My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
Oh, Wet Dock. I absolutely loved Wet Dock. We were supposed to go into 30 days of Dry Dock, but a couple of weeks before we arrived, the dry dock was damaged when there was an accident with the Oasis of the Seas. Many rumors of alternate plans were spread along the grapevine, but eventually we learned that we would be doing a 30 day Wet dock in the Grand Bahama Shipyard just around the corner from where we would have Dry Docked. That meant that we would be in a different part of the Shipyard and they would do the repairs with the ship in the water instead of hoisting it up out of the water. I did extensive amounts of research before hand. By that I mean that I asked everyone who had ever done a Wet Dock or a Dry Dock what to expect. I heard so many horror stories and stories of drunken debouchery. I did everything I could to prepare. I stocked up on bottled water (in case the water in the tap stopped). I got myself a bucket (in case the toilets stopped flushing). I got a flashlight (a head lamp actually, in case the lights stopped working). I got my umbrella to carry around (in case we needed to evacuate the ship and go stand in the hot sun). I had very low expectations. Basically, I was expecting to have no electricity, no lights, no running water, no air conditioning, and that we would get bomb threats and have to evacuate every couple of hours. Anything better than that and I would be impressed. Boy was I.
Most of all, I was tired. I was 5 months into my contract and hadn’t had a day where I didn’t have to set an alarm in the morning in over 6 weeks. Later, Matt my Cruise director said that I was getting snappy and was kind of a bitch before Dry Dock. Wet Dock. We anticipated that it would be a Dry Dock for so long that everyone had a hard time calling it Wet Dock. So moving forward, Dry Dock means Wet Dock. So anyway, I was tired. I was so looking forward to having a break from the normal routine of activity after activity day after day, week after week. Plus I was really excited to experience being on the ship with no guests (we have to call them Guests now, rather than Passengers). Matt put together a schedule, gave us a list of tasks to complete and went home for two weeks of vacation when the guests disembarked.
Day 1: The first day was so cool. As the last guests were disembarking, everyone was already beginning to prepare for Wet Dock. The carpets were covered in plastic, one side of each of the stairwells were blocked off. Andi and I went around to all the venues to make sure all of our stuff was put away. Andi pressed the button to call the Guest elevator. We’re not allowed to use those. But there were no guests on the Ship! Those elevators were so much faster! We moved ping pong tables down into club fusion. The plastic on the floor made bubbles like the bubble wrap people use to protect packages and I loved stepping on the bubbles and hearing the snaps. We made our rounds, and then showed up for our first shift of key running to find out that there was no key running today! We wrote a long silly note to the Entertainment Director to let him know that we weren’t just ditching our job. There were a couple of hours left until the safety drill. I went to take a NAP. Oh my goodness, I slept so deeply. Things were already looking up, I mean, passenger elevators, plastic bubbles on the floor, no key running shift, a nap! We showed up to help out with the Safety drill for the 1000 contractors who came onboard. We did a life jacket demonstration. Then we wove our way through the areas that were newly blocked off to get to the back of the ship for the sail away party. We didn’t have to do any of the dances! We could just enjoy the sail away. I said to Andi, “I’m not going to wear makeup for the next 30 days. And I’m not going to wear heels or a dress for the next 30 days.” He wasn’t necessarily impressed. He had just gotten back from a 2 month vacation, and had just been back for 3 weeks, so he wasn’t nearly as excited (or tired) as I was.
We went to dinner in the Officer’s mess and marveled at how we didn’t have any evening activities. Who was on doors (that means standing outside the Princess theater and greeting guests as they go in)? Who was on Karaoke? When we’re in service (that’s what we started calling the thing that I had only known before — normal cruise ship life) there’s always an awareness of where we have to be next and a fear that I’ve forgotten something, or I set my alarm for the wrong time and I’m late. It was baffling that I didn’t have to be anywhere for a couple of DAYS. That’s right. Matt finagled an incredible schedule for us during Wet dock that allowed me to get enough rest so that I could stay on the ship for another 2 months after my contract would have normally finished. We each worked one 12 hour day, one 6 hour day and then had 2 unscheduled days. These were days when we had to do the other things we were supposed to do but there was no schedule. My free days were at the beginning of the rotation.
So Day 1 and I loved Dry Dock. Wet Dock.
Day 2: Somehow Andi convinced me to take the shuttle into the town and go check it out on the first day. We went exploring to go find the shuttle (no one we knew had gone out yet, so we would have to figure it out on our own). Luckily there was a giant sign in the parking lot and it was really easy to find. We’d given ourselves enough time to get lost, which we didn’t need. So we found a little corner in the shade.
We went into town and found some lunch. It was delightful. We walked around the shops and realized it was a Sunday so not everything was open. But this way we knew what was out there.
The first week I slept. Every free day I woke up in time for lunch, went to eat, then went back to my room for a nap, woke up for dinner and then went back to bed and slept through the night. I slept through the afternoons of my half days as well.
Waking up for meal times was important because food was only available during meal times. Breakfast was served between 6am and 8:30 or 9, lunch was from 11:30-1:30 and dinner was from 6-9pm. If you missed a meal or were hungry outside of those hours, tough luck. Luckily, I had a stash of peanut butter pretzels. Most of the time in Wet dock, they closed the Officer’s Mess and Officers ate in the Palm Dining room. They set up a really nice buffet and we had fresh pasta made right in front of us for lunch and dinner. Between the pasta and the lack of running around, I gained 10 lbs.
They opened the Wheelhouse bar for Officers, which was like the crew bar with crew bar prices except it was just for officers. They have one of these on other ships that they call the Wardi or Ward Room, but this was my first time experiencing it. Sometimes they would have appetizers there like coconut shrimp or fancy cheese. Sometimes I would suggest we go to the Wardi for appetizers and a drink before dinner. Frequently we would go after dinner to play games with the Medical team and Josh, the Ventilation guy.
My first day Key Running:
What is Key Running? Andi and I said it should really be called Card Walking because we used cards to open the doors (rather than actual keys or medallions) and it’s not safe to run on the ship (safety first!). We walked.
A lot of the work they did during wet dock wasn’t obvious to the average guest– they reupholstered a lot of the furniture in guest areas, redid the carpets in all of the guest rooms and changed out a bunch of pipes. In that order (that’s right– they put down new carpet and THEN changed the pipes). We had over 1000 contractors and many of them came and went throughout the month. The contractors stayed in the guest rooms, and thus kept their personal belongings in there. Our job was to unlock the cabin so the contractors could do whatever they needed to do in there, and then watch and make sure the contractor’s didn’t steal any of the stuff that was in there. If no one was staying in the room, we just unlocked the door and then went back to the Vines Wine Bar to hang out until the next contractor needed a door to be opened.
There was a lot of hanging out and waiting. On the first day we played UNO for 6 hours. Someone would go on a key run (card walk) and then come back and we would deal them back in. Playing UNO now will not only bring back fond memories of playing with Italian kids (didn’t need much English to play) but of playing for HOURS in Vines. We had 5 boxes of books to put in the library, so I spent about 3 days putting labels on the books and putting them away (between card walks). I read a book about every three days.
One day Jill asked if I wanted to go into town and go to the beach. I had just finished my morning shift of Card Walking. YES!!
We ran into Freddy who works at the burger place but is trying to transfer to Cruise Staff and some other girls.
After this we went for Tuesday $2 Margaritas. So it must have been a Tuesday. When we’re in service, there are no days of the week, only Portdays, Seadays and Turnaroundays. During Wet Dock there was no reference. On the Cruise Staff, we had four days weeks (long day, short day, free day, free day) but they were different orders. I said we had Monday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. But everyone would get confused when I’d say, oh, it’s your Saturday but it’s my Monday.
Turning the Ship around!
When everything is the same day after day, something different is very exciting. Midway through, they turned the ship around. It was scheduled to turn around at 8am. I set my alarm, went outside and waited. Nothing happened. I went down to get a coffee at the International Cafe (which stayed open during wet dock for Officers to get caffeinated) and got one for Andi and went back outside and waited a little longer. It finally started turning around at about 10am.
I had big plans to go into town with Andi. We were going to get brunch, go to the beach and get Margaritas (it must have been a Tuesday). We were about to go wait by the gangway when the Entertainment Director called and asked us to come down and inventory ALL of the muster boxes before lunchtime. We went down smiling and he said, you know, I’d be cursing if I’d gotten that phone call, but you guys are so accommodating! We said, well, what do you think we said after we hung up the phone? And we all laughed about it. Fortunately, it took forever for them to set up the gangways again so we were able to complete the task before anyone was let off the ship.
Family Fun Zone:
Dinner with the whole team!
Matt took the whole team out to dinner in town. They set Andi’s food on fire!
One day we went out to the Super market so Matt could stock up on some stuff. As we were waiting for the bus to come pick us up, we could see a monsoon heading our way. You could actually see the line between no rain and pouring rain. It’s hard to tell in the picture, but notice you can see the bottom of some trees but not all of them– that’s splashing rain drops.
Sea Trials
We set sail back to Fort Laurderdale (which was just a couple of hours away by sea) a couple of days before we were meant to be there. We sailed around in circles making sure everything worked before letting guests back on. Matt told us they really tested things– like they would go really fast and do quick turns. At some point the Captain would tell us to lay in our beds because it would get so rocky. I think he was trying to scare us, but I just got excited. Then as I was telling someone else about it, I figured out he was probably lying. Anyway, it didn’t happen.
This was the overview of Wet Dock. I could have done it again and again. I’ll tell you about the tours and some other stuff in separate posts.