It's Saturday, Embarkation day once again... my start of my 6th week! I don't have to be back at the ship till 1:30pm. I'm currently at starbucks in Honolulu. I absolutely love the christmas music they have playing but it makes me so sad that I wont be home for Christmas!  one of my favorite things is going to go see Christmas lights, I wonder if there is anywhere here I could possibly go and see some lights. 
Anyway, two weeks have past since I last blogged, these days are going so fast it all seems like one big blur, I'll try my best to inform you with all that has been going on.
WEEK 4- Our new manager, Audrey, arrived on board and our other manager, Debbie, ended her last contract with Steiner and headed home. Like I said before, all the girls in the spa warned me about Audrey and how she micro manages which made me really nervous. My roomie even felt anxiety at the thought of having her back aboard. The first day she explained to us how things were going to go. I felt like I was looking at her with a blank stare with all the things she expected from us; upselling, retail, retail, retail, and booking every second we had available. Honestly she wasn't unreasonable with any of it, she's just doing her job and trying to make us money and I'm perfectly fine with that we just have to work our butt off. Over time I think she realized that she really does have a really good team on board at the moment and we all work fairly well together so she chilled out a little bit. At first I was a little intimidated by her but I got a chance to actually talk to her and she's very helpful and I think she really likes me, she says I'm doing very well. Surprisingly I believe i'm doing much better than i expected for never working as a stylist in a salon before and working such long hours. 
When I would get off work I would walk into our cabin and have a pow wow with my roomie practically every night. She would already be sitting in her bed and I would be sitting on our green chair and we would just talk about anything and everything and eat crackers and goatcheese and chocolate until midnight and then fall right to sleep. Sometimes I feel like we have the saaame conversation over and over especially about boys its kind of funny. This week we got to talking about how we both expected to come on the ship and build our relationship with christ away from the rest of the world. It's difficult, she explained to me how the ship is toxic and drains you so much in reality I'd say we're all workaholics. Before I arrived she had been praying for christian roomate and she is so glad she ended up with me, and I told her what a relief it was seeing her bible when I came aboard. We ended up writting down a list of christian books we wanted to read and I told her how I wanted to read a book a month while I'm out here and she thought it was a great idea. I think I might purchase some books for her for christmas, it would be great to go through some books together, we both have the same goals and pretty much on the same page trying to grow closer to God and prepare our hearts spiritually for marriage. I'm so sad she is leaving the end of January, but she will be coming back before my contract ends and we both hope we're still roomies when she gets back! There was one night we went straight to bed and could not sleep at all, both of us were tossing and turning and our minds were just racing, I told her it was because we didn't have our pow wow.
WEEK 5- This week had it's ups and downs but mostly ups. I had the day off on Sunday in Maui and had planned to go hangout with some of the girls and explore and that didnt end up happening and no one bothered to tell me they didn't want to go anymore so I was waiting around for nothing. I spent most of my day at whole foods and made a video of my cabin and got to facetime with my family since I had to work all day on thanksgiving which made up for my entire day :D 
This week I meet some really interesting guests. I had a chance to do these two little girl's manicures & pedicures. Sophie is the younger 7yr old and when she put her little hands on the table they were soooo cute and tiny! Faith is 8 yrs old and so so quite, she has the prettiest long golden curly hair. They both are adorable and have little freckles, I fell in love with them. The cool thing is for the kids we do our ME! Bath Manicures and Pedicures where they can pick a flavor; Chocolate, Vanilla, or Strawberry and get a bath fizz in that flavor and scrub and lotion... to top it off they get ice cream while they are having their service! the smell of the lotions are so good they always make me want ice cream :P On thanksgiving I got to do their hair first thing in the morning which made my day! I remembered they were coming in and I had some disney princess sitckers in my cabin, I made sure after I did their hair I gave them sitckers. They came in to get their hair done because they were getting their pictures taken on the beach, they turned out so cute with their little flowers in their hair. I got a chance to get to know most of the family because I did their grandmother, Patty's, hair the day before and she talked a lot, she was so sweet. After doing the girls hair their mother, Michelle, forgot her cabin card so I chased after her to give it to her because I knew she was in a hurry. Then Michelle came in later to get her hair done before the luau and I only had about 20 minutes to blow dry and curl it so we tried to hurry I only got to curl half of it and then pinned the rest up and she rushed out so quick to catch her bus for the luau and she forgot her flower so I chased after her again and finally caught up to her right before she left to get on the bus and put her flowers in. (Icouldnt let her go to the luau without them!) They were very generous tippers and I had to make sure I took care of them, Apparently they own a pretzle company, the girls get to do so many fun things they went to see Justin Bieber in concert a couple weeks ago I thought that was so cool.
I also had a guest who's husband is 101 years young! soo crazy! she said he's a writer and has published a couple books and he absolutely loves to read. He wasn't able to come on the ship and she said she couldn't tell him that she was leaving to hawaii for a week because she didnt want him to worry about her, she is much younger than him. Her first husband had passed away in his 50s, she had five children with him and then remarried and her husband now helped her raise the five kids.
Thanksgiving was nice, the crew had a thankgiving lunch in the Liberty room and all the officers voulenteered to serve us which was super nice. The Captain served me turkey! he's is so funny, he's a little old guy, I met him in the aloha cafe last week while getting food at the buffet. He turns around and says "your new" and I said I sure am and told him how long I had been on board and he said, "welcome aboard" and the spa girls told me a couple times that he likes to talk to pretty girls so thats why he talked to me especially the spa girls. During our lunch in the liberty room they had some of the musicians on board perform and the singers are very talented, theres this one gentle man who had a great voice and you would have never thought it was him by looking at him. I recorded it so hopefully I'll be able to post it for you guys soon. While we were eating we were joking around saying we felt like we were the homeless, the less fortunate, been served by the officers and that we would be put on their resumes as charity work. The man I just mentoned was just wearing a t-shirt with a moose on it and jeans and my friend asked why is he dressed like that when the rest of the band is in formal attire? and I jokingly said he was homeless. We all had some good laughs. Later that evening the spa team was able to get off the ship and have our thanksgiving dinner at Dukes it was a good time but I still wish I could have been back home spending time with my family.
 
Thats about it for now, Love you and miss you! considering i wont be home for christmas feel free to send me some love! heres the address:
Diana Vasquez
Cosmetologist/Salon
M/S Pride of America
P.O. Box 135035
Honolulu, HI 96801
 
 
PS: I will be coming home in 17weeks for a mini vacation while we are in dry dock!! I can't wait!

"And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing."
-Psalm 107:22