Definitely not San Fransisco.
Recreation
One of the nice bonuses I’ve gotten while working on ships is the crew area known as back deck. This is a space to get some fresh air and not have to worry about dealing with guests. A lot of crew activities can happen there such as barbecues, dance parties, and karaoke. There is also tends to be a bar there. As a theater technician, I’m allowed to go into public spaces, but when I do, I must be in customer service mode. I’ve actually made it a habit to walk on the open deck when going from the theater to the mess hall. If I really wanted, there are days I could spend all my time inside the ship. I would have said without natural light, but the mess has windows and the sun doesn’t set until later since its summer. Now, there is a smoking section, but the natural breeze eliminates most of the smell unless you’re sitting next to an ashtray. I’ve got a lot of good memories of hanging out with friends on back deck. Now, I haven’t been on the really big ships, but I’ve heard that some of them have pools and hot tubs on the front of the ship for crew. This is in addition to the regular back deck.
Unfortunately, the class of ship I’m on doesn’t have a back deck. We told some of the new crew members about this area we don’t have, and they are quite jealous.
As far as recreation goes, the crew will periodically make use various ships’ facilities for a crew activity night. We may get time on the rock wall or free play in the arcade. When I was on Explorer, we had were able to use the ice skating rink. I’d like to think I got pretty good at being able to stop myself on the ice, but I’ve definitely lost any skill in that due to time. I’ve also had some stage crew activities when the theater was closed. Just the other night, we had a raffle and bingo night. A handful of people went back to their cabins satisfied with their winnings.
I’m not sure they packed enough
Counting the Days
When I first started cruising, I was stuck doing 3 and 4 day cruises to the Bahamas. After dry dock, the schedule shifted to 4 and 5 day cruises to accommodate going to Cuba and Mexico. On my next ship, I was doing two week cruises due to being in the Pacific and then Europe. My last contract had me doing 10 and 11 day cruises to the southern Caribbean. Now, I’m back to 4 and 5 day cruises after doing 7 day cruises at the start of my contract. I now know what length of cruise I enjoy.
One thing I should clarify, when I refer to the length of a cruise, my count tends to be one day shorter than the average tourist. For example, this cruise I’m on right now, I would consider it a 5 day cruise. If you look at advertising for the same cruise, it’s billed as a 6 day, 5 night cruise from May 26th to June 3rd. The advertising isn’t wrong, rather, we usually set sail with new passengers the same day the previous cruisers leave us. It just makes more sense for us to refer to that 6th day as simply the 1st day of the next cruise. Plus, it’s not like passengers are doing a whole lot that day they leave.
Anyway, I think my ideal cruise length as a worker is somewhere between the 7 and 11 day cruise. These lengths allow for a good variety of options for ports as well as allow the entertainment to take a more leisurely pace. A 7 day cruise is especially nice as it is quite easy to match activities to the day of the week. If the cruise is longer, it just takes forever to get back to your home port and do some shopping. It can be quite tedious with all the waiting. Shorter cruises tend to need to pack more into them. If you take pretty much all the entertainment of a 7 day cruise and cram it into 5 days, you get what my schedule is doing right now. To be fair, the schedule is at the whims of the Cruise Director, and some of them feel the need to do everything a longer cruise would provide. They’re not wrong, but it is a lot more work for me and my team.
Another pleasant day on the marina.
Closed for Maintenance
I didn’t forget. I’ve just been quite busy.
We just did something kind of rare for cruise ships. We just did a wet dock. This means we got all the passengers off the ship and then tied ourselves to the pier so we could do a little maintenance all over the ship. With no passengers, we could focus on fixing things and improving the guest experience. Normally we would try to avoid disrupting the guest experience which means some things get neglected because they are in high traffic areas. Not everyone has work to do during the time we’re tied up. Housekeepers have much less to do as do the cruise staff. As a result, some people get this time as basically a vacation. These people could be put on fire watch. Basically, they get to sit by the people welding with a fire extinguisher and put out anything that catches on fire. What’s worse, you can’t be distracted while doing this. Your attention needs to be 100% on making sure the area doesn’t start to burn.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me, the theater was busy with several agendas. We had vendors and contractors coming onboard to make sure our equipment was running properly. We also had a new cast come in, so part of our time was spent in rehearsal with them. I am a little disappointed I couldn’t go to Busch Gardens like some of the more free crew members, but it was good to fix up the theater. In addition to fixing up the ship, we were also installing a new cast. This means we had to do extra rehearsals to make sure the shows with new cast were just as good as the previous ones. That also made us work longer hours as we worked through everything.
In case you’re wondering, there are also dry docks. These mean we pull the ship out of the water to do other work on the hull of the ship. This is much less common than wet docks as it is not always necessary to inspect the hull every single time you do maintenance. My first ship spent a month and a half in dry dock while I was on it. That was an interesting experience.
It’s frog time!
UFB
I was walking along the open deck one night when some guests stopped me. They asked me what was flying next to us. I didn’t see it at first so I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for. Then it flew alongside the ship in full view. It was definitely a bird of some kind. It seemed to glow slightly as it flew with us. I was confused. Not only was it night, we were also in the middle of nowhere. It was a sea day and we weren’t expecting to make landfall until 12 hours later. I’ve known some sea birds like to fly behind ships during the day as the white waters turned up by the ships tend to kick up fish that the birds take the opportunity to snatch up. I also know that birds will sometimes hitch a ride on ships, though not always on purpose. They may fall into the trap of following in our wake too long and all of a sudden, the ship is the only place to land and rest.
Upon researching the topic, I was quite surprised to find that there are seabirds that have bioluminescence. I didn’t think that was one of the adaptations any birds had, but albatross are known to glow to attract squid at night. I couldn’t find any pictures of this, but I think it was too small to be an albatross. My guess is it was a normal seagull that was lit up by the ship’s lighting. In my research, I also found that artificial lighting is a problem for seabirds. The added lights of human cities tend to disorient the birds. This is also why seabirds can be lured to follow cruise ships as they are beacons in the night.
Maybe I should get a travel buddy.
What Took Me So Long
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.
Shore Leave 