Alright, I was unbelievably annoyed with Typepad and the constant problems I was having getting photos to load. So I gave up. That's why there has been nothing for the last 6 months. I really need to change platforms, but it's not going to happen this week.
Anyway.
This contract got off to a rocky start. I was initially assigned to Carnival Legend in Seattle. When I signed on it had two weeks left cruising to Alaska, then it was repositioning from Seattle to Sydney. Yes, Sydney in Australia. But...
But there is some bizarre regulation that Australians cannot work on ships that are home ported in Australia. I was told it has to do with taxes. Um, yeah. That makes absolutely no sense. It's more likely to do with the unions. Regardless I was not allowed to be on the ship when it arrived into Australia. So one week after I signed onto Legend, I signed off.
Next stop? Carnival Sensation in Port Canaveral, Florida. Sensation did 3 and 4 days itineraries to the Bahamas. I am not a fan of the 3 and 4 day itineraries because it means two safety briefings a week, two liquor tastings a week, two of everything. I much prefer 7 day cruises. Oh well.
Turned out, it didn't matter. I was only there for a month. One month. I never was told why I had to transfer off Sensation, just that they were transferring me again.
October 4th I signed off Sensation and flew to Boston. October 5th I signed on to Carnival Splendor. My third ship in 6 weeks!
I won't keep you in suspense. I didn't have to transfer again, I stayed on Splendor until the end of my contract.
When I first joined Splendor it was doing its last Canada/New England cruise of the season. I wasn't able to get off in Portland, Maine because I had training but I was able to explore Halifax, New Brunswick and St John, Nova Scotia - both Canadian ports.
Then Splendor relocated from New York to Norfolk, Virginia. We spent two weeks based out of Norfolk cruising to the Bahamas and to Bermuda before we repositioned to Miami.
The rest of my contract was spent based in Miami cruising to:
- Cozumel, Mexico
- Belize City, Belize
- Roatan, Honduras
- Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
- Amber Cove, Dominican Republic
- St Thomas, US Virgin Islands
- San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos
Oh! And then to finish the way I started? Normally I would just sign off in Miami at the end of a cruise and another shoppies would sign on to replace me. Not this time. A different company is taking over the shop on this particular ship so we had to pack it all up. Yep, we closed it down completely. In Freeport, Bahamas while the ship was in dry dock getting a bunch of upgrades.
This contract by the numbers:
- 3 ships - Legend, Sensation, Splendor
- 5 home ports - Seattle, Port Canaveral, New York, Norfolk and Miami
- 5 managers - Gary, Kat, Sinem, Jacques and Lisa
- 6 cabin mates - Ithu, Anneisha, Sali, Azra, Kristina and Anna
- 2 repositioning cruises - New York to Norfolk. Norfolk to Miami
- 1 Bermuda Cruise - we docked in Bermuda for 3 days/2nights and didn't cruise anywhere else
- 45 days to close down the shops - The shops were still open, we started packing up the back stock and the lockers first
- 3 Christmas I have spent at sea
- 14 days medically off with pneumonia over Christmas and New Years
- 17 trolleys of liquor - our busiest liquor pick up morning. We started at 4am and finished at 10am
- 3 unexpected seadays because we couldn't dock/anchor - Halfmoon Cay, Grand Cayman and Roatan
- 1 day working in our shop on Carnival's private island destination - Halfmoon Cay
- 2 - twice I was able to meet up with Trudy, my friend from my previous contract on Freedom. In Nassau and Belize
- 1 - once I was able to meet up with Sachin, my friend from my previous contract on Freedom. In Nassau
- 1 - once I was able to meet up with Ponky, my friend from my very first contract on Liberty. In Grand Turk
- 4 days in dry dock in Freeport, Bahamas
- 7 shoppies/managers who closed the shop down. Our full team was 15.