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kellyzeagman · 4 years

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The final post

And just like that, my 5 months at sea are officially over. I’m overwhelmed with emotions as I write this on the plane. Mostly I’m very tired and disoriented and am somehow only 7 hours in out of the 14 to Dallas. BUT I got 3 empty seats beside me and am lucky as hell to be chilling horizontal so I can’t complain. Trying to kill some more time. I can’t dive into the ending of this chapter without writing about a few crazy things that happened during the last cruise, because it wouldn’t be voyager of the seas without some big drama and f*** ups. I’ll keep things short and sweet-

After a month of endless rehearsals for our parade, she finally had her opening day. All of our missed port days, cancelled excursions and extra work hours were all gonna finally be worth it for the big reveal. ONLY for the ship to have a delayed departure and the sail away to happen at 7pm which was when the parade was. 95% of the guests decided to watch the sail out from Sydney harbour and about 5 guests decided to watch the parade. So unfortunate that I was a part of all the install only to hold the dragon tail for one parade in front of minimal guests. However, thankful for it because it provided so many laughs and memories (good and bad).

Worked in the nursery with the babies for practically my last 2 weeks, which was nice because the older kids were absolutely doing our heads in. A mix of annoying-ness/ zero patience because I was completely in the zone of going home during my last voyage. Im convinced Australian kids are the most energetic/competitive and loud bunch on earth. I’ll miss some of them.

The last cruise itinerary also got completely changed because of coronavirus. It had first changed to include two overnights in Port Vila and Luganville, as the other islands wouldn’t have us. Mystery island (my fav place) was actually going to let us in though, which everyone was very excited because it had been cancelled a few times already. HOWEVER. On around day 3, after 2 sea days and 1 port, the captain came on the system and informed all guests and crew that the two overnights and mystery island were not having us anymore. He then included that the reason was because 3 crew members (one being my manager) had influenza and the islands did not want to risk it. Informing the guests that the reason was crew related was the absolute worst thing he could have ever done, because guests absolutely kicked off. People were fuming around the ship, and one family even got kicked off because the dad tried to punch the woman at guest services over the change. Love the drama. The cruise these people had originally booked was going to be 7 ports and 4 sea days, which then turned into f****** 7 sea days and 4 ports. It even stings to write those numbers after the fact. 7 sea days was the most brutal thing to ever experience, so I understood some of their frustration. We went back to NZ and Eden instead. So glad that is over and done with. What a cruise to end on. My boss was out sick for 5 of the days, and we were one staff down because one of our new sign ons wasn’t allowed on the ship because she had a layover in Singapore and told medical she had a sore throat. They kept her in a hotel for the 11 days just to be safe. There were rumours in NZ that our ship had corona, so when people got off, there were different news outlets and cameras crews trying to get in on the gossip. All good, no corona there (yet).

That’s really about it. When I had around 40 days left, I did not think I could do it any longer, but the last 2 cruises went by in the blink of an eye. I had spent the last month counting down the days and minutes until I could get home, only to find myself not wanting to leave on my last night. It’s truly the weirdest feeling in the world and I’ll never be able to explain it. You want to go home and see your friends and family so bad and want to feel normal again but at the same time, it’s painful to let go of all the friends and experiences. I’ve been living in a bubble for 5 months and it became my comfort zone. As scary as it was leaving to start this journey, it was almost equally as scary and sad to leave it. Everything and everyone you’ve known just disappears as soon as you walk off.

I didn’t even know who any of these people were 5 months ago or that they even existed, and then you become best friends with them and share every minute of every day together. Then you all jet off to your respective countries and never know if you’ll see each other again. I feel so lucky to know so many people from so many different places and to have shared this crazy and unique journey. It’s a bond and experience that only we will ever be able to understand and share. It was so sad to say goodbye, but can’t wait to see what everyone gets up to. I feel like I will be experiencing PTSD (post traumatic ship disorder) soon.

The places- wow. I had never even HEARD of most of the places the ship was docking in. Most people will never visit these isolated islands, and I’m so glad I got the chance. I got to go to some of the nicest and most isolated beaches imaginable with the most amazing water. I have developed such a greater love an appreciation for the ocean. I think in another life I would like to be an underwater cameraman. I sometimes even forget we started this journey in Asia. Feels like SO long ago, but at the same time, just like yesterday.

I don’t even know what else to say, this stuff can’t be written up or explained over a keyboard. I’m feeling lots of mixed emotions, but really ready to finally be at home and sleep in my own bed. It’s definitely going to take a while adjusting back to normal life, because ship life was so, so not normal. This all is starting to sound like word vomit to me, so I guess we can just talk more about this in PERSON. I’d love to say more, but I need a few days to let it all sink in. I don’t even know what I’m writing, I feel like I’ve been hit by a train.

1 more flight to go, home sweet home in 6 hours.

Thanks for tagging along on this unforgettable journey, and we will pick things up face to face!!

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kellyzeagman · 4 years

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Hola,

As I write this, I now have officially just TWO weeks left. I seriously cannot believe it. If you ever want to experience the most WARPED sense of time, work on a cruise ship. Ive never had something fly by so fast in my life. Some days feel so incredibly long, however, overall, it feels like I literally blinked on October 5th and opened my eyes and it is feb.22nd.

Many things have changed and happened since last writing on feb.4th before the 2 week cruise. At that point, there were going to be 2 ports rescheduled because of coronavirus fears. Things ended up taking a bigger turn. Guests were notified a few days before their cruise that Lifou and Mare were going to be cancelled because they were closing their borders because of the virus (these ports really lack money/medical facilities/care, so if even one person on the island got corona, i’m sure the entire island would go down. So, better for them to be safe than sorry. Things really took a turn once guests got on board- once pretty much everyone had checked in and no chance to turn back, they made an announcement that 2 more islands were cancelled for the same reason. So, 4 of the 7 ports were now cancelled. Some people were obviously kicking off, others were understanding. The question now was, what were we going to do with those 4 days. We were going to do the overnight in that questionable port of Luganville, BUT- it ended up getting changed to an overnight (2 day) stay in Tauranga, NZ! Absolutely amazing- more to come. And they added the port of Eden, Australia, which had a smaller population than the # of guests on board.

2 weeks is a ridiculous amount of time for people to cruise, especially kids. ESPECIALLY when they just got back to school 2 weeks ago. Ever since Christmas, most of the kids have been so exhausting and horrible that I just question if any kids on the planet are nice or well behaved anymore. Im wondering though, do the kids keep getting worse, or is my patience just getting worse. (It has to be the kids). We have so much hope each turnaround day that the kids will get better and then by day 2 we are like “what the actual fuc*”. I need to have no contact with kids for approximately 1 month once a return home so that I can become fond of them again LOL. Luckily, it went by extremely fast and the neglected children are back with their questionable families. Part of the 2 week cruise included two Fiji ports that remained as planned. My friends and I booked two excursions for both Fiji days because we had time off during the morning/afternoon. Having this time off to do an excursion is RARE, we we were absolutely buzzing with excitement. One tour was to a private island via a catamaran, and the other was a rainforest hike to a waterfall. We were so excited, key word being “were”. What happens next is truly tragic. Voyager of the Seas has decide to install a show called “Anchors away” which is a 18 minute parade through the promenade where all of the cruise division (youth staff, cruise staff, singers, dancers, sports staff etc..) have to be a part of. **Forced to be a part of**. They have decided to install this parade right before 50% of the cruise division signs off, so its going to burst into flames in about a month when everyone that knows it is gone and the new people have no idea what to do. It has taken weeks and weeks of rehearsals. It is a huge production. To learn all of the choreography/blocking, we have had to spent countless hours rehearsing. And they’ve decided to to run all of the rehearsals on days when we are in port, (so we can practice in the promenade and have less guests, as they are at the port) meaning we cant get off until its done. It is still so devastating for me to say that BOTH of our Fiji shore excursions had to be cancelled so we could rehearse the parade. All of our port days for the last month have been ruined due to these damn rehearsals. Time off is compromised and we cant book anything to do in port because theres never enough time. Very sad for getting off purposes, but the parade has honestly been a hilarious experience to be a part of. The costumes and props are all brand new and the budget is enormous. I cant even explain it really. There is no way to explain unless you see it. The show is made up of 4 different boat teams battling against each other to music. I am a part of the chinese dragon boat. The worst part about this whole parade/port compromising is that my part in the parade requires no talent or choreography. I literally hold the TAIL of the dragon boat for 18 minutes while my team does a crazy dance with the paddles. I also will only be in the parade twice before leaving, so i’m not sure why i’ve been roped into it for a month when ill be gone after its opening show. My Fiji excursions had to be cancelled so I can practice being the ass of a dragon. Not bitter :) The costumes are amazing though, I hope i can post some pics because the costumes are quite special. I won’t bother going into this parade further because its inexplainable. I hope I can get my hands on a recording of the whole parade so people can understand.

I was able to get off for 2 hours both fiji days, but just NOT the same as what we had planned. In Suva, my friend Laura and I experienced the weirdest 5 mins of our lives while walking back to the ship. Its hard to really paint the picture because words cant do it justice, but as we were walking back to the ship, a truck full of Fiji prisoners passed us were screaming and reaching for us. However, this was not a jail transportation vehicle like the ones at home where they are handcuffed and locked in the back with a security guard. This was legitimately a 20 year old pick up truck with literally probably 15-20 inmates crammed into the back, being held in by what seemed to be a chicken wire type material. Just picture the easiest thing to escape from and that was it. As they drove by they all had their hands reaching out of the wires and were yelling for us with their bodies crammed together like they were sardines in a can. It was one of the weirdest moments of my life. I wish i had a picture of the truck and the men all crammed into the back by the dental floss like material. If we managed to be at a stop light at the same time, im not sure laura and I would have made it back to the ship. Approximately 30 seconds later I was gifted a hand carved wooden Fijian axe by a man selling souvenirs on the side of the road. He gave it to me without me ever showing interest in it, so I decided to give him my leftover Fiji money, as I would never be back in Fiji again. At this point he asked me for more, so this was obviously a ploy from the start, but he had already carved my name into the axe so I couldn’t say no, and he threw in a carved wooden turtle on top of it so I just agreed. I came back to the ship with two items I never wanted and somehow managed to bring the wooden axe through security without them saying anything. Ill make sure not to have it in my carry on bag on the plane or ill be added to a no fly list. These two events happening back to back were so, so odd but I will never forget them.

The two day NZ experience was amazing, I absolutely loved Tauranga and it made me so excited knowing that I will be living in that country this time next year. I was able to get off during the day and go to the beach, and then was able to get off after work at 11pm to experience the ~overnight~. Pretty much every crew member ended up at the same bar downtown, so it was like any normal night on the ship, but we were on glorious land. None of us had been off on land at night time in 5 months. It was so amazing, even if it was just for a few hours. I didn’t know how much I missed walking around at night/being on land until I stepped off the ship that night. We had to be back on the ship at 2am, or wait until 6am when the gangway doors opened again. So, we decided to clear out and make it back to the ship for 2:00am instead of sleeping outside of the ship until 6.

After that 2 week cruise was finally over, 2 friends and I were able to get off during the day in Sydney and we went to Bondi beach again. That place is still far too cool. Saw a guy in a McMaster sweater. Beach was filled with hundreds of people compared to last time, mostly backpackers/tourists I assume. We are now on a 6 day booze cruise with 300 kids where we are having more kids come to adventure ocean than we did at xmas/new years when we had over 1,000. Its very annoying. Its supposed to be low counts for kids, but we seem to be slammed every day, and the kids and parents aren’t particularly enjoyable. Hoping my 11 day last and final cruise will be a flawless experience. The ports have already changed for that one as well (hopefully they’ve already informed the guests). 2 overnights in Port Vila and Luganville instead of 4 of the islands, both in places where getting off at night isn’t easy or particularly safe. We shall SEE how it goes. Im honestly very sad to have these islands taken away. They are so beautiful and “once in a lifetime”, and I never got to lookout at the ocean from the beach one last time at each place and mentally say goodbye. I didn’t know my last time was going to be the last time. I guess thats life.

One of my hopes and dreams of my contract came true over the 2 week cruise. When I was working with the 6-11 year olds, a girl started screaming that there were flying fish in the water, but they were really DOLPHINS. Probably about 30 of them. They were all jumping and soaring out of the water, it was magic. Ive been waiting for that moment since I came. To see that number of dolphins in their natural environment was my perfect BBC planet earth moment I have been waiting for. Just waiting for my whale now, 13 days for it to come true.

This 6 day cruise just goes to Melbourne and Tasmania. Could easily be done in 3 days but I love that they just decide to add unnecessary sea days to make profit. We are going at approximately the same speed as a snail, because they’ve included sea days in between each port, when really we could probably get to Melbourne from Tasmania in 5 hours at a normal speed. We passed an island with a mountain today, I had a two hour nap and looked outside when I got back up to work and we were still passing the same mountain. Cheers MATE.

I am now on my 5th roommate. They moved my housekeeping roommate out without telling me. They want similar divisions living in the same areas because we have schedules that align more. She’s a sports staff from is England and is good and can steal the bottom bunk once i’m gone in 2 weeks. At this point I just walk in my room each day expecting there to be a new person. In other news- I got my flights home today, so that is EXCITING. Obviously I was always going home, but now it feels real. I fly 15.5 hours from Sydney to Dallas at at 2:40pm on the 7th, then 3 hours from Dallas to Toronto and should touch down at YYZ at 9:30pm on the 7th. I will be time travelling and experience March 7th twice. I’m obviously so excited to come home and see everyone and finally relax for more than 2 hours, but its for sure going to be really sad saying goodbye to everyone and this crazy lifestyle. I feel like i will have a quarter life crisis when I come home because I wont know what to do with myself. I’m trying to take in each day and live in the moment because its going to gone before I know it.

Anyways, must go change my laundry before someone else does it for me to steal my dryer.

bye bye for now

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kellyzeagman · 4 years

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Hello hello

In 2 days I will officially have 1 MONTH LEFT. 4 weeks sounds better, 30 days sounds even better. Two girls from my team leave tomorrow (the 5th). So happy for them to get to go home, but honestly it’s going to be really sad to see them go. We got really close. Sydney is from Halifax so perhaps our paths will cross again, but Vera lives all the way in Russia so who knows if we will ever meet again, I really hope we can. Two great girls gone at the same time. Also it’s a bit sad in the sense that them leaving makes everyone else want to leave as well. We are all jealous. Our team of 12 has stayed the same since October. No new people and no one has left. My boss and other co workers have said they have never had a group stay the same for so long, because on bigger ships and ships with different itineraries, teams change up all the time, even every 2 weeks. Some ships even have 30+ youth staff, whereas we just had a tight group of 12. So, this has been so great getting to know everyone for 4 months without changes. Two new girls from England will be coming on the 5th to replace them. It will be nice to meet new people and have a bit of change, but the two leaving will definitely be missed! I feel very lucky to have been a part of such a strong team that all gets along and works well together.

Anyways, I guess cruise ship life is filled with lots of quick hellos and goodbyes, only this time you don’t know if you’ll ever see them again. It’s going to be so weird when they leave, considering we all spend every waking minute together. Working, eating, going out, drinking, hanging out at ports, relaxing, etc.. you see them all day every day. I guess I’m just not used to people leaving yet whereas everyone else is. The 5th is our biggest turnaround day yet. 200 people signing off, and 200 people signing on. They also said it’s the biggest cruise so far in terms of provisions (loading on/off). Think of how much food and drink and other supplies will be needed for 2 weeks, crazy. When I say turnaround day, I’m referring to the day that all the people from the previous cruise leave, and a few hours hours later all the new people from the next cruise come one it’s QUITE the operation. I can’t believe people leave and come on all in a matter of hours. Last guests usually get off around 9:30, then people can start coming on around 10:30/11:30. Insane.

We have now completed our 3 day and 2 day cruises. Still seems like such a waste of man power/ resources/ fuel to have people on for this short of time. I thought it would have been a lot crazier, but it wasn’t too bad. The kids were definitely not the best behaved. Quick and cheap cruise= no cares. We now move onto our 2 week cruise. Thankfully, I think there’s only 300ish kids and half of them are teenagers. It should make for a more relaxing and less stressful time. However, the 2 week cruise is already starting off on a rough note and it doesn’t even start till tomorrow. Two of our ports (Lifou and Mare) are not letting any cruises stop for the time being because of the coronavirus. Purely just for their safety, if it ever reached these islands and spread, it would be so horrible because they have very little resources and medical care. So, it’s to protect them. For us though, we’ve had to change some things around.

Now because of the 2 cancelled ports, we had to add another port to the schedule and they’ve actually turned it into an overnight stay. Luganville, Vanuatu. It’s such a questionable place to have an overnight. Usually, overnights happen in European places where there’s a lot of stuff near the ship and great night life, where people can walk off and explore and party and then walk back on whenever. We have been to luganville one other time last minute because of a change in schedule and there’s really noooooothing there. It’s about a 15 minute walk to the “downtown” which is so incredibly poor and rundown. And not to be judgemental, but if anyone took that 15 minute walk at night during the overnight to go downtown for god knows what, I feel like it would be pretty dangerous. It will be interesting. There’s a lot of cool places/beaches to drive to during the day, but night time is gonna be a bit sketch. We shall see. I won’t be getting off at night. Guests probably aren’t going to be very happy, so hopefully they just decide to not come. ;) the kid count just got printed off and there will only be about 133 kids which is AMAZING. I’m sure they will still be just as loud and competitive as ever.

Aussie kids are a different breed. The sound of 6-11 year old boys screaming “YOU’RE OUT” during ball games will truly echo in my head until the day I die. It sounds more like “uuurrrrr aaauuutt”. It’s the most annoying thing in the world and happens constantly for 9 hours of my day almost every day. I really do think that they are very different than Canadian kids that I’ve worked/volunteered/interacted with. It will be interesting coming home to see how different they really are and compare. Lots of my friends are saying the Australian kids we’ve had this contract are the toughest kids they’ve ever had to deal with. They definitely aren’t as chill or laid back as I thought they would be. There’s also endless amounts of kids considered “special attention” meaning ADHD, anxiety etc.. again, people say more than any other countries they have done. Now that I’m finishing this up, I feel I can do anything. My Russian friend was part of the nursery staff. We all rotate age groups, but there’s 2 girls who spend 95% of their time in the nursery. Now that she’s gone, I am the one taking her spot in the nursery, as I’ve been the one spending most of the time in the nursery when one of the two girls are off. I’m excited because babies and toddlers are super cute. It’s stressful In different ways compared to the 3-11 year olds. You can have up to 8 babies in the nursery.

On turnaround day after the 3 day cruise I had the entire day off. This was probably going to be my last full day to explore Sydney, so I decided to do the hop on hop off bus tour. Of course, it was pouring rain. But rain never killed nobody so I still went. I brought a rain jacket and sat alone at the top with my hood on, still great. I only got off at bondi beach, where I spent about 3 or 4 hours. When I got there it was so incredibly cloudy, but it’s still quite the sight to see. First thing first I went to the nearest vegan joint where I could stuff my face. I went to a savoury vegan pie place, absolutely amazing. Got mashed potatoes, gravy, two pies and an Oreo milk shake. ALSO the cafes dog sat beside me the entire time I ate, which was SO nice because before this, I had only interacted with one dog in the last 4 months, which was a stray on the beach. This one was nice and clean and friendly and was so nice to actually pet and hangout with a dog. 2 dogs in 4 months for a brief amount of time is sad. It was everything I didn’t know I needed. I will think about that meal until I get to come home. The food situation on the ship is still so unfortunate for me, so any food that isn’t what I eat every day at the mess is amazing to me. If you want a bit of an idea, this is it. The ship hardly has any vegetarian options, let alone vegan. Every day they have a vegetarian table with 4 options. 98% of the time it is a creamy soup and some sort of casserole with cheese or cream, so can’t have either of those. The other 2 are almost always steamed cauliflower, or ratatouille. I’m done with both, I’ve had it too many times. Aside from that vegetarian specialty table, there’s some other things throughout the mess. I pretty much switch up between pasta, rice, salad, peanut butter sandwiches, roast potatoes, cereal and cucumbers every day. I’m reallllllyyyy over it. So I try and go crazy on food every time I get off in Sydney.

ANYWAYS- After lunch at bondi I walked to length of the beach watching the surfers while walking through the incredibly cold water. There’s a reason they all wore wet suits. The sand was soooo nice and soft, probably the nicest I’ve ever walked on. I had so much time there that I debated booking a surfing lesson but had no bathing suit or towel. I will definitely come back to do it one day in my life!! The area of Bondi itself is so hip and laid back. Everyone is SO beautiful and I felt out of place as I was soaking wet like a drenched rat in my raincoat while they were all in their surf and beach attire. It was probably the coolest place I’ve ever been in the sense of atmosphere and vibes. I didn’t feel cool enough to be there, especially alone hahaha. Loads of backpackers and tourists. Tons of surf shops, souvenirs stores and cafes/restaurants. I imagine it is a very prestigious place to live and super expensive. The views/locations around bondi have to be some of the best/most expensive in the world. I would love to spend a few days there to truly soak in the atmosphere, though I did pretty much everything in under 4 hours. Love you Bondi!!

Hmm what else to say. That girl who I said was coming from China and gonna be confined for 2 weeks isn’t coming anymore because they aren’t sending Chinese people anymore. However, they did end up sending back the same captain that we had during the Asian season and he is from China. He is confined to his room for 2 weeks, but his room is enormous and has all the bells and whistles, so I don’t feel too bad. OH, I finally have a new roommate, I don’t remember if I said this last time. Solo living has officially come to an end. She’s from Indonesia and works for housekeeping. She’s very quiet but has worked on ships before, she looks to be around my age. We work opposite shifts most times. She usually works during the night while I’m sleeping, and she sleeps during the day while I work. It’s been good, but I definitely miss having my own room, though I still kind of feel like I do because we hardly see each other.

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kellyzeagman · 4 years

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G’day

So, about once or twice a month we do practice drills for emergency situations. Mostly for fires but also security threats, man overboard, evacuations, etc.. It’s always a pain in the butt to do them because they take up to two hours sometimes and you have to participate even if it’s your time off. It also often affects time off at ports. If I had the day off to go to an island, I can’t get off until the drill is done. ANYWAYS. Practice drills are all fun and games and laughs and everyone complains about them but they are important because truth be told, no one knows what is going on ever, so it’s important to prepare people if there actually was an emergency which just so happens to have taken place on Jan.18th for REAL this time. We are always given a warning when there is going to be drills, or it’s put in our schedule, but this one came as a surprise to everyone at 1:30 in the morning. The emergency code for fire on a ship goes as followed on the announcement- “Bravo... Bravo... Bravo... “ and then is followed by the location of the fire on the ship and then in practice drill situations is always followed by “this is a drill for the crew” so we know it’s all chill and not a big deal. BUT on Jan.18th it was far less chill as it came as a surprise to everyone and was not a drill.

So, after we had all gone to bed and had started falling asleep, we were all abruptly woken up to a REAL bravo. Announcements never come on in crew cabins unless it’s a real emergency, which is 99% of the time a medical emergency. So, while it’s still shocking to hear the PA system come on in your room, it’s always just for medical reasons. When I heard the announcement turn on, I just laid there with my eyes closed waiting for them to say “Alpha.. Alpha.. Alpha..” which is code for medical emergency because it happens quite often. HOWEVER. When the words bravo, bravo, bravo came out of the persons mouth at 1:30am, shit got REAL. I had never sprung out of my bed so fast. Every department has certain duties for a bravo, and ours is to go up to the kids club and wait for further instruction. You have to get to your location in 7 minutes or less. As I was frantically changing into my uniform, my co worker down the hall knocked on doors around her to make sure we were all up. I dashed out of my room and met up with 2 others on the way and were about to boot it up 12 flights of stairs until we saw the chief engineer taking the elevator so we went in with him hahaha. (You aren’t supposed to take the elevator, but I figured if he was taking it we could as well). Crew were all sprinting down the corridors to get more info/to get to their locations. While people were keeping their cool, everyone was definitely panicking. My team of 12 all waited at our spot for further instruction, all confused and experiencing minor panic as we had no idea how bad the fire was. After about 10 mins, the captain came on the system and said there was a small fire in one of the food prep areas but that it had been contained and we could all be dismissed. Absolutely mental. Because, my first thought as soon as I sprung out of bed was that the ship was gonna burst into flames and sink, or we would have to get everyone onto life boats and evacuate the ship. The process of getting 3,000+ guests on life rafts is just hilarious to think about, it would be SUCH a mess. If a real emergency happened, god I just can’t even imagine the chaos. I was expecting it to be a really, really long night, but alas, just a small little fire that was put out easily. As we waited upstairs for our fate, a big part of me was hoping that a good chunk of the ship would get damaged by fire (no injuries of course) and that we would have to shut down for a few weeks to rebuild and we could get put up in hotels in Sydney. However, no such luck. Once the drill was over, I couldn’t stop laughing just because of how much of a gong show it was and how crazy it could have been. It was hard for anyone to fall asleep that night after the adrenaline rush of knowing there’s a fire on a floating vessel. So that was just a crazy, stressful, intense but hilarious situation. My friend has worked 5 contracts and had never experienced a real bravo, so it’s crazy for a lot of people.

Speaking of getting people on life boats, I have quite a funny situation. Some people at home actually already know because I told them when I found out but for others, here’s a nice laugh for you- crew and staff are all assigned to over 25 different life rafts in case we ever needed to evacuate. Out of all the possible ones I could have been assigned to, my friend Laura and I are assigned to the same life raft as the captain, chief safety, chief security, hotel director and staff captain. Aka, this is the last life raft to abandon ship. What is our luck. So, allllll of those important people, a few restaurant staff, a few maintenance guys, other random departments and two youth staff will all be the last to evacuate. Cheers! I’ll just be waiting till absolutely everyone gets off the ship until I’m allowed to leave with the captain. Good stuff. (Obviously I’d try to sneak off earlier). Hopefully we never have to :)

I’ve been quite lucky the past 2 weeks because I have had the shoebox room to myself. Unfortunately, my roommate Lucy had to be signed off in Sydney at the hospital/a hotel during the last 12 day cruise because the doctor feared she had German measles. In the end, there was never a complete diagnosis, but she stayed off the ship for those 12 days and she completely had to move everything out of her suitcases in case she got sent home. After she returned, she ended up getting placed in another room and I was assigned a 55-60ish year old sports staff from Poland. She completely cleaned my room, vacuumed and bleached and cleaned the bathroom, amazing. However, when I woke up in the morning she was gone without a trace. Completely packed up like she was never there. It turns out she requested to move cabins because mine made her too sea sick?? Strange considering everywhere on the ship rocks. Anyways, I know am on day 19 of having my own room and will more than likely get a new roommate when we get back to Sydney and a bunch of new people sign on.

Speaking of the 12 day cruise, what an absolute shi* show. We had our highest kid count so far (1,200) and we were already one down with my roommate being signed off. Then on the second day, we were two down because another guy on our team got confined to his room for 48 hours because he got the flu. I worked multiple 11/12 hour days. We were absolutely exhausted. The sports team was down 2, the cruise entertainment staff were down 2, and then mid cruise the cruise director aka the face of the ship who is responsible for all entertainment on board cut her foot on coral and had to get 20 stitches in her foot and couldn’t walk for a few days. Needless to say, everyone was overworked and had to help out in extra ways over those 12 days. Still managed to get off a few times and enjoy some beach time though. Feeling #blessed that those 12 days are behind us. I’m hoping that is the craziest it will ever get. Australian summer is now officially over as of yesterday (the 26th) school started today (27th) so the kid counts should go down. But there’s still a cruise coming up in 2 weeks with 800 kids so I don’t understand. Apparently aussies don’t care about having their kids out of school. I’m sure it will go down as soon as I leave on March 7th with my luck.

On the topic of leaving, if I was Chinese, I probably would not be able to go home. This Coronavirus is obviously being taken very seriously, even with royal caribbean. As of now, they aren’t flying home practically any Chinese employees. For example, a friend of mine is supposed to fly home on turnaround day (tomorrow as I write this) but is allowed to extend his contract because they aren’t letting people fly into parts of China and royal is letting them extend to keep safe. Same with the other way around, the process of getting them on board is difficult and has changed. Originally, they weren’t going to be sending any Chinese citizens onto ships, but now some are allowed depending on where they are from/when they start. There are 3 girls leaving my team on feb.5th, meaning 3 new ones are coming. One of them is Chinese, and we didn’t think she would be able to come. However, it turns out she is now coming, BUT has to be confined to a room for TWO WEEKS. All Chinese staff coming on board must be confined to a shoe box room for 2 weeks to make sure they are fine, how CRAZY. No window, sunlight or fresh air for 2 weeks. It seems a bit stupid to me that they just wouldn’t decide to send them at later times rather than make them do this. ANYWAYS, we will see how it goes. This is her first contract, so she has no idea what to expect and will start off her journey by being confined for 2 weeks.

On a side note, Spectrum of the Seas sails out of Hong Kong and the crew received some amazing news. Even though the circumstance is obviously horrible (the virus), they are cancelling all cruises for at least the next 2 weeks and all the crew will sail to japan with no guests and stay there for 2 weeks, no guests. I believe they will be able to get off and tour around as long as the coronavirus doesn’t make its way there. Those employees are living the absolute dreammmmm.

This virus will have a big impact on ships because many, many employees are Chinese. However, the Chinese employees do not even come close to the amount of Filipinos and Indonesians. There’s probably about 60 Filipinos for every non-Filipino. Filipino, Indonesian, Indian and Chinese are for sure the top 4 most popular nationalities on board. There’s also a lot of Ukrainians on this ship. There’s maybeeee 10 Canadians? Not a lot, but more than Americans I think. I think there’s only about 5 that I know of. Lots of English and Romanian people as well. I’ve said it before, but my team is made up of 2 Canadians, 1 Russian, 1 Ukrainian, 1 from Chile, 5 English, 2 Brazilian and my boss is Filipino.

We went to Lifou, Loyalty Islands a few days ago and I experienced perhaps the craziest story I will ever have experienced/ be able to tell in my entire life. After missing out on some cool tourist locations due to lack of money, my friend Vera from Russia and I decided to test our luck at the beach. We walked far down a path to bring us to an area where there were no crew or guests. Just a tiny, tiny little beach that had about 15 locals swimming at it. My friend Vera has never snorkelled before and last time I was at this exact spot I found a really nice area that had a bunch of nemo fish about 80m out from the shore. All of the locals were chilling about waist deep just cooling off, whereas I was going out decently far to go find this coral/the fish. I told Vera that I would wave her down once I found it and she said she would come swim out to me. So, after making it out there and somehow miraculously finding the exact location I had stumbled upon before, I turned around to start waving to Vera to make her way out only to find out that I am now quite literally the only person in the water and all of the locals are now standing on the sand. Not only are they now all standing out of the water, they are frantically WAVING me down yelling at me to swim back to shore and giving me the SHARK FIN symbol and yelling “SHARKKK SHARKKKK” So at this point, I am the only person in the water, with 80m to swim to safety and swimming with a shark. I pretty much blacked out and tried not to think about what was happening and just swam with my eyes facing towards the shore. I didn’t dare look under water with my goggles because if I saw a shark I would have absolutely lost my shit. Sharks have never scared me and I saw them at mystery island and wasn’t bothered, but the fact that I was alone and decently far out and was not expecting it, I definitely panicked. The whole time I was swimming back I was just WAITING to feel a chomp. My friend Vera waiting for me on shore was definitely freaking out as I swam back. Once I got out, I laid on the beach for a good 5 mins like a beached whale trying to process what had happened and for my heart to stop beating so fast. Anyways, I’m alive and it made for a great story. On the way back to the ship while waiting for the tender boats to pick us up, we saw 4 sea turtles by the docks too, perfect way to end the weird day.

Australia Day fell on our last cruise, which is just like Canada day but for Australia. It was also India’s national day the following day, so we had a huge party at our crew bar area to celebrate with the hundreds of Indians that work on board. I didn’t see much of the Australian festivities, but it is definitely unique to see people so patriotic for countries (India and Australia) that you aren’t a part of.

The next two cruises are going to be quite interesting. They are 3 day and 2 day “tasters”. We did one after the crossing. The boat literally just goes out to sea and back, how silly. The kid count drops to 500 which is nice going from 1200 and 800, but it’s still TOO high. At least these will go by fast and we will get to go to Sydney 3 times over 6 days. Then, we have a 2 week cruise which we are all praying has a small amount of kids. Australians went back to school a few days ago after their summer break, so one would assume the counts would drop a bit. After that 2 week cruise is done I’ll only have 17 DAYS left. Absolutely insane. I’m finding it rude that this year decided to be a leap year and February has 29 days instead of 28 like usual, as I’d get to have one less day on my countdown to coming home. Still having a good time, but the countdown is most definitely on. “Sign off” mode is setting in.

Well, I must go now as I have to go participate in “waves”. This is a farewell event for guests which consists of a special guest show, and then a royal caribbean song performed by the singers and dancers about thanking the guests for cruising and that we will see them again soon. It’s quite literally the corniest thing you will ever see, then people from each department (me) walk along the stage and wave goodbye to everyone.

Final thought- I’ve seen so many birds flying around over the last 2 sea days which makes no sense to me- how do they survive on the open ocean without any land near them? Where do they sleep? The closest land was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles away.

That’s all from me :)

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kellyzeagman · 4 years

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Hello

((I’m not reading this over so I’m sorry for spelling/grammar/repetitiveness))

I don’t even know where to begin in terms of explaining the absolute gong show of a month that December/early Jan was. As crazy as it was, it flew by faster than anything I’ve ever experienced (thank the lord). I remember on November 30th I was working in the nursery with my friend from Russia and we were saying how we couldn’t believe the following day was December 1st. We literally BLINKED and it is January. It’s hard to believe how fast it went by considering the craziness that occurred over those 31 days. I have so many random things to touch on so this will probably have no flow or structure but I’m just going to run with it. Let’s dive in

Firstly, we are currently in Australia school summer season, meaning the kid counts are already high, but throw Xmas/New Years holidays on top of that and it’s through the roof. We had just under 1,000 kids for the 9 day cruise that occurred over Xmas. We have hit capacity in adventure ocean (the kids club) pretty much every single day, morning, afternoon and evening. Parents love their kids enough to leave them with us every possible hour of every day, what can I say! The capacity for the rooms are 80 kids all together. 50 6-11 year olds, 30 3-5 year olds. So, many, many kids missed out on many days, but lots of kids also just were never signed up, presumably because their parents wanted to actually spend time with them over the holidays, weird. In the nursery (where you have to book), we had a 2 year old girl signed up from 5-10pm every. single. day. for 9 days straight, including the 24th and 25th. I had hope in thinking maybe they didn’t celebrate Christmas, but sadly they did and she spent Christmas Eve and Christmas night with us. In the end, the mom spent over 400.00 on her being in the nursery, craziness. At least she was cute. Also sad, we had a 6 year old special needs boy who was a bit of work and had other siblings and cousins on the cruise with him. On Christmas Day we offered a kids dinner where we would take kids to the buffet because it was a formal night and we always offer kids dinner on formal nights (and in this case, maybe for kids who didn’t celebrate Christmas). The only kid signed up for dinner that night was this poor boy, because his family decided to take the rest of his siblings and cousins out for Christmas dinner while he had to spend it alone with the two staff who ate with him. How sad. Lots of really weird and sad stuff happens like that all the time, but it was really frustrating to see over the holidays. So many parents just decide to neglect their kids the entire cruise, it’s shocking. Today we hit capacity (obviously) and a dad stormed into the room and yelled at the front deck while complaining and said “what am I supposed to do with him now then!?” To which every staff had to bite their tongue to not a) die of laugher, and b) tell him to f#%! off and spend time with his kid. Cheers, we love the holiday season! We have all been so excited for the New Years cruise to be over because we all believed the kid counts would drop, but royal caribbean had a “kids cruise free” promotion for the next cruise and we just found out there’s going to be 1,200 of them. Simply amazing. That’s all I’m gonna say because I don’t even want to think about it.

On Christmas Eve I worked during the day and then spent the evening alone watching the Christmas carol show by myself because all my friends were working during the evening. It was cute because people were all in the Christmas spirit but I was a little sad thinking about the fun times I could be having at home in Newmarket with the crazy Zeagman side of the family while I was standing alone amongst hundreds of families. There was a balloon drop with about 2,000 red and green balloons while people sang Santa Clause is coming to town and Santa walked across the stage and I was just standing there alone haha, kind of sad but it was fine. On Christmas Day I was able to get off in Lifou and go to the beach. Was pretty weird spending Christmas on an island boiling hot. However, I experienced a Christmas miracle that day. As I’ve written before, I have been dying to come across a sea turtle. I went out snorkelling by myself to find one on Christmas and had no luck. It was kind of overcast and the water was not as clear as it usually is. I also don’t know why I think i have good odds of randomly coming across a turtle when it has the whole ocean to live in. But these islands are known for having them which is why I’m so keen. Anyways, we decided to leave and I was a little defeated because I thought that seeing a turtle on Christmas Day would be so amazing and I really thought it would happen. As we are in line to get into our tender boat to take us back to the ship, the clouds cleared up and the sun became so bright and the water literally turned to a different shade of blue and became super clear again after being pretty dark all day. We sat in our tender and started to head back to the ship. My roommate and I look to our left and there is a DAMN sea turtle coming up for air right beside us. I truly couldn’t believe it. It was huge. It was too good to be true (but would have been better if I was in the water). It was literally a Christmas miracle and the timing/irony of it blew my mind. My Christmas Eve/day mess were the furthest thing from a miracle. They made special Xmas eve, day and New Years meals for everyone with crazy seafoods and meats and cheeses, but literally had nothing I could eat. All my special holiday meals were pretty much rice and potatoes. No desserts either. I’ve just been nursing a huge chocolate bar I bought 2 weeks ago for my holiday treat.

Speaking of the holiday season- perhaps the worst case scenario (minus the ship sinking) happened over the Christmas cruise and extended into the New Years cruise aka the two most expensive and expectation filled vacations. There is an acronym on all ships referred to as “OPP” (outbreak prevention plan) and there are 3 levels- 1 being minor, 2 being more severe and level 3 meaning chaos pretty much. When more and more people become sick, the level of OPP increases and each level requires different ways of doing things and different duties from staff. Illness spreads so fast on ships and everyone has to be dealt with immediately otherwise the whole ship will go up in flames in terms of germs and sickness, which has to be avoided at all costs for safe operation. Side note- vomiting/diarrhea is taken so seriously that if you don’t report it/report it too late, you can get fired. And when you do, you can get confined to your room for anywhere from 48 hours-7 days. Guests also get confined to their rooms when they report Ill Getting to level 3 is like, a BIG deal and rarely happens. A certain % of passengers/crew on board have to be sick in order to reach it. On December 26th there were roughly 10 people reported ill just a few hours on top of everyone else already sick and the number kept rising. (This number honestly didn’t seem like a lot to me but who am I to say anything) And as a result, guess what level we got to over the end of Xmas and beginning of New Years? Level 3 baby. Buckle up.

During level 3 in adventure ocean (the kids club), we had to put away all the video games, couldn’t have colouring sheets, had to put away 90% of the toys and could only let the kids play with one ball. This was to minimize the spread of disease. Entertaining 50 kids with 1 ball for 3 hours was not fun. Every parent had to sanitize their hands before touching the pen to sign their kids. The few toys that the younger kids were allowed to play with had to be dishwasher after each session. It was truly an experience. I helped in hosting a ginger bread house making event on Christmas Eve where 80 ginger bread houses were made by families. People weren’t allowed to eat them or take them back to their rooms hahahaha (germs). We told everyone that they were getting put on display on Christmas Day and that’s why they couldn’t eat/take them. The whole OPP level 3 situation is pretty hush hush for guests because they aren’t really supposed to know how severe it is.

We were very lucky during this whole mess though, because in most level 3 situations, staff has to serve the food to guests in the buffet so they aren’t touching everything. So on top of already working 11 hour days during Xmas, we would have to help serve each meal in a buffet setting which is apparently the worst. However, for some reason, we didn’t have to (bless the lord).

On turnaround day (the day the Xmas guests leave and the New Years cruise comes on) we had to do a “barrier clean” of the entire ship. Every single thing needed to be sanitized. My team was responsible for sanitizing adventure ocean, the ice skating venue and the sports deck. Every arm rest on every chair in the ice theatre, every railing on the stairs, every toy, blah blah blah. Then, each room had to be sprayed with chemicals. After all this was done, we were finally able to get off in Sydney for a few hours and the new guests came on like nothing had even happened.

It was really cool to be some of the first people in the world to enter 2020. We were also the first royal caribbean ship to do so, pretty neat. We all had to dress up in formal attire (I wore my grade 12 prom dress lol). Myself and roughly 30 other staff were allowed to stand on a bridge that looks down into the ships promenade (which is pretty much a big open space with shopping and food). We stood on top getting roughly 2,000 people below us hyped up during the moments counting down to midnight. At midnight they did another balloon drop with hundreds and hundreds of balloons. I posted pictures to my Facebook. Both sides of the bridge were filled with people dancing and popped balloons. I felt like a no name Ryan secrest in mini Times Square. It was such a cool and unique way to ring in the new year as I usually just sit at home eating food in pyjamas with friends. (Not that I didn’t miss that, it was just more intense this way). After that, the crew all had a huge party in our special area and people got extremely drunk, which wasn’t too nice for them the next day, especially considering the ocean conditions- will expand below.

The Christmas/New Years cruises were soooo rocky. The movement/rockiness of the ship has never bothered me but oh my goodness some days it is just so bad. (Especially on New Year’s Day after having drank the night before). The ship was very quiet on New Year’s Day because of the partying that happened the night before and because of how rocky it was. My room is located at the very front of the ship on deck #1, so it is really easy to feel the waves. You will literally be laying in bed and can feel your body being moved from left to right because of the waves. Also, so crazy, but where the crew/staff live, we can literally hear the waves crashing into the boat. It is so incredibly loud that it sounds like insane thunder. The waves sometimes are just constantly crashing into the sides of the ship. It sounds like we are crashing into ice bergs. Thankfully, the last few days have been quite calm. And thankfully, there are no icebergs in the South Pacific.

I was just responding to a friends email and was telling her that I couldn’t believe I only had two months left and then I told her that I kind of got butterflies of not wanting to leave as soon as I typed that sentence out because the time left really hit me for some reason. Then I sat there for a minute trying to figure out if it was butterflies from that, or butterflies stemming from excitement of getting out of here in 2 months to come home HAHA. I can’t figure my emotions out. Still can’t decide.

I’ll tell you what, one of the best things about this contract is something that I only noticed just the other day. 3 friends and I and our amazing and cool manager were out for drinks for around 3 hours after our day was done. When I was laying in bed that night, I realized no one even looked at their phone once the ENTIRE time. How unfathomable. Maybe it’s because we were having a great time, maybe it was because we have no service or wifi (haha). No but really, the lack of wifi/service results in the best/funniest conversations because there are no distractions and no one feels the need to check a phone, not like they can anyways :D. I’m now realizing that this pretty much happens every day. No one has their phone out practically ever, which is amazing and is something that I hope stays with me when I get home. If you can even believe it, it’s very easy and possible to get through each day without knowing what people are posting on Instagram, or what celebrities are dating or even what stupid things trump is saying. Is he even president anymore? I’m genuinely not sure.

Lastly I will speak of my day on Mystery Island in Vanuatu before I end this blog because it’s far too long. Mystery island sure was a mystery. It is an island off of one of Vanuatu’s big islands that has no one living on it. Vendors and people drive over in boats when cruises are docked so they can sell things and provide excursions, food and souvenirs for cruisers, as there is literally nothing else there. Actually, there was an airport there if you can even believe it. It was an old building about the size of a garage that had one little desk and chair. The landing strip was an open area of dead grass that we were all allowed to walk on. Thankfully, no planes landed that day. My friends and I saw a shark and turtle snorkelling tour advertised for only 30.00. It was written on a wooden plank with white paint, super sketchy. But we decided why not go on a 30.00 shark tour. So, the 4 of us hopped into a tiny little plastic boat with a driver and our instructor and boated our towards the open ocean. They took us out to a very choppy part where there were a lot of waves, but that was where the shark caves were. It was a bit scary jumping off the boat into water where you know there are sharks. The snorkelling and reefs were absolutely amazing and there were so many different types of fish (better than the Great Barrier Reef). The sharks live in these caves that were below us, and were being quite shy, however I did see one about a metre long swim around to the other side of the cave, and then we could all see a big ones head through some open rocks. That was our only encounter. I was feeling very safe so I wish they had come out more, so I will definitely do this tour again next time I can get off. The tour then escalated. Our guide drove us further away from land to try and find eagle rays. We jumped out of the boat and then he just said “follow me” after this, we quite literally swam the distance of approximately 6 football fields. He didn’t ask any of us if we were strong swimmers, but thankfully we all were otherwise it would not have been pretty. It was so choppy. And it got quite scary because the way we were swimming started to become more and more deep. Before we knew it we couldn’t see the bottom anymore and we were swimming through pitch black shark infested water. After just having seen sharks, I kind of went into panic mode being in the open pitch black ocean. No life jacket, no boat or land near us, and our tour guide was light years ahead of us. But don’t worry we all made it back alive. Amongst the minor panic, the whole situation and being stranded was hilarious. We could have more easily swam up to the other main island or the cruise ship than mystery island where we started the tour. Before we knew it, we had practically swam to the cruise ship. I can’t even explain how far we swam that day. And, no eagle rays. Our guide felt bad about the rays, so we got back in the boat and slowly started to make our way back to mystery island. He stood on the top of the boat looking. After a while, we told him that it was okay and that we wanted to head back to the island. He said okay, and then 5 seconds later he spotted a sea turtle. Literally what are the odds. We all jumped out and swam with it. Such a peaceful way to end our crazy experience. I’m glad my mom bought me a sun-resistant long sleeve shirt to wear while snorkelling because the sun HITS different in this part of the world. If I can at least save my arms and back from horrific burns, that’s okay. It has saved me many times.

This blog has taken a few days to write and as I finish it off we are now on the last day. 12 days is just far too long to go cruising. Such a shame as the rest of my time here is all 9,12 and 14 day cruises. Too much. Onto our next 12 day cruise now with 1200 kids. The most we’ve had so far. Rip. I hope it goes by fast. I’m really interested/worried to see what Sydney will be looking like tomorrow morning. I haven’t seen much of the news, but from what I hear things have got much worse with the fires. The waters we are cruising through right now already look a bit Smokey.

Alright, I’ve talked your ear off for far too long now. Hopefully my pictures upload.

8 more weeks left!

Ciao for now

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kellyzeagman · 4 years

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Howdy!

I don’t remember at all where I left off in my last update and do not have any internet to check (hoping it was during the start of the crossing otherwise this will be repetitive). Anyways, hello, it has been a long time. I am currently writing this while in hour 29 of my 48 hours of room confinement. I thought that writing this could take up some of my free time. Basically, I have caught the flu and have to stay in my room to avoid contaminating any others. Things spread fast on a ship. I’ve literally just been watching movies/tv and scrolling through old photos to pass the time. I’m very excited to get out and breathe some fresh air and get back into the routine of things, even though this rest/recovery has been appreciated.

I have to have room service delivered to me because I can’t leave the room but it’s not that glamorous because there’s a special menu for people with the flu. Rice, bread and a banana the first day and rice and potatoes today. Not very different from what I usually eat on the ship on a regular day. Haha just KIDDING, but kind of not. I have more than just that, but rice and potatoes are definitely a part of each day.

The crossing is complete and we are now officially in Sydney/ the South Pacific and have been for 2 weeks. The crossing was great because there were only 100 kids and we got to know them and their parents really well over the two weeks and things were smooth sailing (minus this ship itself- Australian/South Pacific waters are VERY rocky). I don’t know how anyone with sea sickness could ever survive cruising through these waters. Lucky for me, I find it kind of relaxing and great to fall asleep to. During the crossing, I was able to get off In Darwin, Cairns and Airlie Beach. Darwin was perhaps the hottest place i’ve ever been to. I didn’t think things could get hotter than Malaysia, but Darwin certainly proved otherwise. After a much needed delicious vegan lunch and milkshake and a walk on the beach, we were ready to get back to the A/C and shade on the ship.

In Cairns, the opportunity to go snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef fell into my hands. I never thought it would even be possible considering our working ours, but there was an offer for a discounted crew 7 hour shore excursion to go to the reef and luckily, four friends and I all managed to make it work with our schedules. From the ship, we took another boat with 100 guests/crew and had about an hour ride until we reached the reef. It was called Arlington Reef. It was really big but soooo small in comparison to the size of the actual full reef itself. I believe I heard that the reef stretches the same distance as Vancouver to Mexico (could be completely wrong but I think that is right). It was an unbelievable and life changing experience (I’ve posted pics). Just like most people, this was a bucket list item for me, but was never one that I actually genuinely thought I would ever get to do. I still cannot believe I can say I have been there, let alone with 4 new friends from all over the world and while getting paid to travel/work here. Crazy stuff. In Airlie beach we grabbed lunch and swam at a man made lagoon by the ocean. The people here are beautiful, it’s true what they say! And great accents. I think that Australia is probably one of the greatest places to live in terms of lifestyle, how fun to live by the ocean and have such great wildlife while also being so westernized. Best of both worlds. I wasn’t able to get off in Brisbane, as I was working during the day. Aside from those 4 ports, the other 10 days were at sea and very repetitive. Great sunsets though!

Before docking in Sydney for the first time, a few of us decided to wake up early to watch the sunrise and our official entrance into the Sydney Harbour. It was so great sailing in and seeing the opera house and the bridge, it was visual proof that we had finally accomplished the 2 week long journey. Didn’t feel real seeing the opera house, still doesn’t feel right that I’m here! Especially when I was convinced I was going to be working in the caribbean! I feel so lucky.

I don’t know how much Australian news is covered back at home, but many areas around Sydney and the rest of the country are experiencing fires. The sail into Sydney was definitely smokey and when we came back to dock after the first cruise, it was even worse and you could smell the smoke in the air and even in my cabin through the vents. I was watching the news and it said the air pollution was 11x worse than what is considered dangerous and people were not advised to go outside if they didn’t need to. Really hoping they get drenched with rain soon and it can all be over.

The first cruise out of Sydney was a 2 day “booze cruise” as they say. Lots of parents drinking and dropping their wild kids off to us to get rid of them. We are all glad that is over. There is another 2 day-er in Feb, and a 1 day cruise (who does that) following that. Not looking forward to either. Until then, we are mostly doing 9/12 day cruises. I think everything would be a lot easier if they were all just 7 days, but whatever! 12 day cruises just seem like a lot to keep repeating. Aside from occasionally visiting a few places in Australia, the ship will now be mainly travelling from Sydney to various Islands in the South Pacific. Last cruise I was able to get off in Vila, Vanuatu, Lifou and Mare, New Caledonia. The water in these places is indescribable. The absolute bluest water you could ever imagine and so, so clear. Most of these ports are going to just be beach days, which is not a bad thing. They are some pretty great places to relax and recharge on.

This is going to sound crazy and insane and no hate to the Great Barrier Reef AT all, but the beach that we went to in Mare had snorkelling that was ~perhaps~ better than the GBR. HOWEVER, it is impossible to compare the two. The GBR had enormous and colourful coral and clams and rock formations that were amazing and the best I had ever seen (The coral looked so much like bikini bottom from spongebob), but the actual fish at the reef were lacking. Can’t blame the reef though!!! It’s our fault as humans and our failure to get our shi* together to get the reef back into the pristine condition that it was once in. Also, in terms of protecting the reef, the tour and the ship took measures to protect it. While sailing around the reef, they actually had a special captain come on to make sure we were never going to harm any parts of it and that we were going in safe areas. The tour company gave everyone goggles and snorkels that had no possibilities of plastic pieces falling off. They also served a buffet lunch on the boat that had no plastic or waste. $6.00 from everyones ticket also went to reef protection and the guide was saying that tourism is important for the reef to raise awareness and to create money to protect it. Part of me did feel bad going to the reef knowing how it is suffering, but they made me feel better about it. I also think that having 100 people snorkelling scared a lot of the fish away, but it really didn’t matter because the views and life forms were still amazing and there were still lots of different fish. It was an 15/10 experience and everyone should do it if they have the chance.

Mare is a very small island off of New Caledonia and it had endless amounts of fish that were some of the most unique and coolest I had ever seen. So tropical and colourful. So many nemos. So I guess what i’m trying to say is that there were more opportunities to see countless fish in Mare compared to the reef. No hate to either, they were both great for different reasons. Both locations had me feeling like I was living in my own BBC blue planet special which like I said before, is my dream. I cannot wait to explore more of the ocean at all of these ports. I have always loved the ocean/marine life, but getting to experience it at this level has made me 10x more obsessed. Also, living on the ocean for 2.5 months has made a difference as well. Hoping and praying to come across a sea turtle. When I was on a royal caribbean ship in the Bahamas as a guest in grade 12 (crazy what life throws at you), we got to swim with sea turtles and it was the best experience, so I’m now hoping to come across it naturally. When we were waiting in line to get back to the ship in Lifou and Mare, I heard people saying they saw turtles that day. Very jealous but hopeful for the future. Actually, in lifou when we were boarding our tender back to the ship, some kids were yelling that there was a turtle right beside them about 15m away from where we were standing- how ANNOYING!!

I am excited for all these upcoming beach and tropical days, but will miss Asia for all of the food opportunities. Some of these ports have nothing there but a beach, so the food will not be as exciting as it was in Asia. Thailand and its pad thai/mango sticky rice will forever be in my heart. Oh well, onto new and exciting things in new and exciting places. I’m sure there’s great fruit here.

It is crazy to me that I am travelling to these new places when 4 months ago I didn’t even know most of these countries existed. I feel a bit stupid having been to them now that I didn’t know about them before. I’m still pinching myself and asking if this is even happening. I don’t think it has still really sunk in that any of this is real. When I walk to work along the upper pool deck I ask myself if this is actually happening pretty much every morning. I don’t know if it will ever sink in. I can’t imagine coming home and going to bed in my room the first night and looking at my ceiling being like “did that even happen”.

Don’t kill me, but i’m definitely missing the snow/winter weather a little bit. It is hard to get into the holiday spirit when its 30+ degrees and sunny with palm trees, but I won’t complain :) I just know I would never be able to live in a place that is boiling hot all year round. I’m a sucker for seasons. Also, so weird that Christmas happens during an Australian’s summer! Never thought about that before.

Thats about it folks. In 1 week I will be halfway done. Where on earth has the time gone? Some days it feels like its been forever and other days it feels like time is flying by. Now I just have to get through what I have already completed until I come back home (does that make sense)?

I’m thinking of this contract like a pizza or a pie- I’ve eaten alllllmost half of it and just have the other half left to go.

Gotta take in every moment and opportunity before it flies by!

Peace out!

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kellyzeagman · 4 years

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Howdy!

I’m thinking of this contract like a pizza or a pie- I’ve eaten alllllmost half of it and just have the other half left to go. Gotta take in every moment and opportunity before it flies by!

Peace out!

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kellyzeagman · 4 years

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Hello from AUS

I cannot believe that four days ago we left Singapore and Asia behind us. It is currently our fourth day at sea and it has been very weird not seeing any land or other forms of life/civilization. In the Asian waters, it was extremely rare to look out and NOT see countless other boats/ships, whereas during this crossing I have only seen two or three. It makes you feel a lot more isolated. Tomorrow we make our first stop on our Australian journey in Darwin and I am very glad to get off and feel the grass. The size of the ocean continues to amaze me every time I look at it. Whenever I stop on a deck to look out (mostly looking for whales or dolphins, no luck yet), I still can’t comprehend its size. I don’t think it will ever seem normal to me. For 96 hours the ship has been sailing through what seems like the biggest thing to ever exist (I’m aware that the ocean is the biggest thing on earth), but at the same time, what we are sailing through is just one tiny little minuscule part. The sea meets the sky for as far as the eyes can see 360 degrees around. Its still so crazy to me. It kills me to look out knowing that there are so many life forms happening under the sea and I can’t see it. Anyways, like I said, really hoping to see a whale breaching out of the water or a pod of dolphins jumping around. That would make all my years of watching BBC planet earth/blue planet worth it to see it in real life.

Throughout our Asian route, we visited Malacca Malaysia, Pengang Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Phuket, Thailand. I was never able to get off in Kuala Lumpur, but the terminal we docked at was literally in the middle of no where and everything was at least a 2 hour drive away. There were definitely things I wanted to do there, but could never find the time. Overall, Phuket was my favourite place. Delicious/cheap food, great beaches and an amazing culture/way of life. Again, there were many things I wanted to do there, such as go to Phi Phi Islands and see some elephants. However, it is hard to get things done when you only have a few hours off and have to make it back to the ship in time. I will DEFINITELY be coming back to Thailand to do things on my own terms.

Overall, the first month and a half in Asia was amazing. Sometimes things got a little bit crazy/stressful in terms of work with the language barriers, as most guests did not speak english as their first language. The guests ways of living/cultural differences also stirred some things up and made things interesting, but that is all a part of what makes this experience so special and unique. The kids were well behaved (for the most part). The hardest thing for us with the kids was pronouncing names for sure, and trying to figure out what was wrong if someone was mad or upset and couldn’t tell us why because of the language barrier. However, the majority of kids were from Singapore and could speak english so it was fine most of the time. On a side note, I think everyone can agree that asian kids are the absolute cutest. There was no shortage of cute kids during the Asian run, thats for sure. The Australian kids are already so different compared to the others and it has only been 4 days. Now that we are in Australia and all of the kids and families speak english, it will definitely make things easier. They are super active and competitive and tough things out a lot more. I’m already in love with their accents. The next 3 months are definitely going to be crazy with them because of their energy, but i’m very excited to explore Australia and the South Pacific Islands and get to know the Aussie kids better!

Ciao for now

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kellyzeagman · 5 years

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Ship Life

Hola,

Long time no see.

Cruise life has officially begun now that guests are on board, so finding time to write anything or doing anything other than work has been hard! Being in the dry dock definitely was not the most glamorous experience, but it sure was relaxing and included a lot of down time and time for socializing. Now that we are back in business, things are a lot busier! The first voyage last week left from singapore and went to Penang, Malaysia and Phuket, Thailand. Sadly, I was working during the day on both days and could not get off, hopefully next time. A day at work varies drastically for every department on board. As a youth staff, every day is pretty different. Instead of working 9-5 every day, days are pretty spread out. There is also never a day off for anyone in any department, only hours off. For example- here is my schedule from today. From 9-12 I worked with the 6-11 year olds. From 1:30-3:30 I helped run laser tag. Then tonight I work from 10:00pm-2:00am with the 3-5 year olds (if parents choose to leave their kids). If no kids stay past 10:00, I get to leave too (fingers crossed). The hours of the kids camp on board are 9:00-12:00, 2:00-5:00, 7:00-10:00 and then theres a late night session from 10:00pm-2:00am (7.00/hour for the late session). We also offer a kids lunch and dinner if kids sign up for it. We take them to the buffet during the time the camp is closed and they get pizza and fries and we get to choose from the buffet. I haven’t had to do this yet.Thankfully, no one has left their kids past 10pm yet so i’m really hoping the same is true for my late shift tonight. When there’s a big block of time off in between shifts, people mostly nap. I brought a dvd player that plugs into my laptop, so i’ve mostly been watching Dawson’s Creek during my time off. During the dry dock, they also put in a flat screen tv at the end of every staff’s bed mounted to the wall. Theres about 25 channels. They also have free movies available for crew on the tv and there is honestly a great selection, I was really surprised. Mostly new releases. If you can make it work and have enough time, you can also get off the ship while in port during your hours off. My boss is really great and makes it a priority to make sure that all of us will get to get off at every port. In these Asian ports, all of the really touristy areas are around a 1-2 hour drive away, so it is going to be hard to visit them, but people have made it work.

A lot of people have been asking me about food, so here we go! The staff “mess” is open 3 times a day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. When it’s closed in between those 3 times, theres no way to get food, so its important to go when its open! We are allowed to go to some of the restaurants on board, but need to make a reservation and pay a small fee. None of us from the youth team have tried this yet, but i’m sure we will try to get a group together to get some real food soon. There is also a little convenience store for staff that has snack food (kind of expensive $$$), this is a very important place. Snacks are necessary for the room when all there is to do is watch tv. However, the only things I can really eat from there are pringles and oreos. Life as a vegan on this ship is proving to be very difficult. For breakfast I’ve been having fruit and hash browns (if I make it in time). For others, there are a lot of eggs in various forms and different meats. Always rice as well. For lunch and dinner I have quite literally been eating the same things in different orders every day. Rice, pasta, broccoli, cauliflower, squash, veggie fajitas (sometimes a salad or quinoa salad if i’m lucky). For other normal people, there are a ton of different options. A LOT of different meats and fish. There is also what seems like 500lbs of rice available at every meal. Usually i’ll make a peanut butter sandwich on a little bun as well. That has been my dessert seeing as I cannot eat any of the desserts, which is really sad because they look amazing and are usually the leftovers from the dining room. I can’t complain because its free, but i’m definitely getting a bit tired of having the same things every day! Speaking of pricing, pretty much everything is free and I am just getting paid to be here. Room and board is free. The main meals are free, but you have to pay for the snacks from the store and if you want to go to a fancy restaurant. Laundry is also free, but is an absolute joke because there are about 4 working machines for over 1,000 people. The only things we have to pay for are our uniforms, alcohol and wifi. However, most drinks are only 2.00. I heard that the bar for the crew makes more money than all of the other bars on board combined, which is crazy because we get such a discount on alcohol, whereas the drinks for guests are extremely overpriced. But, it makes sense because the crew/staff on this ship drink like fish! Paying for wifi is very annoying. I know its a first world problem, but its so necessary to keep in touch with friends and family to stay sane. There are different packages you can buy, but I have only been purchasing the 1 hour of wifi for 3.99. We got some great news though. As a “thank you” for completing the dry dock, they have just gifted us with 1 month of free wifi. It just opened up 5 minutes ago, so I will have free wifi until the end of November. This is so exciting for us.

Biggest thing i’m missing right now: HAVING A WINDOW. When I was at home, I was a legit mushroom who always wanted the blinds closed. However, waking up every morning in the pitch black is starting to get to me. I need some natural light. Luckily, the tv has a live camera of the view from the front of the ship, so sometimes I turn that on and pretend I have a window. I guess I miss my friends and family too, but not as much as a window ;)

** Was just able to get off the ship for a few hours with my friend Stacy in the historic city of Malacca, Malaysia. Pics are on facebook :)

Thats about all I can think of for now, hope everything is well back home!

Please email me to update me on you! [email protected]

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kellyzeagman · 5 years

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kellyzeagman · 5 years

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kellyzeagman · 5 years

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kellyzeagman · 5 years

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Hello from the cruise ship in Singapore!!

What a crazy last few days. I guess I should back track a little bit, even though it might be a little hard because everything has been such a blur. Firstly, the airport in Toronto. Definitely extremely hard to leave. The entire time I was there with my parents I felt like I was having an our of body experience and watching myself from the outside. I had never felt so uneasy about something in my life. Obviously I was so excited to start this new chapter but my nerves definitely took over. I have never lived more than 20 minutes from home, nor have I ever spent more than a month away from friends and family. So, getting on a plane to live on the other side of the world for 5 months was extremely terrifying. I tried my best at not acting like it, but I was definitely feeling it. After I said goodbye to my parents and got through security, pretty much the only thing going through my head for the next hour before getting on the plane was “what the F*** am I doing”. It was 100% the most overwhelming moment i’ve ever experienced. Once it took off, there was obviously no turning back, which changed the game and I had to sit in this new reality for the next 20 hours of travelling. I was doing this whether I liked it or not. I liked the idea of what was about to happen, but wasn’t too fond of leaving. The plane ride to Hong Kong was 15 hours. It was also such a blur. I honestly don’t know how I made time pass by myself. I felt super lucky because I was able to pick an aisle seat online but once I got on the plane, I found out it was right beside the bathroom. I could quite literally lift up my left arm and touch the door. People opened and closed that door for 15 hours straight. I wondered why this aisle seat hadn’t been taken, but now I do :D. But hey, at least I could stick my legs out and always have my own arm rest. I probably only slept for a combined 3 hours, so I don’t know how the other 11 seemed to go by decently quick. Watched a few movies, listened to some podcasts and basically pondered what the hell I was doing and why I was doing it. There were quite a few young children on the plane and a decent amount of crying (bless ear plugs). However, they made up for it because TRULY, there is nothing like a little toddler walking up and down the aisles of a plane to bring everyones mood up and provide a little bit of entertainment and give everyone the feels. Finally, we landed in Hong Kong and I had one hour till my next 4 hour flight to Singapore. I was able to lay down on the sexy airport carpet for a bit and then quickly got on my next flight. I was beyond exhausted and wanted to just pass out as soon as we took off. It wasn’t a busy plane, so there were quite a few empty rows. Part of me didn’t want to be annoying or a bother and lay down across the seats when no one else was, but thank god I did. I would’ve punched myself in the face if I decided to not because it was so worth it and I will never see those people again. Passed out across 4 seats until we landed. Amazing. We landed in Singapore at about 6:30pm. I wanted to store my bags so that I could explore a bit of the INSANE airport. While struggling to carry my 3 heavy luggage items to storage, I managed to completely destroy the “pull up” handle on my suitcase. The handle literally cracked off and snapped out from how heavy my bag was. If I went to pull my suitcase, the handle would completely come out and the suitcase would drop to the floor and I would have a piece of metal with two prongs in my hand. I now have to pull that suitcase using the tiny little leather handle. It is truly horrible and I can’t wait to never touch the suitcase again until March. Anyways, I wanted to go see “The Jewel” at the airport. I’m planning on posting a picture of it at the end of this, but if it doesn’t work, google it because it is crazy. I went there for 7:30 because there was a light show. The Singapore airport is like a different planet. Everything is so futuristic and obviously very expensive. Very much similar to “Crazy Rich Asians”. The Jewel is basically a mall with stores and restaurants, but the middle has been made into an enormous waterfall that falls from the ceiling and the entire space around it has been made into a jungle/forest. I can’t really think of how else to explain it. I was a little bit sad watching the light show and exploring the airport by myself, because everywhere I looked around people were with friends and family and then there was just me by myself. ~Maybe I developed some personal growth~ Anyways, if you’re ever in Singapore- go to the Jewel!! Definitely worth it to go see, and free. I then lugged myself and my broken ass suitcase to catch a taxi to go to the hotel. When I checked in, the guy was like “your roommate has already arrived” I was so confused because I obviously thought I would have the room to myself and was ready to just pass out. Luckily, my roommate also happened to be a youth staff and was starting her 5th contract. I ended up staying up longer than I wanted because I asked her about 100 questions. It was such a relief to get to chat to her about the job and what cruise life is like. And so great that my first friend I made was going to be someone I would be working with. If I had been alone in that hotel room that night I feel like my head would have exploded, so I’m so glad it worked out the way it did. We went to bed at 10:00 and I totally thought I would pass right out until our alarms went off, but i’m silly and have never experienced jet lag before. So basically I think I only slept for 3 hours and just tossed and turned and panicked the rest of the night. When we waited for our shuttle the next morning to take us to the cruise ship there were two other new hire youth staff members waiting outside. This is also their first time working on a cruise ship, which was definitely comforting. I feel like everything just played out perfectly that night and morning which made everything much, much easier. The shuttle to the cruise was about an hour drive, so we got to see some of what Singapore has to offer. Super clean, lots of buildings, seems very rich.

The boat I am working on is currently in a “dry dock” where it is getting a 150 million dollar renovation. The total time in the dry dock will be around 5 weeks, and they are about half way done now. We got dropped off in the shuttle and had to walk our luggage about 400m to where we could enter the ship. It wouldn’t have been that bad if I had a suitcase on 4 wheels like every other sane person. And if it wasn’t 45 degrees. I looked like an absolute fool struggling to wheel my broken suitcase, with a 20lb duffle bag over one shoulder and a backpack over the other. I thought we would walk on the ship on a nice ramp, but because it is in dry dock, that wasn’t the case. We had to lift all of our suitcases up the most narrow 10 stairs i’ve ever seen in my life and pull them across a metal plank that was barely wide enough for any of the luggage. Luckily I’m not afraid of heights, because it was damn high. And not above water. The ship is literally out of water during this dry dock. Can you even picture a cruise ship out of water? It’s crazy. The amount of work and labour going into it is hard to wrap my head around. The first three days have just been filled with a ton of paperwork and training and touring around the bottom of the ship. I can’t believe i’ve not even been here for three full days yet, it feels like it has been a month already. We aren’t allowed on any upper levels that guests would go to because of all of the construction. However, I did get to briefly see a bit of deck 5 which is where one of the main guest areas is and I have no idea how they are going to be finished all of this in time. Literally everything is getting revamped. Everything. There is an unfathomable amount of things to get done still and to clean up. They have hundreds (if not thousands) of people from all over the world working on it on top of the 1,100 cruise staff that are also helping to do things. Everywhere i’ve seen on the ship is a sea of contractors in blue jumpsuits working 24/7. Its a mess, but a good mess.

Starting my contract during the dry dock has been great because there won’t be any guests on the ship until mid October. Everything has been extremely laid back in terms of training because there is not a rush. Myself and the other new hires are also super lucky because we do not have any duties during this time. Mostly everyone else has to be on “fire watch” where you are supposed to supervise a part of the ship for like, 6 hours and make sure a fire doesn’t start. Very glad to not be doing that. So when we aren’t doing training, we can kind of do whatever we want, which mostly involves napping or laying in bed. Jet lag is truly something. I’m in a temporary room right now until I can get placed with another youth staff. The room is a legit shoe box and everything is crammed, but I knew this would be the case. I currently am on a top bunk and cant sit up without bumping my head. It’s tricky to get out and requires some core strength. I’m also living out of my broken suitcase because I don’t want to unpack everything and then have to pack it all up again in a few days when I move. The last two nights i’ve gone to the crew bar where all the staff can drink, apparently some people go every single day, even when they are working. I’m now ready for a chill night in bed after the last 2 days.

It’s crazy how many different people i’ve met from all over the world in just 3 days. I’ve met 3 Canadians so far and one happened to be an engineer from Burlington. I was wearing a mcmaster t-shirt and he came up to chat. Small world. I think there are over 70 different nationalities working on the ship. Talk about a melting pot of culture. The food here is looking like it might be a bit tricky for me as a vegan. It has been the same stuff pretty much every day (pasta, salad, rice, potatoes, peanut butter sandwiches and fruit for me). Apparently the food gets better once it is out of dry dock, so we shall see. I’ll also be able to eat at guest restaurants once they are up and running. Unfortunately/also kind of fortunately, it looks like I wont be having any sweets or desserts until March. I have to make my dark chocolate from home last! It’s going to be so weird (but kind of nice) to not cook or clean any dishes for the next 5 months, though i’ll definitely miss being able to make whatever I want.

Dry dock is looking like its going to be pretty repetitive and similar every day. I’ll have more to share once things get rolling and when we actually start working. I’m already missing the autumn weather that is going to be coming soon at home, it is so unbelievably humid and hot here and is only gonna get more intense. I think tomorrow we are able to get off the ship and go to Marina Bay Sands and Gardens by the Bay at night time.

I’ve posted some pics either above or below this text post of the airport and one panorma of the back on the ship’s view in dry dock. (not supposed to post any pics of anywhere on the ship during the reno)

Cheers

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kellyzeagman · 5 years

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A little back story

I have received so so so many questions about my job and how I got to where I am so I figured I would try my best to explain it here and share other experiences as time goes on. Most questions I don’t even know the answer to, so we will just have to wait and see!

After I graduated university, I always knew that I wanted to take the following year off. My main reason for doing so was to make some cash back after throwing it all away to McMaster, but also really wanted to just “chill out” and perhaps throw in some travelling as well. Then I thought of a way that I could do it all in one- Get a job on a cruise ship. My cousin had worked as a youth staff for a cruise line when she graduated from university, which gave me the idea to do the same and is something that I have genuinely thought about doing since high school. It was always on the back burner, but now it is now getting served to me on a hot silver platter. I finally jumped on it and decided to give it a go during the new year of my final semester. I was going to apply to be a youth counsellor just like her, as I figured it was my best shot because of all of the experience I have with kids and because I want to go into teaching. After countless applications for various cruise lines and many rejections, months later I was finally in touch with a cruise recruiter who was going to try and do her best to get me on board. We started talking in February. After this, I just had to be extremely patient. There was a looooooooot of waiting and wondering and emailing back and forth. In July (six months after applying), I finally got an interview. I truly couldn’t believe it. Anyways, the rest is history and now I have a job as a youth counsellor for Royal Caribbean’s “Voyager of the Seas”. I never thought i’d see the day, but alas!

The next part of the employment process has been just as crazy (in a good and exciting way). I would have never imagined that getting a job/ getting ready to be allowed on board would include so much extra work (and money haha). However, instead of having 6 months to prepare, it has all had to be completed in a matter of weeks. Visas, medical appointments, police checks, online training, employment background checks, bank changes, etc.. the list goes on forever and my bank account may never be the same.

When in the application process and after I found out I got the job, myself and everyone else were pretty much certain that I would be flying down to Miami and cruising around the Caribbean. I figured most of the big ships are down there, meaning thats where majority of the families and camp-going kids were going to be. I had also read that most first contracts are in the Caribbean because of how popular of a cruising destination it is. Imagine the surprise on my face (and my friends and family) when I got an email saying that I would be flying to SINGAPORE to embark on a cruise that travels through Asia, Australia and the South Pacific Islands for five months. I was (and still am) truly shook that I was given this location as my first contract.

It’s pretty laughable to me that my first ever flight alone is to the other side of the world. I’ve never even left North America. What on earth am I going to do for 20 hours alone on a plane? I really don’t know. Aside from bussing 12 hours to and from NYC twice, I have never travelled alone. Its going to be quite the journey. 20% of me is nervous and wondering “what IS my luck” that I got sent to the farthest location possible for this job and that I am doing it alone and am going to be away from home on legit the other side of the planet for five months. However, the other 80% of me is like “WHAT IS MY LUCK” in a good way, as in I cannot believe I am getting paid to work and travel in this part of the world. I would have never dreamed it. Life is crazy.

It has been a pretty crazy last few days filled with saying all of my goodbyes to friends and family and running hundreds of last minute errants. I’m definitely exhausted and overwhelmed, but that is a part of this experience.

Cruise ship life is bound to be pretty exciting, new and unique. This blog is to fill y’all in (if you are interested). ((Mostly this is to keep my family updated and let them know of my whereabouts over the next 5 months)). I have no idea how internet connection is going to work once I arrive, so it may be a while before I get to post on here again but I will try my best to keep people in the loop through photos and entries about what I have been up to and what cruise life is really all about.

Until then, I’ll be flying for the next 20 hours. <3

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