First Cruise

It's Tuesday, April 8, and today is my second day aboard the Carnival Imagination. It will probably be a few days before I post this blog, since I still haven't figured out the internet system here.

Yesterday was one of the longest days I can remember. Not long as in bad; long as in it lasted about a month. I woke up at the Sheridan hotel in Miami where Carnival put me up for the night. I ate breakfast at about 6:30am and checked out in time to catch a shuttle to the ship which I was told to catch at 7:15am. The shuttle didn't arrive until about 9:00, but I had fun talking to the other Carnival employee's catching the same bus.

We arrived at the port about 20 minutes later, but it was about 1pm before I got through the check in process. They checked our passports, and also our bags and bodies with metal detectors. I waited in a long line to finish more paperwork, and finally I was shown to my room.

I met my roommate who is a funny Columbian guy. His name is Mauricio and he is the soundman for the ship. He's nice and very clean, and I'm relieved about my living situation. My room is of course tiny, but we do have our own bathroom and it's comfortable enough.

At 2:00, we had a short safety training and were shown our "muster station" which is where you're supposed to stand in case of emergency. I had a brief tour of other muster stations. Excluding this brief tour, I have only been to my room, the stage and the crew dining room so far. The ship is massive, and I hope I'll get to see more of it tomorrow.

At 5:00 we had a rehearsal, and I first played with the band. It's currently a six piece band with trumpet, sax, trombone, bass, drums and my guitar. A piano player is supposed to join us in a couple weeks. The guys are all killer musicians. It's a challenge keeping up, but I'll get there. Our first performance was an hour long "dance set" at 7:00. We played big band jazz swing charts and tried to get couples to dance, though few did.

At 10:30, we played the "Welcome Aboard Show" where some of the staff is introduced to the guests. This show was my first experience playing live with a pre-recorded track. For these productions shows, the whole band wears headphones to hear the metronome click and the extra instruments which are pre-recorded and added to supplement the live band. Each musician has his own controls for his headphone mix in order to control the levels of each instrument he hears. I had a hard time with it last night, but tonight it was a little easier. It's mostly a matter of getting used to it, and the other guys don't seem to mind it. It feels like an overdubbing recording situation, but oddly you're playing live.

After that show, there was a comedian that performed. The band stayed to perform "play-ons" before and after his show. A "play-on" is a short piece of a song, like what you hear on the Tonight Show right after a commercial, or to get Conan O'Brian from his monologue to his desk. During the comedian's act, it felt completely delirious and it's a wonder I didn't pass out. I heard him talking and the people in the crowd laughing, but I had no idea what was going on. I had no energy to get any of his jokes. My dehydration, sleep deprevation, and general overstimulation, combined with the disorienting feeling of a rocking boat took all the humor out of this poor comedian for me. Seasickness has not effected my stomach, but my head is constantly spinning. You know when you're lying down for a while, and then you stand up really quickly and briefly lose your equilibrium. I've felt like that for two days. I don't feel nausious, just off balance. Anyway, I thankfully stayed conscious enough to play 30 seconds of "Get Ready" at the end of the comedian's set, and then packed up to head for my room and dreamless sleep.

Today, I woke up to a phone call of my musical director telling me I had slept past the beginning of my new-hire training which was supposed to start at 9:00. I got there about 9:15, and it went until about 1:00. We had a rehearsal at 4:00, and then two dance sets to accompany the "Captain Cocktail Party." It was easier to get people to dance this time, probably because drinks were free at the party. Afterwards, we played two showings of a production show called "Livin' in America." The dancing and stage production for this show is outstanding. The music... saying the music is cheesy, is like saying the ocean is pretty big.  The production show music is super-lame, but's still fun.

After the shows, I went back to my room, finished up this blog and went to bed.