What do Jewish singers, Mamma Mia, and The Indigo Gilrs have in common?

So it's been about a month now on my new ship. Things are a lot different here on the Pearl than they were on the Epic. Some things better, some things not as nice, but all new things to get used to, and I pretty much have by now.

I work mostly in the main theatre, but occasionally will have other duties around the ship. A fun thing about this ship is that there is a different show every night, so I don't get sick of the same show every night. There are two shows with the production cast made up of singers and dancers and they perform two different variety shows, one a medley of Broadway hits like Wicked, Mamma Mia, In The Heights..., and the other a tribute to show business throughout time consisting of Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna... etc. The other shows we have are Oh What A Night which is a concert tribute of Frankie Valley songs, Shark Bait which is a juggling variety show, and an improv show by the Second City.

Speaking of shows, a couple weeks ago we had a large group of about 400 people on board that performed a lot of concerts throughout the week that we assisted with. The unique thing about this group though was that they were all Orthodox Jewish and there concerts were as such. I think we worked somewhere near 15 concerts throughout the week and they were all traditional Hebrew and Yiddish chanting, with the exception being the final concert, and this one I actually paid attention to. Just imagine this, a Jewish guy, orthodox, meaning he has the long side curls by his ears, the prayer rope belt, I mean the whole works. Ok, so now that you have a good image of this guy just imagine this, the time is 11am on a Saturday, the song is I got a feeling by Black Eyed Peas, and language is Hebrew. I was just doing my usual for the week during these concerts, playing angry birds, then I hear the bump bump bump for the beginning of I got a feeling, and my interest starts to perk up a little bit. I look up from my phone and I see this guy is bouncing and jumping around the stage, he thinks he is a rock god or something, oh my god it was so amazing, sooo bad, but so so good. I don't remember any more specifics about his set list other than one, My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion, ALSO in Hebrew. This one concert made the whole week of sitting through all the others worth it.

We have another special cruise coming up next week, a charter, meaning that the group bought out the entire ship for the week and they are in charge of everything. This charter is called Cayamo, and it is a group of semi famous singer song writers that will be on board and performing all week long everywhere around the ship. Some of the artists include Brandi Carlile, The Indigo Girls, Steve Earl, Dar Williams, and a ton more, check it out at Cayamo.com to see the full line up. I am going to be working right in the middle of this in the main theatre so I am pretty excited. I will let you know how it goes after next week.

Back to the Boat!

Ok, I head back to the ship in less than a week for another six months. I know I was lame and stopped writing very early last time, so I will try to do better this time around.

This time I am headed to the Norwegian Pearl. I am joining in Miami and will be in the Caribbean going to Mexico, Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Belize, Honduras, Dominican Republic, and NCL's private island. In April we begin our repositioning to Alaska with a home port in Seattle. On the way to Alaska we are going through the Panama Canal and making stops in Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Baja Mexico.

See you on the high seas! Well hopefully not too high, I don't want to get sea sick.

Finally in Operation!!

Well, we are officially an operating cruise ship. We are on our second cruise with paying guests to the Eastern Caribbean. Our ports of call this week include St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Nassau.
New York was amazing for the 4th of July. I don't know if anyone watched NBC on the 4th but they filmed and hosted the fireworks spectacular from our ship. It was a lot of work getting NBC loaded on and all set up, but it was worth all the hard work when the fireworks started going off. I literally had the best seat in Manhattan to watch. Just to give you an idea of how good of a seat I had, the guys that were controlling the launching of the fireworks were sitting at a table behind me.
After all the celebrations in New York, the crew had our own little celebration on board. There is a law called the Jones Act that prevents international ships from carrying passengers from American port to American port, so on our journey from New York to Miami we were passenger free. These three days were like a much needed vacation for most of the crew. For me, we didn't have any shows so I didn't have to work at all. We were free to go anywhere on the ship and were free to explore the pool deck, spa, and most importantly... the water slides!! That's right, I had three non stop days of fun in the sun on the worlds only water park at sea... and I got paid for it. The second day of the trip, the ship threw a huge party for all of the crew on the pool deck outside and we all had an amazing time taking advantage of an occasion that would never happen again.
Last week in St. Maarten a few of us went snorkeling for a friends birthday. We saw some sunken sail boats, colored fish, coral, and some weird sea urchins that stick to you like suction cups.
Now that we are in normal operation this cruise ship life isn't so bad. Work is going well, getting into our routine and getting used to having 12 shows a week. It is crazy being in these tropical ports every week and getting to explore something new nearly every day. The to do list now includes swimming with sea turtles and parasailing. Next week we are doing our Western Caribbean route for the first time and our ports include Costa Maya Mexico, Roatan Honduras, and Cozumel Mexico, and all I plan on doing is eating lots of real Mexican food.

I'm in the Middle of the Ocean

I don't even know where to begin. Right now I am in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sailing from Southampton, UK to New York City. It feels like so mush has happened since we left dry dock in France for the first time. The sea sickness was pretty bad at first but I am finally getting my sea legs.

The sea trials went well, I mean we didn't tip the ship over or anything so that has to be good. When we got back to France we had just about a week to get ready to leave and have guests on board. We had lifeboat drills for the crew everyday for that week to prepare for any emergencies. The drills are to simulate and abandon ship situation and we report to our muster stations during the drills, life jackets and all, and head out to the lifeboat dock. During these drills they simulate real emergencies like fires, injured passengers, and children separated from their parents. For these simulations involving people they recruited the youth counselors to play the roles of the passengers and children. During one of the drills I had the pleasure of seeing the youth counselor manager play the role of an 8 year old having a tantrum screaming and wanting her parents and candy. An experience I'm sure I will never ever see a supervisor do again.

Leaving France almost felt like leaving home, but since we have been gone I haven't missed it too much, and something else I didn't think I would ever say, but I am glad to be going back to the States. Our next stop was Rotterdam Netherlands and we picked up our first group of passengers. I was able to get off the ship and explore the city for a few hours, but wish I could have seen more. It was quite a large city with a lot of history. At first glance, the coolest part was the staggering of the old dutch buildings among the modern architecture and sky scrapers.

Our next stop was Southampton, UK. I got of the ship there for a grand total of an hour and a half, but I made it count. We went to this little pub and had steak pot pie, mashed potatoes, and the best coke I have tasted in the last 2 months. Oh and I can't forget the best part, English sticky toffee pudding mmmmmmmm, it was soooo goood, good enough to last me until the next time I am in England. Being on land for just over an hour wasn't worst thing in this town because our ship was actually at the most historic place in the town anyway. Southampton is where the Titanic left from on its way to New York.

We've now been at sea for four days and have three more to go before we arrive in New York. It is so surreal to think about where I am in the world at this very moment, an experience that in our generation so few have the opportunity to do. I can only imagine what the sunset is like out here in the middle of the Atlantic, but unfortunately I have shows every night. I have set my alarm for 5am the past two days to try to get up to see the sunrise, but so far I have been unsuccessful at getting myself up. We do change our clocks back and hour every night so it should get easier to get up.

Cirque and Sea is all I See

Bonjour from the ship. Things are really starting to look good on the ship. There have been a few hiccups over since last time, but we are still on schedule for going to Rotterdam, Southampton, and New York for the 4th in which I think we arrive on the 1st. I haven't heard who we are getting to perform on the ship for the 4th of July celebration yet, but I have heard some A list rumors.

We began doing safety drills yesterday where in case of an abandon ship situation so we will all know what to do. These drills are sort of like a huge fire drill, but for obvious reasons we can't just leave the building. We gather at different muster points where there are heads at each station who make sure everyone is accounted for. I believe later this week we will even practice taking out some of the life boats. In combination with the drills, we are are doing sea trials over the next few days. Sea trials are when we go out to sea for a few days and do some testing of the ship for the new build and push all the equipment and the engine to their limits. I have heard they do things like throw the ship into reverse, or make sharp turns, or basically making doughnuts in the middle of the ocean to see how far the ship will tip without actually tipping over. I have a feeling I am going to be getting sick a lot during the next few days.

You guys, it's getting really exciting here now that we are getting closer to actually having guests on board. I cannot believe it has already been a month, a month today actually, since I got here. Also, most of the crew switched cabins this week into our permanent cabin, and I am happy to no longer be on deck 2, sort of like the projects of the ship. Now cabin is on deck 6 all the way forward with the rest of the entertainment staff. Right below our area is the crew gym, the crew bar, and the crew lounge. Once the ship is completely finished I will get some pictures up of the different areas on board.

As far as my show is going, we are adding in costumes tomorrow and will be inviting audiences in on Sunday or Monday. It has been an intense rehearsal process, I'm actually in the middle of a 15 hour rehearsal at the moment, but we are almost there and the show is looking great.

Things have been progressing a lot here. More and more every day things are getting finished and it is looking like a place you will want to vacation. More crew members continue to arrive and I am meeting lots of new people from all over the world. New hires are required to complete a series of safety training courses and we began this week. The first one was in crowd management and I received an official certificate and everything that is valid for five years. We were taught the codes in case of certain emergencies such as code bravo (fire) or code Oscar (man overboard), and told how to calmly handle an emergency with 5,000 guests on board. There are other courses coming up where I will learn basic fire fighting skills, CPR, and we will be trained in the life boats.

Not much else has been going on other than lots of rehearsals. Our show is coming along very well, which is good because we are supposed to open in like 15 days or something. It's so exciting that we will be on our way in just a couple of weeks. I can't believe it has already been three weeks, it has gone by so fast, but at the same time feels like I have been here for years.

PS. I just watched the final episode of LOST a few minutes ago, so you all can rest knowing that I am no longer suffering.

Cirque du Circus

You guys!! I ran off and joined the circus, literally. So I found out when I got to the ship that I was switched to the other theater on board. I was a little bummed to find out that I won't be working with Blue Man Group, but when I found out what I am going to be working on, I realized how cool it is going to be. So the show is called Cirque Dreams & Dinner and it is sort of like Cirque du Soleil but on a smaller scale. There are a bunch of Russians that are part of the cast and can do some amazing things. We Stared rehearsals two days ago and have gotten about 40 minutes into the show and so far there is a tight rope walker, plate spinners, juggling, people flying, a hula hooper that uses 7-25 hoops on her arms legs, body, and much more. There are a few American actors that serve as sort of the MC's for the show and to move through the plot of the show. It is in a theatre where the guests are served dinner as well so the wait staff is incorporated into the show during certain parts. My role in this crazy show is to be in charge of the props and sort of an ASM at times. I think the experience I am going to get form working on this show is going to be amazing and is going it is going to look incredible on my resume. I am on good terms with the trainer for the show and he caught be stretching backstage yesterday and asked if i could touch me toes. If I'm not careful I may end up flying on the trapeze before my contract is up.