Category: Goals

Becoming a Light Tech

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So I started my time on cruise ships working for American Cruise Lines. At the time, the theater company I was working with closed, and as I was mulling over what to do next, I remembered one of my professors in college who mentioned two kinds of theater that people don’t often think about for techs. The first kind he mentioned was dinner theaters. Being in southern California, there are a lot of them due to agents trying to round out their screen actor’s resume. They may not be of the highest quality theater, but they do need someone to run their shows. At the very least, it’s a steady pay check. The other forgotten tech theater he mentioned was cruise ships. At the time, I was aware they existed but didn’t really know how much there was to do for a theater tech on a cruise ship. As I applied, I decided that I would also try smaller companies that didn’t have theater positions. I figured getting some experience on ships in general would look nice on my resume. That’s how I ended up being a deck hand on my first cruise ship. My contract ended up only being a couple months, but it was quite interesting. My ship ended up going from Massachusetts to Florida, so I got to see a good portion of the east coast ports. Often times, the ship was able to dock in the heart of cities we visited. The hours were terrible. We worked twelve on and twelve off. Somewhat fortunately for me, when I joined, they gave me the day shift and because of the need specific workers, I kept the day shift where normally, I would have rotated out. Now that I think about it, this was probably unfair to the other deck hands. I don’t know why they did this. Still, it was a nice experience. I don’t know how much it helped me get hired for the job I wanted.

After finishing my contract with them, I joined Royal Caribbean as a stage staff. I was talked down from being a technician as this was my first time working on a large cruise ship. I will say, this was probably a good choice by our recruiter. I am not sure if I would have been ready for the responsibility and the learning curve required by first time contractors. I spent two and a half contracts as a stage staff. During my third, the light tech was leaving with no replacement, so I stepped in. It was a lot of fun until the pandemic hit. I spent about a month as a light tech before everything shut down. When I came back, they hired my back as a light tech. Knowing how our promotion policy has changed and the fact that a lot of techs did not go back to working on ships, I was quite lucky to keep my promotion. Now you are required a certain amount of documented cross training before you can keep a promotion like this. You are now considered a temporary promotion until your contract ends or they find a permanent tech. You get the pay, but unless you put in the hours, you will go back at the start of your next contract. I get the reasoning behind this. You don’t want to promote someone who isn’t ready if it wasn’t for the emergency situation.

I’ve got about two months left on my contract as we head into the holiday season. Oh, and we get a brand new cast next cruise with nine out of twelve of them being new hires. This should be interesting and busy.

Round Trip Ticket

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It’s funny. This contract, I joined in Los Angeles. This was great. The only annoying thing was my flight was at 7 in the morning. I did not sleep too well due to the excitement of starting a new assignment and the fear of sleeping through my alarm. My flight lasted the normal hour or so from SFO to LAX so that was great. I’ve been so used to longer flights places like Europe and Australia. Even Florida can feel like an incredibly long flight when I get in late and then have to wait to for the shuttle to the hotel. After I got to my hotel, I looked at my watch and thought, I’ve got enough time. So, I spent the day at Disneyland. That was nice. Of course, I made sure to leave before the fireworks as the next morning was an early one to get to the ship. It was a great way to start a contract. Now that my contract is winding down, I’m set to leave in Los Angeles as the ship continues to Alaska. In a sense, this my whole contract was just one long cruise and now I’m headed back to my original port.

I’d be lying if I said I was disappointed that my contract wasn’t extended to Alaska. It is on my bucket list of places to go. My Production Manager on the ship has told me that he marked in my company file that I would like to go to there at some point. I did the math. After my next contract, I’ll be lined up to go to Alaska during the following contract. My next ship is Grandeur of the Seas, and I’ll be doing the exact same itinerary I’ve been doing. Apparently, Grandeur is taking over Radiance’s old route. Once the summer is over, Radiance is going to be doing 3 and 4 day cruises to the Bahamas. I’m glad I’m not going to be doing that, but we’ll have to see what I can write about since it’s going to be more of the same ports.

The Routine Blues

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After going on the world cruise, I’m now relaxing by doing one of two itineraries. We’ve mostly been doing Western Caribbean runs with ports in Mexico, Belize, and Honduras, and we’ll start again doing Bahama runs later this year. I have to say, part of me misses going to new and exciting ports every time. There was so much to do and see. From finding a small restaurant while wandering Yokohama to going on an African safari, I was busy exploring every chance I got. It was exhausting. Sometimes, it was nice to be stuck on the ship to catch up on sleep or laundry. For one of those cruises, we had 8 port days in a row. I usually only pack enough clothes to last me a little over a week, so I was cutting it a bit close. Everything was so new on that contract. Now, it’s the opposite.

I’m only getting off the ship a couple of times a week even when I can get off. I’ve been to the ports we’re going to many times, and we’ll be back there soon enough. For that reason, I don’t feel like spending money since I have to pay tourist prices for everything off the ship. Even the onboard specialty restaurants have lost their luster for me. It does help that they don’t have a late night Johnny Rocket’s on the ship anymore. Goodness knows I would be going there way too often. Since I’m not leaving the ship all that much, I think I might try organizing a Dungeons and Dragons group on the ship. I’ve tried playing games with my immediate coworkers, but they don’t always have the drive to play like I do. I’m sure if I reach out, people will come. Even before, one of my players was talking about it and caught the interest of someone from engineering. Unfortunately, I was never able to talk to this person to ask him to join. I’m hoping being able to advertise a group will increase the likelihood of a game happening. I have plans for three games I would run. The first would be a new player campaign group with pre-written characters playing adventures from a book of beginning campaigns I got off of Kickstarter. The campaigns won’t last too long before I end it and start a new one. Hopefully, I can cycle through a bunch of new people and give them a great introduction to the game. The second will be a drop-in campaign with a western theme, where I could take anyone who was available to play. The final would be on would be a group that uses an app that randomly generates a dungeon. The best part about this one is that I could participate since I don’t know what is in the dungeon since I did nothing to prepare it. All I would need to do is facilitate the game which is a lot easier. Plus, there is also the chance that there are other people who are able to DM like me but don’t get a chance to due to not having enough players. I’m just super excited for the possibilities.

Oh, and my New Year’s resolution this year is to lose weight and to be more social.

Around the World Again

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I made a blunder. I forgot to check, and now I have two magnets for Napoli. Oh well, I guess it wasn’t that expensive. Anyway, I’m about to go home which means I’ll have now gone around the world twice. I’ve had a lot of fun seeing new ports, but now I’m tired. We’ve had a lot of new acts come onboard the ship. There have been many interesting shows to program from the aerial duos to the local groups that have to be kicked off before we set sail. I’m a little sick of some song selections as they are quite popular for acts to select and I can’t wait to get on a ship and have consistency of ports and acts. Really, I cannot express just how tired I am. The worst of it is, I really want to get out in the ports because I don’t know when I’ll be back. My next contract has me seeing new Alaskan ports but also very common Caribbean ports as well. I’m even swinging by San Francisco so I might be able to invite my family on for the day.

Even though I saw so much, I know there are places I was and was not able to see where I want to go. I went to quite a few Asian amusement parks that I want to see again. I had some awesome cuisine from their countries of origin, but that only scratches the surface on what I could have eaten. I went on an African Safari, but I wasn’t able to see giraffes or elephants. The ship sailed past Null Island in the middle of the night when I needed to sleep. Ok, there isn’t much to see at Null Island but still. Doing all of this just emphasizes how much there is to experience out there and how little I have actually seen. I’m no closer to accomplishing my goal of circumnavigating the globe, but I have seen a lot more of the world than I ever thought I would. I keep telling guests that if you had told me even six years ago when I was just starting in the company that this is what I would do, I would never have believed it. I’ve been to Cuba. I’ve been to Japan. I’ve been to South Africa. While I’m sad that this job keeps me away from home, I can’t wait to get on my next ship.

Oh, and I can now add Margherita pizza and carbonara in Italy to the list of things I’ve eaten.

My Challenge

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Six Continents down, one to go. The only downside is I’ll have to book my own trip to Antartica since no Royal Caribbean ship has any walking tours on the continent.

I have to say, I’ve really enjoyed my time in Africa. I went on an African safari and had some really good ostrich on a skewer. I saw three of the Big Five while on safari. I’m just missing the tallest and the largest, oddly enough. My constant challenge, as is always on this world cruise, is finding a magnet with the port name. I’ve gotten lucky several times and have only missed one magnet so far since I wasn’t able to go to a place with heavy tourism. One of the hardest things to deal with is the currency. I will say this for the Caribbean, Europe, and Australia, I really miss having a common currency. I now have a bunch of foreign paper currency that I don’t really know what to do with. At this point, it’s doubtful I’ll be going to those places again. I don’t know if I should just hold on to it or see what my bank can do with them. I’m just lucky that the dollar is strong enough to be accepted when my credit card isn’t. Well, I’ll be in Europe soon enough and then I’ll be back home a few weeks after that.

You would not believe how hard it is to find a simple magnet with the port magnet. The hardest I had to look for one on this trip was in Osaka when I went to Universal Studios there. It was amazing and I highly recommend going there if you get the chance. I went to pretty much every store looking for something with either Osaka or Universal Studios Japan written on it. None of their magnets could be identified specifically from that theme park. I was just about to give up when I saw a Hard Rock Cafe by the City Walk entrance. I bought my most expensive magnet there at about $20 for a single magnet that could represent my time there. Lucky me.

Anyway, now I’m looking forward to delicious Italian food.

Work Comes First

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Well, I was thoroughly disappointed on this second trip to Australia. I was told when I was thinking about joining cruise ships that one of the benefits was the amount of travel you get to do. There should a an asterisk next to the travel because of the potential problems with that statement. For example, one of the biggest ships in the fleet is doing three and four day cruises to the Bahamas. This means they are seeing the exact same ports over and over again. The route is leave from the east coast of Florida, go to Nassau, go to Coco Cay, and back to Florida. I should know. I’ve did this route as part of my first contract with Royal Caribbean. It does come with some benefits to new hires. You can easily get things you may want or need as your home port is never too far away. I didn’t have to worry about a language barrier anywhere I went as English is the most common language in the Bahamas. It did get boring. Thank goodness I got a change in itinerary.

Anyway, back to Australia, the last time I came through the area, I wasn’t able to see the Great Barrier Reef due to weather. I was all set to go on a crew tour and they had to cancel because the weather was too rough to even get ashore. I was super excited because I would have minimal duties that day as we were staying quite late so it wasn’t worth it to have an evening performance in the theater, so we made it a movie night instead. Seeing as I didn’t have to rush back for a rehearsal, I booked a ticket to go see the reef. The weather was going to be hot but nice for traveling. Everything was all set. Then came time to get off the ship, and here is another instance of that asterisk coming into play. If I was able to get off the ship by noon, I probably would have made my tour, but there is one thing that needed to happen before I could do that. I needed the captain to permit shore leave to the crew. In order to get that to happen, all guests who wanted to leave the ship right away needed to be off loaded first. Due to some difficulty in this process, I could only wait as time ticked away. By the time shore leave was granted, it was almost 1 PM. There was no way for me to make it to the boat to take me to the reef. I ended up just wandering in the town, which I often do. It wasn’t all bad, but it could have been better if I could have gotten off the ship by the time I wanted. Maybe next time.

I have decided that I will only buy tickets for things when I know I can do them. I may miss out on some things that sell out early, but at least I won’t waste as much money regarding missing a sight seeing trip.

On the bright side, I was able to go to Disneyland Hong Kong and see pandas, so this cruise was not a complete loss.

Promotions

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I got another promotion this contract. I am now Head Sound and Light Technician. Mostly this means I answer company emails and am ultimately responsible for the technician team and all the equipment they work with. If people have questions, I’m supposed to be the one with answers. Having done this for a little while now, I have come to the conclusion that I can do the work, but I don’t want to be in this position again. The benefits don’t cover the added stress of the extra responsibilities. I thought about it some more and realized that I don’t really want to be promoted much further for now. I could have made a go for Stage and Production Manager but ultimately decided to stick with lighting. I enjoy the challenge of light programming. Just the other day, I had to try to make a disco ball effect without a disco ball. The results didn’t look the same, obviously, but I was proud of my makeshift solution. If I were to become a Stage and Production Manager, I wouldn’t be able to do as much actual theater work which I enjoy. I would mostly be managing the venues and running production shows. Maybe after some more time passes, I’ll change my mind, but for now, this is as high as I want to climb up the promotion ladder.

I’m getting close to the end of my contract. I can almost taste that Cicero’s Pizza.

What Took Me So Long

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It took me a while, but I’m finally back to working on ships. One big thing that stopped me from going to sea was living an unhealthy lifestyle. Since I got sent back, I found I had low motivation to exercise. This led to me gaining a lot of weight. Now, I’ve never been especially healthy to begin with, but this caused more complications in my body. You see, in order to work on a cruise ship, you have to take a physical examination in order to be considered for employment. After all, if your ship is in the middle of the ocean and you have a medical emergency, where can you go? While the ship does have medical facilities on board, there is a limit to how many medical equipment, supplies, and team members you have access to. I’ve been on ships that had to make detours so guests could be helicoptered to land for one reason or another. Some medical problems aren’t too bad. You may just need a prescription to cover the issue. I found out that if your liver is working too hard, the only option for you is a lifestyle change as no medicine is available to solve this issue. For me, it meant I had to lose about 10% of my weight.

I really had to buckle down and focus on exercising and eating right. I probably could’ve been on my second contract since the pandemic if I did this from the beginning. Instead, I missed several chances until it became clear that I would have to let them know when I was healthy enough to return to service. After months of hard work and hundreds of miles of running, everthing was finally back in order, and now I’m writing this on the deck of the ship.

I probably should be careful, though. I’ve been too busy to go to the gym since I got here and the crew mess is all you care to eat. Here’s to hoping I can control my appetite and get to running again.

 

Endless Sea Days

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It’s been almost a month since we had guests and I’m currently still on the ship. We can’t get off and have been hanging around Barbados all this time. Up until now, the longest I’ve ever been stuck on the ship was when I sailed from Dubai to Pireaus, the port of Athens. That was eight days at sea. I thought I would go stir crazy, but I had work to do then to keep me occupied. The only bright side is that we don’t have any work to do so it’s basically a vacation for now. While that may sound like a lot of fun, it’s not really what you might think. Think of it more like being stuck on a small island. There are only so many places to go and I’ve explored all the places I’m allowed to go. We’ve shut down many venues since we no longer have the workforce necessary to keep everything working properly. This includes lounges, bars, the theater, and specialty restaurants. As a result, we have to make our own entertainment.

I’ve actually brought some games with me due to periodically having game nights on other ships. In addition to a Switch, I have a couple of small card games and some Magic: The Gathering decks. I haven’t really seen an opportunity to play these games until now. I never thought I would really need these games like I do. I’ve always been pretty good about keeping myself occupied with something. It’s coming in pretty handy now. I have to admit, though, I do find it a little hard to concentrate on all the projects I had planned to do at some point while on ships. What I’ve really wanted to do for a while now is do some more writing. I have several plays that need editing and rewriting, as well as a play I’ve wanted to write for a while but never got around to writing. Now that I’m not working for a children’s theatre company, it’s becoming harder to find the motivation to write those plays. I probably just need to buckle down and do those. I guess I should add that to my New Year’s resolution list since the whole “going for light tech” thing went by so fast.

Oh, and we’re also doing social distancing on the ship for now until we are absolutely sure that no one can spread the disease anymore. I’m assuming that as soon as this period is done, we can resume our lives until this whole thing blows over.