December 30, 2007
Today was a pretty boring day! I had In Port Manning, so I couldn’t leave the ship – so I slept in kinda late, went to the gym, took a shower and didn’t start work until 4 p.m.! But what does suck is that I found out we have to babysit until midnight tomorrow night – so there’s no celebrating with friends AGAIN! Damn…Then, I heard that the one day we’re in Russia, no crew is allowed to get off!! What kinda crap is that??????
Yesterday was great though – I was up really early for an excursion that was a tour of Christchurch and Canterbury. We started the morning by heading out to a lookout point just to look over the city of Christchurch, which is beautiful (as is all of New Zealand…maybe I should marry a Kiwi??). Then we headed out to Riccarton House and Bush (which means forest). Riccarton House is a Victorian home which is one of the oldest buildings in the Canterbury plains owns by the Deans family who is highly influential here. The house was beautiful with tons of imported woods and luxurious things around the home. The gardens around the home were spectacular – as is every garden here. Christchurch is known as “The Garden City.”
Next, we headed off to Homebush Stables in Homebush. We started with a sheep herding demonstration and there were sheep that were only about weeks old. You’ll have to see them when I eventually post the pictures! I also have a video of the sheep herding as well as the sheep shearing demonstration. The sheep he sheared (?) had 18 months worth of wool on it, so I think it lost about 30 pounds of wool!! We walked around the property which was amazingly beautiful and the family still lives in the home there! There was a woman who turned the wool into thread and we watched her use a New Zealand made spinner to thread it all around a spool. After all of that, we headed inside for a great dinner that was made for us – food was fantastic!!!
The next stop was the Antarctic Center. Basically, the US Antarctic Research Center is located there also. But, you can go on a Hagglund ride and see blue New Zealand penguins. There is also the Antarctic experience where they give you booties and a jacket and send you into a room covered in ice and snow (really slippery!!) with a snow slide and an igloo. The lights dim down really low, the wind picks up and the temperatures drop to -17 degrees Celsius! It was a bit cold for my taste. We didn’t get to explore too much because the rest of the tour was quite rushed, so we only have 45 minutes to see the entire attraction unfortunately! L
Our last stop was the Art Center of the City. We literally had about 20 minutes there which really stunk because there were lots of local artists there who had tons of beautiful jewelry and I had no time to look! I also found some New Zealand wool boots – I think I might be investing in some before we leave here J They had a great fudge store – I wish it wasn’t so expensive to ship because I’d love to send some to Aunt Louise! It’s fantastic – they had bailey’s fudge and double chocolate and probably 15 other flavors!
I guess that’s about all for now – I still haven’t posted any pictures like I said because the internet is so freakin slow! I will try and find a place tomorrow in Wellington that I can get some!
Happy New Year! I’ll be celebrating it long before you all will, but I guess there’s not much celebration with 3-7 year olds!
Here’s to a great 2008!
Sunday, December 30, 2007
So Sleepy!
December 28, 2007
I am so tired right now, so we’ll just type and see how this ends up! After three very long sea days, we finally found Dunedin, New Zealand today! I went on an excursion called “Dunedin Highlights” which was literally driving around in a bus with a few stops along the way. We saw several Cathedrals, went to the most photographed Railroad station and walked around, the Olveston Experience that was owned by a wealthy family – basically a small castle – absolutely beautiful! We also drove by Baldwin Street, which is the steepest street in the World, Otago University and Unity Park where we could catch a glimpse of the entire city from on top of a small mountain. It was a nice way to see what the city has to offer. We passed the Cadbury factory which really made me want some chocolate!
I’m going to attempt to post some pictures, but we’ll see how fast the internet is running tonight before I do that! There are lots of pictures from our Christmas dinner where you will see us eating something – they’re called Tim Tam ?? cookies – you bite off opposite corners and suck either coffee or hot tea through it and it melts in your hand and tastes like a Kit Kat. They are amazing! So that’s what all those crazy pictures are. No fantastic pictures just yet, but I will try and get some soon J
Hope all is well with everyone and I’m going on an excursion tomorrow in Christchurch that’s called “Christchurch and Canterbury” so it should be great – it’s 8.5 hours long! So it will cover several things I’m sure!
Peace out!
I am so tired right now, so we’ll just type and see how this ends up! After three very long sea days, we finally found Dunedin, New Zealand today! I went on an excursion called “Dunedin Highlights” which was literally driving around in a bus with a few stops along the way. We saw several Cathedrals, went to the most photographed Railroad station and walked around, the Olveston Experience that was owned by a wealthy family – basically a small castle – absolutely beautiful! We also drove by Baldwin Street, which is the steepest street in the World, Otago University and Unity Park where we could catch a glimpse of the entire city from on top of a small mountain. It was a nice way to see what the city has to offer. We passed the Cadbury factory which really made me want some chocolate!
I’m going to attempt to post some pictures, but we’ll see how fast the internet is running tonight before I do that! There are lots of pictures from our Christmas dinner where you will see us eating something – they’re called Tim Tam ?? cookies – you bite off opposite corners and suck either coffee or hot tea through it and it melts in your hand and tastes like a Kit Kat. They are amazing! So that’s what all those crazy pictures are. No fantastic pictures just yet, but I will try and get some soon J
Hope all is well with everyone and I’m going on an excursion tomorrow in Christchurch that’s called “Christchurch and Canterbury” so it should be great – it’s 8.5 hours long! So it will cover several things I’m sure!
Peace out!
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
All I want for Christmas is YOU!
December 25, 2007
I’m sitting here and it’s just about midnight on the 25th – so Christmas is over already and I’m looking at my clock and it says it is 7:34 a.m. back home where Christmas is just getting started – pretty amazing how the world works, eh?
The ship is decorated beautifully for the Holidays. The atrium fountain is full of fake snow and gifts. There are several large Christmas trees around the ship and just the overall feel of the holidays is here!
So last night we had a Christmas party for the kids with Christmas crafts and Gingerbread men etc. After that, I participated in an International Christmas Choir. It was last night about 10:45 p.m. for all the passengers. There was a Filipino Choir that sang, an Indonesian Choir then the “International” Choir with everyone else. It was pretty neat and made it feel a little bit more like Christmas for me – getting to sing in it and all. We did four carols and while one of the cast members was singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” we were all standing behind her and “snow” began to fall on the stage – it gave me goosebumps – it was nice to have that special holiday feel. We concluded the performance with all the participating crew (about 100-125 of us) lining the stairs and the lounge with candles singing “Silent Night.” It was beautiful!
This morning was a great Christmas morning- while it was hard not being home with all those things that I’m used to on Christmas morning. We set up the lounge with lots of Christmas décor and the captain made an announcement that “a large flying object with lots of animals and a red nose leading the way” was making its way towards our ship. Eventually, about 10 minutes later, the Captain came on again and made the announcement that the unidentified object was Santa and he had landed on the bow of our ship. Patrick (a guy from my old ship) and myself were told we were hosting the event. He’s the DJ/Emcee on the ship, so I assumed he’s be on the mic the whole time and I would just kinda gather the kids and keep it flowing. Well, apparently, he called the kids up by age group and I had to provide the entertainment and be on the mic the ENTIRE time. I was talking to the kids about what they wanted/what they got etc. I was actually quite comfortable and ended up getting several compliments from my bosses, the event manager and the cruise director, so I was very excited about that! The snow was falling and we gave out gifts (backpacks) to all the kids and did photographs with kids of all ages. Everyone really enjoyed it and it put us in the Christmas spirit!
Tonight, they had a cocktail party for the crew at 5:15, where all cocktails were free. Then, we were served a dinner on the Lido deck by the volunteer cabin stewards. It was great to be served and we had tons of fun having a nice dinner all dressed up. The Filipinos and Indonesians were also served by volunteer Entertainment/Deck and other departments – so everyone got their well deserved relaxing time to be served and waited on!
All in all, a nice Christmas – my first official Christmas away from home. I guess I really am growing up?!?!
Right now we’re sitting in the middle of nowhere – we have 3 straight sea days (rough sea days at that) sailing from Tasmania to New Zealand. All the Christmas trees have fallen over several times! The kids are loving the wave pool and the walking crooked – I, however, hate looking like I’m drunk all the time!
I hope everyone back home has a blessed and wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year. I know I am extremely grateful for all that God has given me and changed in my life over the course of the last year. Every single thing was for the better and every decision I made appeared to lead me in the right direction, despite my hesitation on some of them. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been and overall, I feel the best I’ve ever felt and I hope and pray that my life continues to go the positive direction.
Like I said, I’ll continue to update you all as much as possible. Not too much has happened yet – I’ve been working so much trying to get Club Hal in order I haven’t had much time for anything else with all of the holiday activity!
Love you guys and miss you all!
I’m sitting here and it’s just about midnight on the 25th – so Christmas is over already and I’m looking at my clock and it says it is 7:34 a.m. back home where Christmas is just getting started – pretty amazing how the world works, eh?
The ship is decorated beautifully for the Holidays. The atrium fountain is full of fake snow and gifts. There are several large Christmas trees around the ship and just the overall feel of the holidays is here!
So last night we had a Christmas party for the kids with Christmas crafts and Gingerbread men etc. After that, I participated in an International Christmas Choir. It was last night about 10:45 p.m. for all the passengers. There was a Filipino Choir that sang, an Indonesian Choir then the “International” Choir with everyone else. It was pretty neat and made it feel a little bit more like Christmas for me – getting to sing in it and all. We did four carols and while one of the cast members was singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” we were all standing behind her and “snow” began to fall on the stage – it gave me goosebumps – it was nice to have that special holiday feel. We concluded the performance with all the participating crew (about 100-125 of us) lining the stairs and the lounge with candles singing “Silent Night.” It was beautiful!
This morning was a great Christmas morning- while it was hard not being home with all those things that I’m used to on Christmas morning. We set up the lounge with lots of Christmas décor and the captain made an announcement that “a large flying object with lots of animals and a red nose leading the way” was making its way towards our ship. Eventually, about 10 minutes later, the Captain came on again and made the announcement that the unidentified object was Santa and he had landed on the bow of our ship. Patrick (a guy from my old ship) and myself were told we were hosting the event. He’s the DJ/Emcee on the ship, so I assumed he’s be on the mic the whole time and I would just kinda gather the kids and keep it flowing. Well, apparently, he called the kids up by age group and I had to provide the entertainment and be on the mic the ENTIRE time. I was talking to the kids about what they wanted/what they got etc. I was actually quite comfortable and ended up getting several compliments from my bosses, the event manager and the cruise director, so I was very excited about that! The snow was falling and we gave out gifts (backpacks) to all the kids and did photographs with kids of all ages. Everyone really enjoyed it and it put us in the Christmas spirit!
Tonight, they had a cocktail party for the crew at 5:15, where all cocktails were free. Then, we were served a dinner on the Lido deck by the volunteer cabin stewards. It was great to be served and we had tons of fun having a nice dinner all dressed up. The Filipinos and Indonesians were also served by volunteer Entertainment/Deck and other departments – so everyone got their well deserved relaxing time to be served and waited on!
All in all, a nice Christmas – my first official Christmas away from home. I guess I really am growing up?!?!
Right now we’re sitting in the middle of nowhere – we have 3 straight sea days (rough sea days at that) sailing from Tasmania to New Zealand. All the Christmas trees have fallen over several times! The kids are loving the wave pool and the walking crooked – I, however, hate looking like I’m drunk all the time!
I hope everyone back home has a blessed and wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year. I know I am extremely grateful for all that God has given me and changed in my life over the course of the last year. Every single thing was for the better and every decision I made appeared to lead me in the right direction, despite my hesitation on some of them. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been and overall, I feel the best I’ve ever felt and I hope and pray that my life continues to go the positive direction.
Like I said, I’ll continue to update you all as much as possible. Not too much has happened yet – I’ve been working so much trying to get Club Hal in order I haven’t had much time for anything else with all of the holiday activity!
Love you guys and miss you all!
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Downunder and Kiwiland Addresses
December 22, 2007
Here are all the addresses for the places we will be until approximately the end of February! You can find out where we are on specific days by going to the Holland America website and “finding cruises” on the ms Statendam…
Melbourne, Australia
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Barilwil Agencies Australia Pty. Ltd – Melbourne
136-140 Hall Street
Spotswood Victoria 3015
Australia
Milford Sound, New Zealand
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Mckay Shipping Limited (Te Anau)
Vaughan Campbell
40 Lakefront Drive
Te Anau
New Zealand
Wellington, New Zealand
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Mckay Shipping Limited (Wellington)
Old Wool House, Level 1
139 Featherston Street
Wellington
New Zealand
Sydney, Australia
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Barwil Agencies Australia Pty. Ltd – Sydney
L4 370 Pitt St.
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia
Auckland, New Zealand
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Mckay Shipping Limited (Auckland)
2 Akaroa Street, Parnell
Auckland, 1015
New Zealand
Brisbane, Australia
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Barwil Agencies Australia Pty. Ltd – Brisband
301 Wickham Street
Fortitude Valley QLD 4006
Australia
Here are all the addresses for the places we will be until approximately the end of February! You can find out where we are on specific days by going to the Holland America website and “finding cruises” on the ms Statendam…
Melbourne, Australia
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Barilwil Agencies Australia Pty. Ltd – Melbourne
136-140 Hall Street
Spotswood Victoria 3015
Australia
Milford Sound, New Zealand
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Mckay Shipping Limited (Te Anau)
Vaughan Campbell
40 Lakefront Drive
Te Anau
New Zealand
Wellington, New Zealand
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Mckay Shipping Limited (Wellington)
Old Wool House, Level 1
139 Featherston Street
Wellington
New Zealand
Sydney, Australia
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Barwil Agencies Australia Pty. Ltd – Sydney
L4 370 Pitt St.
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia
Auckland, New Zealand
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Mckay Shipping Limited (Auckland)
2 Akaroa Street, Parnell
Auckland, 1015
New Zealand
Brisbane, Australia
Ms Statendam – Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff
Barwil Agencies Australia Pty. Ltd – Brisband
301 Wickham Street
Fortitude Valley QLD 4006
Australia
Friday, December 21, 2007
G'Day Mate!
December 22, 2007
I can’t believe I’ve already been on the Statendam for 5 days! Right now, we are at sea heading towards Melbourne tomorrow. The first few days here have been great – they just came out of dry dock and the ship looks pretty good for the most part. This ship is beautiful though – exact same lay out as the Ryndam, but much more beautiful with the colors and décor. Club HAL is an absolute disaster – nothing is organized and it’s going to take quite a bit of work to get it into the shape it should be in to make things operate efficiently. None of the sound or electronic systems are working so I’ve had everyone up there the last few days trying to figure it out with no luck! There are three Club HAL staff, but the other two did not arrive until Sydney – so I had two days with the kids alone because they had Visa and snow issues getting here!
The flights over were not as bad as I remembered – total flight time was a little over 18 hours plus 5+ hours of sitting in airports. Went by pretty quickly and the middle seat was empty so that was nice too – having a little extra leg room! The girl who sat in the window seat couldn’t stop talking about how fascinating it was that I was born the year of the Rat – she was a monkey and said that rats and monkeys make the best of friends. She was a little drunk and asked me the same questions 16 times over the course of the flight. Uh well, makes for good stories, right?
We’ve been doing a lot of planning and searching for craft supplies since I’ve been here - organizing things for the holiday party for the kids. The Atrium here is decorated beautifully for the holidays – the fountain is filled with snow and gifts and there’s a few Christmas trees out there too! The kids have a Christmas party on Christmas eve (which is two days from now, it’s 2 p.m. here and it’s the 22nd of December) and on Christmas morning we have Santa Claus coming to the lounge to surprise them. It’ll be a pretty laid back day.
We were in Sydney for 2 days and we literally pulled directly into the Sydney Harbour with the Opera house out our port side windows and the Harbor Bridge out or Starboard side windows! It was beautiful and I can’t wait to start doing excursions in all of the ports. I actually think I did many of them when I was here in 2002, but I want to do them again, because WHY NOT?
Today I’m actually quarantined in my room. My roommate ate sugar-free candy and got “the runs”. They tell us to report and “runs” or throwing up to the infirmary because of the GI stuff and NL Virus. I told her she shouldn’t report it because that’s what it was and she would be quarantined for 72 hours no matter what. So, of course, she told them and she’s in the infirmary confined for 72 hours and because I’m the roommate, I’m confined for 24 hours in my room. We can’t leave nor have anyone in our rooms and I have to order room service to get food. So really, there’s lots of sleeping and hanging out – I’m still in my pajamas and its 2 p.m. I’m supposed to be released at 11:30 p.m. tonight as long as I have no symptoms of NLV. The worst part is there’s one girl that’s dealing with all the programs. Uh well, I guess I did it for the first 2 days, right?
All in all, a great first few days. Still getting to know lots of people, really haven’t met too many people yet. This ship has lots of cliques, but there will be a big turnover in the next few weeks, so that will help break those up a bit. I’m excited about what the next few months has to offer! I will try and post as much as possible – but my computer is barely working and the internet café for crew has been down since I got here – so we’ll see how long my computer lasts. Maybe I’ll buy myself a new computer eventually?!
I hope and pray everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2008!
I can’t believe I’ve already been on the Statendam for 5 days! Right now, we are at sea heading towards Melbourne tomorrow. The first few days here have been great – they just came out of dry dock and the ship looks pretty good for the most part. This ship is beautiful though – exact same lay out as the Ryndam, but much more beautiful with the colors and décor. Club HAL is an absolute disaster – nothing is organized and it’s going to take quite a bit of work to get it into the shape it should be in to make things operate efficiently. None of the sound or electronic systems are working so I’ve had everyone up there the last few days trying to figure it out with no luck! There are three Club HAL staff, but the other two did not arrive until Sydney – so I had two days with the kids alone because they had Visa and snow issues getting here!
The flights over were not as bad as I remembered – total flight time was a little over 18 hours plus 5+ hours of sitting in airports. Went by pretty quickly and the middle seat was empty so that was nice too – having a little extra leg room! The girl who sat in the window seat couldn’t stop talking about how fascinating it was that I was born the year of the Rat – she was a monkey and said that rats and monkeys make the best of friends. She was a little drunk and asked me the same questions 16 times over the course of the flight. Uh well, makes for good stories, right?
We’ve been doing a lot of planning and searching for craft supplies since I’ve been here - organizing things for the holiday party for the kids. The Atrium here is decorated beautifully for the holidays – the fountain is filled with snow and gifts and there’s a few Christmas trees out there too! The kids have a Christmas party on Christmas eve (which is two days from now, it’s 2 p.m. here and it’s the 22nd of December) and on Christmas morning we have Santa Claus coming to the lounge to surprise them. It’ll be a pretty laid back day.
We were in Sydney for 2 days and we literally pulled directly into the Sydney Harbour with the Opera house out our port side windows and the Harbor Bridge out or Starboard side windows! It was beautiful and I can’t wait to start doing excursions in all of the ports. I actually think I did many of them when I was here in 2002, but I want to do them again, because WHY NOT?
Today I’m actually quarantined in my room. My roommate ate sugar-free candy and got “the runs”. They tell us to report and “runs” or throwing up to the infirmary because of the GI stuff and NL Virus. I told her she shouldn’t report it because that’s what it was and she would be quarantined for 72 hours no matter what. So, of course, she told them and she’s in the infirmary confined for 72 hours and because I’m the roommate, I’m confined for 24 hours in my room. We can’t leave nor have anyone in our rooms and I have to order room service to get food. So really, there’s lots of sleeping and hanging out – I’m still in my pajamas and its 2 p.m. I’m supposed to be released at 11:30 p.m. tonight as long as I have no symptoms of NLV. The worst part is there’s one girl that’s dealing with all the programs. Uh well, I guess I did it for the first 2 days, right?
All in all, a great first few days. Still getting to know lots of people, really haven’t met too many people yet. This ship has lots of cliques, but there will be a big turnover in the next few weeks, so that will help break those up a bit. I’m excited about what the next few months has to offer! I will try and post as much as possible – but my computer is barely working and the internet café for crew has been down since I got here – so we’ll see how long my computer lasts. Maybe I’ll buy myself a new computer eventually?!
I hope and pray everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2008!
Saturday, December 8, 2007
It's Official!
I will be heading out to the ms Statendam on December 16th at 7 p.m.! I'm super excited - Mom bought me new luggage - so I'm ready to go :) (Well, sorta)
Monday, December 3, 2007
Home for now...
Wow! It's been a while since I posted and caught up with everything! Mom pointed out to me that i hadn't posted any pictures since Alaska - so I took care of that! I posted 333 new pictures the other night from Dry Dock, Mexico etc. So, there's lots to look at if you have the free time!
I came home on the 31st and was home for about 8 days when I got the offer to go back and work as cruise staff on the Ryndam! Of course, I said yes! It was great to see all my friends one more time and to work a different job on the ship. Makes me sad to go back and work with Club Hal, but the schedule is much better :) Maybe my contract after that I will see if I can do event staff! Instead of flying back to Florida, I flew into Louisville, KY and met up with the family where we had a big family Thanksgiving! It was lots of fun!
I'm currently trying to upload some videos of ziplining and whale watching for you guys - it's taken me a while to get these done, but I think I've finally figured it out...So keep an eye out.
I'm guesstimating that I will be leaving here on the 15th or so of December to head out to Australia for my contract on the Statendam. I'm very excited about the itinerary and all the people that will be there from my last ship! I think the most exciting part is that my birthday will be an overnight port in Shanghai, China.
Well, I think that's it for now! I will post any new information I find out on here! Hope everyone is doing well.
I came home on the 31st and was home for about 8 days when I got the offer to go back and work as cruise staff on the Ryndam! Of course, I said yes! It was great to see all my friends one more time and to work a different job on the ship. Makes me sad to go back and work with Club Hal, but the schedule is much better :) Maybe my contract after that I will see if I can do event staff! Instead of flying back to Florida, I flew into Louisville, KY and met up with the family where we had a big family Thanksgiving! It was lots of fun!
I'm currently trying to upload some videos of ziplining and whale watching for you guys - it's taken me a while to get these done, but I think I've finally figured it out...So keep an eye out.
I'm guesstimating that I will be leaving here on the 15th or so of December to head out to Australia for my contract on the Statendam. I'm very excited about the itinerary and all the people that will be there from my last ship! I think the most exciting part is that my birthday will be an overnight port in Shanghai, China.
Well, I think that's it for now! I will post any new information I find out on here! Hope everyone is doing well.
Monday, October 29, 2007
October 28, 2007
I’m so depressed to be leaving right now…for so many reasons!
I did go on an excursion today that was wonderful, though. The tour went to Los Islotes Islands here in Pichilingue, La Paz, Mexico. We went out to Los Islotes by catamaran, which took about 1.5 hours where we went snorkeling with sea lions. We couldn’t actually touch the island itself, just anchor out in the water but the sea lions were absolutely everywhere and tons of angel fish and beautiful tropical creatures. The water there was absolutely beautiful.
On the way out to the island, a pod of literally 30-40 dolphins were playing and breaching in the wake of the boat. It was a fantastic and beautiful sight!
So, after snorkeling with the sea lions, we headed over to a coral reef and snorkeled there for a little while – talk about some crystal clear waters! There were tons of fish…I mean TONS of fish feeding down below around the coral.
It really was a beautiful (but exhausting) day. Between the sun and the swimming, I am truly beat.
Other than that, just working and trying to take advantage of every moment I have here on the Ryndam and in Mexico. I have so much to share with some of you, when I get home, about things here!
I can’t count down…makes me sad. I’m not ready to come home anymore.
I’m so depressed to be leaving right now…for so many reasons!
I did go on an excursion today that was wonderful, though. The tour went to Los Islotes Islands here in Pichilingue, La Paz, Mexico. We went out to Los Islotes by catamaran, which took about 1.5 hours where we went snorkeling with sea lions. We couldn’t actually touch the island itself, just anchor out in the water but the sea lions were absolutely everywhere and tons of angel fish and beautiful tropical creatures. The water there was absolutely beautiful.
On the way out to the island, a pod of literally 30-40 dolphins were playing and breaching in the wake of the boat. It was a fantastic and beautiful sight!
So, after snorkeling with the sea lions, we headed over to a coral reef and snorkeled there for a little while – talk about some crystal clear waters! There were tons of fish…I mean TONS of fish feeding down below around the coral.
It really was a beautiful (but exhausting) day. Between the sun and the swimming, I am truly beat.
Other than that, just working and trying to take advantage of every moment I have here on the Ryndam and in Mexico. I have so much to share with some of you, when I get home, about things here!
I can’t count down…makes me sad. I’m not ready to come home anymore.
Prayers for San Diego
October 27, 2007
I’ve had a fantastic day! The woman who initially signed up for babysitting in Cabo San Lucas cancelled on me today so I can spend the day in port. Today I hung out around the pool for a few hours, played crew vs. passenger volleyball and worked for a few hours tonight.
It’s a bit sad though…so many people on the ship are from San Diego and they are all constantly checking the news and internet for any details. I don’t think I’ve heard of anybody that’s had a problem yet, but lots of their friends and family have lost their homes. That’s so sad to me.
Other than that I’m trying not to mope around because I’m sad to leave – I’m doing whatever I can to make the most out of every second I have left with some of these people.
4 days…
I’ve had a fantastic day! The woman who initially signed up for babysitting in Cabo San Lucas cancelled on me today so I can spend the day in port. Today I hung out around the pool for a few hours, played crew vs. passenger volleyball and worked for a few hours tonight.
It’s a bit sad though…so many people on the ship are from San Diego and they are all constantly checking the news and internet for any details. I don’t think I’ve heard of anybody that’s had a problem yet, but lots of their friends and family have lost their homes. That’s so sad to me.
Other than that I’m trying not to mope around because I’m sad to leave – I’m doing whatever I can to make the most out of every second I have left with some of these people.
4 days…
Gravity…Stay the hell away from me…
October 24, 2007
So it’s approx 12:30 a.m. and I just got off work – mind you I’m running on two hours sleep at the moment, but still feeling ok and able to get through a little bit more of the evening events!
I saw Jerry Lewis yesterday! He looks old…that’s it. Nothing fantastic! I just smiled and didn’t bother him for obvious reasons.
Later today I will be in Puerta Vallarta for the last time and I’m quite sad about it. I must admit that the Kristal Hotel is by far my most favorite retreat since we’ve been here. I love that there’s a pool to swim in, but you can still see and hear the ocean. I’m looking forward to getting there and laying out etc, but dreading the idea of leaving later that day and knowing it’s the last time, at least for a while! Unfortunately, I had a parent sign up for port day activities in Cabo San Lucas, so it looks like no dolphin swimming for me L Little disappointed about that – but what can I do, ya know? I’ll just take the pictures from the ship and pretend I was there the whole day ;)
I’ve also had at least one parent sign up per night for kidsitting (between the hours of 10-12 a.m.), which is great for me (extra cash) but sucks because I’m not really able to hang out with who I want to.
This week with the kids has been crazy...lots of fun though. I have 4 three year olds which is mind numbing at that and then there is a 5, 7 and 9 year old. They are all really good though, just demand a lot of my attention spread out among all of them! All I hear is “Sydney, Sydney, Look at this/me/her”. Thinking about it makes me laugh because they really are adorable.
So far so good for us, though, on avoiding the bad weather of the tropical storms/hurricane we were supposed to hit. ::currently knocking on wood:: The weather both today and yesterday was incredible…sunshine and beautiful seas! I pray that the remainder of the trip stays this way and we get really lucky! It will make my last Ryndam Cruise all the more better!
That’s pretty much it for now. Like I said…feeling bittersweet at the moment. The more excited I get about leaving, the more happens that makes me want to stick around forever! Such is life, right?
7 days…
So it’s approx 12:30 a.m. and I just got off work – mind you I’m running on two hours sleep at the moment, but still feeling ok and able to get through a little bit more of the evening events!
I saw Jerry Lewis yesterday! He looks old…that’s it. Nothing fantastic! I just smiled and didn’t bother him for obvious reasons.
Later today I will be in Puerta Vallarta for the last time and I’m quite sad about it. I must admit that the Kristal Hotel is by far my most favorite retreat since we’ve been here. I love that there’s a pool to swim in, but you can still see and hear the ocean. I’m looking forward to getting there and laying out etc, but dreading the idea of leaving later that day and knowing it’s the last time, at least for a while! Unfortunately, I had a parent sign up for port day activities in Cabo San Lucas, so it looks like no dolphin swimming for me L Little disappointed about that – but what can I do, ya know? I’ll just take the pictures from the ship and pretend I was there the whole day ;)
I’ve also had at least one parent sign up per night for kidsitting (between the hours of 10-12 a.m.), which is great for me (extra cash) but sucks because I’m not really able to hang out with who I want to.
This week with the kids has been crazy...lots of fun though. I have 4 three year olds which is mind numbing at that and then there is a 5, 7 and 9 year old. They are all really good though, just demand a lot of my attention spread out among all of them! All I hear is “Sydney, Sydney, Look at this/me/her”. Thinking about it makes me laugh because they really are adorable.
So far so good for us, though, on avoiding the bad weather of the tropical storms/hurricane we were supposed to hit. ::currently knocking on wood:: The weather both today and yesterday was incredible…sunshine and beautiful seas! I pray that the remainder of the trip stays this way and we get really lucky! It will make my last Ryndam Cruise all the more better!
That’s pretty much it for now. Like I said…feeling bittersweet at the moment. The more excited I get about leaving, the more happens that makes me want to stick around forever! Such is life, right?
7 days…
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Stop This Train...
October 21, 2007
We just embarked on my last cruise today. Unfortunately, we are anticipating really bad weather due to an outstanding tropical storm so we shall see how it goes. We did have some really rough water last night – lots of people were sea sick again. My roommate who was here for 14 days left this morning and she was great – she went to another ship. There is one advantage – room to myself the last 10 days! Makes it easier to pack I guess.
Not too much to share. Today my friend Adrienne came with her roommate Amy and I gave them the grand tour of the ms Ryndam. Afterwards, we went to lunch over by the mall and then walked back- it was quite hot here in San Diego. It was nice to see someone and reflect on the crazy things about Cruise West – the very few fantastic times and the stupid things we did to make a miserable experience a little less miserable ;)
That’s about all for now…I’m so excited to do Mexico again…if only I was staying a few cruises longer to soak up some more sun. I’m enjoying every moment I’m here though, so I guess that’s what matters, right?
Jerry Lewis is on board this week with his wife staying in the Penthouse Suite. Haven’t seen him yet, but I’m sure I will because he requested that he take the crew elevators everywhere because he doesn’t want to be seen by the guests.
9 days…
We just embarked on my last cruise today. Unfortunately, we are anticipating really bad weather due to an outstanding tropical storm so we shall see how it goes. We did have some really rough water last night – lots of people were sea sick again. My roommate who was here for 14 days left this morning and she was great – she went to another ship. There is one advantage – room to myself the last 10 days! Makes it easier to pack I guess.
Not too much to share. Today my friend Adrienne came with her roommate Amy and I gave them the grand tour of the ms Ryndam. Afterwards, we went to lunch over by the mall and then walked back- it was quite hot here in San Diego. It was nice to see someone and reflect on the crazy things about Cruise West – the very few fantastic times and the stupid things we did to make a miserable experience a little less miserable ;)
That’s about all for now…I’m so excited to do Mexico again…if only I was staying a few cruises longer to soak up some more sun. I’m enjoying every moment I’m here though, so I guess that’s what matters, right?
Jerry Lewis is on board this week with his wife staying in the Penthouse Suite. Haven’t seen him yet, but I’m sure I will because he requested that he take the crew elevators everywhere because he doesn’t want to be seen by the guests.
9 days…
"Lover's Bitch" (That's Lover's Beach in Indonesian English)
October 19, 2007
This Mexico run is wonderful – 6 port days in a row where I don’t have to work until 8 p.m.
The hyped up Cabo San Lucas was today. It was beautiful – huge houses on the waterfront, Lovers Beach and the clear blue water. We don’t have much time in Port today especially because it is a tender port. Tender ports mean we anchor out in the water and lower the life boats and basically shuttle people into town. It takes forever for “open tender” to be called which means crew can go ashore. When it was finally called it was around noon and we had crew all aboard at 3. So, a few of us went ashore and sat at a bar and had margaritas and just hung out and enjoyed the sun. Next week I intend to take a water taxi over to Lovers Beach and just enjoy the sun – a few of us also want to do the “swim with the dolphins” – apparently they offer a pretty good deal to crew. We shall see!
Tomorrow is our last sea day and then it is officially my last cruise before I come home! Have I mentioned how excited I am about coming home? J I am definitely going to be sad to leave the Ryndam – I’ve never had so much fun and been so happy! There are so many awesome people I’ve met onboard and we always manage to laugh and have a good time together. The great part is that 3 friends from here are going to the Statendam with me, so it’ll be nice to have people I already know on board once I get to the outback J It’s funny – I’m so sad to leave here, so excited to go home for a bit and at the same time, anticipating my next contract and the places I’m going to see!
Ok – tonight is formal night and I’m going to get dressed and head upstairs to hang out with friends and passengers!
11 days…Mom – don’t forget the chicken parmesan ;)
This Mexico run is wonderful – 6 port days in a row where I don’t have to work until 8 p.m.
The hyped up Cabo San Lucas was today. It was beautiful – huge houses on the waterfront, Lovers Beach and the clear blue water. We don’t have much time in Port today especially because it is a tender port. Tender ports mean we anchor out in the water and lower the life boats and basically shuttle people into town. It takes forever for “open tender” to be called which means crew can go ashore. When it was finally called it was around noon and we had crew all aboard at 3. So, a few of us went ashore and sat at a bar and had margaritas and just hung out and enjoyed the sun. Next week I intend to take a water taxi over to Lovers Beach and just enjoy the sun – a few of us also want to do the “swim with the dolphins” – apparently they offer a pretty good deal to crew. We shall see!
Tomorrow is our last sea day and then it is officially my last cruise before I come home! Have I mentioned how excited I am about coming home? J I am definitely going to be sad to leave the Ryndam – I’ve never had so much fun and been so happy! There are so many awesome people I’ve met onboard and we always manage to laugh and have a good time together. The great part is that 3 friends from here are going to the Statendam with me, so it’ll be nice to have people I already know on board once I get to the outback J It’s funny – I’m so sad to leave here, so excited to go home for a bit and at the same time, anticipating my next contract and the places I’m going to see!
Ok – tonight is formal night and I’m going to get dressed and head upstairs to hang out with friends and passengers!
11 days…Mom – don’t forget the chicken parmesan ;)
Monday, October 15, 2007
Viva la Mexico!
October 15, 2007
We just left Mazatlan and I’m loving Mexico so far! Yesterday we went to the Kristal Resort which was absolutely beautiful. The resort was villa-style and very authentic. There were about 6 or 7 pools linked together with bridges and volleyball nets and wet bars. We had a fantastic time – there were about 30 of us who ended up there. We got there around 11:45 and left around 6 going back and fourth between the beach and the pools. My skin is a little pink, but nothing too horrific. It was so relaxing to have drinks and eat and just chill in the pool with all of my friends! I can’t wait for next week.
Today in Mazatlan I went on an excursion call the Mazatlan shrimp feast. They took us to a private residence in the middle of ghetto-town Mexico. The guy told us not to get worried because the house was not like the city. I walked into the house and it was a beautiful picturesque home. Pool and lots of tables, umbrellas, buffet and botanical gardens where we could see all of Mazatlan over the patio. It was absolutely incredible. Nobody wanted to leave! They had an open bar of Pacifico, margaritas, and bottled water. I just drank a gallon of water because it was so hot! The food was just as fantastic as the scenery – beer battered shrimp, garlic shrimp, peel-and-eat shrimp, taquitos, rice, refried beans, salsa and guacamole. I ate mostly shrimp and guacamole…which was superb!
The bartender boy situation is getting interesting…will update on that later!
That’s all for now!
Home in 16 days…
We just left Mazatlan and I’m loving Mexico so far! Yesterday we went to the Kristal Resort which was absolutely beautiful. The resort was villa-style and very authentic. There were about 6 or 7 pools linked together with bridges and volleyball nets and wet bars. We had a fantastic time – there were about 30 of us who ended up there. We got there around 11:45 and left around 6 going back and fourth between the beach and the pools. My skin is a little pink, but nothing too horrific. It was so relaxing to have drinks and eat and just chill in the pool with all of my friends! I can’t wait for next week.
Today in Mazatlan I went on an excursion call the Mazatlan shrimp feast. They took us to a private residence in the middle of ghetto-town Mexico. The guy told us not to get worried because the house was not like the city. I walked into the house and it was a beautiful picturesque home. Pool and lots of tables, umbrellas, buffet and botanical gardens where we could see all of Mazatlan over the patio. It was absolutely incredible. Nobody wanted to leave! They had an open bar of Pacifico, margaritas, and bottled water. I just drank a gallon of water because it was so hot! The food was just as fantastic as the scenery – beer battered shrimp, garlic shrimp, peel-and-eat shrimp, taquitos, rice, refried beans, salsa and guacamole. I ate mostly shrimp and guacamole…which was superb!
The bartender boy situation is getting interesting…will update on that later!
That’s all for now!
Home in 16 days…
Sunshine is delicious!
October 14, 2007
First things first- 17 days until I go home! I’m really excited about going home and having a little bit of a normal life…at least for six weeks before I head out on my awesome contract! I do have quite a bit to do the first few days – I need to order several VISA’s for Australia, China (where we overnight on my birthday), and I believe some for Japan and South Korea. I’m still looking into those details, but I’m sure its going to cost a few bucks and a few minutes!
I haven’t written in a while because the ship world has been a bit hectic since we got out of dry dock. The last day of dry dock I had to move rooms from B Deck (Deck 3) where all of the “Other” crew live up to deck 9 aft. We moved into this old-pantry-turned-crew-room and it’s an interesting set up. I hate being so far away from other crew and from the washing machine (I lived next to it in my old room). Uh well, only a little while until I go home J
After we left Victoria we went and picked up the passengers for our four day repositioning cruise to San Diego. It was a fast cruise – just stopped in Victoria for a few hours (mind you it was Canadian Thanksgiving, so nothing was open) and had two sea days before getting to San Diego. The two sea days were the worst things ever…especially the first day. I’ve never been sea sick, but we had 21-25 foot seas, horrible weather and of course, the stabilizers that were just fixed in dry dock busted on the way! So we had nothing to even help with the rocking. Club Hal is up on Deck 12 Aft – so pretty high and we felt the rocking pretty bad. A girl named Sarah is on board for two weeks and I had to tell her I was going to lay down because I felt so sick. It was not pretty. The captain said that if the weather had stayed that bad the second day, we would have arrived two days late into San Diego – instead we were only 5 hours late into port. Made things a little hectic for embarkation/disembarkation…but it worked in the end!
In San Diego, we picked up our first ten day Mexico cruise. We are sitting in Puerta Vallarta right now and we are all itching to get off. Unfortunately, this morning we have a fire drill, General Emergency drill and then an Entertainment Department Meeting. You can bet your bottom dollar that the minute the meeting is over, we are on our way to the drug store to buy sunscreen etc, then over to Kristal Resort. It’s a resort that allows crew to utilize the pool and resort. I’m quite excited because it’s a really nice place apparently with several big pools, the swim up bars etc! I just want some fresh air and a tan before I go home!
The bartender in the Officer’s Bar (where we all hang out every night), who was telling my old roommate how much he loved me. I knew he had a bit of a crush, but nothing serious. Well, the other night he gave me a letter telling me how I’ve changed him and he’s been happy since I’ve been on board. I wrote him a letter back (how high school, eh?) saying that I was leaving soon and we could be friends, but that’s it. I haven’t figured out yet whether it’s the language barrier, but I believe he read the letter that I loved him too because he’s getting really protective and making it sound like we’re a couple! EEK!
This week is my last chance to spend a few hours in San Diego and a good friend of mine, Adrienne, from Cruise West is coming to meet me at the ship. She only lives about an hour away, but I’m going to give her a ship tour and hang out for a few hours. It’ll be nice to see her!
I believe the General Emergency Drill is going to happen any moment, so I’m going to go ahead and get out of here so I can get some sun!
Home is soon!
First things first- 17 days until I go home! I’m really excited about going home and having a little bit of a normal life…at least for six weeks before I head out on my awesome contract! I do have quite a bit to do the first few days – I need to order several VISA’s for Australia, China (where we overnight on my birthday), and I believe some for Japan and South Korea. I’m still looking into those details, but I’m sure its going to cost a few bucks and a few minutes!
I haven’t written in a while because the ship world has been a bit hectic since we got out of dry dock. The last day of dry dock I had to move rooms from B Deck (Deck 3) where all of the “Other” crew live up to deck 9 aft. We moved into this old-pantry-turned-crew-room and it’s an interesting set up. I hate being so far away from other crew and from the washing machine (I lived next to it in my old room). Uh well, only a little while until I go home J
After we left Victoria we went and picked up the passengers for our four day repositioning cruise to San Diego. It was a fast cruise – just stopped in Victoria for a few hours (mind you it was Canadian Thanksgiving, so nothing was open) and had two sea days before getting to San Diego. The two sea days were the worst things ever…especially the first day. I’ve never been sea sick, but we had 21-25 foot seas, horrible weather and of course, the stabilizers that were just fixed in dry dock busted on the way! So we had nothing to even help with the rocking. Club Hal is up on Deck 12 Aft – so pretty high and we felt the rocking pretty bad. A girl named Sarah is on board for two weeks and I had to tell her I was going to lay down because I felt so sick. It was not pretty. The captain said that if the weather had stayed that bad the second day, we would have arrived two days late into San Diego – instead we were only 5 hours late into port. Made things a little hectic for embarkation/disembarkation…but it worked in the end!
In San Diego, we picked up our first ten day Mexico cruise. We are sitting in Puerta Vallarta right now and we are all itching to get off. Unfortunately, this morning we have a fire drill, General Emergency drill and then an Entertainment Department Meeting. You can bet your bottom dollar that the minute the meeting is over, we are on our way to the drug store to buy sunscreen etc, then over to Kristal Resort. It’s a resort that allows crew to utilize the pool and resort. I’m quite excited because it’s a really nice place apparently with several big pools, the swim up bars etc! I just want some fresh air and a tan before I go home!
The bartender in the Officer’s Bar (where we all hang out every night), who was telling my old roommate how much he loved me. I knew he had a bit of a crush, but nothing serious. Well, the other night he gave me a letter telling me how I’ve changed him and he’s been happy since I’ve been on board. I wrote him a letter back (how high school, eh?) saying that I was leaving soon and we could be friends, but that’s it. I haven’t figured out yet whether it’s the language barrier, but I believe he read the letter that I loved him too because he’s getting really protective and making it sound like we’re a couple! EEK!
This week is my last chance to spend a few hours in San Diego and a good friend of mine, Adrienne, from Cruise West is coming to meet me at the ship. She only lives about an hour away, but I’m going to give her a ship tour and hang out for a few hours. It’ll be nice to see her!
I believe the General Emergency Drill is going to happen any moment, so I’m going to go ahead and get out of here so I can get some sun!
Home is soon!
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Too relaxed!
September 27, 2007
It’s now Thursday and the fourth full day of dry dock. The ship is a mess and flooded with hundreds of contractors and pure chaos. I assume progress is happening but to me it looks as if everything looks worse. The outside of the ship has been sandblasted, engines etc are being fixed and carpet is being ripped up everywhere – like I said, pure chaos.
The last two days we haven’t worked at all – we meet at 10 a.m. and hang out until lunch at 11:30 and head out to town or to our daily adventure. One of my friends and I have been walking several miles every morning because we are sick of the grimy crew gym – the weather is cold and beautiful so it has been a great way to start every morning!
I went to a place called Miniature World yesterday which was probably a waste of time and money, but hey…these are my two weeks to play tacky tourist! Miniature World is basically little towns, fairy tales, wars and circus scenes replicated in extremely tiny form. I have pictures posted on my picture page.
We also went to the Craigdarroch Castle, which is the castle of an old coal miner. It was beautiful inside and there are also pictures of the castle posted online.
As you can see, life is pretty laid back at the moment and we are all having a great time – as soon as dry dock is over I have one four day cruise and 2-10 day cruises and I’m home!
I’ll post more as I come up with things to do!
It’s now Thursday and the fourth full day of dry dock. The ship is a mess and flooded with hundreds of contractors and pure chaos. I assume progress is happening but to me it looks as if everything looks worse. The outside of the ship has been sandblasted, engines etc are being fixed and carpet is being ripped up everywhere – like I said, pure chaos.
The last two days we haven’t worked at all – we meet at 10 a.m. and hang out until lunch at 11:30 and head out to town or to our daily adventure. One of my friends and I have been walking several miles every morning because we are sick of the grimy crew gym – the weather is cold and beautiful so it has been a great way to start every morning!
I went to a place called Miniature World yesterday which was probably a waste of time and money, but hey…these are my two weeks to play tacky tourist! Miniature World is basically little towns, fairy tales, wars and circus scenes replicated in extremely tiny form. I have pictures posted on my picture page.
We also went to the Craigdarroch Castle, which is the castle of an old coal miner. It was beautiful inside and there are also pictures of the castle posted online.
As you can see, life is pretty laid back at the moment and we are all having a great time – as soon as dry dock is over I have one four day cruise and 2-10 day cruises and I’m home!
I’ll post more as I come up with things to do!
It's SO hot in this room....
September 24, 2007
I finally got to go on my Crab Feed that I wanted to do for so long! It was an awesome excursion. We went out to the George Inlet Lodge in Ketchikan where we boarded a very small crabbing boat that took us out to the inlet where we pulled up 2 crab pots. Because we didn’t have fishing licenses, the lodge has to say the excursion is for research purposes. We pulled up the first pot and there were no crabs, but 2 extremely large starfish (approx 1-1 ½ feet across). Everyone got to hold it before we pulled up the second pot. The second pot had several crabs in it where we measured and examined the health of all the crabs included. It was nice because we only had a group of 10 people on the excursion, including me and my friend Whitney. Next, we headed back to the lodge and had an oriental salad, wine, all you can eat Dungeness crab, and blueberry cheesecake. The crab was absolutely amazing – they were huge and the meat was so sweet. There was a contest to see which table had the highest stack of crab. There were two tables of 4 and Whitney and I were at a separate table. Let’s just say we got a bit aggressive with the table next to us – for the four of them (two being teenage boys) they had 19 inches (including wine glasses stacked underneath their plate), ours was 17 inches with beer glasses underneath. It was absolutely hilarious. Everyone else was finishing their cheesecake and we were asking for more crab. Gotta love it! The cheesecake was even delicious and I don’t like cheesecake! Overall, it was tons of fun and we had a fantastic meal!
We’re in our first real day of dry dock – depends on whether or not you count yesterday. Around noon yesterday we left Vancouver after clearing off all the passengers and arrived in Victoria around 6 p.m. last night. Last night we had a big party with bingo, blackjack and music in the show lounge which was quite fun. The actual process of going into dry dock has been so neat to watch. First, as we pulled into the harbor (I guess that’s what it was) we unloaded all of the life boats and pulled them into a separate area. Then a massively large tug boat pushed us into the dock where we will spend the next two weeks. After they got us into the dock they put up the cement barricades behind the ship and begin to drain the water (think large bath tub). This morning when we woke up all the water was completely drained from the ship. We have 100’s of contractors on board that are ripping out escalators, tearing up floors and millions of other things around the ship that need to be done.
Yesterday, our job was to clean out the Entertainment Office and the entertainment lockers which only took a few hours. Today, our job was to hang up paper signs advertising the movies we’d be showing in the movie theater on board. It took a strenuous 10 minutes and we were finished with work for the day. Company money well spent J We do have Charades planned for this evening and we’re going to go into the downtown area around 3 this afternoon to see what adventure we will do today. I will keep everyone updated throughout the process.
Enjoy your week!
I finally got to go on my Crab Feed that I wanted to do for so long! It was an awesome excursion. We went out to the George Inlet Lodge in Ketchikan where we boarded a very small crabbing boat that took us out to the inlet where we pulled up 2 crab pots. Because we didn’t have fishing licenses, the lodge has to say the excursion is for research purposes. We pulled up the first pot and there were no crabs, but 2 extremely large starfish (approx 1-1 ½ feet across). Everyone got to hold it before we pulled up the second pot. The second pot had several crabs in it where we measured and examined the health of all the crabs included. It was nice because we only had a group of 10 people on the excursion, including me and my friend Whitney. Next, we headed back to the lodge and had an oriental salad, wine, all you can eat Dungeness crab, and blueberry cheesecake. The crab was absolutely amazing – they were huge and the meat was so sweet. There was a contest to see which table had the highest stack of crab. There were two tables of 4 and Whitney and I were at a separate table. Let’s just say we got a bit aggressive with the table next to us – for the four of them (two being teenage boys) they had 19 inches (including wine glasses stacked underneath their plate), ours was 17 inches with beer glasses underneath. It was absolutely hilarious. Everyone else was finishing their cheesecake and we were asking for more crab. Gotta love it! The cheesecake was even delicious and I don’t like cheesecake! Overall, it was tons of fun and we had a fantastic meal!
We’re in our first real day of dry dock – depends on whether or not you count yesterday. Around noon yesterday we left Vancouver after clearing off all the passengers and arrived in Victoria around 6 p.m. last night. Last night we had a big party with bingo, blackjack and music in the show lounge which was quite fun. The actual process of going into dry dock has been so neat to watch. First, as we pulled into the harbor (I guess that’s what it was) we unloaded all of the life boats and pulled them into a separate area. Then a massively large tug boat pushed us into the dock where we will spend the next two weeks. After they got us into the dock they put up the cement barricades behind the ship and begin to drain the water (think large bath tub). This morning when we woke up all the water was completely drained from the ship. We have 100’s of contractors on board that are ripping out escalators, tearing up floors and millions of other things around the ship that need to be done.
Yesterday, our job was to clean out the Entertainment Office and the entertainment lockers which only took a few hours. Today, our job was to hang up paper signs advertising the movies we’d be showing in the movie theater on board. It took a strenuous 10 minutes and we were finished with work for the day. Company money well spent J We do have Charades planned for this evening and we’re going to go into the downtown area around 3 this afternoon to see what adventure we will do today. I will keep everyone updated throughout the process.
Enjoy your week!
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Ecstatic
This morning I actually heard about that great prospective contract in the works. I got the ms Statendam, which will be in Australia and New Zealand. Depending on how long they let me stay on the Stat, they also do a couple runs to Japan, Korea, and Russia - then back to Alaska.
It's actually the same class ship I work on now, so I'll know the layout and all of the hard stuff :) And, Patrick will be there (he gets there two days before I do) - he's a good friend from the ship so we are both beaming from ear to ear.
I'm so excited I can't stand it! This morning I think I wore the treadmill out because I had so much energy.
So as of now, I will be home October 31st and will depart for Brisbane, Australia on December 18th :) I'll get to bring this ship out of dry dock too, which will be neat to compare the Ryndam to the Stat.
That's all for now - I'll be seeing you all in a little less than a month and a half~!
It's actually the same class ship I work on now, so I'll know the layout and all of the hard stuff :) And, Patrick will be there (he gets there two days before I do) - he's a good friend from the ship so we are both beaming from ear to ear.
I'm so excited I can't stand it! This morning I think I wore the treadmill out because I had so much energy.
So as of now, I will be home October 31st and will depart for Brisbane, Australia on December 18th :) I'll get to bring this ship out of dry dock too, which will be neat to compare the Ryndam to the Stat.
That's all for now - I'll be seeing you all in a little less than a month and a half~!
September 17, 2007
Ok, so I didn’t make it on the Wilderness Crab Feed Excursion – hopefully this week. Apparently something happened in the Shore Excursion Dept and I ended up on the Misty Fjord Wilderness explorer tour. It was nothing near what the crab feed would have been, but it was really pretty. Not the best tour I’ve been on – a bit boring. We took a 2 hour boat ride out to the fjords (a glacially carved waterway) and tooled around there for about 20 minutes and then a 2 hour boat ride back. Definitely expected more, but again it’s one more thing I got to see, right? We did see orcas which are very rare to see in Ketchikan (and really anywhere), but there was about 6 of them around the catamaran. One of them literally came up right next to the boat, so close I could have reached out to touch him if I would have expected him.
It’s our last week in Alaska though!!!!!! We are in Juneau tomorrow morning and I’m looking forward to enjoying the last week and an afternoon off. On Sunday, we’re off to Vancouver to drop off these passengers then onto Victoria for dry dock! We are all excited about dry dock because we still get paid our daily rate, we get to wear comfortable clothes, and work for approx. 2 hours every day doing “grunt” type work (cleaning up garbage, polishing, etc). I’m ok with that – can’t complain! When we get to Victoria, we won’t be able to get off the ship for the first day and a half to two days because it takes approx 14 hours for the water to drain out of the ship (I think that’s how they explained it), and the ship to be pulled completely out of the water. I’m so excited to see the actual process and all the changes that are going to take place in a matter of 2 short weeks. I’m going to attempt to get some before and after pictures. I anticipate quite a bit of fun over the next two weeks.
I am now coming home October 31st instead of November 20th. I’ve been told there is a really good prospective contract in the works so they might end this contract early to get me onto the other contract by mid-end November. We shall see – I’ll keep you posted! This means I have two weeks in dry dock, a 4 day repositioning cruise and 2 10-day cruises to Mexico and I’ll be home!
We have about 40 kids on this cruise within the Club Hal range and 11 babies on board (that we don’t watch). I am on the kids/tween group this week because we combined groups because we only have two staff. Today, I had 18 3-12 year olds in my tiny tween room and it was crazy but tons of fun in comparison to last week with one girl who only wanted to play UNO, Guess Who and Checkers. She also didn’t talk and had no desire to listen to music. It was quite boring! So this week is keeping me on my toes and for Mexico I will be the only staff on board, so I’ll be ready J
I think that’s about all for now – I won’t have a phone for the next 2 weeks (I will, but can’t afford the international charges!!!) Please e-mail and keep in touch. Hopefully there will be a place where we have access to wireless internet. I know we have a shuttle to and from downtown Victoria and I’m sure there’s internet there.
I look forward to hearing from everyone! Have a great week!!
Ok, so I didn’t make it on the Wilderness Crab Feed Excursion – hopefully this week. Apparently something happened in the Shore Excursion Dept and I ended up on the Misty Fjord Wilderness explorer tour. It was nothing near what the crab feed would have been, but it was really pretty. Not the best tour I’ve been on – a bit boring. We took a 2 hour boat ride out to the fjords (a glacially carved waterway) and tooled around there for about 20 minutes and then a 2 hour boat ride back. Definitely expected more, but again it’s one more thing I got to see, right? We did see orcas which are very rare to see in Ketchikan (and really anywhere), but there was about 6 of them around the catamaran. One of them literally came up right next to the boat, so close I could have reached out to touch him if I would have expected him.
It’s our last week in Alaska though!!!!!! We are in Juneau tomorrow morning and I’m looking forward to enjoying the last week and an afternoon off. On Sunday, we’re off to Vancouver to drop off these passengers then onto Victoria for dry dock! We are all excited about dry dock because we still get paid our daily rate, we get to wear comfortable clothes, and work for approx. 2 hours every day doing “grunt” type work (cleaning up garbage, polishing, etc). I’m ok with that – can’t complain! When we get to Victoria, we won’t be able to get off the ship for the first day and a half to two days because it takes approx 14 hours for the water to drain out of the ship (I think that’s how they explained it), and the ship to be pulled completely out of the water. I’m so excited to see the actual process and all the changes that are going to take place in a matter of 2 short weeks. I’m going to attempt to get some before and after pictures. I anticipate quite a bit of fun over the next two weeks.
I am now coming home October 31st instead of November 20th. I’ve been told there is a really good prospective contract in the works so they might end this contract early to get me onto the other contract by mid-end November. We shall see – I’ll keep you posted! This means I have two weeks in dry dock, a 4 day repositioning cruise and 2 10-day cruises to Mexico and I’ll be home!
We have about 40 kids on this cruise within the Club Hal range and 11 babies on board (that we don’t watch). I am on the kids/tween group this week because we combined groups because we only have two staff. Today, I had 18 3-12 year olds in my tiny tween room and it was crazy but tons of fun in comparison to last week with one girl who only wanted to play UNO, Guess Who and Checkers. She also didn’t talk and had no desire to listen to music. It was quite boring! So this week is keeping me on my toes and for Mexico I will be the only staff on board, so I’ll be ready J
I think that’s about all for now – I won’t have a phone for the next 2 weeks (I will, but can’t afford the international charges!!!) Please e-mail and keep in touch. Hopefully there will be a place where we have access to wireless internet. I know we have a shuttle to and from downtown Victoria and I’m sure there’s internet there.
I look forward to hearing from everyone! Have a great week!!
I'm feeling Moosey...
September 13, 2007
This week has been pretty quiet. Weather is a bit nicer, surprisingly! We had beautiful weather in Haines and I’m looking out the window right now at Juneau and it looks like another nice one. But it definitely is still cold!
On Monday they told us that they decided to send us all home for dry dock – so I got excited to be able to go home for two weeks! Then on Tuesday they decided that we had the option to stay or go. I decided to stay since I had already committed to 4 months on board and they told me I could no longer extend and stay for the 23 day Panama Canal Cruise. So, I will be home for Thanksgiving now. Unfortunately, I will be flying out of San Diego to go home the Tuesday before thanksgiving (Can anyone spell HELL!?!?) It’s going to be quite hectic, but I guess everything happens for a reason.
Yesterday in Haines I went to the Wildlife Park. There were tons of animals there such as moose, white fox, silver fox, black and red wolves, wolverine, caribou/reindeer, porcupine, a thing called a stoke (I think), and a Lemmon (I think), snow owl, goss hawk, Canadian Lynx and snow fox. Not too sure what they were all called and I didn’t have paper to write them down. There were two guys that ran this “park” of sorts – both of them make videos and movies for National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. The one guy, Steve, did a show with Katie Couric a while back. It was neat to see and touch some of these animals in person. I think there are lots of misperceptions on how they look, sound, feel and Oh my goodness how they SMELL!
I’m very excited though! Tomorrow I get to go on the tour I have been DYING to get on since I got here. It’s a Wilderness Crab feed and bake. We get to go out on a boat and “pull the pots” to see the different types of crab and then a huge crab bake afterwards. If you know me- you know that I LOVE crab (well, any type of seafood) so I’m extremely excited!
I think that’s all for now. I’ve updated all my pictures too!
Hope all is well with everyone!
This week has been pretty quiet. Weather is a bit nicer, surprisingly! We had beautiful weather in Haines and I’m looking out the window right now at Juneau and it looks like another nice one. But it definitely is still cold!
On Monday they told us that they decided to send us all home for dry dock – so I got excited to be able to go home for two weeks! Then on Tuesday they decided that we had the option to stay or go. I decided to stay since I had already committed to 4 months on board and they told me I could no longer extend and stay for the 23 day Panama Canal Cruise. So, I will be home for Thanksgiving now. Unfortunately, I will be flying out of San Diego to go home the Tuesday before thanksgiving (Can anyone spell HELL!?!?) It’s going to be quite hectic, but I guess everything happens for a reason.
Yesterday in Haines I went to the Wildlife Park. There were tons of animals there such as moose, white fox, silver fox, black and red wolves, wolverine, caribou/reindeer, porcupine, a thing called a stoke (I think), and a Lemmon (I think), snow owl, goss hawk, Canadian Lynx and snow fox. Not too sure what they were all called and I didn’t have paper to write them down. There were two guys that ran this “park” of sorts – both of them make videos and movies for National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. The one guy, Steve, did a show with Katie Couric a while back. It was neat to see and touch some of these animals in person. I think there are lots of misperceptions on how they look, sound, feel and Oh my goodness how they SMELL!
I’m very excited though! Tomorrow I get to go on the tour I have been DYING to get on since I got here. It’s a Wilderness Crab feed and bake. We get to go out on a boat and “pull the pots” to see the different types of crab and then a huge crab bake afterwards. If you know me- you know that I LOVE crab (well, any type of seafood) so I’m extremely excited!
I think that’s all for now. I’ve updated all my pictures too!
Hope all is well with everyone!
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Congrats!
P.S. - Congrats to my cousin Stephanie who is FINALLY engaged :)
August 31, 2008 I'll be in Hawaii :)
August 31, 2008 I'll be in Hawaii :)
Brrr..It's Cold in here!
Today we started one of our two remaining cruises left in Alaska. This week is the last week where we will be starting in Seward and heading down to Vancouver. It’s also our last stop in Haines. Next week we will be doing a round trip Vancouver to Vancouver stopping only in Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. After that (September 22 through October 11th) we will be in Victoria for Dry dock, a quick four day repositioning cruise from Vancouver to San Diego, then on the 16th ( I believe) we start our 10 day runs to Mexico. I’m going to put the updated addresses at the bottom of this entry for all that want to send me fun snail mail, pictures, etc J
I can’t wait for sunshine (and a tan)! The weather here has been absolutely awful – the skies are so dark, it’s very foggy, cold, and rainy. We’ve also had really rough seas. The last three nights the swells have been between 8 and 12 feet.
Despite the bad weather, I still enjoyed this week.
Out of boredom, I went on the same excursion I did last year in Skagway – the White Pass Yukon Route Railway. It was nice to see the scenery again, but the weather was absolutely awful! You couldn’t see half of the things because of the clouds and dark skies! But I can’t complain!
Then several of us went hiking to and around Lower Dewey Lake. The lake was beautiful and it was really nice to get fresh air. It was hard because the rain made the ground and rocks very slippery! I was waiting for the moment that I fell flat on my ass, but it didn’t happen!
I hosted a table, which means on formal night I get to go into the formal dining room and sit at a table with about 10 guests. Because of the rough seas, only three were there with me. They were a great couple that had her father on with them. Since I sat with them, they get to drink free wine on the house (and so do I) J
That’s about it for now – pretty laid back week otherwise. I hope all is well with everyone!
Happy Birthday Robin!!
Addresses:
The Juneau address is good for another week.
I don’t have one for the two weeks I’m in Victoria.
October 11, 2007-December, 2007
Ms Ryndam - Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff, 64042
Paxton, Shreve & Hayes, Inc.
2191 Main Street
San Diego, CA 92113
I can’t wait for sunshine (and a tan)! The weather here has been absolutely awful – the skies are so dark, it’s very foggy, cold, and rainy. We’ve also had really rough seas. The last three nights the swells have been between 8 and 12 feet.
Despite the bad weather, I still enjoyed this week.
Out of boredom, I went on the same excursion I did last year in Skagway – the White Pass Yukon Route Railway. It was nice to see the scenery again, but the weather was absolutely awful! You couldn’t see half of the things because of the clouds and dark skies! But I can’t complain!
Then several of us went hiking to and around Lower Dewey Lake. The lake was beautiful and it was really nice to get fresh air. It was hard because the rain made the ground and rocks very slippery! I was waiting for the moment that I fell flat on my ass, but it didn’t happen!
I hosted a table, which means on formal night I get to go into the formal dining room and sit at a table with about 10 guests. Because of the rough seas, only three were there with me. They were a great couple that had her father on with them. Since I sat with them, they get to drink free wine on the house (and so do I) J
That’s about it for now – pretty laid back week otherwise. I hope all is well with everyone!
Happy Birthday Robin!!
Addresses:
The Juneau address is good for another week.
I don’t have one for the two weeks I’m in Victoria.
October 11, 2007-December, 2007
Ms Ryndam - Sydney Ellis, Youth Staff, 64042
Paxton, Shreve & Hayes, Inc.
2191 Main Street
San Diego, CA 92113
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
I hate the rain...
Can you believe it is September already? I know I can’t! I also can’t believe that I only have 3 cruises left in Alaska then it is onto dry dock for two weeks in Victoria then on down to Mexico. The weather is starting to get a bit nastier here – raining a lot more, very cloudy, humid and getting pretty cold (I’m sorry Mom...I know it’s hot there!). I still love Alaska, but I’m ready for a TAN!
Last week was fantastic! I got two really great excursions and truly enjoyed both of them. In Juneau, I did what they call the “Best of Juneau” Tour. We went out to the Mendenhall Glacier by bus, which I’ve done before – but the part I was most excited about was the whale watching! We piled onto a catamaran in Auke Bay and took it out into the Canal where we saw the Herbert and Eagle Glaciers, tons of Stellar Sea Lions and several Humpback Whales. As soon as we reached the Canal there were 3 humpbacks feeding about 100 feet from the boat. They stayed with us for quite a while – it’s incredible how large they are! I’m going to find a way to get the video to you all - you can hear the blows and see how close they were to us. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any breaching (where they jump out of the water), but it was so cool to have them so close to us. After we did the whale watching, we went out to an Alaskan Salmon Bake. The food was so delicious! They made the salmon fresh on a “grill” right there for us with a brown sugar glaze on it...the kind that’s so good you want to lick the plate! (I bought two packs to send home...we’ll be having it whenever I do make it home!) There was the real cornbread, baked beans, Ceasar salad with salmon on top and fresh fruit – best way to describe it was YUM! After we ate, there was a waterfall that you could walk to which was beautiful! A great day!
On Friday in Ketchikan I went Ziplining, which was by far my favorite excursion yet and I’m definitely going when we are in Victoria and Costa Rica! There was a total of 7 ziplines ranging from 300 to 750 feet across and 80 to 135 feet above the ground. On one of the ziplines we got up to around 35 MPH. There were also 3 suspension bridges that we walked across – the highest one at 135 feet! Ziplining was awesome – the scariest part for me was when they had us waiting on these platforms in trees so high up in the air, but it was worth it! I have videos of the ziplining too, when I figure out how to get those on here – I’ll let you know! The suspension bridges were a bit nerve-wracking too – swinging in the air so high above the ground, but while we were on the highest one we saw a Momma bear with 3 bear cubs fishing for salmon in the creek below us. Anyways – highly recommend this if you ever get the opportunity!! After we climbed down from the last tree, I saw a real reindeer too – much hairier than expected!
This week has actually been really quiet – only 2 kids on board but neither has come to any programming. They are a bit older (I believe 11 and 12) so I guess it’s not their thing anyways. We’ve been doing inventory and organizing everything up in Club Hal so we don’t have to do it over Dry Dock and we can enjoy being in Victoria!
I hope all is well with everyone! I need people to send me some pictures via snail mail – I forgot to bring all but two with me – so help me out J My address is posted at the beginning of this blog – but that’s the address only for another 3 weeks. I’ll post the San Diego address soon!
Joke of the Day:
What’s the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts?
Beer nuts are $1.50 and deer nuts are under a buck. Hehehehehe...I love it!
Last week was fantastic! I got two really great excursions and truly enjoyed both of them. In Juneau, I did what they call the “Best of Juneau” Tour. We went out to the Mendenhall Glacier by bus, which I’ve done before – but the part I was most excited about was the whale watching! We piled onto a catamaran in Auke Bay and took it out into the Canal where we saw the Herbert and Eagle Glaciers, tons of Stellar Sea Lions and several Humpback Whales. As soon as we reached the Canal there were 3 humpbacks feeding about 100 feet from the boat. They stayed with us for quite a while – it’s incredible how large they are! I’m going to find a way to get the video to you all - you can hear the blows and see how close they were to us. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any breaching (where they jump out of the water), but it was so cool to have them so close to us. After we did the whale watching, we went out to an Alaskan Salmon Bake. The food was so delicious! They made the salmon fresh on a “grill” right there for us with a brown sugar glaze on it...the kind that’s so good you want to lick the plate! (I bought two packs to send home...we’ll be having it whenever I do make it home!) There was the real cornbread, baked beans, Ceasar salad with salmon on top and fresh fruit – best way to describe it was YUM! After we ate, there was a waterfall that you could walk to which was beautiful! A great day!
On Friday in Ketchikan I went Ziplining, which was by far my favorite excursion yet and I’m definitely going when we are in Victoria and Costa Rica! There was a total of 7 ziplines ranging from 300 to 750 feet across and 80 to 135 feet above the ground. On one of the ziplines we got up to around 35 MPH. There were also 3 suspension bridges that we walked across – the highest one at 135 feet! Ziplining was awesome – the scariest part for me was when they had us waiting on these platforms in trees so high up in the air, but it was worth it! I have videos of the ziplining too, when I figure out how to get those on here – I’ll let you know! The suspension bridges were a bit nerve-wracking too – swinging in the air so high above the ground, but while we were on the highest one we saw a Momma bear with 3 bear cubs fishing for salmon in the creek below us. Anyways – highly recommend this if you ever get the opportunity!! After we climbed down from the last tree, I saw a real reindeer too – much hairier than expected!
This week has actually been really quiet – only 2 kids on board but neither has come to any programming. They are a bit older (I believe 11 and 12) so I guess it’s not their thing anyways. We’ve been doing inventory and organizing everything up in Club Hal so we don’t have to do it over Dry Dock and we can enjoy being in Victoria!
I hope all is well with everyone! I need people to send me some pictures via snail mail – I forgot to bring all but two with me – so help me out J My address is posted at the beginning of this blog – but that’s the address only for another 3 weeks. I’ll post the San Diego address soon!
Joke of the Day:
What’s the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts?
Beer nuts are $1.50 and deer nuts are under a buck. Hehehehehe...I love it!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
:)
August 26, 2007
I must admit, I can not believe I’m getting ready to start my 6th week on board! It has flown by and I’ve never had so much fun! This past week has been great – very busy, but fun.
My roommate/coworker, Kaitlin, got off the ship and we had 2 new staff get on. The new roommate is ok – nothing to “write home” about. Nikki and I have been getting along great and having TONS of fun together – but she leaves next week and I’m quite depressed about it! She’s awesome though and said she would be interested in a trip to Africa too! So we might start organizing something (so anyone interested, start saving!).
We had 45 crew disembark last week, which meant that 45-50 new crew got on. Of course, I want to get to know everyone so I have been staying up late and going out every night to meet new people and there are some awesome ones on board! You’ll see lots of pictures of me, Nikki, Egon (the super tall guy...like 7 feet!), and some cadets and other officers that joined us. We’ve been hanging out every night in the OB – them drinking and me with my water. (Ok...I had wine last night...but other than that, water!)
It was Indonesia Independence Day and we have been having tons of activities for it – crew tug-of-war, karaoke contests and a huge crew party on the mooring deck with Indonesian food, a live band, drinks and lots of fun! There are pictures from that on my website too.
This week, I got one excursion via the ship and that was to the Underground Gold mine where we visited the A.J. Mine – Gastinau Gold Mines in Juneau, Alaska. It was interesting and I learned a lot about the gold process and how it all worked. The coolest fact I learned was that the Railroad attendant started the first boy scout group here in Juneau! We got to pan for gold a bit and I got a small vial with the four flecks I found.
In Ketchikan I went out with Nikki to the Totem Heritage Center where there are totem poles dating back over 300 years. Very neat place to see these totems – but unfortunately too dark where I couldn’t take any pictures to show you all. There’s one or two – so you’ll get the general idea!
In Skagway I went and watched the show I wanted to see last year – The Days of ’98 show with Soapy Smith. Very cute show telling the story of the gold rush villains.
That’s pretty much it for now – still just taking everything day by day and enjoying my time with everyone!
I must admit, I can not believe I’m getting ready to start my 6th week on board! It has flown by and I’ve never had so much fun! This past week has been great – very busy, but fun.
My roommate/coworker, Kaitlin, got off the ship and we had 2 new staff get on. The new roommate is ok – nothing to “write home” about. Nikki and I have been getting along great and having TONS of fun together – but she leaves next week and I’m quite depressed about it! She’s awesome though and said she would be interested in a trip to Africa too! So we might start organizing something (so anyone interested, start saving!).
We had 45 crew disembark last week, which meant that 45-50 new crew got on. Of course, I want to get to know everyone so I have been staying up late and going out every night to meet new people and there are some awesome ones on board! You’ll see lots of pictures of me, Nikki, Egon (the super tall guy...like 7 feet!), and some cadets and other officers that joined us. We’ve been hanging out every night in the OB – them drinking and me with my water. (Ok...I had wine last night...but other than that, water!)
It was Indonesia Independence Day and we have been having tons of activities for it – crew tug-of-war, karaoke contests and a huge crew party on the mooring deck with Indonesian food, a live band, drinks and lots of fun! There are pictures from that on my website too.
This week, I got one excursion via the ship and that was to the Underground Gold mine where we visited the A.J. Mine – Gastinau Gold Mines in Juneau, Alaska. It was interesting and I learned a lot about the gold process and how it all worked. The coolest fact I learned was that the Railroad attendant started the first boy scout group here in Juneau! We got to pan for gold a bit and I got a small vial with the four flecks I found.
In Ketchikan I went out with Nikki to the Totem Heritage Center where there are totem poles dating back over 300 years. Very neat place to see these totems – but unfortunately too dark where I couldn’t take any pictures to show you all. There’s one or two – so you’ll get the general idea!
In Skagway I went and watched the show I wanted to see last year – The Days of ’98 show with Soapy Smith. Very cute show telling the story of the gold rush villains.
That’s pretty much it for now – still just taking everything day by day and enjoying my time with everyone!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Pennies from Heaven...
August 18, 2007
Happy Birthday Grandma! I miss you so much – nothing’s been the same since you left!
I love you!
Happy Birthday Grandma! I miss you so much – nothing’s been the same since you left!
I love you!
YoHo!
August 17, 2007
All I can say right now is how lucky we’ve been! We have had the most incredible weather for the last two weeks! Nice, cool and breezy and not a drop of rain – which in Southeast Alaska is HIGHLY unusual! Even in Ketchikan today (which is known for at least 15 feet of rain a year) it didn’t rain a single drop! Kaitlin’s last day in a port in Alaska is today, so we went to the Lumberjack show which had two women and two men – it was fun to watch and I laughed the entire time. I have pictures to post of that and I’m going to attempt two videos that I took!
After that, we headed over to Dolly’s House (an old brothel house) on Creek Street (a former Red Light District) and took a tour of the house. She bought the house in 1919 for $800 and had it paid off in two weeks. The funny part is that Dolly charged $3.00 per trick…you do the math. They said she wouldn’t leave work for the day until she’s made at least $75.00-$100.00. You’ll have to look at the pictures, but it was great – a very old vibrator and some French condoms that Dolly knew wouldn’t work, so she made them into flowers. Dolly wasn’t even a pretty women and about 250 pounds! Cool story though!
We then went from Dolly’s house over to the Cape Fox hotel and took the tram to the top and had a great dinner (well…as great as a large salad can get J) and headed home! It’s nice to get fresh air, I must admit.
I must get going, tonight is Pirate night in Club Hal and I have to set up the supplies for a scavenger hunt. After Club Hal, we are heading over to the Crow’s Nest for Country night!!
Hope all is well with everyone and I hope to hear from you all soon!
All I can say right now is how lucky we’ve been! We have had the most incredible weather for the last two weeks! Nice, cool and breezy and not a drop of rain – which in Southeast Alaska is HIGHLY unusual! Even in Ketchikan today (which is known for at least 15 feet of rain a year) it didn’t rain a single drop! Kaitlin’s last day in a port in Alaska is today, so we went to the Lumberjack show which had two women and two men – it was fun to watch and I laughed the entire time. I have pictures to post of that and I’m going to attempt two videos that I took!
After that, we headed over to Dolly’s House (an old brothel house) on Creek Street (a former Red Light District) and took a tour of the house. She bought the house in 1919 for $800 and had it paid off in two weeks. The funny part is that Dolly charged $3.00 per trick…you do the math. They said she wouldn’t leave work for the day until she’s made at least $75.00-$100.00. You’ll have to look at the pictures, but it was great – a very old vibrator and some French condoms that Dolly knew wouldn’t work, so she made them into flowers. Dolly wasn’t even a pretty women and about 250 pounds! Cool story though!
We then went from Dolly’s house over to the Cape Fox hotel and took the tram to the top and had a great dinner (well…as great as a large salad can get J) and headed home! It’s nice to get fresh air, I must admit.
I must get going, tonight is Pirate night in Club Hal and I have to set up the supplies for a scavenger hunt. After Club Hal, we are heading over to the Crow’s Nest for Country night!!
Hope all is well with everyone and I hope to hear from you all soon!
Forget Regret, or life is yours to miss...
August 16, 2007
Today I am in Juneau! Things are going great – I actually just returned from an excursion called “Grand Tour of Juneau” which I did not request, but I went on anyways! The excursion included a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier, the Macaulay Salmon Hatchery and Glacier Gardens. I have added the pictures to the website! The Mendenhall Glacier was nice – the trail I wanted to walk down has been shut down due to bear activity over the last week. I wanted to see a bear anyways, but they wouldn’t let me go J The Salmon Hatchery was neat – saw how they raised the wild salmon and the process that they went through. There was also a touch tank inside where we could touch and hold starfish etc. I think of the three things we did today, the Gardens were the neatest – these things that the owner “created” were upside down trees. Because of an accident he had while excavating the property, he made these trees that are literally upside down all around and he planted beautiful flowers in all of them – the pictures don’t even do them justice! It was neat because they drove us in Limo’s (golf carts) up to the top of the property which was 600 feet above sea level so we could take pictures, then we came all the way back down again and into the Greenhouse where they had amazing flower displays. Ok, I’ll stop yapping now...the pictures are online!
Yesterday Kaitlin and I went to The Hammer Museum in Haines, Alaska. It’s about $3.00 to get in and it’s a tiny “4 room” house. I have posted all the pictures from it. This guy actually was collecting hammers for over 30 years, then went to the lower 48 and collected more and created the only Museum specifically for hammers – everything from drink hammers (which are my favorite) to the Alaskan Husband Trainer/Tamer etc. You’ll have to look at all the pictures – I thought it was so cool! All of the “statues” in the pictures were actually donated from the Smithsonian – they were getting ready to throw them away, but the guy said no and had the statues taken apart and put back together.
The last week has been quite spectacular actually! On Sunday (the 12th) Kaitlin, Janis, Lammy and I went to the Pinnacle Restaurant, which is our nicer restaurant on board that serves Filet Mignon, spectacular appetizers (I had the Dungeness crab cakes) and desserts like Crème Brule and Chocolate Volcano cakes. We all enjoyed ourselves, but had to roll ourselves back to work because we were so full. That was a cheat night for the diet. Not necessarily that I’m trying to lose more (although, that would be nice), but I do not want to go back to where I started – so I need to maintain. All in all, spectacular evening. Also went to a show that night – had a fantastic comedian on board – made us laugh SO hard!
Funny Sidenote – Three minutes before Kaitlin came downstairs so we could go to dinner, I was trying to get the wrinkles out of my skirt by stretching it out and I split it completely up the front and through the crotch. We did some speed/ghetto sewing and safety pinning, I just had to walk real slow the rest of the night J Of course, the tailors aren’t open when I needed them!
The other night Kaitlin and I went up to the bridge to visit and James let me drive the ship..ok, so it was the backup/emergency steering wheel – but still! I have a picture and I look important, so that’s all that matters, right? It was quite interesting though, he showed us how all the GPS systems work and how they navigate the waterways. The Spirit of the Yorktown (the ship I used to work on) was on the radar when I got up there, thought that was ironic.
Last night the bridge paged us to let us know that the Northern Lights were out! We all ran out of the OB to take pictures. The NL were quite mellow, but a beautiful green. My camera didn’t do so well capturing the color, but James got some great ones – so I’ll post those as soon as I can retrieve them from his computer.
Went to the formal night/black and white dance in the Crow’s Nest the other evening and had a great night – we danced like crazy, drank wine and laughed the entire night!
They also asked me to teach an English class on board for an hourly pay each week to our Indonesian and Filipino crew members. It would basically be teaching them phrases and other bits of information that are necessary to get by on the ship. I’m waiting to hear more on it, but will let you know. I think it would be a cool opportunity.
Obviously, I am enjoying myself and having a blast. As of today, I’ve been on the ship 4 weeks and it has flown by!
I’m off for now, but I hope all is well with everyone! Please shoot me emails and send postcards, letters, and pictures – I’d love to hear from all of you!
Oh – I almost forgot…one of the designers from Trading Spaces was on board last week, her name was Christi and she was from Texas! Her kids were in Club Hal..fun tid bit :)
Today I am in Juneau! Things are going great – I actually just returned from an excursion called “Grand Tour of Juneau” which I did not request, but I went on anyways! The excursion included a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier, the Macaulay Salmon Hatchery and Glacier Gardens. I have added the pictures to the website! The Mendenhall Glacier was nice – the trail I wanted to walk down has been shut down due to bear activity over the last week. I wanted to see a bear anyways, but they wouldn’t let me go J The Salmon Hatchery was neat – saw how they raised the wild salmon and the process that they went through. There was also a touch tank inside where we could touch and hold starfish etc. I think of the three things we did today, the Gardens were the neatest – these things that the owner “created” were upside down trees. Because of an accident he had while excavating the property, he made these trees that are literally upside down all around and he planted beautiful flowers in all of them – the pictures don’t even do them justice! It was neat because they drove us in Limo’s (golf carts) up to the top of the property which was 600 feet above sea level so we could take pictures, then we came all the way back down again and into the Greenhouse where they had amazing flower displays. Ok, I’ll stop yapping now...the pictures are online!
Yesterday Kaitlin and I went to The Hammer Museum in Haines, Alaska. It’s about $3.00 to get in and it’s a tiny “4 room” house. I have posted all the pictures from it. This guy actually was collecting hammers for over 30 years, then went to the lower 48 and collected more and created the only Museum specifically for hammers – everything from drink hammers (which are my favorite) to the Alaskan Husband Trainer/Tamer etc. You’ll have to look at all the pictures – I thought it was so cool! All of the “statues” in the pictures were actually donated from the Smithsonian – they were getting ready to throw them away, but the guy said no and had the statues taken apart and put back together.
The last week has been quite spectacular actually! On Sunday (the 12th) Kaitlin, Janis, Lammy and I went to the Pinnacle Restaurant, which is our nicer restaurant on board that serves Filet Mignon, spectacular appetizers (I had the Dungeness crab cakes) and desserts like Crème Brule and Chocolate Volcano cakes. We all enjoyed ourselves, but had to roll ourselves back to work because we were so full. That was a cheat night for the diet. Not necessarily that I’m trying to lose more (although, that would be nice), but I do not want to go back to where I started – so I need to maintain. All in all, spectacular evening. Also went to a show that night – had a fantastic comedian on board – made us laugh SO hard!
Funny Sidenote – Three minutes before Kaitlin came downstairs so we could go to dinner, I was trying to get the wrinkles out of my skirt by stretching it out and I split it completely up the front and through the crotch. We did some speed/ghetto sewing and safety pinning, I just had to walk real slow the rest of the night J Of course, the tailors aren’t open when I needed them!
The other night Kaitlin and I went up to the bridge to visit and James let me drive the ship..ok, so it was the backup/emergency steering wheel – but still! I have a picture and I look important, so that’s all that matters, right? It was quite interesting though, he showed us how all the GPS systems work and how they navigate the waterways. The Spirit of the Yorktown (the ship I used to work on) was on the radar when I got up there, thought that was ironic.
Last night the bridge paged us to let us know that the Northern Lights were out! We all ran out of the OB to take pictures. The NL were quite mellow, but a beautiful green. My camera didn’t do so well capturing the color, but James got some great ones – so I’ll post those as soon as I can retrieve them from his computer.
Went to the formal night/black and white dance in the Crow’s Nest the other evening and had a great night – we danced like crazy, drank wine and laughed the entire night!
They also asked me to teach an English class on board for an hourly pay each week to our Indonesian and Filipino crew members. It would basically be teaching them phrases and other bits of information that are necessary to get by on the ship. I’m waiting to hear more on it, but will let you know. I think it would be a cool opportunity.
Obviously, I am enjoying myself and having a blast. As of today, I’ve been on the ship 4 weeks and it has flown by!
I’m off for now, but I hope all is well with everyone! Please shoot me emails and send postcards, letters, and pictures – I’d love to hear from all of you!
Oh – I almost forgot…one of the designers from Trading Spaces was on board last week, her name was Christi and she was from Texas! Her kids were in Club Hal..fun tid bit :)
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Forget Regret, or life is yours to miss...
Today I am in Juneau! Things are going great – I actually just returned from an excursion called “Grand Tour of Juneau” which I did not request, but I went on anyways! The excursion included a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier, the Macaulay Salmon Hatchery and Glacier Gardens. I have added the pictures to the website! The Mendenhall Glacier was nice – the trail I wanted to walk down has been shut down due to bear activity over the last week. I wanted to see a bear anyways, but they wouldn’t let me go J The Salmon Hatchery was neat – saw how they raised the wild salmon and the process that they went through. There was also a touch tank inside where we could touch and hold starfish etc. I think of the three things we did today, the Gardens were the neatest – these things that the owner “created” were upside down trees. Because of an accident he had while excavating the property, he made these trees that are literally upside down all around and he planted beautiful flowers in all of them – the pictures don’t even do them justice! It was neat because they drove us in Limo’s (golf carts) up to the top of the property which was 600 feet above sea level so we could take pictures, then we came all the way back down again and into the Greenhouse where they had amazing flower displays. Ok, I’ll stop yapping now...the pictures are online!
Yesterday Kaitlin and I went to The Hammer Museum in Haines, Alaska. It’s about $3.00 to get in and it’s a tiny “4 room” house. I have posted all the pictures from it. This guy actually was collecting hammers for over 30 years, then went to the lower 48 and collected more and created the only Museum specifically for hammers – everything from drink hammers (which are my favorite) to the Alaskan Husband Trainer/Tamer etc. You’ll have to look at all the pictures – I thought it was so cool! All of the “statues” in the pictures were actually donated from the Smithsonian – they were getting ready to throw them away, but the guy said no and had the statues taken apart and put back together.
The last week has been quite spectacular actually! On Sunday (the 12th) Kaitlin, Janis, Lammy and I went to the Pinnacle Restaurant, which is our nicer restaurant on board that serves Filet Mignon, spectacular appetizers (I had the Dungeness crab cakes) and desserts like Crème Brule and Chocolate Volcano cakes. We all enjoyed ourselves, but had to roll ourselves back to work because we were so full. That was a cheat night for the diet. Not necessarily that I’m trying to lose more (although, that would be nice), but I do not want to go back to where I started – so I need to maintain. All in all, spectacular evening. Also went to a show that night – had a fantastic comedian on board – made us laugh SO hard!
Funny Sidenote – Three minutes before Kaitlin came downstairs so we could go to dinner, I was trying to get the wrinkles out of my skirt by stretching it out and I split it completely up the front and through the crotch. We did some speed/ghetto sewing and safety pinning, I just had to walk real slow the rest of the night. Of course, the tailors aren’t open when I needed them!
The other night Kaitlin and I went up to the bridge to visit and James let me drive the ship..ok, so it was the backup/emergency steering wheel – but still! I have a picture and I look important, so that’s all that matters, right? It was quite interesting though, he showed us how all the GPS systems work and how they navigate the waterways. The Spirit of the Yorktown (the ship I used to work on) was on the radar when I got up there, thought that was ironic.
Last night the bridge paged us to let us know that the Northern Lights were out! We all ran out of the OB to take pictures. The NL were quite mellow, but a beautiful green. My camera didn’t do so well capturing the color, but James got some great ones – so I’ll post those as soon as I can retrieve them from his computer.
Went to the formal night/black and white dance in the Crow’s Nest the other evening and had a great night – we danced like crazy, drank wine and laughed the entire night!
They also asked me to teach an English class on board for an hourly pay each week to our Indonesian and Filipino crew members. It would basically be teaching them phrases and other bits of information that are necessary to get by on the ship. I’m waiting to hear more on it, but will let you know. I think it would be a cool opportunity.
Obviously, I am enjoying myself and having a blast. As of today, I’ve been on the ship 4 weeks and it has flown by!
I’m off for now, but I hope all is well with everyone! Please shoot me emails and send postcards, letters, and pictures – I’d love to hear from all of you!
Oh – I almost forgot…one of the designers from Trading Spaces was on board last week, her name was Christi and she was from Texas! Her kids were in Club Hal..fun tid bit :)
Yesterday Kaitlin and I went to The Hammer Museum in Haines, Alaska. It’s about $3.00 to get in and it’s a tiny “4 room” house. I have posted all the pictures from it. This guy actually was collecting hammers for over 30 years, then went to the lower 48 and collected more and created the only Museum specifically for hammers – everything from drink hammers (which are my favorite) to the Alaskan Husband Trainer/Tamer etc. You’ll have to look at all the pictures – I thought it was so cool! All of the “statues” in the pictures were actually donated from the Smithsonian – they were getting ready to throw them away, but the guy said no and had the statues taken apart and put back together.
The last week has been quite spectacular actually! On Sunday (the 12th) Kaitlin, Janis, Lammy and I went to the Pinnacle Restaurant, which is our nicer restaurant on board that serves Filet Mignon, spectacular appetizers (I had the Dungeness crab cakes) and desserts like Crème Brule and Chocolate Volcano cakes. We all enjoyed ourselves, but had to roll ourselves back to work because we were so full. That was a cheat night for the diet. Not necessarily that I’m trying to lose more (although, that would be nice), but I do not want to go back to where I started – so I need to maintain. All in all, spectacular evening. Also went to a show that night – had a fantastic comedian on board – made us laugh SO hard!
Funny Sidenote – Three minutes before Kaitlin came downstairs so we could go to dinner, I was trying to get the wrinkles out of my skirt by stretching it out and I split it completely up the front and through the crotch. We did some speed/ghetto sewing and safety pinning, I just had to walk real slow the rest of the night. Of course, the tailors aren’t open when I needed them!
The other night Kaitlin and I went up to the bridge to visit and James let me drive the ship..ok, so it was the backup/emergency steering wheel – but still! I have a picture and I look important, so that’s all that matters, right? It was quite interesting though, he showed us how all the GPS systems work and how they navigate the waterways. The Spirit of the Yorktown (the ship I used to work on) was on the radar when I got up there, thought that was ironic.
Last night the bridge paged us to let us know that the Northern Lights were out! We all ran out of the OB to take pictures. The NL were quite mellow, but a beautiful green. My camera didn’t do so well capturing the color, but James got some great ones – so I’ll post those as soon as I can retrieve them from his computer.
Went to the formal night/black and white dance in the Crow’s Nest the other evening and had a great night – we danced like crazy, drank wine and laughed the entire night!
They also asked me to teach an English class on board for an hourly pay each week to our Indonesian and Filipino crew members. It would basically be teaching them phrases and other bits of information that are necessary to get by on the ship. I’m waiting to hear more on it, but will let you know. I think it would be a cool opportunity.
Obviously, I am enjoying myself and having a blast. As of today, I’ve been on the ship 4 weeks and it has flown by!
I’m off for now, but I hope all is well with everyone! Please shoot me emails and send postcards, letters, and pictures – I’d love to hear from all of you!
Oh – I almost forgot…one of the designers from Trading Spaces was on board last week, her name was Christi and she was from Texas! Her kids were in Club Hal..fun tid bit :)
Sunday, August 12, 2007
I finally feel somewhat caught up! I've posted all my pictures - have them all labeled and finally got an email out!
Lori, one of the three youth staff left last week for her vacation and we never had the new person show up. So, they transferred the most useless girl EVER over to us - so we stuck her on teens since teens is the easiest to work with and takes the least amount of effort. Uh well - it's only until Wednesday. We get a new girl today that we will only have on board for 2 weeks, then two new girls come on Wednesday - all but me and one other will leave in the next 3 weeks because our kid counts go down quite low, so there is less need for youth staff.
I really am enjoying myself - I'm going to the Pinnacle Grill with Kaitlin (Youth Staff), Lammy (EC Manager/Librarian), and Janis (naturalist) tonight to celebrate Kaitlin's last week. The Pinnacle is our fantastic restauraunt on board - so that should be nice. This week I hope to go either Dog sledding or on a Whale Watching Excursion/Salmon Bake in Juneau because I have pretty much the entire day off there!
I guess that's all for now - nothing to exciting happening today! Hope all is well with everyone!
Lori, one of the three youth staff left last week for her vacation and we never had the new person show up. So, they transferred the most useless girl EVER over to us - so we stuck her on teens since teens is the easiest to work with and takes the least amount of effort. Uh well - it's only until Wednesday. We get a new girl today that we will only have on board for 2 weeks, then two new girls come on Wednesday - all but me and one other will leave in the next 3 weeks because our kid counts go down quite low, so there is less need for youth staff.
I really am enjoying myself - I'm going to the Pinnacle Grill with Kaitlin (Youth Staff), Lammy (EC Manager/Librarian), and Janis (naturalist) tonight to celebrate Kaitlin's last week. The Pinnacle is our fantastic restauraunt on board - so that should be nice. This week I hope to go either Dog sledding or on a Whale Watching Excursion/Salmon Bake in Juneau because I have pretty much the entire day off there!
I guess that's all for now - nothing to exciting happening today! Hope all is well with everyone!
Actual Date for posting - August 5, 2007
So, we just ended another cruise and it was definitely one to “write home” about. I was on teens this week, Kaitlin on tweens and Lori on kids.
We don’t allow kids in diapers into the kids program and they must be potty trained. But of course, there is the one child that poops in her pants TWICE and it never even phases the kid! The way we notice that she’s had an accident was because every room reeked.
Anyways, there is a family of 9 kids on board and they are all a bit rebellious and snotty. One night we were playing Crainium and there is playdough in the game. He decides that it would be hilarious to make a penis out of it. So of course, everyone starts laughing and i’m trying not to laugh because of course it would be inappropriate, but it was definitely funny.
A few nights later, another one of the 9 kids decides to bring his pocket knife into the Playstation room (which is unsupervised) and pull it out to threaten kids with it saying that he could beat anyone at any game with his knife!
The other fun event of the week was the two boys that decided to fight over a playstation game – they were trying to get each other to crash in the game and it ended up in the hallway hitting each other. One boy hit the other with his hat covered in the souviner-type pins and hit the other boy in the eye.
Then, this morning I get called to the infirmary for a random drug test (mind you, I had one 3 weeks ago) and had to do an oral swap, urine test and then a room inspection. They tried to confiscate my Chi (hair straightner) and Kaitlin’s blowdryer until they could find out if they were acceptable items. I told them if the Chi goes, I go! Non negotiable! But, I did get it back so it was all good and all is now well in the world of Sydney!
Needless to say, it has been a very hectic week – but of course lots of fun :) I have posted pictures and will try and post those regularly as well and keep them labeled so we can all figure out what they are.
We don’t allow kids in diapers into the kids program and they must be potty trained. But of course, there is the one child that poops in her pants TWICE and it never even phases the kid! The way we notice that she’s had an accident was because every room reeked.
Anyways, there is a family of 9 kids on board and they are all a bit rebellious and snotty. One night we were playing Crainium and there is playdough in the game. He decides that it would be hilarious to make a penis out of it. So of course, everyone starts laughing and i’m trying not to laugh because of course it would be inappropriate, but it was definitely funny.
A few nights later, another one of the 9 kids decides to bring his pocket knife into the Playstation room (which is unsupervised) and pull it out to threaten kids with it saying that he could beat anyone at any game with his knife!
The other fun event of the week was the two boys that decided to fight over a playstation game – they were trying to get each other to crash in the game and it ended up in the hallway hitting each other. One boy hit the other with his hat covered in the souviner-type pins and hit the other boy in the eye.
Then, this morning I get called to the infirmary for a random drug test (mind you, I had one 3 weeks ago) and had to do an oral swap, urine test and then a room inspection. They tried to confiscate my Chi (hair straightner) and Kaitlin’s blowdryer until they could find out if they were acceptable items. I told them if the Chi goes, I go! Non negotiable! But, I did get it back so it was all good and all is now well in the world of Sydney!
Needless to say, it has been a very hectic week – but of course lots of fun :) I have posted pictures and will try and post those regularly as well and keep them labeled so we can all figure out what they are.
Monday, July 30, 2007
:)
So, I’m a bit over the one week mark for being in Alaska and I’m beginning to get more and more comfortable with myself, my job and the ship. I’ve been in charge of the kids (3-7) this week and I’ve only had two consistently show up from program to program. They’re pretty cool though, so it hasn’t been bad – just makes it difficult when it comes to playing games etc.
We had the Coast Guard come on board two days ago to do our annual drill etc and we had it really easy – we ended up having to do nothing in all actuality. I was a bit nervous that they’d ask me one of the questions I didn’t know – but all was well!
We did the man overboard drill the day before that and it was fantastic! Our three cadets on board put on the outfit to prevent hypothermia and went down on the life boats and were thrown overboard. It ended up being more fun for us watching, because the guys were hilarious just flailing around in the freezing cold water!
I’m quite excited though, I found out we have a dry dock in Victoria for two weeks in September. They’re probably going to expect us to do some basic cleaning of Club Hal and other things of that nature, but nothing too exhausting. Lori and I have been making plans of things to do such as High Tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria where you get to dress up. I also heard about a wine and chocolate excursion there, so I’m going to look into that. The entire crew is thrilled with it because we get to sail with no passengers on board and enjoy the ride!
If anyone is interested, My mailing address is:
MS Ryndam – Sydney Ellis, 64042, Youth Staff
Cruise Line Agencies – Juneau
1330 Eastaugh Way #4
Juneau, AK 99802
Yesterday was Glacier Bay and it is beautiful, as it was last year. We actually get up even closer than we did on CruiseWest and there was a large calving while we were there.
Today was College Fjords – weather is absolutely incredible today, I didn’t want to bring the kids inside. It was cool and sunny with crystal clear blue waters! Couldn’t ask for anything more, personally!
I think that’s it for now, but I will be updating consistently – make sure to add to your favorites if you’re interested!
God Bless!
We had the Coast Guard come on board two days ago to do our annual drill etc and we had it really easy – we ended up having to do nothing in all actuality. I was a bit nervous that they’d ask me one of the questions I didn’t know – but all was well!
We did the man overboard drill the day before that and it was fantastic! Our three cadets on board put on the outfit to prevent hypothermia and went down on the life boats and were thrown overboard. It ended up being more fun for us watching, because the guys were hilarious just flailing around in the freezing cold water!
I’m quite excited though, I found out we have a dry dock in Victoria for two weeks in September. They’re probably going to expect us to do some basic cleaning of Club Hal and other things of that nature, but nothing too exhausting. Lori and I have been making plans of things to do such as High Tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria where you get to dress up. I also heard about a wine and chocolate excursion there, so I’m going to look into that. The entire crew is thrilled with it because we get to sail with no passengers on board and enjoy the ride!
If anyone is interested, My mailing address is:
MS Ryndam – Sydney Ellis, 64042, Youth Staff
Cruise Line Agencies – Juneau
1330 Eastaugh Way #4
Juneau, AK 99802
Yesterday was Glacier Bay and it is beautiful, as it was last year. We actually get up even closer than we did on CruiseWest and there was a large calving while we were there.
Today was College Fjords – weather is absolutely incredible today, I didn’t want to bring the kids inside. It was cool and sunny with crystal clear blue waters! Couldn’t ask for anything more, personally!
I think that’s it for now, but I will be updating consistently – make sure to add to your favorites if you’re interested!
God Bless!
Monday, July 23, 2007
"The Things we are most scared of in life, are usually the things worth doing."
So, I'm finally on the boat and able to sit down and write a thing or two. So far, I'm loving it - tons of new faces, people to meet. The environment is so much better - even two bars, just for crew, to sit and enjoy a drink together. I have so much more free time and I'm able to get off the ship and actually enjoy Alaska! This ship goes to Seward, Ketchikan, Haines/Skagway, Glacier Bay, Vancouver, Juneau and the College Fjords! The weather is absolutely beautiful right now - perfectly cool - just miss the 101 degree temps with 95% humidity (but, not really)!
My roommate is amazing, she also works in Club HAL, which is our youth program. Her name is Kaitlin and she's super sweet and she's been a lifesaver when it comes to showing me around the boat and introducing me to anyone and everyone! Lori is also great and she also works in Club HAL - they're both leaving in a few weeks, so I'll go from "fresh meat" to "pro" in a matter of weeks! Aside from working in Club HAL, we get to work in the Explorations Cafe which is our on board library of books, DVD's, etc. It's nice - that's pretty much all I have to do on our turnaround days, and work just a few hours! Another great way to meet people!
Speaking of "Fresh Meat" - it's hilarious. The guys find out there's a new female on board and they start showing up in places (up with the kids, in the library etc) where they typically NEVER go. It is SO funny! But they all have the coolest accents - they're either from Britain or Holland (most from Holland it seems!)
I'm on the kids this week which is ages 3-7 and its quite a small group. There's only 9 on board, but 2 that show up which makes things difficult when it comes to games and programming, but we're making it work!
Well, I guess I've said enough. I hope and pray that things continue to go well and I enjoy working here. Everyone seems to be happy, regardless of how long they've been on - but I'll take it day by day and love every minute of it in the meantime. Hope all is well with everyone and I'd love to hear from you all via email or mail. I'll post all the addresses later for each individual port.
My roommate is amazing, she also works in Club HAL, which is our youth program. Her name is Kaitlin and she's super sweet and she's been a lifesaver when it comes to showing me around the boat and introducing me to anyone and everyone! Lori is also great and she also works in Club HAL - they're both leaving in a few weeks, so I'll go from "fresh meat" to "pro" in a matter of weeks! Aside from working in Club HAL, we get to work in the Explorations Cafe which is our on board library of books, DVD's, etc. It's nice - that's pretty much all I have to do on our turnaround days, and work just a few hours! Another great way to meet people!
Speaking of "Fresh Meat" - it's hilarious. The guys find out there's a new female on board and they start showing up in places (up with the kids, in the library etc) where they typically NEVER go. It is SO funny! But they all have the coolest accents - they're either from Britain or Holland (most from Holland it seems!)
I'm on the kids this week which is ages 3-7 and its quite a small group. There's only 9 on board, but 2 that show up which makes things difficult when it comes to games and programming, but we're making it work!
Well, I guess I've said enough. I hope and pray that things continue to go well and I enjoy working here. Everyone seems to be happy, regardless of how long they've been on - but I'll take it day by day and love every minute of it in the meantime. Hope all is well with everyone and I'd love to hear from you all via email or mail. I'll post all the addresses later for each individual port.
Friday, June 29, 2007
This is a test!
Hey Everyone!
I just wanted to set up a site where everyone can go (if interested) to see what I'm up to and where I am. For those of you that don't know, I just got a new job with Holland America Cruise Line and will probably be sent to Alaska for the rest of this season and then possibly to the Carribbean or maybe even ASIA! How awesome would that be??
I'll try and post regularly and maybe post some pictures too!
Hope all is well in everyone's life!
I just wanted to set up a site where everyone can go (if interested) to see what I'm up to and where I am. For those of you that don't know, I just got a new job with Holland America Cruise Line and will probably be sent to Alaska for the rest of this season and then possibly to the Carribbean or maybe even ASIA! How awesome would that be??
I'll try and post regularly and maybe post some pictures too!
Hope all is well in everyone's life!
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