At Sea – Huge congratulations are in order for Becky, my roommate from Zimbabwe, as yesterday, after her phone interview with shoreside in Miami, she received the excellent news that she’s been promoted to Pit Supervisor!! Way to go girl!!!
Becky has been revising hard for the last few weeks and has worked for NCL for 5 years. She’s very comptent and composed and a good leader (she’s mother hen in the cabin also!), and I’m sure she’ll do great in her new role.
The only downside of this is that she’s shortly going to be transferred to a new ship to assume her position, which means that we lose her from our cabin. Last week, another of our roommates, Daisy, moved just down the corridor as a space became free in an empty cabin giving her the hallowed luxury of the bottom bunk.
A new ship beckons for Becky.
The girls in the casino are now nearly all 3 to a cabin which is nice, but with Becky parting for foreign waters, Andreea and I will have to play the roommate lottery and pray we get some good people to fill in the gaps, as sharing such tight quarters can be a bit of a mine field if there’s any kind of personality clash, or noisy residents.
Becky said she’ll follow our news via this blog and hopefully I can keep you updated on her movements once she gets her new orders. It’s crazy how quickly you make friends here, but then there’s always the sadness of someone leaving at least once a week and then lots of new people to get to know. It’s a very unique world in which we live.
I never made it to land in Costa Maya, as time wasn’t really in my side after all the mandatory safety drills and departmental meetings. I did had to the crew pool on deck 8 briefly to get some fresh air but had neglected to put on my bikini bottoms so couldn’t actually get in the water without flashing the passengers, the bridge and channel 7 TV viewers plus any Internet webcam stalkers. I don’t think I’m quite ready for that level of fame yet…
Costa Maya, so near but yet so far.
The phone rang whilst we were getting ready for work, sending my blood cold (the chiming ringtone will haunt me forever I’m quite certain), and sure enough, it was the casino requesting our presence at work. We were in no way late, however the ship sailed early, so we were needed pronto to get the tables set for gaming and ready for the guests to play, as soon as we got the signal from the coastguard. I hope that they make a note of this to play off against any time I ever happen to be late, as this is the second time this week we’ve been summoned early.
We quickly took off on our short commute and arrived full of eagerness to get the floor ready and earn our anticipated brownie points. Becky was straight away utilised in a position of responsibility and she looked very composed under the time pressure.
Later on in the evening, after consuming some delicious yellow jelly, I was called upon to take part in “The Wave” on returning from my break. Michael, Elmer, Cipi (all Philippines), plus Alex (Serbia) and I all marched off to the nearby Stardust theatre and caught the end of the show, whilst waiting in the wings for our own moment to shine.
The production “Elements” is a dramatic dance piece incorporating the magician, dancers and acrobats. Every week without fail, the guests rave about it and it was nice to at least get to peak at 5 minutes of it. After the final curtain, it was time for all the crew members sent from the different departments to join them on stage.
We filed down between the rows of the seated audience to a twee song about being part of the Norwegian family and the crowd lapped it up as we waved and held aloft the incredible towel animals that the stateroom stewards are famous for. After each group was introduced to a loud cheer and round of applause it was time to make our way back to work to the sound of “Hey, hey baby, ooh ah!” complete with a standing ovation.
I love my job. I even get to be a star on stage for 5 minutes every so often! I dealt until midnight when I got to finish early as I’ve an 8:20am start this morning. It’s going to be another long old sea day today, but we’ve had some really good players in this week, so hopefully I’ll have games all day, which should keep my cunning cartoon Panda slot machine obsession at bay.
The Tales of Hippomottie and Her Hapless Inventor 