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June/July 2024
As I write this, I am home in California reflecting on my contract. I’ve structured these posts to report on the places that I visited, which felt like commercial breaks, so to speak, while more of my life took place on the ship, where so much happened so frequently that it started to seem like there wasn’t really anything happening that was worthy of writing about. I write about the ports I visited, but when it comes to telling the stories of what happened on the ship, I have pictures of the highlights to jog my memories, but the ones I’ve forgotten will just have to stay on the ship.
Back to the 80’s Deck Party – which we did every cruise
It was cooler than I thought it would be in Japan later in the year than I thought it would be until it was hot. Then it was so hot and humid and sweaty. There were a couple of times that we ended up jumping in the pool toward the end of the party.
Before I joined the Diamond I wanted to expand my line dance repertoire. I spent my vacation trying to learn some new line dances. Little did I know what I was in for in Japan. The Japanese love to dance. They would come to every dance party and stare at us until we started dancing and then they would copy whatever we did. Every party we did was like this, but The 80’s party was two hours of dancing (the rest usually wrapped up after an hour) where we would do every line dance we knew and then when we ran out we would make them up on the spot.
The Team!
Every cruise, after two hours of dancing (or sometimes more if I’d taught a line dance class before that) I was tired. But it was also a time, once a cruise, where the whole team was out there. I liked hanging out with my friends as we each took turns making up dances.
On a couple of cruises I was assigned Pirate Trivia, so I borrowed some costume accessories from the youth staff. One night, I was overwhelmed with themes. At 6:30pm I hosted Pirate trivia, then I hosted the Explorers lounge for Just John & Paul, a Beatles tribute duo. Between the two shows I hosted my Beatles Music Trivia, so of course I had to wear my Beatles shirt – but down the hall in Club Fusion it was Country & Western night, so I had to promote that theme night as well.
As you may know, my mom is a huge Beatles fan, so I had to get a picture with the guys.
My mom was very impressed that I was able to get a picture with a couple of dead guys. Their show was so fun I watched it twice in a row. A couple of nights later, I got to chatting with them, and had a great time. I hope our paths cross again.
I just need to give another shoutout to Lauren, who was so on top of her game. She made sure everyone in the department felt taken care of. As you can see, we did our jobs, took care of the guests and had a blast doing it. She was a master of mixing fun and humanness with professionalism.
One of my favorite moments was when I had gone into the office early to take care of something, when Lauren looked out the window- the top of Mount Fuji was visible! We had been on the ship for a couple of months, but every time we saw Mount Fuji, the top was covered by clouds. There’s some sort of legend to make people feel better about not seeing the top, but I don’t remember what the legend is. Lauren demanded that we stop everything and run up to Deck 7 to see Mount Fuji.
And then my friend Andi came as Cruise Director! I will gush about him more in future posts.
Let’s try a Yukata!
One of the Japanese cultural events that I was able to help with was an event we held a couple of times a cruise on sea days. The Yukata is the slightly more casual, summer version of a Kimono. The Kimono is worn for formal occasions, while the Yukata is worn especially during the summer festival season. The fabric is lighter for the warm weather. The ship has many Yukata (I don’t how to say the plural) and we would have an event where guests could try on a Yukata and take photos. The Japanese guests would volunteer to help dress the guests who wanted to try them on. My job was to help the guests take off their Yukata when they were finished (it’s pretty hard to mess that up) and give the materials to the dressers for the next guests.
One session wasn’t very busy, so Hiroshi offered to teach me how to dress someone in a Yukata. He offered to be the model.
I’m not sure who had more fun- me learning how to dress him up or him dressing up in the female Yukata.
There’s a particular way of doing the Yukata (afterall, it is a Japanese custom). When people die and they are dressed in a Yukata one side is out. You put the other side out front if you are not dead.
I borrowed a Yukata from the ship for our Japanese festivals. Koto helped me get dressed.
After a couple of weeks, I was able to dress myself. I had to call Mikiko to make sure I had the right side facing out so I wouldn’t be dead. Week after week, the Japanese guests adjusted my Yukata less and less, so I figured I was getting better at doing it the right way.
Getting ready for the Japanese festival. Every cruise we would hang lanterns and set out games. The kids would get candy for playing the games. The Food and Beverage Department would put out a huge spread of traditional Japanese food. At the end we would all do traditional Japanese dances for about half an hour.
And then I was about half way through my contract! My mom would come for my last month in Japan, which happened to be festival season. Then the ship would reposition down to visit Australia and New Zealand – so that’s what’s coming next.
I love you bubs. You’re the best xxx