Gone Cruisin': Back on board the Dream!

Sept. 16^h, 2013

I have officially been back on board the Dream for 9 days and I’m already writing a blog?!?!? What?!? I know some of you can’t believe it and I can’t believe it myself either!!

I had a fantastic first week back on board; I don’t think I could have asked for much more. Just being able to walk on the ship and seeing familiar faces was so nice. I was extremely excited to see everyone again including a few very special people.

My flights back were relatively uneventful. I didn’t sleep much, got to watch the sunrise flying in to NYC, got some cool pictures of NYC flying out again and found the humidity again when I got to Florida. My bags made it all the way to Orlando, so that saved me a very big headache. Picked up my bags and went to catch the bus to the ship. When I got back to the ship I had to do the normal sign on stuff while seeing people that I hadn’t seen in 7 weeks! I felt so loved all day when I was walking around the ship and everyone saw me again and would run up to me and give me big hugs!! I got put into the smallest cabin in the entertainment corridor, but I shouldn’t be there long as I’m hoping to switch to this coming Saturday since cast change is just about over and the old cast will be leaving. I have an awesome roommate; she is the other host that signed on with me! Her name is Amy and she is from England. Super sweet and we just instantly bonded.

I got back into the normal duties during the week starting off with cooking demonstration and the hairy chest competition! I called what seemed like just about every game of bingo we played last week. I was also on nightclub last week, so that means that I’m the host of the night club all week. We are also trying something new with the line for the comedy club so I have been working on making that better. Oh, and the weather the first week was absolutely wonderful!!

I’m currently sitting back on the ship writing this and looking out the window at the rain pouring down in Cozumel. It’s been overcast just about all day with some rain here and there but now it’s really raining. We are getting some of the hurricane that is near by. Hopefully as we head south tonight we can find some nicer weather.

One of my favorite things about my first week back was that I was able to see one of my favorite families I’ve ever met since I’ve started working for Carnival. Bill and Sherrie were back this week and I was so happy to see them!! They cruised back in May with their son Brandon who has now moved to Colorado. They are just some of the sweetest people and I am very blessed that I was able to meet them back in May and see them again last week. Hope I can see you both again soon! J

Since I signed back on during an eastern cruise, I was able to go through immigration in San Juan, which was extremely nice that I didn’t have to do it Saturday and waste half of my day away. So Saturday I made plans to go to Kennedy Space Center with Vusi. It was pretty cool to see again, since the last time I was there was back in 2000!! I didn’t remember everything but there were a few things. Since they aren’t having any more shuttle launches there you are now able to drive up closer to the actually launch pad rather than just to the observation tower. I will attach some pictures to the bottom of this post so you can see some of the things that I saw.

One last pretty amazing thing that happened Friday night was that we had a gentleman shave his head on stage during bingo. There was a group on board called Southern Cruiser’s Riding Club. They were a motorcycle club who liked to raise money for St. Jude so when they heard about what we were doing with our Groove for St. Jude, they immediately wanted to get involved. For those of you who haven’t heard about Carnival’s Groove for St. Jude event it is one of my favorite things that Carnival does. All week long guests are able to purchase a t-shirt and wristband for $10. All the money goes straight to St. Jude’s children’s hospital and Carnival matches every dollar. On the very last sea day we do what we call Groove for St. Jude. This is where for 30minutes to 1 hour we have t-shirts available up on the Lido deck and we do some dances to get people involved and get the word out there. We normally sell about $1,000.00 worth of shirts up on lido then that gets added to whatever the formalities shop sells during the week so we are normally somewhere between $2,000.00 & $3,000.00 for the week which is awesome!! We are currently #5 in the fleet for this event when it comes to sales! I’m hoping to break into the top 3! Well, this group that was on board had raised 1.4 million dollars on their own all for St. Jude’s children hospital!! They gave the lido deck the challenge of if we could raise $5,000.00 that day there was a gentleman that wanted to shave his head. He hadn’t had a hair cut in over 20 years so you can imagine how long his hair was!! Well, we weren’t sure how much we had raised that day because we don’t get the number until after the cruise usually, but the man wanted to do it anyway. We set up a make shift barbershop on the stage and he got his hair cut during bingo and he was going to donate his hair to locks of love!! A very cool thing I thought and definitely put a nice end to my first week back. It was kind of ironic too, because my last week before vacation I had a gentleman come up to me and want to donate $1,000.00. I’ve been extremely blessed to be able to witness some incredible acts of kindness.

One last thing that I want to share with you before I end this is that back at the end of April and beginning of May I had the pleasure of meeting one of my other favorite families I’ve met while working for Carnival. I met Emily, Mason and Jen while I was on my flight back to the ship after coming home for the week of Kurt’s birthday. Emily was traveling with her mother Jen, father Dennis, brother Mason, and sister Allison. Emily was a bit shy at first, but we started talking about why they were flying down to Orlando and come to find out they were coming to cruise on the Dream!! J I immediately started telling them all about the ship and where we were going, what places we were going, and how much fun they were going to have. I instantly grew attached to Emily, as she was absolutely adorable! I hadn’t had the chance to meet Allison and Dennis yet, as they were a couple rows up on the airplane. I know they all had a fantastic week by the end of it and loved every minute of it. Every time I saw the little ones they would always run up to me to give me hugs, it truly made my day! It was also nice having just left my family to find a wonderful family to create some awesome memories with. By the end of the week, the girls, Emily & Allison had invited me to dinner with them. I told them I would try my best, but no promises. Well I couldn’t let down two of the cutest girls ever!! I found a way to make it to dinner with them and had a great time. The girls weren’t ready to leave the next day as they were crying at the dinner table when the waiters started singing their good-bye song. It was sad saying bye to them as well, but promised I would keep in touch and visit someday! Well, just this past week there was something published that a few people have found, but I’m assuming most of you probably haven’t. The something that was published was a comment from Jen to John Heald’s blog. John Heald is the senior cruise director and a huge face of the company. He posted this and thousands of people have read it. I cannot thank Jen enough for the amazing and super sweet comments that she has said about me. Their family really touched my heart and I really hope to see them again hopefully sooner than later. If you are curious to what Jen wrote about me here it is….

From the Blog.....................

Jennifer Price asks:

Hello John,

I wanted to write this to bring a staff member to your attention. My husband and I took our three children on their first cruise on the Carnival Dream this past April. While on the plane, my eight-year-old began talking to the young woman next to us. Imagine our surprise when we learned that she was an entertainment host on the very ship we were headed to! Alyssa Ramont went out of her way, starting on the airplane, by showing my daughter pictures of the ship and different ports and telling her about all the fun things in Camp Carnival. Alyssa knew our entire family’s names and room number before we even landed. She went out of her way the entire week to say hello and to involve our children in the dance parties and other activities. Alyssa is one of the reasons that my children now want to go on a cruise more than going to Disney World! She is also one of the reasons that my husband and I will be taking our fourth Carnival cruise on the Carnival Liberty as an anniversary present on August 17. I hope we can meet more outstanding employees on that ship!

John says:

Hello Jennifer Price,

I am so sorry that I missed your latest cruise before I answered this and I do hope that you had a great time. Thanks so much for these precious words for Alyssa and I will make sure she sees this and indeed that her supervisors do as well. Thanks so much for taking the time to write and I do hope you all had fun on the Carnival Liberty and that we will see you all soon. Best wishes.

John

…We have now set sail from Cozumel and are heading to Isla Roatan, Honduras tomorrow. Our itinerary is a bit different this week than the normal western cruise. It’s just that Belize and Roatan are swapped; more than likely because of port congestion. It’s going to be a bit rocky tonight, I can tell already. I’m going to do my absolute best to try and write more often this contract. If you feel like I need to write again, email me and I will get on it! J It’s all friendly encouragement.

Hope everyone has a great week!! I’m already enjoying mine even if it is raining outside. Missing everyone but hope to talk to you all soon!!

Smiles,

Alyssa