Busy DREAMin'!!

March 20^th, 2013

Hey all… I’m trying to be better about writing more often and I’ve been given a great opportunity so I’m trying my best to take advantage of it. It is unfortunate the circumstances that it has come about, but I’m enjoying it that’s for sure.

Last time I wrote, Auntie and Uncle were going cruising and we were going to meet up in Cozumel. Well, that has happened and it was an absolute wonderful day. Couldn’t have asked for a better day! After my ship docked, I finished up what I needed to do and headed over to the RC (Royal Caribbean) pier. Our piers are the two closest to each other out of the three total piers in Cozumel. So it took me about 15 minutes, if that, to walk to where we said we would meet up. We then headed to do a little shopping (Shocker!) at some of the local shops. Since Auntie and Uncle cruised on Royal, I had to bring them to spend some money at the Carnival pier! Haha I made sure they got all the good deals though! Then we headed to a restaurant called Three Amigos and ate lunch with a couple of my friends from the Dream, Ben & Rachel. After lunch we headed down town and just walked around a little bit more. Got some sweet new sunglasses for Auntie and I!! After a while we headed back to the ships because their back on board time was earlier than mine. It was awesome to see them though!! Definitely what I needed being a bit homesick still.

Well, the next few weeks were relatively normal until I was host on duty again! We lost two hosts on the 9^th, but we also got two new hosts. It was sad to see Mr. B and Ben go, but excited to see what the two new hosts would bring. We have Jase and Mitch now. I’ve worked with Mitch before while I was on the Freedom last contract so that was nice to see another familiar face. We also had our new musical director sign on, Bryan. I’ve worked with him before too. It’s amazing how many people I know from all the moving around I did last contract!! Well from my last contract I mentioned that there would always be something that would go wrong during my time as HOD (host on duty), whether it was big or small. This time is was big!! If you haven’t seen the news lately, that could be a good thing, but you have probably heard that a few Carnival ships have been having some issues. Well, my ship was one of those. I am currently on the Carnival Dream. We were docked in St. Maarten on Wednesday and experienced an issue while doing some regular testing of our emergency back-up generators. Apparently a fuse was singed and that got repaired but that caused something else to go wrong. Without our emergency generators functioning properly we cannot set sail with guests on board. That caused us to sit in port over night seeing if they could fix the issue, but it was not fixed. Thursday night Carnival had started arranging flights for all the guests to fly out of St. Maarten and they had the CareTeam as well as our debarkation shoreside team from Port Canaveral fly in to help us debark all the guests. We had about 20-25 chartered flights out of St. Maarten, some guests were booked on commercial flights as well. We had about 30 passengers that couldn’t fly so they got booked on other cruise lines that were coming into St. Maarten. As unfortunate as the Triumph situation was, it helped make our process a bit smoother. A lot of people that came to help us also went to help the Triumph. The only difference was that we had one day to organize things and the Triumph had 3 days before the ship got back into port.

It was quite a process to get all the guests off the ship. Guests were required to provide us with information of when their flights out of Orlando were, or if they were driving. From that information the CareTeam booked guests on appropriate flights, but of course nothing could be that easy. Many guests were not booked with their friends that they wanted to fly with or other situations like that. Eventually everyone got off the ship though. It was a long three-day debarkation process. I was up every morning at 3:30 or 4:00am. We were on the gangway all day unless we were up doing an activity. We were rotating all the activities, but if you weren’t on an activity you were down on the gangway guiding and saying good-bye to guests.

We still had our normal plus some special entertainment in the evenings. We got a special surprise and Jon Secada came and performed for us! It was pretty awesome! We were all running around trying to get everything set up for his performance. I had the pleasure of meeting the local guy we hired to come tune the piano for him. I brought him up to lido for some dinner, then we walked around the ship and I learned more about the island of St. Maarten. It was very interesting. Then we had Marcus Anthony the next night. He is an awesome performer as well. He is always around on one of our ships.

The neatest part about this entire experience the past week has been the guests. They have all been so positive about the entire situation. We have never had things be like they said on the news. There was only one toilet that over flowed and that was quickly cleaned up, and one elevator that has been out for weeks already. The guests actually didn’t want to get off the ship! They were loving the fact that they got three days in St. Maarten! The other plus for me was that we got to be in port with the Valor! I got to see Harrison, from my host college and Cassie who was also on the Paradise while I was there. It was a little reunion!

We are now safe and sound back in Port Canaveral. They are working on the issue and we are supposed to sail again on Saturday. I hope everyone is doing well! Baseball season is finally here and March Madness is starting!! Hope everyone enjoys it and I will be watching as much as I can! Hope to talk to you all soon, feel free to contact me whenever you like and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Smiles for all!

Xoxox

-A

Living ON the Dream!

February 27^th, 2013

Well, it has officially been 5 weeks and a little bit since I signed on to the Dream! It has definitely been an experience so far. I’ve been very busy with everything going on here. Between learning the ship and getting to know everyone on board I’ve kept very busy.

I’m going to try and be better this contract about writing more, but as you can see it’s been 5 weeks already since I’ve been here and I’m just getting around to writing. In my defense, the first few weeks are very hectic with lots to do and learn, so I’ll keep working on it. I’m going to get right into things so you don’t feel left out!

Well I’m sure most of you have heard about the fire on board the Triumph. As I am not on that ship, I do have friends that were on that ship. I have heard from them and they are doing just fine. They are waiting to find out where they are going or what they are doing. Supposedly we are having approximately 75 employees sign on to the ship on Saturday that were on the Triumph. Should be very interesting considering we have about 12 new dancers and singers coming on board as well as these 75 other employees and the others that are coming off vacation. We are going to be pressed for space in terms of rooms available, but I’m sure they have it all planned out. I’m so happy that everyone is safe and sound and they are being taken care of. Something like this really makes you think about life on ships. These are extremely safe vessels, but something like that can happen to just about any ship. I’ve heard many different stories where the crew did an incredible job and I’m not surprised at all. I work with so many hard working and caring people that I know it’s the same way across the fleet. We really do work as a family on board and something like that really shows it.

As just about everyone knows, I’ve had my share of time away from home. I love experiencing new things that is pretty obvious; I mean I work on a cruise ship. No day is ever the same. But, I would have to say that this first month has been extremely tough being away from home. Things have become a lot better in this last week, but I still miss my amazing family and friends. I’ve been creating stronger friendships in the last week and I think that has been helping a lot too. Along with time flying by, I’ve been having more fun and focusing on working out more. Keeping a positive mind set and reminding myself of what is important to me is helping me pull through the tough times. I’ve been trying to keep in contact with everyone better so feel free to email me whenever you’d like. I’m always down for a good conversation. I’ve had quite a few great ones in the last few weeks that have helped me stay positive, so thank you to those that know what I’m talking about. I’m also passing the time by counting down the days until my Mom, Dad, & Brother get to come cruise!! It’s down to 93 days just incase you were wondering guys! J And I get to see Auntie & Uncle in less than 1 week!!! Bring on Cozumel!!!

One of my favorite things about my job besides the beautiful places that I get to go is the amazing people that I get to meet. I’ve found some pretty incredible people on this ship. First off is Rachel; she is the show band singer on board. I feel like I have known her forever, we just clicked right off the bat. Super, super nice and we just have a lot of fun together. Then there is Ben; he is another host here on the Dream and he is absolutely hilarious! He is from London and can make just about anyone laugh! He is leaving soon and it will be very hard to say bye to him. Next is Mel & Biz; Mel is a dancer and Biz is her boyfriend and he is one of the BBoys or breakdancers. They are two of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I can just talk to them whenever and about anything at all. Random, Elie, and Proto are the other Bboys and just plain awesome! All of the Bboys are amazingly talented and they have just awesome hearts and personalities. They are a ton of fun to watch perform and just to hang out with. Michelle is my amazing roommate that is leaving on Saturday! I’m so sad to see her go, but she is ready for vacation. She is super super cool and I’m going to miss her a lot. Joe is another one of the hosts here and he is from England. Again, another awesome guy that is very chill and laid back. He is here basically the same amount of time that I am. He will leave 2 weeks before me in July. Then there are the personal trainers, Keegan and Ben! They are just chill guys that I enjoy hangin out with and they are helping me get in shape! Very thankful for their help. I'm very blessed to have such awesome friendships with all these people!! 

The new cast arrived today so for the next month the dance casts are going to be doing a lot of rehearsals. Jaime is my cruise director. She is absolutely awesome! She has tons of energy and a very very kind heart. Gumbie is my assistant cruise director. Gumbie transferred here just a week or two before I did from the Pride. Also Jaime and Gumbie are going on vacation soon, but they will be back in a few months. Gumbie comes back later than Jaime because he leaves after her. They definitely deserve it though, they were really hard, but then again so do we all!

Last week while we were in Roatan, we were docked with the Conquest so they threw a big party for the crew. Well I decided to go swimming in the ocean, which is a pretty big deal for me… I don’t just walk into the ocean it usually takes me a while to get in, but I walked straight in. It wasn’t very deep and I ended up cutting my toe on a rock. It didn’t hurt too much, but it was still noticeable. I am having a great time and making even more friends. It’s hard at times, but other times I am doing great and forget about the hard stuff. I still can’t believe this is my job. I’m truly blessed. I’m living a dream and living ON the Dream!

Hope all is well with everyone back home… I miss you all and I can’t wait to see you all when I get home.

Smiles, Hugs, & Kisses….

Heading South

I know it has been a while since I posted anything and I’m really sorry about that. I’ve been extremely busy and have less than 1 month before I’m home. Things are only going to get busier I’m sure.

Well the last time that I wrote a blog we were still doing 4 and 5 day runs out of NYC. Since then we have finished those and started with our week long runs. We did 5 of those then relocated to Norfolk, Virginia. Our last two cruises were 4 & 5-day runs and they were pretty normal. Nothing too out of the ordinary happened. We moved on to 7-day cruises and I was on duty for the first one. That meant it was my first time in Maine and I couldn’t check it out. Good thing we were going to be back the next week. With me being on duty, everyone knew something was bound to happen. I think we might have a pretty smooth cruise, just little things here and there. That was a first though. The only thing different about this first 7-day cruise was that we did the run a bit backwards. When we left NYC we first headed to Halifax, then St. John, Portland, then Boston last. When we have a run like this where we head to Canada first, that means the guests have to do some sort of immigration when we first get back into the US. It’s kind of a pain because they will have to do something again when we get back to NYC. Thankfully this was the only cruise that was like that. The other four weeklong cruises went Boston, Portland, St. John, and Halifax. The weather was really nice for most of the month of September. It might be a little chilly here and there and then a bit of rain once in a while but for the most part it was still in the 70s even in Canada.

From my last post I had to wait 34 days for mom and dad to get here! Well they have come and gone now. The have been gone for almost that long now. We had a great week together! It started off the right way by being able to catch some of the K-State game in New York City! We were able to eat together quite a few times and spend lots of time together on and off the ship. I’m pretty sure mom and dad enjoyed it as much as I did. They got to meet some of my friends on the ship. Trevor walked around Boston and some of Portland with us. We didn’t have too much planned in the ports, but Mom decided she wanted to see Peggy’s Cove in Halifax so Bobbi and Emily joined us for that too. It was a gorgeous place and a perfect day for pictures. I was glad that mom made the decision to want to go! We did luck out and were able to spend a few extra hours together because we had a medical emergency and had to return to Halifax the night we left so we were delayed getting into NYC. That morning we were also supposed to drop all the guests off and then head out to Norfolk, Virginia to relocate to our new home port, but our delayed arrival also messed up the arrival of another ship. We were supposed to try and be out of the port by 11 but we didn’t arrive until then, so the other ship had to sit out in harbor until we finished debarking all the guests and loading all the other materials on. Supposedly the ship had traveled all the way from Europe so I felt bad that they had to wait even longer.

When we set sail for Norfolk, it was really neat! It was the first time I had been on board with no guests and let me tell you the nicest thing is being able to wear whatever clothes you want around the ship! I could wear jeans and a sweatshirt!! We were able to walk around where ever we wanted and could take pictures of skyline. It was pretty awesome! And of course you know if there are no guests on board, there is going to be a party! They already had one planned out. Each month different departments are in charge of planning different events for the month. There is usually at least one party in the nightclub, a couple of different food nights, sport activities, karaoke, and sometimes excursions off the ship. It wasn’t too long of a trip down to Norfolk, because we still made it on time the next day into port. I was on port manning the first cruise out of Norfolk, which I didn’t think would be too big of a deal and it wasn’t really. It was so nice to be looking out the windows and seeing crystal blue waters and being able to walk outside to the open deck and wear shorts and not have to have a jacket on. The first day we were in Nassau and it was relatively boring, I bet there weren’t more than 300 people on the ship out of about 3200! I obviously couldn’t get off because I was doing activities all day, but no one showed up to the first 3! I was just walking around the ship entertaining myself. Good thing I’m an entertainment host! J After a while, things started to pick up finally and some people were coming back on board. We were in Nassau overnight so a lot of people went out to the clubs and stuff. I got a nice 7 hours of sleep that night so I could get up and work the next morning! Haha it wasn’t as bad as it sounds until you hear about all the fun you missed out on! Oh, well… It’s not the end of the world. After two days in Nassau, we were in Freeport, which doesn’t look like much right at the port, but I guess there is stuff to do when you get away from the ship; a lot of nice beaches and what not. It’s just another port that I’ll have to check out when we come back next cruise. Oh, also so I’m on duty this cruise and nothing is normal unless something happens right? Well, our dj had a family emergency and had to go home, so that left our host team to dj in the nightclub. It doesn’t sound too hard, I know, and it’s not. It is just really boring and lonely. We all took turns doing it so that the same person didn’t get too lonely too long.

Our next cruise was a 2-day cruise to nowhere, which is basically a big booze cruise. The bar manager was very happy, but was also wishing it was just slightly longer so he could get even more revenue. For this cruise we literally went straight out from Norfolk, turned around and came straight back. The next cruise got a little more interesting. It was planned to be a 6-day cruise, with 3 days in port. Well, I’m sure you all heard about Hurricane Sandy and that’s when she started. Sandy had just formed when we were in Norfolk, so we had one full day at sea then we were supposed to get into Nassau at 11am the following day. We had had another medical emergency and had to go back to Norfolk, so that delayed us getting into Nassau a couple of hours. That was just the beginning though. Instead of staying over night in Nassau like our itinerary said, we stayed 6 hours! We had to head out because the hurricane was heading straight for the Bahamas! Our next port was out of question too because it was Freeport, which is also the Bahamas. We started to head north and thought we could make it to Port Canaveral (Orlando) to make up for port time, but they had closed that port as well due to high winds and potential flooding. I’m not sure why they would do something like that, it’s not like there was a hurricane or anything coming! Haha Well the guests ended up having a 5-day cruise with only 6 hours in port. At first, I think a lot of people were upset, but then started understanding and ultimately just wanted to get off a rocky ship. So, we arrived back a day earlier than we were supposed to, but still many guests thanked us for doing a great job throughout the whole ordeal. After all the guests had gotten off the ship, the crew was not allowed off the ship and we were going to set sail at 6pm to head out to sea. We didn’t have much of a plan of where we were going yet, but it was safer for us out to sea than it was hanging out tied up in port.

So out to sea we went. It was extremely rocky and I just kept thinking, thank goodness there are no guests here, they would have been freaking out. Just about anyone would have been. Most of the crewmembers seemed to handle it all just fine. I thought it was kind of fun haha It was just like a giant roller coaster! I’ll try and put up some pictures so you guys can see what I’m talking about. We would be listing from side to side as well and rolling from front to back. We ended up being at sea for a total of almost 4 days once we dropped everyone off in Norfolk. So that meant that all crewmembers had been on board for at least a solid week with only a couple hours when it wasn’t rocky because we were docked in Norfolk. A solid week of avoiding a hurricane and riding out the waves will really get to you. Everyone was so anxious to get off the ship when we got to Ft. Lauderdale that the line to get off the ship was about 500 people long. We just waited for a while for it to die down so we wouldn’t have to wait too long, I mean by then what is another 20 minutes. We ended up having 2 full days in Ft. Lauderdale until the ship was going to leave for dry dock down in Freeport. Everyone that was at the end of their contracts or vessel transferring to a different ship signed off on different days. Some signed off on the 31^st of October, some on the 1^st of November and the rest on the 2^nd before the ship left for Freeport. Originally they had told everyone they would be signing off on either the 31^st or the 1^st, but we quickly figured out that it could be the 2^nd too. I signed off the 2^nd. Even with no guests on board we still had to do port manning. I volunteered to do it the first night and that ended up kind of kicking me in the butt. Everyone went out and had a great time since it was Halloween and I was on board bored out of my mind. I was just walking around the ship because I didn’t want to be stuck in my room. At that time the ship was already in dry dock mode. That means that all the glass and windows get covered with cardboard, the floors covered with cardboard as well. Basically anything that can be damaged in any way shape or form gets covered. It also means that you can’t do anything on the ship. Everything is shut up and blocked off or covered. Also for dry dock they only keep so many of each department on the ship so I was chosen to vessel transfer and then come back.

Well the next day I was able to get off the ship and grab some lunch and dinner. We also went out to get drinks with a group from the ship. It was a really fun last night with everyone. Since I didn’t sign off until the 2^nd, I got to meet our new ACD (Assistant Cruise Director) Eversen. He signed on on the 1^st so it was nice to be able to meet him before I came back to the ship after dry dock.

Well I’m currently on the Freedom, but only for a few more days and then I will fly back to Miami and get on the Glory on Thursday!! The team here is absolutely awesome! I’ve gone from an all girl host team on the Glory to an all guy team here on the Freedom. They are all great guys and it’s going to be sad to leave them even after only 10 days. I’ve been able to go to some different places than the Glory will go to. I actually just finished a run that Mom, Dad, Kurt and I did back in 2010. I was in St. Thomas, Antigua, Tortola, and Nassau. Yesterday I was in Ft. Lauderdale and today I’m in Key West. Tomorrow is a sea day and then Wednesday I will sign off in Grand Cayman and fly to Miami to stay over night. It’s times like this where I sit here and think about all I have done and the things I’m going to do in the next few days that I can’t believe this is my life!! I’m getting paid to go to these amazing places!!

Well, again I apologize it has been so long since I wrote last. I hope everyone is doing great! Feel free to shoot me an email or call me whenever, I love hearing from everyone. I'm going to try and put together a slide show for when I come home so I can show you guys more pictures and videos. I’ll be home soon to see everyone! Miss you all!

Love and Smiles!

These are some pictures from when Mom and Dad came cruising! This is Peggy's Cove in Halifax

Dad, Mom and I in Boston!

Bobbi, Me and Emily at Peggy's Cove

Me, Dad and Mom again

 My awesome girls!! Lolly, Bobbi, and Laura!! The best host team EVER!!!

 Hurricane Sandy! 

 The atrium covered already

 Me, Laura, Lolly, Bobbi, and Matt all dressed up for the Halloween party!

 Leaving New York!!

Busy Busy Busy... but what else is new!

It’s been a little while, basically a month, since I wrote last. It’s been a busy last few weeks here on the Glory. I will just get straight into things…

So when I signed back on the Glory, my cruise director that was here when I signed on originally had just signed off medically with some back issues. So, our assistant cruise director (ACD) took over as CD (cruise director). He had never acted as CD before so he was pretty nervous about things. Well with him becoming the new CD that meant we needed an ACD to fill in. The plan was to rotate the duty of being ACD between all the hosts. Well, the head office heard about that and shot it down. They wanted one person to do it so Kim who was the first one to do it, just stuck with it for a while. She was to sign off on the 25^th of August so that is when we would figure out who would do it next. Well with it being my first cruise back since my week vacation and all the other changes that were going on, I’d say it was definitely going to be a cruise where we all needed to work together to get things done. I was feeling very refreshed and ready for all the upcoming challenges and I thought we handled everything that came our way pretty well. When I say everything that came our way, some of you might think that sounds like the cruise from hell. Well, it wasn’t quite, but it was pretty crappy, literally! It started out as just another 5 day cruise to St. John and Halifax, but ended on a bad note. We had a GI outbreak on board, which is never a good thing anywhere, but on a cruise ship it really isn’t a good thing. I won’t describe what it is, but hopefully you have caught my drift already. It is highly contagious and on a ship it will travel real fast. Supposedly we ended up with almost 6% of our guests on board with it and a big majority of them being under the age of 18. They had to quarantine those who were sick to their cabins, but that is only if they listened. We almost had issues docking in NYC because our outbreak was so large that they wouldn’t allow us to dock, but thankfully we were able to do so. There were talks about if things were worse we might have had to all leave the ship and stay in hotels for a couple nights, all kinds of rumors going around, but nothing came of most of them. FYI Rumors travel really fast when you are on a ship because they have nowhere else to go. We tried to get in early to start debarking guests so we could get the ship cleaned and sanitized before the next set of guests go on board. This was also the morning of my birthday! Happy Birthday to me! I got to get up at the crack of dawn to get a bunch of sick guests off the ship! Oh well, part of the job. Anyway, we did end up getting in a bit early, but no one was there to clear the ship so we can’t let anyone off the ship. A lot of the times we port somewhere and we will be on time, but it takes some time to get cleared. So we finally started getting guests off about 630ish I believe, which was a bit earlier than our normal 7am start. But, they had told us and all the guest they would be ready by 6am, so you can imagine the amount of guests that came down at 6am trying to get away from all the sick people. Let’s just say they weren’t too happy and they just think that me and the other hosts do everything on board. We are the customs officers, we tie the ropes off, we direct the guests, and we get their luggage off the ship too, man if I could do all that I would hope I would be paid a bit more. Haha Some guests are just too funny with the things that they think.

Well I had a wonderful birthday in NYC and working of course. Got to have some delicious pizza for lunch and then did a little walking around NYC. With the GI outbreak we had last cruise we had to still be very cautious of things. It was a pretty normal 5-day cruise. I got to go to the steakhouse on board for my birthday with the host team as well a few others. That was a nice treat. We also had a medical emergency on board that required us to get back to NYC early again so we had another early debark morning. The thing about the early debark mornings is that they tell everyone we will be ready at 6am and then aren’t ready until 6:45am. You can imagine how happy guests are that they got up early and still can’t get off the ship.

On the 16^th Jason, our only male on the host team signed off because he was selected to be on the inaugural cast on the Spirit that is starting out of Australia in October! We were all very excited for him and very jealous!! On the 20^th when we’re in NYC I went to the top of the Empire State Building with Josh, Andy, and Meechy! It was a blast!! It was Meechy’s last day in NYC because she was signing off next NYC so it was nice to hang out with some friends and do some sight seeing. I’ll post some pictures so you can all see the view. It was a bit hazy so I wish it had been a bit clearer, but oh well. I also wish I would have had a wide angle lens for my camera but I can’t have it all J

The cruise of the 25^th I was on duty so I couldn’t get off the ship, which was fine. I always know before hand when I’m going to be on duty. I actually kind of enjoy it even though your days are a bit longer, you can really get to know some guests better. You create a following of people that show up to all your activities. There was a huge wedding reception happening on the cruise so they were all there for a good time and followed me around for a lot of my activities it was a lot of fun! Reminded me a lot of home and made me a bit homesick but I’m doing all right now. Of course my duty cruise would not be complete without something happening. This time it was a computer crashing and not just any computer, it’s the computer that runs the automation for the production shows, aka a REALLY important one! Without this computer, we can’t run our shows correctly; it is a huge safety hazard. So that happened our first night at sea and we ended about 5 minutes short of the first show and couldn’t put on the second show because of it. At that time we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to put on the other two shows on the last sea day as well. It’s that big of an issue. We even had to do bingo the old fashion way and turn the tumbler and let the balls roll out. Haha, it was an eventful night that’s for sure. We did end up getting to run the other two shows without the drops so that was nice because otherwise we would have had to go to plan b which I heard is not very fun. But we all survived and we didn’t have too much else happen the rest of the cruise which was nice.

When I got back into NYC, one of the hosts, Laura, is engaged and wanted to go wedding dress shopping so Dana and I went with her. It was a lot of fun and she found a gorgeous dress!! We had some lunch and then went back to the ship. It was a fun relaxing day and now I’m here in St. John enjoying some time to catch up with everyone. It’s been so nice and refreshing. When I get back on board there will be a new cruise director who will take over on Monday when I get back to NYC. Should be an exciting time because there are even more changes coming up! Only 34 days until Mom and Dad cruise! Yay!! 91 until I’m home and 117 until I’m back in Kansas!! I love what I’m doing but I’m also very excited to see everyone again. Miss and love you all!

Love and Smiles,

<3 A

Times Square on my Birthday!

 Looking uptown towards central park

Looking downtown towards the freedom tower

Me, Andy, Meechy, and Josh