a week. We never had more than 3 sea days in a row scheduled. On the crossing we would have 4 or 5 sea days, then 2 ports and we would work one of the port days. I had mentally prepared for this, but the reality was so much more daunting.

My point is, it was so hard. We were all so tired, so exhausted. Each one of us had some sort of breakdown at some point. But when the things that we were working on finally came together, the performance high was thrilling. Lauren, Micah and Matt Baker were really funny, smart and talented, so they were really fun to work with. Corey had been with the company for years, so he taught us game shows that had been done for years, but I’d never seen. We did a game show where we acted out classic movie scenes using ridiculous props and costumes. It was such a hit that we had to come up with a second one all with new movies. We did an improv show. The first one was pretty good. The second one wasn’t as good. Sometimes Corey would join in with us, but most of the time he stood back and hosted while we played. It was really cool to have a team with so much theater and comedy experience for these game shows to work. And I loved the process of creating new things, doing them, and then making them better for next time.

The other part of the puzzle was the guests. Most people who cruise come for the ports or the drinks by the pool. People who book a crossing either don’t know what they’re in for or they come for the ship. It is a different experience with so many more sea days than port days. Some come for the luxury of not cooking or cleaning, or of being waited on, but some come for the entertainment, which is always our focus (In fact, because it’s my job, I forget that some people get on the ship and don’t even think about going to any of the things that we offer). After about a week I started to notice that some people were coming to our events not because of the content of the entertainment– they were coming for us. Suddenly we weren’t just a perk in the package, we were the main event. They would come to a music trivia they had no interest in just because they just liked hanging out with us as hosts. This was a new experience for me. On the shorter cruises (especially when I was doing the Detourist workshops) I would get to know a few guests, but now we were really getting to know a lot of people, and we got to hang out with them for a long time. So not only did I get to play with my fellow cruise staff, the people in the audience were becoming our friends, and they would play along as well. They seemed to love us no matter what we did. We would throw something together and look back thinking it was terrible, and the next day so many people would come up and tell us how much they loved it. When the fear of judgement and failure disappeared, going out and taking risks became much more fun.

As the Crossing was happening all of the details seemed to add up to a great story to be told, but I never had time to jot down any of the details. There is more I wanted to write about here as it was going on, but I can’t remember what they were except for these things:

Zumba Freshly back from the Zumba conference, I was inspired and excited.  I’d spent the couple of weeks at home trying to remember the routines I’d picked up at the conference, but in spite of the HOURS that I had spent practicing, I didn’t feel like I knew them well enough to teach yet.  So I started with the routine I already knew.  On a new ship in a new lounge (the lounge at the back of the ship on the Golden, Vista Lounge, was slightly different than the one on the Caribbean, Club Fusion), it was PACKED.  This was something else we figured out.  With so many sea days, every event had about four times the people that we were used to.  Not only was the dance floor packed, but there were people up and down the aisles and pushed up against the seats.  Club Fusion had a video camera that would broadcast my moves on TVs throughout the Lounge.  In the Vista, there were no cameras and TVs so most people couldn’t see my feet.  I took what I learned at the Zumba conference and adapted to my situation.  Though we’re not supposed to talk through the class in a traditional Zumba class, it is encouraged in a Zumba Gold class, and most of the people in my class couldn’t see what we were doing up on the stage.  So I started telling the people in the back what my feet were doing.  They appreciated it.  The energy in a packed room is so different.  With so many people there to have fun, I had so much more fun doing steps that I had previously found monotonous. 

Cruise Director Corey was also Zumba certified and he wanted to teach, so we traded off about every 3 or 4 days.  I figured that was enough time for them to forget my routine so I kept doing the same one.  Also, there was NO time for me to review any new dances.  I have to say the best part of doing Zumba during the crossing was that one of our guests, Lorna, was Zumba certified, so she offered to get up on stage and dance alongside me.  I’d seen this happen at the conference, so I invited her up.  Toward the end, we started switching off and I got to learn some of her dances.  On the last day, Corey, Lorna and I all co-taught a class.  It was the BEST.  They do things like that on land, but it was a rare occurrence on the ship.  The room was packed, we took turns teaching songs and everyone left elated.  As I write these words, they don’t seem to convey how cool it was, but it has something to do with the difference between listening to a song by yourself versus at a concert with the band.  Plus, by the end, we’d spent so much time together that we were all friends.  So it was like a dancing concert with a bunch of your friends. 

Pop Choir was also packed. By the end there were about 70 people. Before I hadn’t had more than 30. We had three performances– the first set in the Piazza with the songs I usually did. That performance was so popular that another performance was requested (this was true, but we also planned for a reprise performance). I had to find new songs and come up with new choreography– we were back in uncharted territory. Fortunately, that performance in the Vista Lounge was also so popular that ANOTHER performance was requested. This time about 80 guests gathered on the stage in the Princess Theater with our two most popular songs. It took longer than the time it takes to sing two songs to get everyone on stage, then we waited patiently as Corey decided at the last minute to have the curtain lowered and then raised for a ‘surprise’ reveal. People in pop choir are known for having strong opinions, and many of them have performance experience that they want to share. I always emphasize and reiterate that the most important thing about pop choir is that we have fun. In my experience, that usually happens. They have fun at the performance. This time it kept going and the fun and the silliness grew exponentially with each performance.

We crossed the Equator. This is a big deal on a ship. We do a whole ceremony with costumes and officers. Then all the pollywogs get covered in disgusting food to become another silly word that I can’t remember. My hair smelled like eggs for 3 days. Everyone came early to get a good seat by the pool. I was told to go out and rally up the crowd, and mostly make it clear that no one was to go in the pool. If any gross stuff got in the pool they would have to shut it down for cleaning for 3 days. I didn’t know what I was doing. I went out and made up dances as they played Proud Mary– Rolling on the Ocean. Every few minutes I told them DO NOT GET IN THE POOL. This became a joke that was referenced for weeks. I was so surprised afterward when my boss told me I had done a really good job.

The Royalty came out and we did the ceremony. I wore a plastic poncho that was almost immediately ripped off and then we were covered in goop. We had to shower in the spa first before we were allowed back to our cabins– there was no way to avoid the carpets!

I think my favorite part about crossing the equator was the questions– one lady asked me if she would be able to see the equator better because she had a balcony. I think there were as many people spreading rumors that there would be a bump when we crossed it as there were gullible people who believed the stories.

Crossing the International Date Line.   (Yes, there were people who thought there would be a line or a sign sticking out of the ocean for this too). When I was first assigned this contract, crossing the dateline had been one of the highlights I was looking forward to. Entertainment Director Matt had gone the other way where they had the same day twice.  They printed the exact same schedule both days, did the same shows, the same entertainment, the same trivia and the entertainment team tried to make it like a Groundhog’s day.  I was SO excited about that until I figured out we would lose a day.  I mean I would rather go an hour back every few days and lose a whole day than suffer through so many hour forwards.  So we used the joke as much as we could—promising things that would never happen would happen on October 17.  I think the biggest event we did in honor of the occasion was that we had a birthday party for everyone who had a birthday on October 17.  We sent them an invitation saying, the bad news is, you don’t get a birthday this year, but the good news is you’re not getting any older!  We invited them to join us in the Explorer’s lounge for champagne and some gifts from the jewelry store. 

Golden Tickets The prizes we usually give to winners and participants are fun to give out on the first day, but people tend to get tired of them once they realize that they’re not that useful. The excitement of winning is worth much more than the prize itself. For the Crossing, we would offer the option of a prize or a Golden Prize Ticket (since we were on the Golden Princess). They could collect their tickets for limited prizes that were available for about half an hour every couple of days. The prizes were things from around the ship from different departments– things from the gift shop, vouchers from the spa, bags from the jewelry store. These were all things that the guests could get on board with money, but they went crazy for these prize tickets. It was fun as cruise staff because we suddenly had something to give away that people wanted! And they fit very nicely in our pockets. There was one kid who would barter and trade other guests for tickets and would show up at the prize table with 20-50 tickets at a time. Even though there wasn’t really anything at the prize table that he wanted, nothing would stop him. I think he ended up getting on board credit and then selling the voucher to his dad for cash. For the rest of our contract, Lauren and I would reminisce about the good old days of the prize tickets. I had a stack of them on my nightstand until I went home.

Crew Tug of War

I’d heard of crew tug of war on the Caribbean, but I’d never been a part of it. This one turned out to be epic. I loved it because so many different departments (besides Entertainment) were involved. They were judged on costumes, creativity, and on their entrance. Oh, and who pulled the rope better. I don’t remember which department won, but this was an event where I saw the most crew involved in something that wasn’t officially required of them. It was what the International Crew Talent Show should look like.

A New Perspective I mentioned the Detourist workshops in a previous post: https://www.kellylaughsalot.com/2018/10/07/detour-ist/. These were a series of workshops that my friend, and cohort, Jase, did my first contract about exploring your routines both physical and mental and seeing how trying new things can make people feel happier and more fulfilled. People would make little changes in the way they thought and after 7 days they would share stories that inevitably moved me to tears. After weeks of scrambling to find new ways of entertaining these people, I suggested that I could bring back some ideas from these workshops. After all, these were people who signed up to be at sea for 5 days at a time to journey to the other side of the world. They might want some ideas about how to make the things that were in front of them every day seem new. Once again, the people who came loved it. The story that made every bit of work that I did worth all the effort came from a man named John. John had some physical disabilities that impaired his movement and his speech. Getting around and communicating was much more difficult for him than it was for most people, and yet he came to so many of our activities, and stuck around afterward to talk to us. At the final workshop there is an opportunity for guests to share a story– this follows the workshop about how to be a better storyteller. John volunteered to share his story with the whole lounge about how his condition had left him feeling very depressed and frustrated with his inability to function like he had when he was younger. After attending my workshop on curiosity, he changed his attitude and his new perspective had given him hope and more fun than he had allowed himself to have in a long time. He gave me a little model that he had made in an arts and crafts session to remember him by. It has been on prominent display in my room ever since, so that I see it every day and think of him. When I was learning to teach those workshops, the shift in perspective dramatically increased the amount of fun I had every day, and it’s even better when I can pass that on to others.

Ports: Every 4 or 5 days we had a couple of ports. I had to stay on board for one of them. From San Francisco we went to Hilo, where we had a drill and I had to stay on board anyway. Then we had a long day in Honolulu. Rhea (one of our cruise staff) went home. Then 5 sea days before we arrived in the South Pacific Islands. I was excited to be there because of the musical. I was able to get off the ship in Bora Bora, then stayed on in Papeete, 2 sea days, then Pago Pago (pronounced by the locals as Pango Pango). I think Yukie from Japan joined us there. We were delirious from being understaffed. I remembered her name by saying Yukie -le le — Ukelele. She was nervous about speaking with the guests, but she helped a lot with set up and smaller hosting tasks. Then 3 sea days before we visited a few ports in New Zealand, a couple more ports and then we arrived in Sydney. Half the ship got off in Syndey and we had a booze cruise to Melbourne, which would be our home port for the season. I’ll write about some of those places in more detail in future posts, except this surprise:

Bay of Islands.  We finally made it to New Zealand and we had to cancel a port.  I can’t remember where we were supposed to go, but we went to Bay of Islands instead.  It wasn’t on our itinerary at all, so that was a special treat.  We took the water shuttle to the pier, and then the shuttle to the town since it was pouring down rain and went in search of Sushi.  By the time we reached the town the sun had come out. There was nothing more than a little take away sushi place, so we ended up eating Thai food.  There was a little market of locally made trinkets and a place with really good ice cream.  I had packed assuming that it would be HOT in Australia and New Zealand but it was very mild for summer, if not cold. As usual I was exhausted, so I wandered around until I felt like I’d seen enough for the time we had. There were adventure options involving boats and getting in the water, but I really needed a nap. I walked back along the beach instead of taking the shuttle. The thing that struck me about New Zealand (well, my limited impression from the Bay of Islands) was that everyone seemed very relaxed. It was raining, and no one was really bothered or upset by it. We had to wait a little bit, and that was fine. These islands on the other side of the world were green and cool and they lacked the stress about things not being perfect. I was so happy to be there.

Finally, things were starting to come to a close. Our big group would get off over the next few ports to be replaced by people who didn’t know us and didn’t already love everything we did before we did it. The night before the last night I was scrambling to get ready for a formal night, I think, I tried on a dress that didn’t fit, ripped another one, scrambled down to find a problem, fixed it, and then I realized it was my last 7pm trivia. I didn’t do the trivia on the very last night because I was scheduled for something else. Micah had the morning trivia, Lauren did the afternoon, and I did the evening trivia. It was my time to hang out with the trivia people. I teared up and started crying like I had the night before I was leaving the Caribbean Princess after a year and a half. And it had only been 30 days.

The night before Sydney we did my first International Crew Show. As usual, we met in the crew bar at 5pm to rehearse a common-in-cruising skit that most of us had never done before. The first one was the doctor’s office. Matt Baker sat in a waiting room. Nurse Lauren came to check on him. Then everyone would come out with diseases– a cough, a shaky leg, explosive farts, and Matt would catch each of them. Then I came out very pregnant, and he would scream and run off stage. We did this skit as our team changed out until we realized that it may not be appropriate considering what was going on in the News about the Corona virus.

After the show we went out to greet people as they left the theater, saying goodbye to some and being reassured by others that they were staying on a bit longer.

Sydney My mom (who’s been everywhere) has three favorite sail in’s/away’s. Venice, which I did with her in 2012, San Francisco and Sydney. I woke up early to see the sail in in the dark. It wasn’t that impressive until we got to the Opera House.

We parked right by it. I was IPM (had to stay on the ship and work) so I watched it between activities, wanting so badly to get off, but hoping I’d be back someday.

I did a 7pm trivia while we were sailing away so I ducked and bobbed to watch it through the windows between questions. It was much prettier in the light.

And that is how I sailed to the other side of the world. I was so tired and so overwhelmed. But when I looked back, I had done just about as many new things in the previous 30 days as I had in the last year and a half, and that was really fun. The thought of doing it again when it was over, or when my contract was finishing would bring me to tears. Now, having spent the last 2 months resting in self quarantine, I would do it again in a heartbeat.