May 24th- Sea Day

May 24, 2011- Sea Day

                I was woken up by something strange this morning.  At first I thought I was dreaming but then I heard the three tones of the PA system which normally means an announcement.  It was odd because they normally don’t make announcements this early in crew quarters so it must be important especially on a sea day.  After the three tones of the PA system I heard “Operation Bright Star- Room 2223” and a click. Right at that moment I drifted back to sleep.  I woke up a couple of hours later remembering the announcement and realized “Operation Bright Star” was the Carnival code for a medical emergency.  Oh crap.  Well there was nothing I could have done anyway and decided it was time for lunch so I headed down to the mess.  I ran into Brad and Laurel (she’s one of the nurses) and asked her about the code and she said that she couldn’t really talk about it—privacy and all that but she did say that it was all a mess.  Normally those codes are used in extreme emergencies like cases like heart attack.  She said her entire day was wrecked because of the code.  After lunch I headed back up to the booth to catch up on the weekly emails.  We are going through a cast change right now so the new dancers are floundering with everything they have to learn in four weeks.  It was fun watching them attempt to learn the choreography.  After I caught up with the nonsense of emails I headed back to my cabin to catch up on some typing.  Normally this type of thing takes a couple of hours so it’s a very good time killer, especially before dinner.

May 23rd- Cozumel

May 23^rd- Cozumel

                I am starting to like Cozumel more and more with each visit.  I think it’s because we spent a lot of time in port (9am- 10pm) so we really have the entire day to relax and do what we want.  I got off the ship at 10 and headed straight for the Three Amigos.  I don’t know if I told you about this place but it’s a restaurant on the pier that is themed like the movie.  They offer a crew discount on all the food and they have internet so it’s a good place to hang around.  Yesterday Joe (one of the camp carnival members) told me that he was having a birthday party at one of the local beach resorts today and I should come.  The deal was that you can spend $40 for a day pass and chill by the many pools and bars.  The price included all the drinks and the buffet as well.  So you could make it worth it with all the food.  We stayed there for a good while.  One of their drinks, which were fantastic, was the “Blue Cozumel.”  Like my friend Cyndi said “beware the blu driaanks.”  The drink consisted of rum, pineapple juice, blue Curacao, and a frozen mixture of pina colada.  It was delicious.  I think my favorite part of the day was when I was standing at the bar watching the bartender make a couple of mojitos and when he finished he placed them near the edge of the bar, after he had made all three a little kid no more than 11 or 12 walked up to the bar and took all three mojitos and I watched him as he walked over to a table where his parents were sitting.  At first I was shocked to see a little kid pick up three drinks and the bartender not say anything about it but I realized as he was walking away that he was drinking one of the mojitos!  By the time he arrived at the table one of them was almost gone.  His dad must have seen him because he jumped up from the table and started yelling at him in Spanish.  It was a pretty funny sight.  After a couple of hours of swimming we headed to the buffet.  It was a pretty nice buffet with calamari, shrimp, and roast beef and even some pizza.  It was nice to get away from the mess.  After the buffet we headed back to the pool for more swimming.  We wasted a couple of more hours there before Brad mentioned that he wanted to go to the tattoo parlor and finish up some of his tattoo.  Oh! One thing that I forgot to mention was that in order to get this special deal with the resort you had to let the front office keep your ID.  I was a little skeptical of this because it’s like giving someone your passport.  But I decided that we would be safe because we were all in a group. I decided to go to because I never saw a tattoo parlor in Mexico before.  Apparently it’s a pretty cool crew hangout as well.  It also happens to be right next to No Name Bar (the prime crew hangout) which I’m sure has its perks.  We first stopped at No Name to grab a drink.  I just had a Corona but Brad had a shot of tequila.  Can you still get a tattoo if you had a shot?  After that we walked over to the tattoo place.  Brad wanted to finish up his tribal tattoo that ran the length of both arms.  He didn’t know if he wanted to complete the arms by going around his back or if he should go around his front pecs.  I thought going around front would be cool at least because you could see it but it might be a little bit more painful (with the clavicle and all).  He decided to go around the front and the tattoo artist began to free hand the design on his shoulder.  He talked about how easy the rest of his tattoos were and how tough he was when he got them but this time he put music on and winced about every three minutes.  Big baby!  He even wanted me to walk back to No Name to get him a beer!  I looked at him for a minute and he said that it wouldn’t be a problem and the tattoo artist just nodded.  Alright.  So I walked over to No Name and came back with 2 Caronas.  The lady who was behind the reception desk who was fanning herself because of the intense head offered her hand and said “Thank You” as if she was going to take one of the beers.  I set them down on the counter to get a better grip and said “Well, if you want one I can go back and get another one” and we both just laughed. I went back into the tattoo room and gave one of the beers to Brad.  He quickly took a swig of it and set it down by his feet.  The process took about an hour and honestly, it looked pretty damn good.  Brad had done a lot of work with this artist before.  I was kind of shocked that I could bring the beers back there but the tattoo artist didn’t say a word and it was a local crew hangout so he must be used to it by now.   Other than the beers it looked just like any other tattoo parlor and it was still very clean.  I showed the artist my tattoo and he nodded and said that the guy did a pretty good job.  He said if I ever wanted some more to come back here.  Oh boy.  I don’t know if I can get a tattoo in Mexico.  “Maybe” I replied “it needs to be touched up.”  He nodded and handed me his card.  After the tattoo adventure we headed back to No Name and then back to the ship.  We had plenty of time before the ship set sail but I was in desperate need of a nap.  I didn’t have anything to do for that night because Daniel asked if he could work my comedy sketches.  I didn’t have a problem with that mainly because I didn’t like playing the audio guy and he loved it, so it worked out.  Getting back on the ship was pretty easy; there weren’t any lines or anything like that.  I put my card in the reader and it dinged correctly and the security guy walked up and looked at my ID.  He looked up at me for a moment and said “hmm.. It seems that you lost your tan and got even skinnier.”  “What? Uh.. Thank You..?” I didn’t think much of it at that moment but when I looked down at the ID after I had gotten past security the photo was quite different.  Oh no, the guy at the resort hotel gave me Bryan’s ID by mistake.  Oh crap, that means Bryan has my ID and who knows if he will get through security.  I told Brad about it and looked at the ID in horror.  He mentioned for me to head up to his cabin so we could figure out what to do about the mishap.  He called Dan, the musical director and Bryan’s boyfriend and explained the situation.  He then called Jen and told them what happened with security.  She didn’t think that it was a big problem just have Bryan use my ID to get back on the ship and swap IDs later.  So I guess that was what we were going to do.  I went back down to my cabin and took a much needed nap.  I got the call around 10 that Bryan had my ID and he was back onboard the ship so everything was ok.  Pssheew.  That could have been a nightmare but I’m glad everything was ok.  Talk about an adventure.  I turned on the TV and caught the end of the late show with David Letterman and an interview with Lady Gaga.  I had checked the release date for her album and it was tomorrow.  So angry because we would be at sea and I wouldn’t be able to download it for at least another two days.  Oh well.  Maybe I’ll be able to download it when I’m in Grand Cayman.   I finished watching the rest of the show and promptly passed out.

May 22nd- Sea Day

May 22^nd- Sea Day

                Today I did absolutely nothing.  I spent most of the day in my cabin watching Dexter and Star Wars.  I didn’t have much to do during the day so I spent most of it relaxing.  One of these days I want to go out to the fourth deck and chill on the deck but I didn’t manage to get around to it today.

May 21st- Miami

May 21^st- Miami

                Miami days are always hectic.  It always seems I’m trying to make lists to see what I have to do just to make sure everything gets accomplished.  The day started off a bit rough.  I wanted to leave the ship a little early because I had heard about a good grocery store and I wanted to go by and pick up a few things.  So I decided I would make an attempt to sleep in for a bit and head out around 10.  That way there wouldn’t be much of a line to get off the ship.  Sure enough I was correct and I got off pretty easy.  There was only one problem.  A couple of days ago in Grand Turk I was swimming and came across a really cool conch shell.  I thought it looked pretty cool so I picked it up and put it in my bag.  It looked like a giant C had been stamped in it or something or maybe it was the coloration of the shell.  Either way it looked cool so I brought it back onboard.  I checked it to make sure nothing was living in the shell before I brought it back though.  Security would have a great time with that if there had been something living in it.  So I go through security and they search my bag and find the shell, no worries I thought.  Apparently this was a big deal.  They told me that I couldn’t take it off the ship and I would have to declare it with customs.  Apparently they thought that it was an “animal byproduct.”  Education lesson: Shells don’t come from animals!  Then they started to ask me why I picked it up.  I told them I just thought it looked nice and wanted to send it to a friend.  It just looked cool.  By this time a line has formed and people are starting to get antsy and I was trying to get off with some friends and I was holding everyone else up too.  I tried to tell them there was nothing living in it and thought it was pretty so I picked it up.  He couldn’t fathom why I would want to pick up this conch shell.  We went back and forth for a few minutes and he finally told me that I had to check with MSA to see if it was ok if I took it off.  Oh my God.  Fine.  So I grabbed my bag and went down the hall to the MSA office.  I plopped the shell on the table and explained the situation and they looked at me like I had three heads.  “Uh, of COURSE you can.” (subtext: DUH) I told them that security thought it was an animal byproduct and they just laughed and said that it had no customs value and not to worry about it.  Cool.  I then trekked all the way back to security and walked right through the metal detector and handed him the shell.  The security guys made a whole bunch of faces and pointed to the back of the line.  I had to be screened again?? Really?? Ugh.  Fine.  I waited my turn and went through the metal detector and pat down again this time holding the bloody shell.  I then proceeded to tell security again that the MSA said it would be fine and it didn’t have any value.  The head security guy then made another weird face.  I guess he didn’t believe me so he called the office just to be sure.  The lady at MSA must have been angry with him because the conversation didn’t last long.  After he got off the phone he waved me through and I quickly put the shell back in my bag before they could change their minds.  After I got off the gangway I had to explain to everyone why it took so bloody long.  Moral of the story, try not to get gifts for people.  I had heard some pretty nasty stories about security but I didn’t know a conch shell would cause this much trouble.  Daniel was telling me the other day when he was on another ship they had to change out the gigantic carbon dioxide tanks (used for low rolling smoke during shows) and put them in the marshalling area.  Normally you pressurize the tanks and if the tanks get too pressurized they automatically vent until they’re less than 350 psi.  Apparently Dan got a call in the middle of the night from security saying that he needed to come down to marshalling immediately because the tanks were leaking.  He tried to explain that they just vent but decided to head down there to explain everything.  Once he got down there pointed to the CO2 tank and said that they needed to seal the tank because it’s a “fire hazard.”  Dan just broke out laughing because a CO2 tank isn’t a fire hazard.  In fact it’s basically a giant fire extinguisher (we have CO2 fire extinguishers onboard) and they can’t seal the tank because then it could possibly rupture if it didn’t vent properly.  Daniel didn’t say how long that whole venture lasted but I bet it was a good amount of time because on top of that all the security personnel are Indian and there is somewhat of a language barrier there as well.  After I made it off the ship I headed straight for downtown.  I wanted to mail this shell home so I stopped by CVS and picked up a small box.  I didn’t bother with tape because I thought I could just borrow some from the mailing center down the way.  My next stop was a little convenience store about half a block from the mailing center.  Ryan had told me about some great Cuban coffee you could get there and bought me a glass a couple of weeks ago.  I’m not one for coffee but this was quite delicious.  It may be better than Starbucks.  With my Life Nectar in hand I headed to the mailing center.  As it turns out they didn’t have any tape for me to borrow so I ended up having to buy some at the store itself.  Talk about expensive.  After I accomplished that mission I headed to the metro mover so I could meet up with Bryan and Ryan to go to the grocery store.  I have heard about buying some food to stash in your cabin but I didn’t really want a lot of things.  We took the metro mover right to the grocery store.  It took a little while but at least it was free transportation.  We arrived at a little Publix near the bayside.  I was pretty quick picking up my stuff, just some vitamins, some granola bars, instant rice and Naked juice.  I decided to splurge on the Naked juice.  I knew it wouldn’t keep long but I could drink it after a hard day’s work or something.  I had to wait a bit for everyone to be done which took a little while.  Ryan had almost a whole shopping cart of stuff he wanted to buy.  I didn’t really know how he would get it all home but I guess we would figure that out.  After our little shopping trip to the grocery store I told them that I absolutely had to go find a chase bank.  Oi, I wish I could be a member of a bank that had branches across the us.  I managed to find one about half a mile from the grocery store.  We didn’t want to lug all the groceries half a mile so we called for a cab.  The journey felt like we spent 30 seconds in the cab before it stopped at the bank.  Being on a limited time schedule time is sometimes more valuable than money, especially in Miami.  We told the cab to wait so I ran inside to deposit some cash.  I had no idea what my account number is so I had to wait in the long line for a teller.  It seemed like every minute felt like a second as the meter was still running on the cab outside.  I haven’t really used this account at all so I couldn’t remember my pin or any other information about my account.  So the teller said I would have to talk to an account manager to get the pin reset.  Damn.  I didn’t have a lot of time and I really needed to get something to eat.  (Time > sleep > food > money)  The teller did her magic and at the end she tried to get me a credit card.  I tried not to laugh but it must have showed because she chuckled too.  I told her I have some and I’ve been trying to pay them off so I’m not interested.  After the bank we headed to bayside.  I’ve never been there before but Ryan said that there was a pretty good steakhouse there and it had a little mall as well.  The taxi dropped us off by the mall and it was just like the mall in south beach.  Most of the shops were outdoors and you walked from shop to shop.  We ignored most of them just to head to the steakhouse.  Whenever someone says we’re going to a steakhouse it normally means it would be expensive.  Not to mention upper class and carrying groceries into an upper class establishment seemed very wrong to me.  This was a little different though.  It was basically a steakhouse buffet.  You could have all the steak you can eat and a bottle of wine was included in the buffet price.  It was delicious, a far difference from the mess.  I have a feeling I’m going to put on some weight after leaving here but maybe I can go to the gym or something. HA! After lunch we made our way to the shops.  We didn’t have a lot of time but Ryan needed to pick something up at Express so I figured I’d just tag along.  After he picked up a couple of shirts we headed back to the ship.  I finished a bit of internet in the taxi on the way back and boarded the ship without any problems.  After I got back aboard I spent the rest of my shore time calling people and see how they all were doing.  Boat drill was the same as usual and I didn’t have anyone try to faint on me this time.

May 20- Sea Day

May 20, 2011- Sea Day

                Another mishap happened early this morning.  I checked the schedule last night to see when I had to report for the first event.  Normally sea days are pretty lax, and it gives the crew some time to chill and have some personal time.  When I checked the schedule last night the only event that I had before the shows was a comedy show at 8:30 pm.  So I didn’t really set my alarm because I didn’t have much to do.  What I forgot was that there is the Legends show rehearsal that happens on the last day of the cruise and they don’t necessarily put it on the schedule.  I woke up around 11:45 and took a nice long shower.  Luckily I was in my cabin when Tom knocked on the door and said that they were looking for me and I was late.  Shit.  I ran to the closet to put on my uniform and grabbed my key and ran straight to the booth hair still wet from the shower.  Luckily I was only a few minutes late and they were still giving the instructions when I first arrived.  I knew AMX would take a while to start the movers so I did that first before loading the shows in the MA.  Everything turned out OK as they were singing and doing their parts.  Honestly no one stood out on this cruise but they all were pretty bad.  I decided to make time useful and set up my confetti canons for the next cruise.  I really couldn’t bear to listen to them sing those songs again.  After the confetti canons were done I moved on to the laser computer.  Earlier this week the pc that controls the laser systems decided to crash.  It kept saying that it couldn’t find the boot files and I would need to install them from a disc.  That is a classic sign of a computer crash.  I couldn’t even get into the Bios screen to do any checks.  I was instructed from corporate to open the computer and check all of the connections to see if they were secure.  So I spent most of the time doing that while they were rehearsing.  Everything was fine with the computer so I emailed corporate back and hopefully they will be able to tell me what to do in a futile attempt to repair it.  Maybe they’ll let me send it off when we’re in Miami so corporate can fix it.  After rehearsal was finished I made my way down to the crew mess to grab something to eat.  I was pretty hungry because I didn’t have a lot of dinner last night so I was thrilled when I saw some delicious pasta in the mess.  After I gorged myself I headed back to my cabin to catch up on some entries.  This cruise went by pretty quickly and it’s hard to believe that we’ll be in Miami tomorrow morning.  I’m already starting to compile a list on what kinds of things I need to run out and get.

May 19th- Grand Turk

May 19- Grand Turk

                So I decided I would get off in Grand Turk.  I promised myself I would to my rig cleaning and relamping when I’m the tech on duty and won’t be able to get off at all.  Brad said he was going to Jack’s Shack which is the local crew bar hangout and apparently they had delicious jerked chicken.  I decided to tag along with him because he seemed to know a lot more about this than I did.  Grand Turk is basically like Half Moon Cay except the island isn’t owned by Carnival.  White sand beaches and wonderful clear water.  We started the day a little bit late because we knew that we would be in Grand Turk until about 5.  We walked past all the tourist places and headed straight down the beach in search for Jack’s Shack.  There even is a local dog that lives with Jack and Janet (the owners of the bar) and all he does is chase people at the bar and swims in the ocean all day.  Oh what a hard life he has.  Brad bought him a toy in San Juan since he knew we would be going to see him.  We basically hung out on the beach all day and I even found a conch shell.  I wanted to bring it back but was afraid that something might be living in it and that would problematic for security, especially in Miami.  The water was a wonderful blue (almost as if someone had dyed it) and the jerked chicken was indeed fantastic.  I just had to be careful for bones.  Janet is really nice (she’s the main bartender) and makes darn good drinks.  I even saw a couple of people getting mojitos.  I may have to grab one the next time I’m there.   The day went by pretty quick (as it always does when you’re hanging out on the beach) and it was no time when we had to make our way back to the ship.  We headed back a little early because I wanted to take a nap before my show tonight.  Security was a breeze and the lines were minimal.  Once back onboard I headed straight to my cabin for a nice nap.  It didn’t feel like long but I woke up and looked at my watch and it read 8:00 pm.  I was going to be late for the show!  I jumped down from the bunk and managed to get my uniform and boots on in record time and sprinted down the decks to head to the booth.  I like to get there at least 45 minutes early just to set up everything and make sure everything is working the way it should.  I got everything set up in record time and it wasn’t too long before they were calling places.  Luckily this was the Swing show so it didn’t need any lasers or CO2.  Setting up the laser systems and chillers probably would have made me late if I arrived 30 minutes before show time.  Jen completed her introduction and the show was on its way.  SMPTE took the time cues perfectly but as the show went on I noticed something was terribly wrong.  None of the movers were lamped up!  Oh my God!  I told Dianna that we needed to hold the show and restart.  Apparently AMX (the brain that controls the different stage systems onboard) didn’t fire the correct macro and didn’t lamp on the movers.  I brought the wash back up and Jen took her cue pretty well.  She explained that we were experiencing some problems and the show would begin again soon.  We waited for a few seconds and I made sure that everything was where it was suppose to be.  I even grabbed one of the movers on the console and checked manually just to be sure.  I really don’t have a lot of faith in the AMX system mainly because of the delay in the macros and the physical even that’s happening onstage.  Jen completed her introduction again and we were off!  Luckily the show was pretty uneventful after that.  I hit all my spot cues and it was a pretty good show.  After it ended we reset all of the movers and waited until the next show began.  I didn’t really read much in my book during the show this time because after the events with AMX I was constantly looking for stuff to go wrong.  It was almost like my paranoia with the dry ice systems when I ran Christmas Carol at the Alliance (I was constantly looking for things to go wrong- and they frequently did).  I did all of my checks for the second show and this time I knew everything was ok.  We started with Jen’s introduction again and took my normal SMPTE cues.  I heard a series of two bangs and a thud.  Apparently the Stage Right projector screen fell from its position and rolled out onstage.  At that moment headset chatter exploded to figure out what we should do and how we could fix it.  After a few moments of crisis management we decided to hold the show yet again to fix the screens.  We couldn’t have the dancers going near the screens when they weren’t safe.  Crap, two held shows in one day.  This kind of thing never happens.  Dan, the musical director, asked how many mirrors we broke before we got back on ship.  I, personally, believe someone uttered The Scottish Play backstage and that was to blame for everything that happened.  Kevin, the assistant cruise director managed to get the screen down (it was caught on one of the gigantic jester statue that are positioned on either sides of the stage).  After it was safe Jen restarted her intro, yet again, and we proceeded with the rest of the show.  After the end of the show all the technicians congregated backstage to inspect the screen and its anchor.  Apparently one of the bolts in the anchoring had gotten loose over time and just decided to fall.  It would have happened eventually but it just chose tonight to fail.  Jen joked that we should start checking the projector screens in our preshow rig check just in case.  Everyone was so concentrated about the screen falling from the sky they had completely forgot about my little mishap with the movers.  Everyone was so stressed about the screens we all decided to head down to the crew bar after the show for a drink.  I chose instead to go upstairs and visit the piano bar for some laughs and good tunes.  I didn’t drink much because I would have to pay regular price for them and honestly it’s not worth it.  I stayed there until the piano bar closed which was around 1:30 and headed straight to bed.

May 18th- San Juan

May 18, 2011- San Juan

                I ended up waking up around 11 am.  It was probably the latest I’ve woken up on a port day which means that I either must be really tired or I am getting used to the bow thrusters and anchor.  If today is an example I haven’t had a whole lot of problems with them as of yet.  Today was a wonderful port day.  When I got off ship around 11:30 I met up with some friends and we headed down to the local Japanese restaurant.  I heard it was absolutely wonderful Japanese food but they were a little bit slow on the service.  This was absolutely true.  The place looked like a gourmet Japanese place yet the touristic side of a hibachi place.  It ended up being  a mix of the two.  I ordered the fillet mingion and scallops with miso soup.  It ended up being a hibachi place because they cooked the food in front of you but it was still as amazing as an authentic Japanese steakhouse.  We had a good group of people with us.  The past few days I have been hanging out with Jen and Kevin the cruise and assistant cruise director and they have been a lot of fun to hang around with.  The food was absolutely delicious and it took a good hour and a half to get the food and everything else that came with it.  I took the liberty of ordering a Sapporo beer and it was absolutely fantastic.  After lunch it took a little while to get the checks and everyone was a little pressed to get out of the restaurant and go and do other things.  Jen and Kevin wanted to go to the casino (yes, there is a casino near the pier) and Brad and I wanted to go and get some internet done.  Brad said that there was a pretty good frozen yogurt place a couple of blocks from the pier and they had super amazing internet.  We ended up walking to the frozen yogurt place which happened to be right outside an outside bazaar.  It reminded me of Italy because there were a lot of marble statues yet the street vendors of Rome.  I wish I could have stopped and taken a few photographs but we had a mission to get some ice cream and some internet.  By this time I was truly missing the outside world and internet was an absolute necessity.  Once we got to the frozen yogurt place we ordered our yogurt (I had passion fruit yogurt with fresh pineapple, coconut, and strawberries as my toppings).  The yogurt was absolutely amazing.  It tasted something like someone made by hand.  I especially loved the fresh fruit as toppings.  By this time we only had about an hour left before we had to make our way back to the ship and honestly, it was the quickest hour of my life.  I had so much to do on the internet it was amazing.  I also found out, through my mom that calling the states from Puerto Rico was not free.  Total whoops.  Everyone on the ship who had Verizon said that calling was free because we were in the united states and the research that I’ve done said that the Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands was totally OK.  Apparently that is not the case.  I may have to sift through the bill and see how much I owe.  Apparently it is quite expensive.  Now the only time I am able to call is when I’m in Miami which is not cool at all.  The sad part is that everyone I know onboard says it’s completely ok to call the US when in Puerto Rico.  Oh well.  I guess that limits when I can actually call people.  I need to call Verizon when I get back to the states to be absolutely sure.  After time spent at the frozen yogurt place we needed to get back to the ship.  We started to make our trek back when Brad came across a CVS and a much needed stop to resupply on food in case the mess was serving something that was not really edible.  I didn’t really see much that I needed so I waited near the front.  After all, I had already picked up my contact solution in Miami.  After we finished at CVS we made a beeline for the ship.  At this point it was already 2:15 and I was starting to get a little bit paranoid.  As we were walking we saw the casino on our way back.  I didn’t know you could gamble in Puerto Rico and I’m not the gambling type so I didn’t pay much attention to it but Brad needed to stop in and make a quick bet.  If you show your crew card with the casino they give you $20 casino credit to use on the bets.  They have it planned out that the only way the casino pays out that extra $20 is if you place more than $20 on a bet with something else.  For example, if you place your casino $20 in addition to your $30 on a roulette table and win you get back $50 which isn’t that bad at all.  I don’t really like gambling so I didn’t place any money down but Brad placed $50 on a red roulette spin.  The spin ended up being black.  So Brad lost $50 in a single bet.  Last time he was in Puerto Rico he made $80 on a $50 bet so now he’s still ahead $30.  That’s not something I really want to do considering I’m here to save money (I know it seems otherwise).  After we left the casino we headed towards the ship.  We made it back by 2:30 which was well before our sail time so I wasn’t worried at all. We went through security and had no problems.  I still had a good half hour before I had to do the repeaters party for this cruise.  I decided to head back to the boot and get set up early mainly because I didn’t have much else to do and had very little cell phone reception anyways.  I mainly read during the repeaters party and tried to check my emails with the kindle.  If anyone wants to buy me a gift for whatever holiday, get me a kindle gift card.  This way I can actually put it towards good use (and I love Amazon).  Repeaters went off fine and dandy with no hitches expected.  After repeaters Ryan and some other friends made a reservation for the “supper club” onboard (basically our own steakhouse and winery).  I had been a couple of weeks ago and it was the best steak I’ve eaten in my entire life.  I feel like I’m getting fat because I went from one gourmet restaurant to the next in a matter of hours.  Dinner was absolutely fantastic.  I had escargot and spicy tuna tempura as my apps and a 16 oz 5 spices steak as my main course.  Neither one was too far out of proportions as everything else.  I did pretty good on the steak eating about ¾ of it.  We had two bottles of red wine for the 4 of us and it was delicious.  I wish I could eat there every night.  For desert I had a sorbet ice cream with fresh fruit.  The fruit was as fresh as could be.  Mangos, strawberries, kiwi, blue berries, strawberries, the works.  It was something to die for.  I wish I could eat fresh fruit like that every day.  By this time I was stuffed to the brim and it was only 6 o’clock.  I still think I’m in a food coma now.  Sadly tomorrow I’ll have to go back to regular mess food with corn and nonsense cold fish as my main course SIGH.  So, tomorrow is Grand Turk and although I have a LOT of work to do repairing the moving rig I’m going to go to the beach and enjoy myself.  God, I love this job.  I haven’t gotten tired of it yet although I’ve been here almost a month.  I miss everyone a lot though and I hope that everyone is doing ok.  After dinner I pretty much camped out in my cabin trying to digest the many courses I had to eat while catching up on some journal-ing.  I hope tomorrow will be just as amazing.

May 17th- St. Thomas

May 17^th- St. Thomas

                So honestly I didn’t have a lot of plans for today.  I thought I wound spend the majority of the day doing some work on the moving rig and a little bit of relaxing.  That was until Ryan called me last night asking for my help.  Apparently he was supposed to go on a tour with Matt (the Club O2 director- basically a day camp for 12-15 year old) but he really didn’t want to go with him.  Ryan promised that he would spend some time with Matt because it was his last two weeks and he had been delaying it for months.  Apparently they were to go out on a champagne catamaran and go snorkeling off of St. John (one of the neighboring islands).  Ryan begged me to go with him so he wouldn’t have to deal with Matt’s constant bickering.  I decided what the hell and signed up for the tour.  Because it was booked through shore excursions there would be a slight fee, but I didn’t care much because hey! It’s all the free champagne I can drink and I got to go snorkeling off of an island with sting rays and sea turtles and it was on a catamaran.  The only bad thing about this venture was that we had to get up pretty early to catch the cab and maximize our tour.  We booked the 9:30 tour because it was the only one he could get on (for the discounted rate) but hey, gotta make do with what you have anyway.  Apparently later in the night Matt decided to back out because shore excursions were unable to comp his ticket and he didn’t want to spend at least some cash to get on the tour.  At this point everyone was kind of like “whatever” and they really didn’t want to deal with his bickering the entire trip anyway.  We got off the ship at 9:00 to head towards the taxi.  Taxi is a strong word to use because it was basically a F-350 with the bed outfitted to fit passengers.  I thought the truck was a little bit weird because the driver side was on the left side (is that how it is in the states? I can’t remember) and they were driving with the yellow line on the passenger side (like I said, I can’t remember).  I didn’t want to bring my camera because we were going on a ship (which we were told that we would have to swim ashore) and I spent way too much money on a DSLR to get it wet.  I totally regretted my decision.  The island reminded me a lot of Hawaii because it was very hilly and it had a lot of rock formations that looked volcanic.  The “taxi” driver said that the islands were indeed volcanic so my thinking wasn’t quite too far off.  The driver scared me a bit because it was exactly like a roller coaster ride to the pier.  At some points we couldn’t even see the bottom of the hill because it was so steep.  This was not, however, like driving a took-took in the mountains of Thailand.  The truck was diesel so it was definitely meant to carry passengers up hills and such.  Gawd, there were banana and coconut trees everywhere.  I just wanted to tell the driver to stop so I could climb a tree and pick a ripe banana and coconut.  I loved it.  Once we arrived at the marina we didn’t really know where to go.  We just followed the guide to our ship and boarded it quickly.  The ship was a catamaran so it had two runners and a raised middle.  We were allowed to go anywhere on the ship except for the netting near the bow.  Originally we decided to stay near the stern but quickly made it to the front of the ship.  I really think I have fallen in love with the seas because I love the view and even the motion of rocking back and forth.  The seas were a little rough (it was cloudy) and I loved every toss and turn (I’m hoping that we really get a rockin’ onboard the Liberty with hurricane season and all).  Normally he would just use the sails but the captain wanted to maximize our time snorkeling so he used the little outboard motor.  The journey didn’t take very long, about 20 minutes to get to the snorkeling spot.  The ship had a little ladder that they could lower so you could basically walk into the sea but that’s not fun at all.  The captain also opened the back of the ship so whoever wanted to could dive off the back of the ship.  There was a really long line to walk down the stairs so I opted to just jump off the back of the ship.  They had to give us these inflatable neck things (somewhat similar to water wings) but I guess it’s a safety thing.  The water felt great, it was a little colder than in the beach in Miami but still wonderful and crystal clear.  You could see the bottom (which was about 20-30 feet in depth) pretty easily.   I bought an underwater camera before heading off the ship so hopefully the pictures will actually turn out.  The captain said that a few feet away there was a kelp forest and sometimes you could see sea turtles there.  We made our way over there first.  Sadly, the kelp forest was not very tall (it looked more like kelp grass) so we didn’t find any sea turtles.  One of the people in our group discovered a sting ray, but it was well beyond where I wanted to swim.  After about an hour or so snorkeling we headed back to the catamaran.  On the way back the crew broke open the champagne and just drank until we got back to shore.  I struck up a good conversation with one of the guests that lives in Atlanta.  We talked about how “nasty” the winter was and my personal take on Atlanta-ians driving skills.  The journey took longer than the trip out mainly because we just used sail power.  It still was very relaxing and the fresh air was wonderful.  After we made it back to shore we climbed into our little taxi and headed back to the ship.  We headed back through the markets that are everywhere right when you get off the pier.  At this point it was about 2 o’clock and we hadn’t had anything to eat so Ryan decided it would be a good idea to go and get some sushi near the pier.  I didn’t mind because I love sushi and its been a while since I had some.  The restaurant was really nice and it even had a sushi conveyor belt.  I had some mussels and sashimi.  Delicious.  I guess I can say I ate with someone famous because Hally Berry was there too! (well, not the REAL Hally Berry, but our waitress shared the same name)  The sushi was great but we had to eat it pretty quick to get back to the ship on time.  The rest of the day was pretty ordinary.  Two shows and a pretty late night.

May 15h- Half Moon Cay

May 15, 2011- Half Moon Cay

                First of all I woke up in the early morning with the one of the worst pains I’ve felt in my life.  I had a flash back to Utah for a second but mainly for different reasons.  Apparently my hands had cramped up in the night and I when I woke up I was literally unable to move them.  My brain was telling them to but I was physically unable for them to move.  My fingers were all twisted in both of my hands and I honestly thought I broke them somehow in the night.  Both hands did this.  I tried to feel around to see if I had actually broken them or something (my thought process didn’t really make much sense after the haze of sleep) but I managed to push them back to a semi normal position and rub them around for a minute.  I moved my fingers around for a minute and realized that I basically had a Charlie horse in both of my hands, at the same time.  It lasted around 5 minutes.  I honestly was ready to dial 911 for the ships nurse because it hurt so badly but I managed to slow my breathing and slowly move my hands (I wondered how I would have picked up or dialed the phone if I needed to).  It was horribly painful.  After I made sure that it was just a Charlie horse and that I had full control over my hands I drifted back to sleep.  I was awoken it felt like five minutes later with the clanking of the anchor.  I jerked myself out of my bed because I honestly thought I was in an earthquake (like I said, thought process doesn’t make a lot of sense from sleep).  After I realized I was on a ship I managed to fall back asleep even when they were still dropping the anchor (it takes a while).  Given everything that happened this morning I knew that I didn’t want to make today a huge day so I didn’t set an alarm and just wanted to let my body tell me what time I needed to get up.  I ended up waking up around 1 (apparently I was really tired) really hungry after missing breakfast and lunch in the crew mess.  I called a few friends and we headed up to Lido to grab some food.  I really hoped that the Mongolian barbeque would be open (port days are the only days we’re allowed to eat there) but they were closed today.  So we had to settle with burritos and ham instead.  The food up on Lido (or anywhere else for that matter) tastes soo much better than the food they have in the mess.  I really don’t understand why.  It’s not like they have a separate source for our food anyway.  After we departed for lunch I went back to my cabin and watched a little bit of Dexter, The United States of Tara, and a bit of Grey’s.  That held me off until dinner and the raising of the anchor.  After dinner I got the Edge show ready.  This was the show that I spent about four hours cueing with Dave a couple of weeks ago starting around 11 pm.  We created a lot of cues, but I didn’t really know where they all went since we created it a while ago and hadn’t used it since.  The first show was a little bit rocky because of that reason.  I missed a few cues but managed to recover and find my place.  Let me say it is TOTALLY weird to take your own cues and not have a stage manager call them, I really can’t get used to that.  I was so hesitant of taking my own cues I even missed a couple.  I told Edge (yes, that’s his real name) that we had a new show programmed and to give me feedback so I could change it before next week if he wanted but he said that it looked wonderful after the performance.  I told him that it was subpar to my standards, because of some timing issues but I’m glad that he liked it.  He’s going to be doing this show once a week for the rest of my contract so I’ll definitely have time to edit and change some things if I want to.  The second show went better and I was able to catch some of my missed cues and even add a little bit of flare to the ones that needed it.  Hopefully I can fully understand this board before the charter arrives.  Oh yeah! We had one guest during the first show that was completely hammered!  Edge had called up a guest for audience participation and he was just stumbling everywhere (drunk + rocky seas = hilarious).  Apparently he was in another one of Jen’s audience participation shows earlier in the cruise so a lot of the audience knew him by name but he was completely making a fool of himself.    Even after his role was done he tried to get back onstage and mess with Edge’s things.  Luckily Edge called him out on it and he darted off the stage.  Jen, who was backstage, was getting ready to strangle him if he got onstage one more time.  Diana and I debated about calling security just to get him off the stage.  Edge handled it pretty well and I talked to him later and he said that I should just spot the guy with the other spotlight and Edge would heckle him endlessly (basically turning his show into a Roast).  I’m glad he has a sense of humor because I honestly wouldn’t know what to do with the guy.  But other than that the show went well.  We’ll see what I have to do for tomorrow and I’m hoping that I can sleep for the most part of the day because that would be wonderful.

May 15th Miami

May 15, 2011- Miami

Oh wow what a wonderful day!  Last night I decided to go to the mall again with Bryan and Ryan but I accidently overslept.  I didn’t even wake up with the bow thrusters and mooring lines which show that I’m getting used to ship life.  Honestly, I didn’t really need anything at the mall but I just wanted to go and have some fun and just explore a little bit.  So I was a little disappointed that I missed them.  About an hour or so later Brad called and asked if I wanted to go explore Miami a little bit, not having anything else to do I was happy to get off the ship.  He had some errands to do but I didn’t mind as long as I was exploring.  Our first stop off ship was downtown to pick up a magnet for his name tag.  They give us name tags on the ship and we have to wear them constantly, even in crew areas and especially when not in uniform.  The bad thing is that it’s a pin so after a while and repeat use it starts to poke little holes in your shirts (I’m really tired of ruining good, expensive shirts).  So I was really thankful that he needed one so I picked some up as well.  I managed to find a post box so I mailed some things off to people so I was thrilled about that.  I totally forgot last week to mail Jayson my Breeze card I had everything I needed except for the card itself which was very disappointing.  Afterwards he said he needed to do a little shopping at a mall near South Beach.  Apparently there is a really, really nice mall there and a nice beach as well.  I’ve never been so I was thrilled to go.  He said he had to get another shirt for formal night so he wanted to get something really nice.  The mall was absolutely beautiful.  It was an outdoors mall that was similar to short pump but the shops reminded me more of Carytown.  Every shop was in a restored art deco building and the mall was full of them.  I kind of wanted to stop and take pictures but I was afraid of playing a tourist.  Apparently there is a huge gay population there as well (I know right? Why am I not surprised.  Good mall + great architecture + beach= many gays).  By the time we got to the mall it was around 11 so we were hungry and in desperate need of good food so we stopped at a little Italian place and had pizza.  I realize now that I eat really slowly which is really bad for ship life especially when we have a strict schedule.  We managed to leave around 12:30 or so.  After lunch we headed to the clothing store.  It was a little tiny place called “U Rock!” and it was also in an old art deco building.  It was very, very, very nice.  I had no clue what I was getting myself into.  This place was unlike any other clothing store I’ve ever been to.  The walls were covered with various framed Rock bedazzled paintings in a black and gold theme obviously homage to the various artists through the years.  There were still some remnants of the art deco chandeliers, lighting fixtures and stuff on the wall but it was mainly covered up with something more appropriate for the Rock theme (which made me sad).  The chandelier almost didn’t fit in the space, still thinking about it I honestly don’t know how they got it through the door.  There was only one man working there and he looked like someone out of a Calvin Klein photo shoot.  He recognized Brad instantly and helped him pick out a few things.  This was the kind of store that demanded one on one attention.  They were really nice different styled shirts that had different fabric on the cuffs and the ribbons on shoulder that I love so much.  I managed to look at the labels and all it was all cotour!!! (Forgive the spelling) At that instant I knew that I was way, way, waaay, out of my league and just put my hands back behind my back and tried not to touch anything I didn’t want to even look at anything.  He tried on a few things and I just waited patiently trying not to even look at the wonderful pair of jeans and shirts.  I noticed they had jean sizes all the way down to 24 inch waist.  No problem finding jeans here (just can’t afford many, hell… can’t afford one!)  The gentleman was really nice while he was trying on the various things he had picked out.  He managed to understand that we worked aboard a ship Brad in entertainment and me the technician.  I told him that I would never be able to wear these things because they would be dirty all the time and he just laughed.  Smooth Larry… Idiot.    He finally found a good shirt.  It was really nice a deep black almost sheen like with a bright red line that went right across the top of the left breast pocket.  The cuffs were mostly white with black stripes that went horizontally across the cuff.  On the other side they were black so you could change them up if you wanted to or if you rolled them up.  The collar was black but on the inside near the neck had that same black stripes.  There was only one tiny red stripe on the breast pocket.  It made the whole shirt pop.  Even the shoulder ribbons were reversible to the black and white stripes.  Sure enough it was cotour.  The gentleman quickly took it up to the register and rang him up.  It was over a hundred and sixty dollars!!! For one bloody shirt!!! I couldn’t believe my ears.  I would be afraid to even touch that, especially after a hard day’s work, even after showering.  Since Brad was there so often the man said that he “let the shirt go” for 140.  I was still in shock.  Sure enough he bought the shirt and the gentleman wrapped it up and put it into a nice black and gold bag.  Maybe Brad will let me keep the label that was hanging off one of the buttons.  That’s probably about as close to one of those shirts as I’ll ever get.  Maybe when I’m a designer I’ll be able to wear that stuff to work, but not now.  Oh god, I’m still in shock just thinking about it.  He told me later that he’s only been there once and bought a pair of jeans for three hundred bucks.  Our next stop, CVS and probably one of the largest I’ve ever been to.  I picked up some things, I desperately needed contact solution.  After that we headed to the beach.  Apparently there’s an exclusive gay beach there.  I’ve never been to a gay beach but as long as people weren’t running around naked I didn’t care.  Never have I ever been to a beach with rainbow flags but I guess its Miami so whatever.  We rented some chairs and I went straight for the water.  I really love being near the ocean.  The water wasn’t as clear as, say, the Caymans but it was still nice.  We only had about an hour left before we had to head back to the ship and I loved every minute of it.  When we had to return we took a cab back to the pier.  I took the time to check in and grab last minute emails before heading back out to sea.  Leaving Miami is never fun but I skipped the bon voyage and took an hour nap after boat drill.  The rest of the day paled in comparison to the excursions on land.  One interesting thing though, I got an email from Adi (the new Jayson, my boss) saying that I wasn’t at boat drill today and I have to report to the Security Office tomorrow at 9 am.  But the interesting thing is that I was at boat drill and even signed the proper paperwork when the muster station leader came around.  The thing is that for the past couple of weeks my name hasn’t been on the paperwork so I just added it at the bottom and went along my marry way, but apparently there is some mix up on where I’m supposed to be because the email said muster station D not B where I have been.  So I have to get up extra early on a sea day (especially after today) and go and pretend to get yelled at.  I’m sure that they just changed it and forgot to tell me (I hear that they do that a lot) but I guess it needs to get straightened out sometime.  Another interesting thing happened today during the show.  So I have an AMX panel (don’t ask me what it stands for) that is basically the brain between the multiple show programs.  We have to lighting consoles one for the moving lights and one for the static fixtures (it’s pretty standard).  We also use the AMX panel to lamp on the movers, mess with the camera, etc, etc.  I was watching the show and thought that something seemed off since the last time we ran it but I couldn’t exactly put a finger on it.  The dancer’s faces looked a little dimmer and the show didn’t have a lively punch as it did before.  About halfway through the show I realized that I forgot to lamp on the movers!! I took a look at my backstage camera and realized none of them were powered up.   Total oopsies.  The sad part is that no one really noticed and I didn’t even get flak for it either.  My little secret I guess.  I’m really quite exhausted from today.  I hope that the security officer won’t actually yell at me for being in the wrong/right place.  Who knows at this point.

May 13th Sea Day

Today went by pretty slowly.  I woke up around 11:00 (I must have been pretty tired because I slept for 12 hours).  This time I remembered to go down to the crew mess and grab some breakfast.  My first duty was Legends rehearsal.  They must be short handed this week on singers because we were missing three of the acts.  Normally when this happens they find a member of the crew to sing each part but since we have so many that are out we completely struck James Dean.  We were still missing an Elvis and Ricky Martin.  Normally the singers fill in the parts but we only have one male singer onboard.  After about an hour of discussion they decided that Brian (the singer) would be Elvis and Brad (a singer from the piano bar) would be Ricky Martin.  This would be entertaining because Brian is black and the last time he played Elvis we got a guest complaint (mainly because he was black).  Some of the guests can be real assholes.  After all, he is probably the most qualified person to sing the Elvis music anyway.  Brian and Brad didn’t have to go to the rehearsal because they have done this before and already know what to do.  The rest of the singers were atrocious.  This week I couldn’t even find one that could remotely carry a tune.  Garth Brooks was even worse than the real singer.  His singing reminded me of a bloodhound howling with the different variations in pitch.  This time I had to retreat into my Kindle.  Hopefully the book would distract me from the horrible singing.  Normally I can’t read when I’m doing a show because I have to watch for pyro but this show doesn’t have any pyro in it so I can read if I need to.  After the dreadfulness of rehearsal I had some time to kill.  I headed back to my cabin to catch up on Dexter and a little bit of “The United States of Tara.”  Brad (the piano bar guy) turned me on to it.  It’s a pretty cool show about a mom with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder AKA multiple personality disorder).  She must be a talented actress to play all those roles.  That lasted me until I had to go to a production meeting around 3.  The meeting was fairly productive, we discussed the next cruise’s schedule and the upcoming cast change (in two weeks) and the charter next month.  At dinner I arranged to go out to the mall tomorrow in Miami with Ryan and Brian (some musicians) so hopefully the day will be interesting.  I feel like every time we’re in Miami you really have to think about what you need to resupply and where you can get it.  Post office, Target, CVS, etc.  Next week we’ll be in St. Thomas again and I managed to squeak aboard a shore excursion visiting St. John Island (apparently it’s just a water taxi away) so that’s the big thing next week.  I don’t really know how much it will cost me yet, but we get a huge discount on shore excursions.  I also booked a reservation with the steakhouse so I’m really excited about next cruise.  Some crew members go to the steakhouse every week but honestly I don’t think I could afford it (both monetarily and health wise) but it is a great treat every now and then.  When we get to Miami this time I know I won’t have to get up at 7am to get off the ship.

May 12th Jamaica

May 12, 2011- Jamaica

                I found out late last night that I would have another marathon training session again today.  This time the session would consist of crowd control methods during an evacuation.  The teachers were the same as before and I even recognized some of the students from previous classes.  Luckily the training class didn’t start until noon so it gave me a little time to sleep in but even so we still had a few people that had bloodshot eyes at noon.  I don’t really know why they put all the training classes right after the crew events but maybe it’s another test.  I didn’t really know how long the class was going to be but I had heard that it would be a long one.  The teacher (I think she’s from Italy) said that normally they have two eight hour classes (oh gawd) one for crowd control and the other for emergency procedure leadership (whatever that meant) but the condensed it to one four hour class.  Ug.  There goes my time that I wanted to spend in Jamaica.  She had brought the standard tray of cookies and orange juice (I had learned to conserve the cookies until I really needed them) so I was able to munch on them as the class went by.  The beginning was somewhat interesting.  They showed some videos about what has happened to Carnival in the past (ship fires, industry crashes etc).  Apparently Carnival had a couple of accidents in the 80s that involved ship fires and accidents.  I know one ship recently (in the past few years) had engine trouble and had to be towed back to Miami.  I think the Navy was called in to lend assistance with food and fresh water.  She went over all the different organizations of the maritime business and how they affected each other, blah, blah.  I honestly feel that if we had some emergency and we were far at sea we would be in big trouble.  After all there are over 3500 people onboard this ship speaking over 60 languages and I know that a lot of them have an extreme difficulty understanding English.  If there was a fire or something we would be in big trouble even with all the different countermeasures we have onboard.  The course moved on to how to evacuate a crowd at a muster station and what some common emergency situations you might come up against.  They ranged from missing children, drunken guests, and people trying to steal your life jacket during an emergency.  We even had a little demonstration where a portion of the class were guests trying to get onboard a life boat and some of the students played out the emergency situations while other people in class were crew members trying to solve the situations.  I guess Carnival makes it as entertaining as possible since they know you really don’t want to be there.  Honestly the class was four hours and I don’t really remember a lot from the class (that tells you something right?).  I think the class could have been broken down into a two hour class but I guess they keep it that long because most people don’t speak English very well and it would be too much to try to speed it through by perhaps speaking quicker.  After a while guests were starting to come back to the ship so the bar next door was playing some dance music and it distracted us from everything.  The other bar made me not want to be there even more.  She gave us one break during the entire four hour session so I quickly went to restock up on cookies and orange juice for the other two hour session.  She taught us the basics of the flight or fight response and we watched another movie from the late 1980s on how to observe and study people at a muster station.  The clothing and dialogue of the movie was horrible and definitely dated but I guess it got the point across.  I felt like I was in driving school again unable to escape but at least I had some cookies!  The training concluded with a little clicker quiz game.  She grouped us into five teams and we answered some questions from each module.  After we finished the little game she gave us a test and (surprise!) most of the questions were exactly from the little game that we played no more than ten minutes before.  I guess Carnival really wants you to pass the test the first time so you won’t have to do the four hour training again.  Right before the training ended I felt the bow thrusters engaged.  Well, I guess I’ll get off in two weeks when we’re back there again.  After training I headed to the theater to help load in for our show tonight.  We prepared most of the show yesterday so there wasn’t much to do.  All we had to do was move the band cart and take the balloon basket down.  Pretty much took five minutes.   The show ran well but I was falling asleep halfway through it.  I guess I need to sleep a little bit more.  After the show I turned in at 11.

May 11th Grand Cayman

                Grand Cayman is a tender port.  That means there is no dock at this port.  Instead, the ship drops anchor and we board little boats and they take us to the pier.  I guess the water is too shallow for the ship to make it all the way into port.  I slept for a while (although the chains almost gave me a heart attack today) and decided to meet up with Ryan for lunch.  They wanted to go to an Irish pub; apparently they have a killer buffet.  I remembered Grand Cayman from my last cruise and still couldn’t think of where this place was.  I was kind of shocked when I got off the dock because in the Caymans they drive on the opposite side of the road and instead of having white lines they have yellow lines.  It reminded me a lot of Japan because the cars there are very old (our taxi was a 1980s van—just like in Japan).  I remembered this was where I got Dad some Cuban cigars so I will definitely have to buy some our next western cruise.  We decided to take a taxi to the restaurant just because it was a little bit of a walk and we wanted to maximize our computer time.  The taxi ride was just like in Puerto Rico just sit down, close your eyes, and pray.  I think we ran three stop signs and made at least four illegal turns.  I almost had to stop looking out the window because of the driving.  Of course, it’s an island so you can’t really go that fast, but it was scary nonetheless.  She freaked me out every time she took a turn because it was on the opposite side of the road that I was used to.  We finally arrived at the pub, I almost kissed the ground once I got off.  When we got off she said that the fare would be $4 each.  Sam (another crew member) looked at all of us and said that it should be $2.50 because he does this every other week but the taxi driver just snapped back something about being a taxi and not a bus service (I couldn’t really understand) so we paid her the $4 per person and went into the pub.  Cayman time is an hour behind ship time so we had an hour to kill before we could stuff ourselves at the buffet.  Thankfully I brought my laptop so I was able to get on Facebook and check out the news to see what has been happening over the past couple of days.  Once we had our fill of the internet it was on to the buffet!  The buffet reminded me of thanksgiving because there was turkey and stuffing but there was also beef, pasta, and potatoes.  It was really delicious considering the mess hall food we have been eating for a while.  Apparently the pub is one of the popular places for crew to hang out so we saw a lot of our crew members there as well.  Last night Bryan won third place in the Blackjack tournament so he treated us to lunch.  He said his wallet was so full he couldn’t even close it.  Carrying that much cash around would make me nervous but I guess he’s used to it by now.  Around two o’clock we decided that we should probably head back to the ship.  We had to walk a little ways to find a taxi because the way that we were traveling was against traffic so eventually we had to cross the street to find a cab that was going in our direction.  It was just like playing Frogger.  Ready… Set…. NOW! And with that we all ran across the street to catch the cab.  This time we negotiated our fare when we got in the taxi sure enough it was $2.50 so I think we just got raped in the last taxi.  There were some other people in the taxi as well so he stopped at their places first.  The taxi was a grey Nissan van from the late 1980s complete with two jump seats and it looked just like the ones from Japan except the steering wheel was on the opposite side.  We stopped at a gas station to let one girl off and what looked like an apartment complex as well.  Right after we reached the apartment complex (if you can call it that) he turned around the corner and there was the pier.  I couldn’t really follow where he was going because he took so many turns.  I remembered during my last cruise I had bought some cigars for Dad at this port so I’ll definitely have to call him the next time I’m in Miami and see what kind of cigars he likes so I can buy better ones this time.  So if any of you smoke cigars (especially from certain island countries…) let me know and I might be able to bring some back as gifts.  Once we were back onboard I resumed my ship duties.  During this part of the cruise we have what we call the repeaters party.  It’s basically a little get together for people who have cruised with Carnival before.  Jen puts on a little show and we give them watered down drinks as a thank you for cruising with us.  Some of these people have been on like 60 or 70 cruises.  I really don’t know how anyone could afford to do that, but I guess they love to cruise.  During the party I got a call from my boss saying that the fly on artists didn’t board the ship today so we would have to find something else for the guests to do instead of the fly on act in the evening.  After the party I rushed downstairs to see what was going on instead.  They decided to have one of the singers sing some music with the band and we would bring on the ventriloquist to do 15 minutes or so from his show as a lead in.  Meanwhile I had to find some cues that I could use as band light for the singer and something for the ventriloquist as well.  I didn’t want to use the movers mainly because the show would just be about thirty minutes and it would be a waste to try to lamp them on just for that show.  So I decided to use the Expression with the scrollers to create a stage wash along with the fiber optic curtain with a twinkling effect during the slow numbers.  We had two shows tonight so if need be I could change the look if I found something better.   The first show was a little bit rough.  The wash was a little bit whiter than I expected and it didn’t look good on a black actor.  I got the note from Jen about halfway through the first number so I ended up lamping on all the movers and sorting through the Edge Show (the artist that didn’t make it) to find some cues I could use.  Jen also wanted to add a spotlight as well.  Crap.  I didn’t have my spot boys so I would have to play spot operator as soon as I could find a cue to use as a wash.  I managed to find one of his talking cues (the ones that didn’t have movers going everywhere) to use for the wash.  It was a pink and purple cue, but it would have to work for now.  I threw my headset at the console and jumped over to the spotlight.  I waited for it to warm up a bit and went through the boomerang to see what colors it had in it.  Ahh.. Lee 201.  A light blue but just enough pop to punch through the color of the stage wash.  Wonderful.  It was awkward adding a spotlight in the middle of the song, but I didn’t know how many songs he was going to sing so this would have to do.  I managed to finish the rest of his song and he moved to a stool for a slow song.  Wonderful.  This way I could pray he didn’t move from the stool, lock the spotlight and fiddle with the fiber optic curtain for a twinkle effect.  After stumbling through the console I managed to find the group for the curtains and put on a low twinkle.  Magic.  As soon as I did that he made an effort to get up and I hurried back to my spotlight. One person doing two people’s jobs.  After the singer was done we moved on to the ventriloquist.  I just used the same pink and purple wash for his act mainly because I couldn’t remember any other mover cues that didn’t have moving trash in them.  He had requested that we have a camera on him that projected to the screens on either side of the stage so the audience could see the puppets better.  I quickly jumped across the booth to my AMX panel and routed the camera to the projectors, dropped down the screens, and zoomed the camera where I thought he would be.  Sure enough the camera was a little bit off so I had to tweak the camera ever so slowly so it fit him and the dummy in it.  It took a few minutes into his act to get it perfect but I managed to get it there without anyone noticing (I think).  After the camera was set I was able to watch the rest of the show.  I was overjoyed when the show was over.  I reset everything where it needed to be for the top of the second show and made my way downstairs to see where the ventriloquist was going to be so I could spike the camera.  The second show ran a little better with only some slight modifications to the wash and spotting the singer when he was running around the stage but I was thankful when we were done.  After the show I had to run laser tag at 10:45.  I thought it was pretty odd to run laser tag this late but went along with it because it was part of the schedule.  I kind of wondered how many kids we would have wanting to do laser tag at 11 o’clock at night.  It went pretty well.  Laser tag is always a pain because it takes a lot of work to drag out the giant inflatable thingy and set it all up.  There were no children at laser tag.  The customers consisted entirely of adults and most of them had drinks in their hands before setting up.  I wondered if Carnival had a disclaimer or something that allow them to disallow drunk guests but I wasn’t told any I allowed all the guests anyways.  The arena shook like mad when they were inside.  Several points I had to go back and check the blowers to make sure that they were still connected to the tubes because it looked like the inflatable was deflating.  Sure enough one of the tubes got disconnected so I had to connect it back up really quick so the entire thing wouldn’t deflate.  I don’t think the inflatable was designed for that amount of weight.  There were about 7 games played (a fair amount) so it took a little while to finish up laser tag.  After laser tag I heard that there was going to be a white party in the cabinet bar (the furthest bar aft; where the playboy party was) so I decided to check it out.  I didn’t have a lot of white so I wore a button down white with blue stripes shirt and some khaki shorts that could pass as white in low lighting and flip flops.  I felt like Brian from Queer as Folk during his white party.  The party was cool but it wasn’t nearly as packed as the playboy party was.  I ordered one of my staple drinks a double tequila sunrise (it’s the only way to get orange juice onboard so I’m being healthy!!) but they told me that they aren’t allowed to pour doubles.  Odd, because I know they’re allowed to do it at the crew bar.  So in order to solve the problem I just ordered two singles (I R SMRT!).  It was the same price as a double but it just was in two glasses.  Totally weird.  Unlike a lot of people at these parties I hate ordering two (or more with some people) drinks at a time because as I drink one the ice melts in the other drink watering the orange juice down and makes it tastes disgusting.  The odd thing was that you weren’t allowed to order doubles but you are allowed to buy 10 beers at a time (I saw some guy do it!) Normally that kind of thing is done at the crew bar all the time (it’s sometimes hard to get drinks) but God help you if you want a double.  Oh well.  The party was good; a lot of people didn’t show.  I sat there with the musicians for a bit before giving up and going to bed around 2.