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I have offically finished my third week on deck and everything has gone fairly well especially trying to adjust to the ship life.
WEEK1- dragged quite a bit because safety training, everyone on board goes through this training and testing that is required by the coast gaurd that teaches us cpr and what we need to do if we must abondon ship and how to put out different classes of fire. So incase you were worried about anything happening to the ship or more importantly myself & the passengers... i know how to put out a fire, put on a lifevest or a gumby suit, open a liferaft and climb in.
sitting in a freezing cold classroom from 8-5 everyday watching videos of sinking ships and ship fires wasn't my ideal first week on the ship but I am now certified in basic firefighting and pretty much saving lives. I didnt expect to go through such intense training and it's definently some knowledge I can use for a lifetime.
During our practical firefighting day I had the opportunity to talk to the pianist, turns out he is from Irvine and his wife is involved at saddleback church and we are well umm familiar with the same people which was pretty awesome to find out, I have yet to hear him play but I'm going to try my best to go to his Frank Sinatra night at Pink's Champagne.
After safety training I would go straight to the salon and start work which made for incredibly long days. By the third day I was exhausted about ready to break down and feeling incredibly homesick. As of now I am the youngest in the spa/salon and practically everyone on board thinks I look like I'm 16-18yrs old -__- our spa team is great, the girls are very nice I'm so glad I came on board starting with such an awesome group of girls. My first day I found out my co worker, Kelsey, is from Claremont and she knows the owner of Audacious Salon ,where I worked and her daughters who I worked with as well. It is such a small world!
WEEK2- My first full week in the salon, because there are only two of us in the salon doing both hair and nails we get booked up back to back fast, which means $money $money $money! I absouletly love meeting everyone on board and hearing all their stories, my favorite questions are where are you traveling from? and how long have you and your husband been married? or how did you and your husband meet? Our clientle tends to be an older generation and of course women. We get plenty of couples celebrating their anniversary and hearing that these couples have been married for more than twice as long as I have been alive is incredible and well ultimately gives me hope. They give the best advice, sometimes I wish there was enough time in the world so I could write up a book of all the people I encounter and the stories I hear.
Wednesday was HaLLoWeeN! my favorite holiday! of course I had to put together a costume. I decided to be a lumber jack and made myself an axe out of cardboard and foil and painted some scruff on my face. They had a party on board for the passangers in Mardigras which is a place that is turned into a club on wednesday nights with a bar and a DJ called "White Hot" and everyone wears white. So it was pretty awesome to see all these older people dress up in their costumes, dancing their hearts out, I loved it. There was this particular older couple I enjoyed watching, they were having such a great time and you could tell the lady loved to dance and her husband could not dance for the life of him but he did anyway and didn't have a care in the world, they had a blast. I told myself I want to be these people when i'm old, these couples on board are adorable. Later I went out on the dance floor with my co worker, Alana, and danced the electric slide and theeen they played the YMCA we all had to jokingly dance to, which you'll figure out why later but FYI it is not fun to stay at the YMCA haha.
After Mardigras a couple of the girls from the spa and myself went to the crew bar to see all the crew's costumes for a bit, by that time I was feeling really homesick, I wanted to be with my family at our church's halloween event and see everyone dressed up and my niece in her squirrel costume.
Saturday I woke up feeling horrible, I had caught a cold from my roommate and that morning was the worst. Granted there are tons of germs on board and the air is all recycled air, we share a tiny cabin, I wasn't getting proper sleep... I'm bound to get sick. I was supposed to be in the terminal at 1:30pm for embarkation day, which is where all the new passangers board and we hand out raffle tickets trying to get them to come into the spa/salon. There was no way I was going to make it there, be peppy and talk to all the new passangers. Luckily my roomie took care of me giving me vitamins and medicine she also told my boss I shouldn't be working the terminal that day and my boss was nice enough to let me rest until I had to be at work at 6pm at that, I was litterally asleep in bed til then. which is exactly what I needed.
That evening we had NCL's offical halloween crew party, at 10pm everyone went to Mardigras dressed in their costumes where they had a costume contest and danced the night away. I put together a pin up girl costume and met my co workers over there for a bit. The girls and I try not to stay out too late considering we work at about 12 hours a day and we need our sleep.
WEEK3- Sunday was my day off in Maui where I spent most of the day at starbucks facetiming my friends and family and catching up with everyone, I miss you all so much! I've only been gone three weeks and it feels like 3 months!! After I was done at starbucks I met up with my co worked, Amber, she was my roommate while training at Mandara Spa at the Hilton Hotel in Waikiki. No, we didnt get to stay at the Hilton, we shared a room at the YMCA which was probably the most run down place I had ever seen and the smell throughout the entire building was terrible I wanted to cry every time I walked into that place, sleeping on a bench outside would have been more comfortable than sleeping there.
Amber is 26, a massage therapist from Seattle Washington, she arrived at the Y three days later after I arrived and didnt get in till about 10:30pm. When she arrived I stayed up a few hours getting to know her, actually, I think I was the one talking the most telling her my entire life story, She swears I'm not a shy person at all. Because the Y was such a miserable place to be, after training we would spend as much time as we could elsewhere and going out eating and exploring a bit. For a few nights we would tell whoever was serving me that night that it was my birthday, since I spent my birthday all by my lonesome, and got a free Birthday treat. My last night at the Y before I boarded the ship Amber and I went to a Karaoke bar, which. It was an older crowd and everyone, I mean everyone that sang were really really talented singers. We were probably the worst ones there. We sang a couple songs, the first one was "No Scrubs" which will now forever remind me of her, My first night on the ship I walked into the Aloha Cafe, which is the Buffet, and they were playing "No Scrubs" and I instantly laughed and thought of her. Then I sang a couple of my go to Karaoke songs, we also attempted to sing Adele's song "Turning Tables" which will forever remind me of my bestie. There was a much older man there that I fell in love with, he had to be in his mid 70's, he went up a few times and sang Frank Sinatra and he was incredible, the way he presented himself was perfect, he had to of been a performer in his younger days.
Back to my day off in Maui, Amber wanted to buy a beach towel because we were heading to the beach and ironically no one sells beach towels in Maui apparently they are seasonal even in hawaii! We headed to a small beach close to port we wanted to go paddle boarding or kyaking but there wasnt any rental places near by so we just sat on the beach talking til the sun went down then went back on the ship to eat some dinner and head to the gym.
Every week I have been getting to know my roommate, Katia, more and more, She is turning 30 this week, she's a massage therapist from portland Oregon and she's russian. She's tall, georgeous and treats me like her younger sister. We went out to dinner a few nights ago at the Skyline restaurant on board, I personally think its a really romantic place, we had a really good conversation about God, our faith, relationships and a thousand other things we ended up staying up really late that night we meant to go to the gym but were too tired to do anything and still ended up staying up late talking.
The rest of the time was work. work. work. Our spa manager is actually ending her last contract with us in a week, she is the sweetest. I really enjoyed working with her for the time being, we have a returning spa manager which is all about constant work, that I hear tends to stress people out and makes me nervous but she does make us great money so I am looking forward to that since Im trying to save every penny!
It's been a good three weeks with it's ups and downs but mostly ups because I'm on the ocean in Hawaii where most people pay to be and I am getting paid to be here. Well I have to head back to the ship and get ready for my first embarkation day!! I'll post photos soon & try my best to send out some postcards to those of you who gave me your addresses! miss you all!
- comments
Shanite Young this is so awesome thanks for sharing Diana i swear im living through you:) lol