and then there was a giant ship
well, vacation is over and i'm back on the ship.
and when i say "back on the ship", i mean "on a totally new ship". in holland at the moment -- we just left hamburg, where there was a short drydock.
i left home on sunday and got into hamburg on monday evening. once i got onto the ship, i was found by the cruise director and tech supervisor, who took me all over the ship. jet-lagged, tired, and all -- i couldn't believe how amazing this ship is. i went over it all again the next day with two more people who came on in my department, and everyone is so excited to be here. i'll take some photos to post soon. right now, the place is covered with plastic, sawdust, and contractors speaking german, so you can't really get the full effect. attached are photos of me in front of the ship and of my room.
a word on the cabins: they are the smallest ship cabins i've ever seen. my bathroom door doesn't open all the way because it hits the desk, and i only have enough closet space for about half my clothes. there's only one drawer and no shelves. the shower curtain sticks to my back when i'm taking a shower. tiny, tiny, tiny. it's pretty nice, though, and it's good to think that i'm the first person to live in here. usually when i get onboard and move in, i spend a day cleaning every surface.
the ship is still in drydock and we're operating with about half the crew, and not everything has been built yet. in fact, the jungle gym was just finished today in my kids' club, and it's awesome -- i crawled around a bit and checked it out. the kids' club is an extremely awesome place. there's the main room with the jungle gym and plenty of play space, a smaller room for the 2-5 year olds, an outdoor area with a pool (and elephant-shaped waterslide), and a cinema with a huge flat screen tv and giant squishy beanbags. the teen club has more flat screen tvs all over, wireless xbox, a video jukebox and dance floor, a bar (for sodas of course), and 5 computers. plus there's a video arcade between the kids' and teen areas, with state-of-the-art games and dance dance revolution. it's so cool. but anyway, since stuff is still being built and stocked. on top of that, we've only got about 15 staff out of 30 or so. the techs are the only ones who have everyone. so we don't really have to do a lot of work. or rather, there's work to do, but none of it's urgent. we won't have any passengers, except for a couple of travel agent events, until may 17th. so we're hanging out, trying to stay out of the contractors' way, and trying to learn the ship. it's so huge and bewildering.
tonight we're going out in gronigen, which is the nearest town. it's about 2 hours away -- the dock here in eemshaven is in the middle of nowhere. should be fun! i'll hopefully get some photos up of the rest of the ship pretty soon.
and when i say "back on the ship", i mean "on a totally new ship". in holland at the moment -- we just left hamburg, where there was a short drydock.
i left home on sunday and got into hamburg on monday evening. once i got onto the ship, i was found by the cruise director and tech supervisor, who took me all over the ship. jet-lagged, tired, and all -- i couldn't believe how amazing this ship is. i went over it all again the next day with two more people who came on in my department, and everyone is so excited to be here. i'll take some photos to post soon. right now, the place is covered with plastic, sawdust, and contractors speaking german, so you can't really get the full effect. attached are photos of me in front of the ship and of my room.
a word on the cabins: they are the smallest ship cabins i've ever seen. my bathroom door doesn't open all the way because it hits the desk, and i only have enough closet space for about half my clothes. there's only one drawer and no shelves. the shower curtain sticks to my back when i'm taking a shower. tiny, tiny, tiny. it's pretty nice, though, and it's good to think that i'm the first person to live in here. usually when i get onboard and move in, i spend a day cleaning every surface.
the ship is still in drydock and we're operating with about half the crew, and not everything has been built yet. in fact, the jungle gym was just finished today in my kids' club, and it's awesome -- i crawled around a bit and checked it out. the kids' club is an extremely awesome place. there's the main room with the jungle gym and plenty of play space, a smaller room for the 2-5 year olds, an outdoor area with a pool (and elephant-shaped waterslide), and a cinema with a huge flat screen tv and giant squishy beanbags. the teen club has more flat screen tvs all over, wireless xbox, a video jukebox and dance floor, a bar (for sodas of course), and 5 computers. plus there's a video arcade between the kids' and teen areas, with state-of-the-art games and dance dance revolution. it's so cool. but anyway, since stuff is still being built and stocked. on top of that, we've only got about 15 staff out of 30 or so. the techs are the only ones who have everyone. so we don't really have to do a lot of work. or rather, there's work to do, but none of it's urgent. we won't have any passengers, except for a couple of travel agent events, until may 17th. so we're hanging out, trying to stay out of the contractors' way, and trying to learn the ship. it's so huge and bewildering.
tonight we're going out in gronigen, which is the nearest town. it's about 2 hours away -- the dock here in eemshaven is in the middle of nowhere. should be fun! i'll hopefully get some photos up of the rest of the ship pretty soon.
