Seventh Day- April 26th

Seventh Day-  Sea Day. April 26, 2011

                Thank God for sea days.  Dave told me that he wanted to meet around 10 to do some more work with the movers.  I woke up around 9:30 to try to get ready.  When I went to the stage at 10 the only person who was there was Diana running some of her automation cues.  Painted drops were flying in and out, the turntable was spinning, the orchestra pit was moving up and down… It almost looked like a circus without all the animals.  I waited for about 20 minutes to see if Dave would show up but after about 15 I decided to abandon it.  I called him from my cabin but he didn’t answer the phone.  I told Diana if he needed me just to give me a call and that I would be in my cabin.  I was really gracious for the extra time to sleep.  I was exhausted.  I set an alarm for 11:45 am so I wouldn’t oversleep for lunch.  I was fully expecting to be woken up with the phone going off, but it never happened.  I woke up at 11:45 and went downstairs for lunch.  Meh, crew mess.  After lunch I went back to the stage to see if he was working on the movers.  No one was there.  So, naturally I headed back to my cabin for a nap.  I knew we had rehearsal for the fly on entertainer at 4 so I set my alarm for 3:30.  No call at all.  I was kind of worried since he hadn’t shown up for the call.  At four I showed up backstage and helped move the band so they could be ready for rehearsal.  Around 4:30 Dave showed up.  Apparently he had been sick all day and spent most of the day in the infirmary.  I didn’t ask why.  Rehearsal was kind of pointless for us so we spent most of the time fixing the movers.  We had two shows tonight one at 7 and the other at 9.  Because the show started earlier today and the crew mess didn’t open until 6 we went up to Lido deck and had some of the guest food.  It was delicious.  I had a grilled Ruben sandwich and some French fries and a tall glass of lemonade.  It was splendid.  After dinner we headed back downstairs to the theater.  Apparently for the fly on entertainers (fly on is where they meet us in port and board ship. When we reach our next port then leave to join the next ship in the fleet and rotate with the ships and various ports) use cues built by the other technicians and these cues were horrible.  Basically it was just a cue with the color scrolling, another cue with a strobe effect and another cue with a spinning gobo effect.  Blah- boring.  Apparently we had to use three of the cues for the thirteen songs that the singer had; it was that bad.  The other cues were just unusable for the show.  The first show ran fine.  He was a Motown singer so it wasn’t my cup of tea.  The second show we switched between the three usable cues once again.  It was funny; it was almost exactly the same show down to the lines and jokes he used.  The great thing about cruise ships is you can use the same jokes over and over again because the audience is constantly changing. After the show ended I headed straight for the shower and to bed.  Even after all the sleep I got today I’m still exhausted.  I noticed throughout the ship there were signs posted for a “playboy” party.  Oh jeez, I wonder if it would be like the Pimps and Hoes party out in Utah.  Note to self: always remember to pack some sort of “party outfit.”  It seems like every summer stock that I go to or every contract that I take has some party like this.  I decided to dress it up a little bit with a red button down shirt and my pinstripe pants and dress shoes.  It wasn’t really Playboy but it was the best I could do.  I went down to the crew bar around 11:30 but it was surprisingly empty.  I noticed a few people came already dressed.  You had some girls in fishnets and panties with bunny ears.  Some even made themselves a rabbit tail.  Some of the guys had on a vest, bow tie and black shorts.  Let me say that the guys who decided to dress like that had the arms for it.  I definitely couldn’t pull something like that off.  Oh well.  I found out that the party would actually take place in one of the lounges towards the aft of the ship.  Of course with most parties not much was going on in the beginning.  They had a DJ and drinks were crew bar prices so it was basically an extended version of the crew bar.  They even had black and silver balloons and playboy logos tacked up everywhere.   I sat down at the bar for a while and just absorbed all of the different conversations going on at one time.  The thing I love about cruise ships is that the crew is very international.  I was talking with someone from the Philippines and another girl from Croatia.  There were lots of different languages being spoken at one time.  English is the default language here but all of the ships officers are Italian, the bartenders and bus boys are from Indonesia or Malaysia and the rest is a complete mixture.  It’s wonderful.  I sat at the bar for a good while until some of the other technicians showed up.  I chatted with them for a while and the next time I looked up the room was packed.  The music was a bit strange, very European.  I didn’t understand most of the songs but it was typical dance music.  I definitely stayed away from the dance floor.  The party reminded me of a scene from True Blood in season three where a faun (a worshipper of Dionysus) comes to the town and turns the citizens into mindless people with their eyes blacked out just wanting to have a good time.  The DJ was the faun and the citizens were the crew.  I had fun but I mostly sat by the bar just watching the people go by.