Ladies and gentlemen,
I’ve just discovered the best mall EVER in the world. Well, actually I can’t really claim that because I haven’t been everywhere in the world. Maybe it’s coz I’ve been away from city life and is lacking normality that makes this mall seems so wonderful but if you don't want to be spending money, stay away from San Juan, Plaza Las America.
I’ve been on the ship for almost 2 cruises and since then have had a birthday, opened a show, moved rooms, swam with dolphins, visited a nudist beach, had a hair cut and dyed it while rehearsing every day since I boarded in New York. One thing that hasn’t happened yet, is get paid!
B4 I go on, thanks to every one who remembered my birthday. I’ve tried to reply to most of you who kindly emailed. Sorry it took so long, Internet access is sparse, I was still reading them 4 days after which in a way was nice coz it dragged the event out a bit. It was nice to have cake with my name on it (which suggests it was organised rather than bought at the last minute) and because it fell on the closing night of the old cast’s last show, we got free champagne! The drinking obviously continued in the crew bar.
And to those who msged, that was really nice too. Because of the time difference I was getting them all night and all day, so thankyou for making my day special.
Yesterday we were in St Maarten, which is made up of 2 sides, French and Dutch. As soon as we got off the ship that, docked in the Dutch side, we took a shuttle to the French and parked our butts on the nudist beach with hopes of getting rid of our tan lines, sipping on our Magharitas and enjoying the beautiful blue water. Cute little shops were nearby and French bakeries but rather expensive for this struggling dancer as the currency used was the Euro.
The day b4 that, we were in Tortola where my friend from Shore Ex kindly got my room mate and me free tickets to swim with dolphins. It’s been my dream for a while now, last ship was spent whale watching, I guess this time it’s dolphins. They were adorable and unbelievably well trained. Bought an underwater camera so hopefully will be able to put pics up soon. If anyone ever gets a chance to do it, I highly recommend it. Be prepared to spend money buying pics and the DVD. It’s worth it!
The day b4 that, we were in St Thomas where again, we caught a cab and spent all day laying on the white sand. This time, we weren’t so classy with our special cocktails. Instead, we’d gone to the grocery store and bought a bottle of vodka and mixes ourselves. Another thing I suggest to do as it worked out to cost only $4pp and we didn’t even finish the vodka! The only problem with Caribbean beaches, sand flies! Argh they are so annoying, I have at least 10 bites. Why didn’t any1 warn me?
Our main port is New York, which I visited for the first time a week ago. It’s so weird watching Sex and the city on the TV then visiting the actual place. Luckily the ship docks quite close to ‘down town’ so all the shops are walking distance. With only a few hours, I tried to walk as fast as possible going to as many places as possible, trying not to get distracted by all the wonderful signs and posters, especially on Broadway!!! Even though I only walked through, it was amazing. One thing I’ll give American credit for is the naming of the streets. Numbers make so much more sense, no excuses for getting lost unless you don’t know how to count!
Our cabins were a bit of a surprise to me, we have bunk beds and the room is teeny weeny. Guess I was spoilt on Celebrity with those passenger cabins. I’m on the top bunk and instead of spacing the beds evenly, they’ve given the bottom bunk enough room to sit up and shortened the space above the top bunk so when you lie there and close the curtain, you have as much space as you do in a coffin. I’ve bashed my head on the roof so many times! Other than that everything else is all right. From next cruise on wards, we’ll only be rehearsing on show days, which is 2 out of 10. However, for all of you who think it means I work 2 out of 10 days, not true, cruise staff duties will begin. Luckily on this ship we have a really nice ACD (assistant cruise director for you non-ship people) who is fair and only gives us about 4hours a week of duties. So yeah, I’m really lucky, this contract will be really easy.
So that’s this cruise, last cruise I only managed to get off once, in Cozumel, which I can’t remember AT ALL. Am I getting amnesia??? Anyway I’ll be doing that itinerary again so I’ll tell you about it all next time.
Until then, laugh hard + take care!
x
