My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
Here is my team!
Once again I’m the most senior Assistant Cruise Director (and this time the oldest on my team as well). Next to me (in the middle) is Joseph from New Castle England. He joined Princess about a year after I did, but he speaks Japanese, so they sent him to the Diamond Princess. He’s done most of his contracts in Asia and is very excited to come to Australia. He worked with my favorite Cruise Director, Matt when Matt was on the Diamond Princess before he joined me as Entertainment Director on the Golden Princess. His last contract was on the Grand Princess where he worked with Stef, my roommate my first contract and Victor, who was one of my Cruise Directors on the Golden Princess.
William (above me) is from South Africa. He first started working for Princess as a photographer, and then switched to Entertainment. This is his third contract as a Junior Assistant Cruise Director. His last contract was on the Caribbean Princess with Matt.
Jack is our other Junior Assistant Cruise Director. He is from Taiwan. He did a couple of contracts with Princess in Asia, then went to another Cruise Line in Taiwan during the pause, but that company went bankrupt, so he came back to Princess. This is his first contract on Princess since the Pause, and his first contract with mostly English speaking guests.
So far we haven’t been doing any presenting, but we seem to work together really well as a team when it comes to doing all the tasks that have been given to us.
The Panama Canal!
On May 14 we went through the Panama Canal. I’ve gone through the smaller locks on the Pacific Princess (which accommodates 650 guests) as a guest. Ron Voyage upgraded us to a suite off the back of the ship, so we turned on the bridge cam to see what was happening out the front on the giant TV, and then went out to the balcony for the view out the back. It was spectacular. I’ve gone through the bigger locks on the Caribbean Princess (which accommodates 3500 guests) as crew where I practiced my zumba routine on the Deck 11 balcony out the front while we waited for the tug boats to pull us through. Now I’m going through the smaller locks on the Coral Princess (which accommodates 2000 guests) with NO GUESTS! I’m pretty sure this one is going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity!
We have a list of tasks to accomplish, but for the most part, our day going through the Canal was unscheduled. I was grateful that we are heading west because the clock goes back an hour every couple of days, which makes waking up early much easier. The bridge had given us a schedule of approximate times of when the pilots would board, when we’d be going through the locks, and what the plan was. I was too excited to read it thoroughly.
The night before I left my curtains open so I’d be able to see out onto the balcony without having to get out of bed. This is what the first locks look like on the map:
We were going through the smaller lane on the left. The wider lane that I’d gone through on the Caribbean is on the right.
On this ship the buffet is at the front, right on top of the bridge. I decided to get breakfast with a view!
It is such a unique experience to be doing something this cool without guests. Guests always have priority, so not only did we have free range to watch from pretty much anywhere we wanted on the ship, there aren’t that many of us, so there were no crowds!
I decided to check out the view from the front of the ship on Deck 9.
It was a good view, but it wasn’t EXACTLY where I wanted to be. I went to check out the Promenade on Deck 7. This was so cool. As you can see below, the ground was right up next to the ship- we could have climbed right out!
This ship was designed PRECISELY to fit through this canal. The wall of the ship was just about a foot away from the wall of the canal. Looking down:
Here are the mules (trains):
They tie the ship to mules on the four corners (on each side forward and back) and the mules pull the ship through the canal so it doesn’t rub up against the sides.
On the way into the lake in the middle, we’d go into the lock, it would fill up with water and we were raised to the level of the next lock. On the way out the other side, we were lowered down.
As I was enjoying the locks, this huge tanker pulled in on the next lane:
It seemed so big!
It was like a giant building with no windows had floated up just next to us!
I went down to deck 5 in the Atrium to get a coffee and see what the view was like from down stairs.
It’s underground! (until we float up to ground level)
Back up on Deck 7 it was so cool to be this close to the ground. I felt like I was right in the middle of the action!
At lunch time I snagged a good seat by the window
The last time I was here, I took the lane to the right to go through the wider locks. This time we went to the left. The first time I was here we could see the lane, but those wider locks weren’t open yet.
You can see how much higher on land the wider lock is at this point. I just find the whole process so interesting.
In the afternoon we went through the second set of locks while we beautified the library. There were lots of windows so we could stop and look out at the locks and then organize the books and go back and forth. We had just about finished assembling the sanitizer stands for the library when I heard Madi racing down the stairs. Jill and a few other people were joining that day. I LOVE Jill. She was my Senior Production Manager on the Caribbean Princess for my first two contracts, and has since been promoted to working on the Medallion Class side of things. Only two people in the fleet have her position, and the other person (who I also like a lot) was on Enchanted. I was SO excited to see Jill. But I had assumed that we would dock in Panama City to pick up the joiners. We had docked somewhere for tours when we went through the Canal with guests, so I knew it was possible. Madi was racing down the stairs because apparently Jill was joining by speed boat!
Here comes Jill!
So this speed boat pulls up alongside the ship, and they throw a ladder out the side. We’re hanging over the rails on Deck 7 trying to get a good view. A guy hands his bag up into the hole in the ship, and then climbs the ladder himself to climb aboard. I want to point out here that THE SHIP IS STILL MOVING! This is like an action movie! I am so confused! Do we not have enough time to stop to pick these guys up? I looked at all the luggage and the people on the speed boat and it seemed like they were just figuring out what was meant to happen. The speed boat pulls away, and takes off somewhere else. After what seemed like an hour or more, the ship finally slows to a stop and the speed boat returns. We stayed out on the deck because we didn’t want to miss out on the action. Also, whenever someone went inside, the speed boat would get closer and it looked like something was going to happen.
I love this moment below.
The guy in the front of the boat is on the phone seemingly trying to figure out what is going on. There’s a girl in the back, who, half an hour ago, was ready to climb up on the ship. Now she sat down and started eating a sandwich. I really wish I knew someone who worked on the bridge who could tell me what the conversations were like up there.
Once again the speed boat pulled up to the ship.
Then Jill came out!
Finally after what felt like a really long time, they folded down the pontoon that we use to board water shuttles.
Now the embarkation process was making the most sense it had made all day! They started handing the bags onto the ship, and then the crew came over one by one.
Of course Jill made a grand entrance– she had the biggest audience!
She’s here!
After all of the drama, the Captain made an announcement saying that we had one more crew member to pick up who had missed their flight, but they were on their way. We would wait for them, so we anchored for the night and then set off for Papeete early the next morning.
One of the dancers from the Production Cast was joining the ship with Jill. This is his first contract on ships. She turned to him at one point and said, ‘It’s not usually like this…”