My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
January to April 2023
Oh, hey there. After my whirlwind travels ringing in the new year, I spent the rest of my vacation packing, writing about my travels and petting my cat, who was much friendlier than she’d been on my last vacation.
I got to hang out with my cousins with their matching shoes,
And my uncle who matched the furniture š
It was really nice to have a good chunk of time with them.
I turned 40…
I really wasn’t excited about it. 40 sounds like a grown up and I really don’t feel like one, living out of a suitcase, getting paid to play and traveling around the world. I told my mom, and she said 40 was better than 73, so I offered to trade her – I’d turn 73 and she could be 40. We decided I looked way better for my age than she did. Nevertheless, my family went out of their way to make me feel special.
We went cousin wine tasting with my cousins and Selina’s cousins.
We ended up at the Sugar Mill,
And then back at the house, the party continued with everyone I know in Sacramento. I felt really treasured and celebrated, which is the best birthday present I could have gotten.
Reisling was helping me pack for my next contract.
I was really excited to be going to the Mediterranean. Then one morning I got a message asking if I could join the Caribbean Princess three days earlier than I had been scheduled to join the Enchanted. No! I was so upset. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t go back to that ship or that itinerary. I wanted to see the world, I had put in my time there, I had been a team player and now I was finally getting my dream itinerary. I wrote to the head office saying that I knew that the assignments weren’t personal, but this assignment felt very personal to me. I told them that even if they didn’t intend it, I felt like I was being punished for being a good employee. I was under the impression that if I refused a contract without an operational reason, I may not be offered another contract. They responded that I was valued and needed on the Caribbean, and if I agreed to do a shorter contract in the Caribbean, they would assign me to the Enchanted for the second half of the Mediterranean season. Though I was still disappointed, it seemed like a fair compromise. I would buckle down and save money, prioritize my health, and get as much rest as I could. Then I found out that Rob would be joining the Caribbean the same day! I was excited.
It was so strange to be back on the Caribbean. I was assigned to the same cabin I had my first contract. They gave me the key and I escorted myself and my luggage to my cabin before going to find my boss in the office. Madi was the Entertainment Director, and I would be the only girl on a team of boys. Now this situation was reminiscent of the Coral Princess! Madi told me that the team were good presenters but many of them were new to their position or new to Princess. They struggled with being prepared and getting events going on time. She was really grateful not only to have my female energy but also my organizational skills and work ethic on the team.
We were doing 10 day transits in and out of the Panama Canal. In every lounge I would get flashbacks from my first contract. I started doing trivia and I remembered being handed the microphone and how nervous I was to read out the questions. As I introduced myself for Zumba in Club Fusion, I remembered everything I had carefully memorized to say when I was so new. The Piazza made me remember what it was like to be so disoriented on a ship that I couldn’t easily figure out which direction was which.
The first cruise I jumped in and spent my port days doing lots of organizational admin work that no one asked me to do. It was so nice to be on a team of six instead of a team of four! And we had a real DJ who was not only a good DJ, he was also really good at all of the activities he hosted. With so many people on the team, the sea days were easier, the port days were easier, I was barely using my general knowledge trivia, and we only had one port per cruise where we woke up early to hand out water shuttle tickets. The best part was, no mask requirements! I felt like I was forgetting something every time I left my cabin! Sure, this ship had its issues, but it didn’t seem to have many more challenges than the Coral had.
I announced my 5 year anniversary with Princess on the Wake Show. Many of the guests offered me congratulations, but I don’t think Princess noticed. I went to trade in my regular pin for a 5+ year pin at the Crew Office, but they didn’t have any.
Finally I made new friends who persuaded me to leave the ship.
Limon, Costa Rica
Zhaun convinced me to go out with promises of sushi!
I hadn’t found this place when I’d gone to Limon, Costa Rica before! On another day I persuaded DJ Snedden to take me to his favorite Chinese food place, and I got a great pedicure (not at the Chinese food place- this was a different place).
Grand Cayman
Rob and I went out in Grand Cayman where we went to my favorite restaurant, Coconut Joe’s – it was still there! Coconut Joe’s is home to one of my favorite memories (besides the breakfast burritos) of seeing a segue tour go by full of Santa’s – it was the cruise where we had the Santa convention onboard.
On the beach we ran into Will-I-am, from the Coral! The Regal Princess was also docked with us, but I didn’t realize I knew anyone onboard!
And I was reunited with my mom and Ron Voyage’s good friend Oscar, the Director of Restaurant Operations (the position formerly known as the Maitre’D).
Cartagena, Columbia
I’d been to Cartagena when I went through the Panama Canal with my mom as part of the last segment of their first world cruise. We did a tour where we saw everything. Then I went back on the Caribbean Princess my second contract, and my friend, Ana, and I hired a taxi and we went to most of the same places I’d been to before. Cartagena is a tricky one because you need transportation to see anything and it’s usually a short day because we need to get in line early for the Panama Canal the following day. This time around, everyone was raving about the Getsemani neighborhood.
It was gorgeous and full of color.
A group of us did my favorite thing: we wandered around the streets snapping pictures and stopping for food.
I found a friendly kitty!
Everywhere we turned was colorful.
Some of the buildings had funny names.
Madi ended up being transhipped to the Sky Princess, so the Cruise Director, Dan, had to do both roles, which was hard, but eventually we got a new Entertainment Director, Rob (another Rob, not my friend the dancer) who was from Chicago and I liked him a lot.
After several repeats of the same itinerary, we transitioned from 10 day Panama Canal Cruises to 7 day Caribbean cruises. I was looking forward to having 4 ports in 7 days!
I offered to serve my time onboard for everyone’s favorite port, Cozumel, because I would be back several times and the rest of the team would be leaving soon to go on their well deserved vacations. Over the next month the whole team would turn over.
The next day, the port was cancelled and we had a surprise sea day.
Dan, the Cruise Director, paged me and asked me to come to the office. He brought me into the Entertainment Director’s office and asked me to close the door. After seeing the look on my face, Rob assured me that I wasn’t in trouble. There was an email from head office asking if I would be willing to transship to the Coral Princess.
After this, I lose track of the days. The third port day was Belize (which has all my favorite puns). Belize didn’t get us enough water shuttles and the process of taking the guests ashore took a lot longer than it should have, which frustrated many of the guests. The day after that, our fourth port was also cancelled and we had another surprise Sea Day. Meanwhile my fate was changing back and forth hour by hour. I couldn’t think of a good enough reason to refuse the transfer. My mom was supposed to visit for a week on the Caribbean, but that could be postponed (which is often a nicer word for cancelled). I responded with: whatever the company needs. They wrote back saying they’d let me know – they were assessing their options. As much as I hadn’t wanted to come to the Caribbean Princess, I found myself torn about leaving. That night they responded that they wanted to move forward with sending me to the Coral Princess. Rob (the dancer) and I got together to cry over the loss of our future adventures. I gave him my arts & crafts examples to remember me by.
The next morning I found my flights had been arranged and I started packing. I was to fly from Miami to Dallas (3 hours), Dallas to Doha (14 hours), 5 hours in Doha, then Doha to Perth (11 hours), where I would stay for three nights before joining the ship. Ron Voyage found a direct flight from Miami to Doha, but when I proposed that flight I found out I needed an extra visa besides the one I had to work on a ship in Australia. Now I needed one to fly into Australia so I could work on a ship. This application was much more complicated than a tourist visa and needed many attachments including certified copies of my passport. Between activities I tried to pack and get the visa stuff sorted out. The crew manager was concerned that this visa would take a week to be approved, and they wouldn’t let me off the ship until then. So I was going but probably not yet. I stopped packing cause I had started burying stuff that I would need if I was going to stay for a couple of days. Suddenly I recognized this feeling! This was what it had been like when the world was shutting down because of COVID. It seemed like every hour the news would fluctuate between my staying indefinitely or leaving tomorrow.
I did Zumba on the last sea day and reassured the guests who were staying on for the next cruise that I would be there the next week (though I didn’t know for how long), then I went and stopped in the office, checked my email and my visa had been approved. I called the crew office. They told me to come down and sign off- I was leaving the next day.
I had never packed so fast. Luckily it was a little easier packing after 2 months than it was after 6 or 9 months. What a roller coaster ride. I announced at afternoon trivia that I would be leaving the next day.
As I was waiting for my turn to go through immigration, I found out that the Senior Doctor was also disembarking and she was on the first two flights to Doha as well. It made me feel a little better that they gave a high ranking officer the same inconvenient flights.
In Doha they announced that because of Ramadan eating or drinking in public during daylight hours wasn’t allowed. Good thing I was there from 9:30pm until 2:30am!
I arrived in Perth in a daze. After approximately 36 hours of travel (not counting the first day waiting on the ship and waiting at the airport, my body would have to adjust time zones by 12 hours. One of my checked bags hadn’t arrived. I went to the counter. They said the bag had probably been left in Dallas. They would try to get it on the next flight and email me the next day. My private driver took me to the Quality Inn in Perth, my home for the next couple of days.
At the hotel, I checked in. Because Iām transshipping, Princess provides meals and transportation for me every step of the way. The restaurant at the hotel was closed because of the Easter Holiday, so they gave me a letter saying I should go across the street to their sister hotel for breakfast. She gave me a paper bag with my dinner and said I could use the microwave in the lobby to heat it up. The letter said that lunch and dinner would be delivered to my room in the same manner over the next couple of days. I’d been reimbursed for meals and I’d been given vouchers to eat at restaurants. This process was weird. I slept for 10 hours.
I tried to stay positive, but as my first full day in Perth ticked by with no news about my suitcase, I started to panic. In all of the frenzy I had hastily thrown my charging cords for every piece of electronics besides my phone in that third bag instead of keeping them in my carryon as I had always done before. All of my liquids were in there. As each hour passed with no information, I started clocking all of the things in that bag that were so much harder to replace on the other side of the world. The app said my bag had been checked in in Dallas on a flight to Doha. I woke up in the middle of the night to see if the bag had been transferred in Doha, but the update didn’t change. Finally after several attempts at contacting customer service, I was able to keep the connection long enough to find out that my bag had been forwarded on a flight under a rush bag tag number. I asked when it would arrive in Perth and was told to email customer service. There was hope. Just as I was trying to figure out who to contact to figure out the next step to reunite me with my bag, I got a call from the front desk – my bag was downstairs. Hallelujah!
I plugged in my electronics and went for a walk to clear my head.
I’ve been asked several times if I’m excited about going back to the Coral, and I wouldn’t quite say that that is the most accurate word. I feel like I’m leaving one challenge for another. I’m leaving a ship that is about to completely turnaround a whole team over the coarse of a month. It’s hard to get into a rhythm and manage expectations with that much change. With my absence, they’ll be understaffed until I’m replaced. I’ve seen the ports in the Caribbean, but there are usually more Port days than Sea days which is much easier on the crew and is better for morale. I’m going to a ship that has lost half the team unexpectedly, and if they are urgently sending me to the other side of the world it’s probably not because it’s an easy time. We’ll be going to Hawaii and back from Sydney which is a lot more Sea Days than Port Days, but we’re going to some places I haven’t been before (or at least haven’t been to over and over). Every contract that I have been assigned that is the opposite of my preference has turned out to be a contract where I make friendships with kindred spirits that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I look forward to meeting those kindred spirits in the next couple of months and I hope that my contributions will be appreciated. I’ll let you know how it goes.