I’ve made it back to Southampton after my first voyage!
After being flown to Heathrow the night before embarkation I met up with the rest of the band at a Holiday Inn. We’re a 9 piece band, and I was surprised to learn that I’m the only British guy, and am also the youngest by about 10 years. The rest of the band are a friendly bunch, and they’re all extremely good musicians. We have 4 Americans, 2 Canadians, an Australian, a Ukranian and myself.
At 6am on the 19th we got on a bus to Southampton, embarked the ship and got unpacked into our cabins. I’m sharing a room with DJ Gary King who does a radio show every afternoon and then plays in the nightclub, although most passengers are past the age of going to nightclubs! The cabin is medium sized, clean but a bit grim looking, with a bunkbed, desk, TV, bathroom. We pay a cabin boy 2 dollars each to clean our room out/change the sheets (Sarah – it only takes him 10 mins so I reckon he’s getting fair-trade rates!). With 14 decks, 2400 passengers and 1500 crew, the ship is absolutely huge! After 3 weeks I am only just finding my way around the maze. The ship has everything from a 1100 seated theatre, a planetarium, a gym and spa club, tennis courts, the biggest ballroom at sea, countless restaurants, bars and swimming pools, a library, shops, and kennels! Passengers are mainly British, American and German.
Most the crew are Filipino, but there are also a lot of Russian workers, and the officers are all British. There are 33 musicians in total, including 3 cocktail pianists, a harpist, string quartet, Caribbean band, jazz trio, ballroom orchestra and us – the theatre band. As a musician we are free to roam the ship but we must eat in the crew areas. The food isn’t too bad – a bit repetitive but I’m happy as I don’t have to do any cooking. The Filipinos seem content with just a massive plate of rice - they’d rather eat that than a nice shepherds pie!
The first few days were full of health and safety inductions, learning how to use fire hoses, different sorts of extinguishes and how to survive on a lifeboat for a month at sea. At every embarkation port we have to do an emergency drill with the passengers. My job is to stand on stairway D deck 11 with a yellow cap on my head, pointing in the direction of deck 7 (the lifeboat deck) and trying to explain to passengers that they must use the stairs and not the lift. The British guests always comply no matter how frail they are, whereas the Americans usually reply with a very angry: ‘I didn’t pay 20,000 dollars to climb down no damn stairs!!!’ When every passenger is on deck 7 we have to join them and give them a demonstration of how to put a lifejacket on. Unfortunately on my first day I hadn’t got round to trying one on myself so I looked somewhat of an idiot fumbling around with my jacket on back-to-front and loose straps dangling around everywhere!
So we crossed the Atlantic to New York in 6 days, and travelled up the East coast to Canada. During the first crossing we had a man-overboard alert – a passenger raised the alarm and the whole ship had to turn around only to find a fishing buoy which someone had mistaken for a lifejacket. The commodore didn’t sound too impressed when he made the announcement that it was a false alarm! We were also on red alert for Norovirus as 70 passengers and 15 crew went down with it, but after some severe health restrictions ie lots of hand washing and no use of public toilets we seemed to get over it after a few days.
I managed to get off at all the ports (New York the 2nd time round) we can usually get off between about 9- 4pm if there are no drills that day. In New York the dock is actually in Brooklyn, which is a 40 minute subway ride to Manhattan, so I haven’t ventured that far yet as there’s the fear of missing the ship and losing your job especially if you don’t know your way around. However there is a fabulous view of the skyline from the ship. Up the coast, Newport and Bar Harbour were cosy little towns ideal for seeing the Autumn colours as advertised for this cruise. Halloween is a big event in America and you couldn’t move for pumpkins and elaborately decorated shop windows and front lawns. Seafood is also a massive enterprise with countless lobster diners with big plastic models of lobsters stuck all over the place. Boston is a favourite port for everyone, and seemed like an exciting city, high rise buildings, lots going on and teeming with politicians trying to get votes. St John wasn’t quite so nice, too industrial, but Halifax was an interesting town. As soon as you get off the ship you encounter a line of gypsy fiddlers, guitarists and recorder players all trying to grab your attention by playing as many notes in a second as possible. In general the weather has been a bit warmer than the UK, but quite foggy – not seen much sunshine yet. Everyone is excited about the Caribbean!
As far as work is concerned, we generally meet at 4pm everyday for a rehearsal, and then perform 2 shows at 8.30 and 10.30pm. Shows will alternate between guest artists (singers, comedians, ventriloquists etc) and production shows with the onboard singers and dancers. For the guest artists I get to sit at the front of the stage by the grand piano with the artist. As the rest of the band are behind the curtain before the start of the show they find it hilarious to initiate a round of applause when I walk out to assume by position, tricking half the audience into thinking that I am actually the guest entertainer.
I’ll leave you with an image of Bill. Bill is American, about 55 yrs old, plays the trombone, doesn’t have much of a sense of humour, but likes to eat. Each meal time he’ll sit down with his tray piled high with food, and then reach for a red plastic bag under the table. The red plastic bag contains a selection of his favourite sauces, chosen from what is apparently a whole shelf full of lovely sauces in his cabin. First he’ll take out his ketchup, then his tabasco, then his chilli, then his pickle, mix it with a few beads of sweat from his forehead for good measure – but really he’s just preparing for his secret weapon. He licks his lips, takes out a huge bottle and starts shaking it feverishly, eyeing the rest of the room to see who’s watching. When he’s sure he has an audience, he opens the lid and starts wildly spraying garlic all over his dinner for several seconds. Fifty percent of the spray never reaches his food and spreads out into the air all around him and into the faces of other people on the table. The smell is absolutely foul! At first, being new, I had to politely hold my breath and try and stifle the inevitable coughs and splutters induced by garlic spray, but now I’ve learnt that it’s better just to cram your food down you as soon as he sits down and quickly excuse yourself before he gets the wretched stuff out.
Hope everyone is OK and look forward to hearing any news, bye for now!
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