My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
April to June 2023
It was strange joining the ship in the middle of a cruise. I’ve always joined and disembarked on a turnaround day- when most of the guests leave and we trade in the people who have gotten to know us with the people who don’t know their way around. Not this time (or, as it turned out, when I disembarked, either)! As I walked through the terminal with the Crew Manager and the other embarking crew, I was stopped by squeals of “Kelly?!” A couple of guests remembered me from their last cruise and they were STOKED to see me. It was a pretty great welcome already. Fremantle was a mini turnaround – 800 (of the 2000) guests joined with me that day, so it was just a regular port day for most of the guests (and crew). Whew! No big ‘Welcome Aboard’ or Sail Away Celebration. I’d done all the safety training, and knew how the water tight doors worked. All I had that evening was greeting people as the came to the theater and Musical Bingo with Fortuna Luck, who had all of the preparation sorted!
This time I was in Joseph’s room, next door to my previous cabin. The fridge didn’t work and the room never got cool enough, but I was very happy to return to my port holes and double bed!
Also, the food. The food was so good on the Coral. I didn’t realize it the first time around because it was still ship food (mass produced and repetitive), but when I got to the Caribbean, boy did I miss the food from the Coral. On the Coral the food in the officer’s mess is often better than it is up in the buffet, and Antonio, the Food and Beverage Director, does what has become known as Sunday Funday. On Sundays at lunch there is a feast, which everyone looks forward to. When we skipped a day due to crossing the dateline, that day was a Sunday, which devastated everyone, until we showed up on the “Monday” for lunch and Sunday Funday was still being observed (they did also have church for the guests).
Even though my best friends from my previous contract weren’t there, the Coral Princess still felt more like home than a ghost ship (which is usually what happens when all your friends are gone). I knew where everything was and everywhere I turned I found familiar faces who were as happy to see me as I was to see them. When I arrived my body was still trying to get used to the 12 hour time change, I had to unpack (again) before I could find the stuff I needed to get through a day, and jump back into lots of sea day activities with my requested ‘Kelly’ enthusiasm. Then I heard an announcement come over the PA system with an unmistakable voice and I almost jumped out of my skin! It took me a couple of days to find him, but eventually, my favorite Captain found me on the M1!
I hadn’t seen Captain Gavin since he was driving the Golden Princess in 2020. Not only is he an absolute joy to be around, but I love how transparent he is. If we’re going to miss a port, he tells all of the guests right away and gives an indisputable (and easy to understand) reason why. He’s one of those managers who believes that a happy crew will also be happy to do their jobs well, and that kind of management trickles down. I am still delighted that in March of 2020 on the Golden, when no one knew what was going on and we were all trying to navigate the beginning of what would later be referred to as the pandemic, he would whisper gossip to me about what was going to happen and tell me not to tell anyone (which, of course, I shared with my best friend). None of the gossip I got from him came to pass, though. It could be that things were changing so quickly that they changed after he told me (which is why he didn’t announce these things himself) but I would be just as entertained if he had told lots of people different things just to see what gossip spread. He also conducted my favorite Emergency Drill of all time, when he pulled the Staff Captain (2nd in charge) aside, and said “The bridge blew up, we’re dead” and let everyone figure out how to handle it. It was chaos and we learned so much! I think I learned more from that drill than I do from the regular drills where they plan what the emergency is going to be. Unfortunately, Gavin’s contract was almost over and he would be leaving in a few days. I still treasured getting to see him again, and I actually enjoyed his last Captain’s Circle Party (even though it went on way longer than they usually do).
Captain Gavin disembarked in Cairns, my favorite port in Australia, on ANZAC day (a big day of remembrance for Aussies and Kiwi’s). After the 6am remembrance service, I took a nap and then headed out with Karen, the Cruise Director. Most places were closed, but Sam and Linda’s was open 🙂
Sam and Linda’s was such a sentimental place from my last contract. It was so strange to walk in and not find another crew member there.
Karen was very glad to have me back on the team. When we first worked together before, it was her first contract as Cruise Director, and she was coming in (after working almost a full contract as an Assistant Cruise Director) to a team that had brought the ship into service and had worked together for several months (we had gotten a bit stuck in our ways). I think we were all equally frustrated, both feeling like the other was not open to our/her ideas. While I had been away (on vacation and on the Caribbean), Karen had gone through a really rough holiday season with bad weather and missed ports, had an extremely short vacation, and then when she came back, both of her Assistant Cruise Directors were medically disembarked. That left her with two Juniors, one of which could host, and our dancer-helpers. The Teen Activities Coordinator, from the Youth Center, stepped up to help. She was a great host, but wasn’t experienced as Cruise Staff. Her contract was coming to an end at the end of this long cruise. They had sent another Assistant Cruise Director, but she had transferred from another department, so she was also brand new to the role. About a week after I arrived, Andrew was transshipped from the Royal Princess to finish out the last month of his first contract as a Junior Assistant Cruise Director with us.
So that’s why they pulled me from another ship and flew me to the other side of the globe! I came in with my repertoire of specialty trivia and game shows, and I slid back into my spot in charge of Zumba, Line Dancing and Arts & Crafts during the day, and hosting a bunch of stuff at night. I had already done this 28 day cruise 6 months ago, so just doing half of it was so much easier. For the second time this contract, on a different ship, I was the only one (besides the CD this time, thank goodness) who had done more than one contract as Cruise Staff on Princess. But Karen was being transhipped herself in a couple of weeks. Another Cruise Director would be joining us two days into the 35 day round trip Hawaii cruise so that the World Cruise (which would begin the day that I left in Sydney at the end of the Hawaii cruise) would have the same Cruise Director for the whole thing.
The good news was I got to do all of my favorite activities, since I was the only one who could call dibbs! I also enjoy mentoring, so though it was a lot of work, I enjoyed helping everyone else navigate executing their activities to take some of that off of Karen.
The bad news was that we were gearing up for a challenging itinerary.
On the Golden Princess, I done a crossing – from San Francisco to Sydney, and at that time it was the hardest thing I’d done at Sea. There were about 5 sea days for every 2 port days, which wasn’t enough to recover, much less to keep on going and do it again. This Hawaii run was like doing most of the crossing twice in a row – the first leg of it going the wrong way, where we’d lose 4 hours of sleep!
From Sydney (with a stop in Brisbane to pick the Brissies and our new Cruise Director), we had 5 sea days going forward in time, 2 ports, then 5 more sea days, 5 days in Hawaii, then 5 sea days (going back thank goodness), 2 ports, 5 more sea days, New Zealand and then a couple more sea days before we were back in Australia. 35 days with 22 sea days. The 28 day cruise around Australia had 14 sea days. When I thought about calling home and complaining about having 5 sea days with only 2 days off, I felt like a crybaby because that’s what people do on land. Except on the ship we work every evening, and a good portion of those port days are not days off.
I was already exhausted, but with the day off in Brisbane, I decided to go to the mall with the grocery store since that would be my last stop in civilization until we got to Hawaii. I was waiting in line for the shuttle back to the ship, looking forward to the nap I was about to take when I got a text from Kevin, my Cruise Director last summer. He invited me to come to his apartment where he was staying until he joined his next ship (the Majestic). I weighed my options like the heavy bag of soda water and unsweetened almond milk that I was carrying and ordered an Uber.
I knew Kevin had been dating Ashley (a singer who I adored from the Caribbean Princess who had since become a Guest Entertainer), but I was nevertheless surprised to see her walk up to greet me as well! We sat around Kevin’s kitchen table of his rented apartment drinking beers and catching up.
Lisa Woodbrook also joined us – she was a Guest Entertainer who would come on the Coral for a couple of days at a time to do her shows. I had seen the beginning and ending of her shows, but hadn’t hung out with her before.
I ended up having a great time. Lisa and Ashley talked strategy for getting work, which I found fascinating, and Kevin always has a bag of hilarious stories to tell. For the first time in a long time, I felt socially satisfied.
I’ve said before that friends make all the difference in terms of happiness on ships, but it takes time to develop the kind of connections that feed my spirit. I love to jump into an adventure, and it took me a couple of times moving across the country to really learn that it takes several months to build a community before it feels like home. On ships things happen much faster, but I think it still takes a couple of months to build that community. By the time I left the Coral in November I had such a deep community that I still keep up with them on our group chat even though we’re all spread out in different time zones now. When I was transshipped, I was just getting into that community feeling when I left to start all over again. On the Coral I had lots of superficial friends, but I hadn’t yet found my best friends yet – the ones who check in and ask how your day was when you haven’t seen them for a couple of hours, the ones where it is assumed that we will be going out on an adventure together on the port days that we’re both not working, the ones who coordinate schedules so everyone eats dinner together (and/or works nap time around making 6 o’clock dinner a priority). I haven’t quite pinpointed how and where I make these connections, but by the end of my contract, I barely have enough time to shower because time with friends fills in all of my gaps of free time.
We crossed the Equator. This time I was a surgeon, so I got some scrubs from the Uniform store. Because it was my uniform that day I wore the scrubs to the Officer’s Mess where everyone was very confused. Whether they saw my outfit first, or my uniform, it was fun to watch their faces as they realized the two did not match. After the ceremony one of the guests commented that she’d missed seeing me there – she just hadn’t recognized me in a different department’s uniform!
My first time crossing the equator was on the Golden Princess, where I was a pollywog and got caught in the middle of the food fight. The second time was on the Coral when we didn’t have guests, so there was no ceremony. This time, I got to wear comfortable clothes, show up, wave, throw some sausages at the guests and otherwise stay out of the mess!
As we were planning how to pace out every piece of entertainment we had for the 35 days cruise, the Entertainment Director was starting to plan the world cruise. I took a look at the rotation and noticed that I was disembarking the same day as Andrew, which meant that the world cruise would begin with half of the team brand new to the ship. The dancers wouldn’t be able to help with activities because they would still be installing the production shows. I offered to stay on to help with the transition as an extra cruise staff, but head office wrote back and said they didn’t need me- I already had a replacement. This turned out to be good news because I was about to get slammed. Getting to Hawaii was even more taxing than I thought it would be, and then, once we got there, it took forever for me to recuperate.
Hawaii
After dozens of sea days (that’s what it felt like) we finally made it. We’d gone forward 4 hours, and I was really looking forward to the long day in Honolulu. Except everyone on the ship had to go through US immigration, which meant that the whole team had to be up early to help with crowd control. It turned out that the crew wasn’t allowed off until 1pm. We didn’t sail until 10pm but I had to be back on the ship at 6 at the latest so I could be ready for work. I managed to get a couple of hours at the beach having a fresh seafood salad and some delicious cocktails. I swam in the ocean and tried to soak in as much island time as I could before I had to go back to work. The next day in Kauai, I stayed on the ship to do the activities. The two days after that were water shuttle ports, so we had to work in the morning, handing out tickets, and we weren’t allowed off the ship until the majority of guests had gone ashore.
In Maui I went to a restaurant that my Aunt Wendy recommended that was owned by Fleetwood Mac. It had a rooftop bar with a great view of the ocean.
After that I called my mom and I couldn’t hold back the tears. I thought we were going to have 4 of the 5 days to rest, but with immigration and water shuttles, it looked like there would be one day in three weeks that I wouldn’t have to set an alarm in the morning. What was the point of coming all this way, if I was too exhausted to enjoy being here? The work itself wasn’t as bad as the waking up earlier and earlier to go out and be happy and patient and gracious everyday and every night. I couldn’t figure out how to recharge. I called my energy healer, who said it seemed like I’d lost my soul. I guess my soul had decided to go on vacation before my contract was finished. She sent me some energy and said my body was craving Hawaiian pork, coconut and pineapple. So in Kona, our next stop, I found some amazing Hawaiian pizza (with bbq pork) and then when I stopped for a Pina Colada, this little guy crawled up to join me.
The colors were astounding.
As we left Hawaii, I felt like I’d missed out because I’d been too exhausted to really enjoy it. Yet somehow, on the way back, I managed to pull myself together. Maybe it was because after I cried in our team meeting my schedule started to lighten up. Maybe it was because we finally had some hours back which allowed me to go to the crew bar when there were people there after work and ALSO be able to catch up on sleep. Maybe it was because we stopped at ports that I was excited to explore (on the way there, the only thing I could figure out to do was to pay to go to a resort, which was basically a hotel pool with more expensive drinks and food you had to pay for). Maybe it was because I was feeling really appreciated by the Cruise Director. Or maybe it was because I looked around and I’d made friends.
Amy had become my buddy that I told things to first when anything exciting happened. We arranged to go out in ports together, and she convinced me to move my schedule around so we could have dinner together.
Between the sea days that started running into each other, we went to Moorea, and a couple of stops in New Zealand that I will tell you about in their own posts.
I was so excited about going home, I mentioned it at some of my events. After we went to New Zealand, a lot of the guests were surprised that I was still there. I explained that the cast left in Aukland, but I was leaving a couple of days later in Sydney. As I was signing off at the Crew Office, first Kelvin, the Entertainment Director, and then Aaron, the Cruise Director, walked by and I joked that I was signing off, so I didn’t have to work anymore (though we still had two more sea days). Aaron said, do you want to stay until Singapore?
I’d heard rumblings that they had gotten an extra Assistant Cruise Director for the world cruise (since the cast, who usually helped with activities, wouldn’t be able to help because they’d be rehearsing for six different production shows) but because of the difficulty getting an Australian visa, they wouldn’t be able to join until Singapore. I told Aaron that I’d already offered, but head office had turned me down. He said if I was willing, he would ask again, cause it would really be a big help to the team.
I went back to my cabin and looked at the itinerary that hadn’t mattered to me because I wasn’t going to be there. Singapore was 12 more days away, 9 of them sea days. After a tough contract it would be a lot more work so that I could go to 2 ports I hadn’t been to before – Komodo Island and Singapore. Aaron called me to make sure I was making a serious offer. I found myself saying yes – my gut was telling me to stay even though it didn’t make any sense. A few minutes later it was a done deal. I called my family and told them not to pick me up at the airport in a couple of days- I’d let them know when I was coming home. I went to the crew office and submitted a request to arrange my own flights so that I could stay for a couple of days in Singapore. Their computer system didn’t even reflect the change that I was staying yet.
Why did it feel so right to stay? It didn’t make sense to me. There were a couple of strange things that I noticed: I had just enough almond milk for 12 more days (if I’d left in Sydney I would have left it behind) and my internet voucher was good through Singapore (I had randomly been given an extra 12 days beyond my contract). I honestly didn’t even know where Singapore was, but I knew that I’d like to stay and really explore it after the cruise ship left (everyone I told who had been there confirmed that I would love it). But I think the real reason that I stayed is that I really felt treasured on my team, and it made me want to give back and help them out. I also wanted to savor playing with my friends on the ship, because that process had taken so long to develop. So once again, I stopped packing my bags, and we only had to say goodbye to Andrew in Sydney.
In Sydney, Ron Voyage helped me book my hotel and flight home (from his fast internet at home) from Singapore, which was a huge help – I had been struggling trying to use the ship internet or the 2g on my phone in port.
The last 12 days made all those struggles that led to them worth it. So many people lit up to see me still on board. We had someone else to lead pop choir, so my sea days were nice and easy, which gave me extra time to do a handover of sorts – I had 9 extra days to teach the rest of the team everything I did. I had friends to hang out with in port and between work. I hovered around Aaron to try and soak up as much of his wisdom as I could. And then for the fourth (and final) time in 4 months, I packed my bags and said goodbye.
Loved the pictures especially the Kimberly Coast