Tomo's Treks

[Tomo]

It Begins

 

After Bryson's experience of customs & immigration I was extremely worried about what would happen as I tried to get into the country, but I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was.

I simply handed over my employmeny letter and passport/visa, it was stamped and I was waved through!

Presumably Bryson looks like a danger to the State or something...

 

I got one night's rest to try to sync my clock before joining my first ship last Sunday, and I'm having a great time - the ship is just big enough to get lost in, but not so big that you stay lost!

 

My official job title is "A/V Technician", which is a little strange - I'm expected to run cameras and data projectors as well as the sound / lighting gear and stage automation. We've got a 3-part pit lift and a full electric-winch flying tower, as well as a few tracks of motorised tabs.

 

The theatre kit is rather old and decrepit though - as far as I can tell, almost nothing has been replaced since the ship was built, and nothing gets the maintenance it's supposed to. This does make life slightly interesting, but it would be nice to work with stuff that does what it says on the tin!

 

Living on board is a little like a youth hostel - I have a room-mate, but we get on okay (and neither of us snore) so I can cope!

The onboard food is pretty good (and free), but there is an element of pot luck - nothing is labelled, and a lot of the desserts and sauces could be anything!

 

The cast are a great laugh, even though I've been so tired this last week that I haven't had much time to mix with the rest of the crew. I'll have this cast for nearly the whole of my contract, so we should get to know each other far too well!

 

I'm currently in an internet cafe in Puerto Vallarta, and I'm melting!

Went out to a hotel resort for lunch - it was great and relatively cheap ($10 inc drinks).

 

Bet you all wish you were out here,

- Tomo,

 

Melting away in Puerto Vallarta

[Bryson]

Presumably Bryson looks like a danger to the State or something...

 

Looks that way - the buggers pulled me for another second interview. It may have to do with the fact that my passport is 9 years old and how I look now couldn't be any more different...

[Tomo]

Ship the Second - The Saga Continues

 

After being on my first ship for a mere 16 days I was transferred to another which is doing a few Caribbean cruises, and then changing to an itinery out of Galveston, Texas and into (not through!) the Panama Canal.

 

I spent one night in a cheap dive in Mazatlan before flying to Miami via Mexico City, spent one night (well, from 8pm to 3am) and before flying on to Atlanta for the transfer to Charleston where the ship was docked.

 

And I got pulled for a special interview in Miami - so maybe it's not just Bryson...

 

Wasn't as bad as I expected though, it just ended up being a repeat of the visa - a wait of about an hour and a half sat in a little room with a load of Mexicans before being asked why I was flying back into the US so quickly.

Hey, I didn't want to!

 

Since then we've been to St Martin, and currently I'm in an internet

cafe in St Thomas in the Caribbean. Tonight we sail to San Juan, where

this cruise ends and we get a whole new set of guests.

 

This ship is a year older than the my first, and it shows!

However, some of the equipment has been replaced since it was built, and the rest is still in ok condition so it's a bit easier work than my first ship.

There's still one heck of a lot of kit that's just sat in storage

waiting for spare parts!

 

Incidentally, we have a pair of DL1s!!

 

Unfortunately I can't tell you what they're really like.

They were put in earlier this year, broke down within a month and have never been fixed. Apparently Catalyst came through a month back, but they couldn't figure out the problem before the ship sailed.

Pretty much the whole theatre crew think it was a stupid idea to get them in the first place, but Head Office decide where the budget goes...

 

As to life on the ship:

I'm starting to get into the groove, and the hours aren't too bad - the worst I've had is a 13-hour day, but it's normally around 6 to 8 arranged in a load of 10 to 20 minute sessions and then the two shows each night - one for the early dinner

seating and one for the late one.

 

The production shows themselves are medleys of famous songs - we don't do any actual musicals or straight plays. Some of the choreography is a little poor, but in general they are pretty good.

We also put on a few guest entertainers, such as comedians and musicians - apparently I just missed a really good one called Stars on Strings, who are now moving on to the Queen Mary II.

 

My cabin is absolutely tiny! About 7 ft by 10 ft, including the bathroom - I gather it's the smallest on the ship (bastards).

I don't really spend that much time there though, as there's quite a bit to do and a few crew bars.

Unfortunately we don't get to use any of the guests' leisure facilities (unlike on some other cruise lines), but there is a crew pool, sundeck and gym that we can go to.

We can eat at any of the guest buffets though, so long as they aren't busy. The food in the staff canteen is pretty bad so I've been taking advantage of that rather often.

 

I finally got time to buy a digital camera yesterday - I ended up

getting one that was a few models up from the one I was originally

looking for. You know the story - if I spend just a little bit more I

can get one that's a bit better, but if I'm spending that much I may

as well push it a little further and get a really good one...

 

So in the end I spent about double what I'd originally intended (although around half what it would have been in the UK) and got a Nikon D100 with a 28-200 lens

 

The photos on fully auto look really good, but I'm still trying to figure out what all the options and twiddly knobs do! I haven't figured out a good setting for show photos yet, but I'm working on it.

 

You know, for all this is the Caribbean, it seems to rain rather a lot...

 

Hope you're all having fun,

- Tomo

 

Getting soaked in St Thomas

[Tomo]

Humping and dumping

Life continues, plodding along nicely in this ship of fools...

 

We´ve just changed to our winter itinery, sailing between Galveston and the Panama Canal - not that we actually go through it, just poke our noses into it and then run back to Texas.

Lots of stops on some absolutely stunning islands in the Caribbean - the sea is an incredible emerald blue and the beaches really are pure white.

(Well, most of them. A few are black with oil and other "interesting" stuff.)

 

Two days ago in Galveston we received the scenery and stage blocks for the new show that´s going up next month - the LD and producer turns up next cruise so we´ll find out what this stuff is for, and probably get reamed out for something or other.

I know the Cyberlights have drifted at least, but I never saw the original looks anyway so it´s not like I could do anything about it.

At some point we´re going to have to send up the ladder and clean out all the units, but I doubt we´re going to have time until the new year.

 

I can see big problems on the immediate horizon though - the backstage storage is now completely crammed full with the blocks for the existing shows and the new one, and very shortly we get a magician guest entertainer onboard.

He does big illusions with large props.

Where the heck are we going to store them!?

My manager has worked with him before and apparently he is very good, so I am looking forward to his shows.

 

And Bryson - remind me what ship you´re on so we can look each other up if we bump into each other in the Caribbean

 

Cooling off in Cozumel, Mexico

[Andrew C]

, sailing between Galvestonand the Panama Canal -

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

God, how you ship board types live!! The delights of Galveston! I lived just up the road for three years when the old-man worked for NASA. Used to be some good sea-food restaurant but that was all there was to recommend the place.

 

For those who don't know how bad hicks-ville USA can be... This place could be washed away in a small storm, and as you may have spotted they get some big ones over there. Saw pictures of 300 ton coasters half way up main street after a big blow in the '50s.

 

Still, a few weeks in the Carib wouldn't be too bad looking at the weather here!

[Tomo]

To Hell And Back

 

Well, this last three weeks has been 'interesting', to say the least.

 

I have had to deal with both illegal working hours and incompetence, plus the cinema CRT projector lost focus & alignment last week and Electronics Dept insisted they needed to take it down.

We reinstalled it this morning, and guess what!? The alignment is even further out.

What a surprise.

 

When I last wrote we were about to have a team from Head Office come in to install a new production show - Dance Around the World.

 

This should have taken 3-4 days plus rehearsals, allowing for minor screwups.

 

It took almost two weeks, plus rehearsals.

 

Firstly the set has very many large pieces, bigger than the storage space we have - so the set for our other shows is now scattered across the ship, and takes half an hour to bring back to the theatre when we want to use it.

 

They didn't realise this - even though they had been sent details of what we currently had on board and the space we have to store it.

 

Secondly - it was built badly. Very badly.

The set has a pair of extendable stairs, which are supposed to go in and out during the show to add interest and vary the set during the production - so far, so good.

However, the runners on which these stairs travel are made of thin aluminium, and the pins (pins, not rollers!) on the stairs are aluminium as well.

 

One pair broke before we even started using them - the pin wasn't long enough.

Another went before opening night, and now they are ALL bent, and likely to snap at any moment.

The dancers run up and down these stairs, and if a pin breaks during use they will fold themselves up - and I dread to think what will happen to the dancers.

 

So even after the show install we are having to replace every single one of these pins with steel ones - and even that is only a temporary measure, as the runners themselves will wear down very fast - and they are not replaceable, being welded into and part of the structure.

 

This show is supposed to run for a year or longer - the set didn't last an hour.

 

Thirdly, it is a legal requirement that all shipboard employees do not work longer than 14 out of 24 hours, and that they get two breaks, one of which can't be shorter than 6 hours.

I'm sure Bryson is well aware of this, but it sounds like he very rarely comes close to breaking it.

 

I did three days in a row over 16 hours and one of 15 hour, my manager did several 18+ hour days, and I know the rest of the team did roughly the same hours as me.

 

However, we were told (unofficially of course) that if we refused to do them or complained about these hours, we would get fired.

So what option remains?

 

At least I finally got a safety card detailing my emergency duties - not that anybody actually checks that I do them.

That took over two weeks to turn up, and I get the feeling that I'd still be waiting if I hadn't gone personally to the safety officers several times to remind him of this.

 

Since then our manager has left, and we are still awaiting his replacement.

 

So we are currently one man down - we were supposed to get an extra

body two days ago in Galveston but this didn't happen.

Quite simply, we are not going to cope during this cruise - pretty much everything

outside the theatre will cease to happen on production show nights.

 

Ah yes, and we now don't have enough equipment to run some parts of the ship.

We have been one failure away from that for a while, but no

replacements or budget to go get them have been forthcoming. We now

have a new cruise director, so hopefully we'll get replacements and

*spares* shortly, but until then the band will have to play without a

click track (to keep them in time) and the party band will have to

borrow a microphone from Kareoke - God forbid that they ever have to

happen at the same time.

 

On the bright side - my roommate should get fired this cruise. He should have gone a while ago because of his extreme incompetence, but somebody was extremely nice to him and 'forgot' to file his final written warning.

You know it's bad when an activities staff asks you "How come X hasn't been fired yet?"

 

And even better - I finally got to go to the Grand Buffet. It really is excellent!

It's a good job it only happens once a cruise, or I'd get extremely fat.

 

- Tomo

 

Currently in Cozumel, Mexico

 

PS - I've edited my previous posts to remove company identification as I don't want to get fired, but I very much doubt that I will accept another contract with this company. Make of that what you will.

[DRG]

Ahhh, the joy of cruise ships, can you believe I'm going back in a week for another 6 month stint?

We had to install a new cast and two new shows just before I left on vaction 5 weeks ago. Something that you find on old ships is the fact that those originally installing equipment, never seem to consider the future, so when you want to put in something new, even just a few Source 4's, it is incredibly difficult.

For instance, I discovered that the dimmers in the theatre were not two-ferred as originally expected, but three-ferred!!! Weird...

 

I'ved PMed you Tomo

[Bryson]

Thirdly, it is a legal requirement that all shipboard employees do not work longer than 14 out of 24 hours, and that they get two breaks, one of which can't be shorter than 6 hours.

I'm sure Bryson is well aware of this, but it sounds like he very rarely comes close to breaking it.

 

I did three days in a row over 16 hours and one of 15 hour, my manager did several 18+ hour days, and I know the rest of the team did roughly the same hours as me.

 

That's the ILO rules you're quoting there, which we NEVER break. Not in my theatre anyway. We recently put a new show up, and I can assure you that my crew were well-looked-after (by me) in regards to stuff like that.

 

And I know which company you work for, and two of my recent employees were refugees from that company...they couldn't believe how relaxed we were.

 

Does no-one really check you're doing your emergency duties? I certainly would (and do!)

 

And DRG: I too know the pleasure of finding you have exactly the right number of dimmers and no more... ;)