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.
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