Made it to Europe!!!

The crossing was intense - but we had a lot of fun. This cruise began with a solid seven days at sea crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The cruise is completely sold out and full of expert cruisers (half of our passengers are Captain’s Club members at Celebrity). Because the buffet is so busy, the Hotel Department decided that no crew should visit the buffet for breakfast or lunch. It’s just very busy up there, and we shouldn’t get in the way of our guests. That was just for the seven days at sea, though. Once we reached the Azores we were allowed back upstairs again. Woo-hoo!! And boy was it good to get out of the staff mess!! First of all, the food just isn’t as good (or varied) there. Secondly - and most obnoxiously - the hours of the mess are so sparse. It’s open 6:30-8:30am for breakfast, 11:30am-1:30pm for lunch, and 6:00-8:30pm for dinner. That means that when the mess is closed and we’re not allowed upstairs, there is literally NO food available to us (unless we go buy chips or something from Staff Bar). It stinks. Somehow, we made it through! Mostly thanks to my supply of granola bars - ha.

We also found out our second day at sea, unfortunately, that the ship was low on espresso beans!! Apparently, they received an extremely large shipment of supplies in Miami for the crossing. In the craziness of preparing to leave, we did not receive ample amounts of two things: espresso beans and cream cheese. The cream cheese didn’t really affect us.. But because they were running lower on espresso beans than usual, they insisted that all crew not attend the Cova Caffe (our onboard coffeehouse) so as to leave plenty of espresso for the guests. This reeeeeally stunk. A of all) because I love their coffee. B of all) because the coffee everywhere else STINKS. There - I said it. Ha.. Even in the buffet areas and crew mess.. it’s just bad coffee. Sorry Mom and Dad.. get ready to visit Cova for your trip because it’s the only good coffee on board. They did ship the supplies they were supposed to receive in Miami to Ponta Delgada (our first port), though, so once we hit the Azores we were allowed to return to the Cova Caffe.

The seven days at sea got pretty boring pretty fast...... I watched a lot of TV. And that’s pretty much it. Our first day at sea we performed Dance Around The World. That was fun! And the show went VERY well, so that was exciting. We had Day #2 off. Day #3 we performed Groove (interactive 60‘s theme party for guests) at 10:15pm. That takes about 15 minutes. Day #4 and Day #5 we had a Captain’s Club Celebration at 12:15pm (a simple swing medley we took that takes about 10 minutes). Day #6 we had off. Day #7 we finally had a show again! So we had a tech run and then two performances of Liverpool Knights that evening.. And FINALLY on Day #8 we hit land!! Phewwww. So as you can see, we didn’t really have much going on for those 7 days. They did, however, work to keep us crew entertained. They threw us a Wine & Cheese Night on our third night and Crew Bingo took place later on during the crossing. So they did try and keep us entertained.

We also took some initiative to spice things up a bit. We had two outstanding dining experiences during those seven days. On our third sea day we made a reservation for Murano - the specialty dining restaurant on board. The meal is $35 for two appetizers, a soup or salad, an entree, and dessert. Sounds straight-forward, right? The meal was AMAZING!! Some of the richest and most amazing food I’ve had yet. I started with some fancy scallop dish.. The Wellington Scallop maybe? I forget. But it was amazing. Second, the infamous Goat Cheese Souffle. This thing was SO rich. So good. For my soup: lobster bisque. Entree: for anyone who knows me, I went for the surf and turf. A perfectly cooked filet mignon with a lobster tail. Served with mashed potatoes and veggies. Then I finished off with the Dark Chocolate Souffle for dessert and a cafe americano. The dinner was amazing! I really can’t believe I ate it all.. It was so much food. But soooo worth it!! We went to celebrate two birthdays in our cast that happened when we were too busy to go out. I can’t wait for an excuse to go again!! We also made a reservation for the Grand Restaurant (the main dining room for all guests every evening) a few nights later. I again paired seafood with steak and was so insanely happy. The Apple Pie a la mode for dessert definitely made me miss home though.. It was good! But not as good as the homemade kind. Here, we just had to pay $5 for tip. Both meals were outstanding!! And helped break up the monotony of staff mess and lido dinner.

Unfortunately, I did wake up on the third day with a sore throat - swollen tonsils. Fortunately, I was on it. I went directly to the Medical.. They gave me some prescription-strength Ibuprofen for the swelling and an antibiotic for the infection. While my throat still felt a bit sore for the majority of the cruise so far (being stuck on the ship I’m sure didn’t help at all), I never did get sick-sick. And all performances went perfectly fine without any issues. Phew!! A sickness bug has been going around the crew, though, so I’m glad I caught myself early and fended off anything potentially worse.

May 28th was an AMAZING day for so many reasons. 1) We landed in Ponta Delgada on the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores. Finally!! Land. 2) We were able to get off this darn ship. 3) The espresso beans were delivered so Cova Caffe was reopened for the crew (yes - it’s that good.) 4) We were again allowed upstairs to the buffet Lido at all hours. Glorious!!!

For our day in the Azores, they offered a Crew Tour Excursion for the low-low price of $10 to see several highlights of the island. A large group from my cast (and a bunch of other crew members as well) signed up for the tour. So, upon arrival, we were ushered off the ship and onto a very nice charter bus that would be taking us around for the day. First we visited the Terra Nostra Botanical Gardens of Ponta Delgada. The gardens were beautiful!! Originally, the garden was private - owned and built by a private family. Now, the area is public and property of the town to enjoy. You just walk around like it’s the neighborhood park. Stunning. The entire development was definitely man-made, but it was all so old that it looked extremely weathered and almost wild. Paths, caves and structures were all built by hand out of lava rock from the nearby volcanos. Walls stood with benches carved into them. And the fauna was stunning! I couldn’t get over the flowers all over the island. Flowers you only see in flower shops in Atlanta and New York grew wild on the side of the road - literally in the gutter! Gorgeous lilies, hydrangeas, roses, etc. It was beautiful. Here’s a few (hindsight, ok.. a lot of) pictures from our time in the gardens.

After that, we loaded back up in the bus and visited the Pineapple Plantation “A. Arruda” where they grow pineapples in glass greenhouses - a method unique to the island of Sao Miguel. Because of the growing method and the rich soils, the pineapples of the Azores are said to be the sweetest and tartest in the world. They were amazing. We got to wander around the greenhouses and then sample the liquor they make from the pineapples. It was amazingly sweet - and super strong. It was amazing to me how non-touristy the Azores is. I especially noticed it here. Nobody every tried to push anything on you. You just live your life and wander, and everyone does the same. It was a really relaxing day in its entirety. I never felt like I was turning down pushy salesmen all day. It was really nice. The plantation (of course) had a shop with some really cool pineapple kitchen crafts and the like. They had some really cool stuff. Unfortunately (and fortunately....) I didn’t have any Euros (forgot about that whole “not in America anymore” thing), so I wasn’t able to buy any souvenirs. Here’s some of the baby pineapples and stuff.

Next, we took a scenic ride out of the village of Ponta Delgada and up to the top of the mountain. From “King’s View” we were supposed to be able to look down into the giant Crater Lakes of Sao Miguel - formed from volcano craters. Unfortunately, the mountain was covered in clouds that day (and so were we), so we couldn’t see down into anything except more clouds. There was this craftswoman up there that had these AMAZING doll things she had handmade from corn husks. They were beautiful and so delicate (and so cheep). This was where I had my second “we’re not in American anymore” moment. I tried starting a conversation with her about how she makes them. She just stared at me.. Then pulled some corn out of her bag and showed it to me. Didn’t speak a lick of English. I felt so stupid for just assuming.. ha! But she was really nice and tried to talk to me - yet didn’t try to sell me a thing! I really liked the attitude of the people here. It was kinda cool up there though!! And we still got some good pictures and a great time.

Afterwards we took the bus back down the mountain and headed to the ship. We sailed away at 2pm, so we didn’t have time to walk around the heart of town, unfortunately. But we had a great time. And the architecture was beautiful - especially all the churches.

Overall, the city was amazing. It was so nice to get off the ship. It was also nice to get off and just do a tour. We didn’t have to worry about what we wanted to do and how to get it done. We just followed the (very informative) tour guide! It was a blast.

Today’s another sea day (because Lord knows we missed them!) on our way to Lisbon, Portugal. Tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up in continental Europe - my home until October 28th when we leave for Miami. I can’t wait to get there!! I’m already having such a great time, and the fun is just beginning. This is definitely going to be a life-changing experience. I’m so lucky to have this opportunity and wouldn’t change it for a thing.

Thanks for reading!! You’re quite dedicated for sure.

S'long Caribbean!

Well, we’re Europe-bound!!! It’s the first sea day on our transatlantic crossing - that’s 7 days at sea in a row, folks!! Followed by a few ports and a couple more days at sea scattered throughout there.

So we’ve officially left the Caribbean, and boy was it a BLAST!!! But with it, we also left behind the crazier schedules. Once we get to Europe we’ll have all 12-day itineraries.. That means we’ll have a LOT more free time, and I swear I’ll get better at updating this thing!!

The Caribbean was a blast - like I said. Other than that first day we missed in George Town, we had the pleasure of getting off in every single port! The cruise itineraries were shorter (7, 5, and 4 night cruises), so we kept VERY busy.. But we still had plenty of time to get off in the mornings and enjoy the day. It just meant that we’d have to get back to the ship a bit earlier to get ready for a show that night instead of having the night off too. 

Our second cruise was probably my favorite so far. Having finished a lot of the safety trainings and rehearsals, we really got to take advantage of the ports we went to: Roatan, Honduras and Cozumel, Mexico. I had SUCH a great time!! Honduras was awesome - although random, I thought. It’s definitely the farthest south I’ve ever been! So that’s cool. We had to pay for a taxi van to take us over to the beach, but it was well worth it. On the way, he stopped by one of the zip line companies to let us play with the monkeys. It was so hysterical!! The monkey kept jumping from my friends’ shoulders and onto me!! He would then take off my hat and try to climb in it!! It was so funny. I got lots of pictures, but here's just one.

After that we spent the day at the beach being lazy - we did find a huge starfish in the ocean. That was on a walk down the beach though, so I didn’t have my camera with me - darn!!

The next day, we woke up in Cozumel! We spent the entire day at a local bar called “No Name Bar”. It was founded a long time ago by a couple that met and worked on cruise ships. The bar is dedicated to crew on cruise ships, and they definitely cater to us! The place has free wi-fi, great food, even better drinks, lots of outdoor seating, a fresh water pool, and it’s right on the ocean! ha.. It’s definitely a nice slice of heaven in Cozumel.. We had a great lazy day, that included a jump into the ocean from a VERY high wall. Here’s No Name Bar and a picture of me jumping into the water!

The shows so far have gone great! It definitely took some adjusting to ship life, but now we’re in our regular schedules. For that second cruise, the head of entertainment for Celebrity signed on to see our new Broadway show. We’re the first cast to do it. Fortunately, he was very impressed! They threw our cast a Welcome Aboard party that night to celebrate our successes. It was really nice! The Captain, Staff Captain, Hotel Director, Cruise Director, Food & Beverage Manager, and many more all came out to celebrate and welcome us aboard.

Our last Caribbean cruise was a charter cruise for Best Buy. It started off pretty rough, but we ended up having a great time for the charter. We had an overnight in Miami to kick things off!! So after a Welcome Aboard show (with only 20 people in the audience......) we were able to sign off! We weren’t exactly up for a crazy night out in Miami, so we just went to a movie - our last foray in America (almost). We got to see Iron Man 2, and had a great time!!

The Best Buy charter cruise.... Now Celebrity typically has an older clientele because it’s more of a formal line. This was not the case with the charter.. We did know this going into it! The party band learned a bunch of Top 40 material to sing, and the DJ was scheduled for more hours. However, it ended up being a bit more than we all expected. Like I said, there were 20 people at our Welcome Aboard show. Apparently, Best Buy gave everyone for the cruise $300 of onboard credit. So everyone came onboard and bought the Unlimited Beer package for $40/day. They literally asked the string quartet to stop playing in the cafe - they requested the DJ - and didn’t come to our welcome aboard show. Now I know they paid for this cruise, so they get what they want - and they deserve that! We just didn’t want to do full production shows for an empty house. Fortunately, our amazing Cruise Director agreed with us!! In fact - she brought it up to us. She talked to the head of the charter, and we changed our schedules!! Instead of doing two production show performances a night, we only had to do one!! So, it ended up being a great break for us. Although, because we only had the one performance, we did have a lot more people in the audience than the first show.

The ports for that cruise were Coco Cay (a private island owned by Royal Caribbean exclusively for our use), Nassau, and Key West.

Coco Cay was fun. They had an aqua park, a giant water slide, and free food. And it was all for us!! Woo-hoo!! Nassau was kind of a bust.. We did have a show that night, and we had a Safety training that morning, so we just spent the day at Dunkin Donuts with free wi-fi! Key West was a ton of fun. We had the whole day off. We spent the day wandering around. Key West is really cute. A lot of fun restaurants with live entertainment, roosters wandering around, great weather - lots of good times!

And now we’ve left for Europe! We’ve got seven days at sea, a completely full ship, and lots of ocean ahead of us!! Our first show is tonight - and we can’t wait. We already signed up for our first crew shore excursion for Ponta Delgada, Azores. I can’t wait.

Phew!! That was quite a post.. But now that we’re at the longer itineraries I’ll have a lot more free time on my hands. I hope I get better at this thing. Fingers crossed we make it across the big blue in one piece!!! Wish us luck. Thanks for reading!

All Aboard!!

WE MADE IT!!!!

Let me begin this blog post by apologizing for how bad I’ve been so far at updating this thing.... Now that rehearsals are (nearly) over, I expect a lot more free time on my hands to update this thing. Here’s hoping!! Now that means this one is going to be LONG to catch you up to speed (if you care). So bear with me, and I’ll get better.

So for those that don’t know, here’s a quick recap. Since I last posted, I have finished rehearsals in Las Vegas, flown to Freeport Bahamas, installed our shows, and am currently in the middle of our first passenger cruise! We just left George Town, Grand Cayman this afternoon and are now en route to Cozumel. I’ve never been to Mexico before! I can’t wait.

The remainder of the rehearsal process in Vegas went so smoothly! We had a blast. I made some great friends and learned a LOT. We moved so beyond fast, but had the best support team at the same time. 

Our flight itinerary to Freeport was horrible - I’m not gonna lie. We flew out of Las Vegas at 10:50 PM for Miami, FL. However, that day happened to be one of the windiest in recent months in Las Vegas. Some flights were delayed/cancelled the wind was so bad. (The sign in front of the Mirage fell down onto the strip and closed a portion of it, in fact.) Surprisingly, our flight was on time as scheduled - which if anything made me more nervous. As we were loading the chartered bus up with our luggage, trash cans were rolling down the parking lot of our hotel. Great. The flight was great though! It went way better than normal. We flew American Airlines, which charges for both checked bags. Celebrity must have paid for them though, because when we went to check in, we were all granted two free checked bags! It was amazing. And they let us weigh bags and readjust things there. So nobody had to pay an overweight fee!! It was amazing.

We arrived in Miami at 6:00 AM (what we feel like is 3:00 AM in Las Vegas). Our flight for Freeport didn’t leave until 9:45 AM. Sooo we fell asleep in the airport. The flight to Freeport was fun! Smallest plane I’ve ever been on - it had propellers. Scary! But we were only in the air for a half hour. Upon arrival, Celebrity had arranged for vans to pick us up and take us to the shipyard. And there it was! Our beautiful ship!! About 3 feet above sea level!! Ha. It was crazy looking - but beautiful! Here is our first view:

When we got here, we had to walk about a half mile across gravel in the blazing sun carrying all our suitcases!!! At this point - I really regretted the 3 suitcases. Then we had to climb about 4 flights worth of stairs to get up on the boat. When they say Drydock - it’s very literal. This boat is completely out of the water. Fortunately, they threw all our luggage in this (very dirty) construction container and lifted with a crane up onto the pool deck.

Now I’m trying to think of the best way to describe dry dock. Imagine your car being in the shop, but trying to use it at the same time? No fun. The air conditioning was off the first day on board (in the Bahamas, mind you), and then iffy the rest of our stay. (Apparently, the A/C generally runs off of the main engines, which were obviously off since we were not in the water. So once we got in the water and moving, we went from hot to frigid - and I LOVE it. Food was only available during certain hours. The internet was down. It was pretty intense - but we survived!! Phew.

My room is great! I have my own room - yay - which I didn’t really realize how valuable that is on a ship until we got here. Ha! I mean, it’s small, but after 5 years in NYC, I know how to make small work. And there’s more than enough storage! So that’s great. Also - all the walls are magnetic! And the person before me left a ton of magnets. So that made it really easy to hang up pictures and personal items like that. I’ve also got one of the biggest crew cabin TVs and a DVD player.

So after getting settled (still on 1.5 hours of sleep of course) we started to work! We watched a brief “Welcome Aboard” safety training video (I absorbed none of it given how tired I was) and filled out paperwork before heading to the theatre. We installed our opening night “Welcome Aboard” show (10 minutes long) in a very hot theatre and then we finally got to shower. After that, Sue (our amazing Cruise Director) took us all out for a drink. 

Over the next few days we spaced our other three shows out on the stage, we fitted over 400 costumes, and cleaned everything we could. The schedule was rough - but necessary. We got so much done and definitely bonded throughout the process. Ha. On Sunday May 2nd we were setting sail - ready or not! That evening, they threw the entire crew a HUGE party (open bar) up on the passenger pool deck for sail away. They began lowering the boat into the water around 7:30 PM, but it takes over 5 hours to lower the ship into the water and get going. Here's a picture of a few of us at the pool party:

Exhausted from rehearsals, we went to bed fairly early and woke up the next morning in Miami, FL!! Home again in the USA and able to turn my phone back on - phew!

Early that morning in Miami, we had to take the ship through Crew Immigration. Technically, our ship was entering the U.S. from the Bahamas and not returning from a cruise that departed from the U.S. Because of this, we had to report early in the morning to go through Customs Immigration. Every member of the crew had to do this - from housekeeping, to cooks, to entertainment, to the captain of the ship. I had to wait in a very long line to meet with a customs official, show him my passport, and get my passport stamped. That’s it!! But it took all morning. No passengers are allowed onboard until EVERY crew member on the manifest goes through this process. Bleh..

But after that I was able to finally get off in Miami and get some shopping done! Don’t worry - I didn’t go too crazy. I bought some much-needed toiletries and cleaning supplies - oh the joys. Ha.

When we got back, our ship was filled with passengers!! YAY!! I immediately got changed into passenger-friendly attire and headed upstairs to see the ship in its final glory full of people. Shortly after that, we had our first Passenger Drill. My job during the passenger drill is to demonstrate how to put on a life jacket for a Cinema full of passengers........ HA! Quick and painless. Then we headed to our final final dress rehearsal for our “Welcome Aboard” number that evening. We did the number at two different show times, and it was so fun!! After all this work, we were finally in front of an audience. It was so nice to finally be there again. 

After the two short shows, however, it was back to work. We did a first full dress run of our largest show: Dance Around the World. The costumes in this show are insane - and the dancers have so many quick changes it’s ridiculous. Each dancer has literally about 10 costumes. There’s 13 of them with 10 costumes each all worn in a one hour show. Do the math - that’s a lot of quick changes. Ha. They don’t have long enough of stage to catch their breath it seems. I help where I can. They’re amazing.

The next day was a sea day - meaning we didn’t stop in a port. We spent all day in rehearsal getting ready for our opening night that evening. Woo-hoo! We opened with our Dance Around the World show - and it went SO WELL!! In the show, I do two arias (one in Italian, the other in English about Ireland) and one of the songs in the America section. We singers really don’t do much in this show, but the two arias are a bit outside my comfort range. Fortunately, they both went really well!! I feel so excited to have one show under my belt. And a good one too! I can’t believe we’re on our way.

Today we ported at George Town, Grand Cayman as I mentioned before. Unfortunately, we had rehearsals and safety trainings throughout the day, so we weren’t able to get off the ship. But it looked pretty from the deck! Ha. 

Tonight we’re performing our first “Groove”. It’s not a full production show. Instead, it’s a 20 minute opener to a 60’s Theme Night in one of the lounges. The show ends with the dancers pulling guests onto the dance floor. Then we peace out and they relive their glory days while we head to the bar. Ha! We do songs from Hairspray and Hair, as well as a few pop songs from the era. The dancers do an awesome mod dance too. It should be a chill fun time.

Tomorrow we’re in COZUMEL!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m really so excited. We have rehearsal in the morning at 10:30 AM. We’re going to do a dress rehearsal for our British Invasion rock show. We perform that the day after tomorrow for the passengers!! After that we have a safety training until 2:30, but then we’re done!! I finally get to get off this ship!!! And in Cozumel!!! All I want is a beach (and a margarita....). The dancers perform on the pool deck at 9:15, so they have to be back by 8 to get ready for that. We’ll see how the day unfolds, but I’ll definitely make it to their show to see. Otherwise, I’m at the beach. I can’t wait.

I’m having a BLAST so far.

Dry Dock was rough, I’m not gonna lie. But we made it!! We’re still working real hard getting these shows ready here at the last minute, but it seems to be going smoothly. Our entire team is still here helping us install. They leave after this cruise, though, and then we’re on our own to hope for the best! Ha. We can do it - and I can’t wait to head to Europe. We keep telling ourselves we just have to keep up the hard work until the crossing to Europe. After that, our schedule will ease up a LOT because all our cruises will be longer. I can’t wait!!

For now, I must go get ready for “Groove”. Wish us luck!! It should be a fun time.

Happy Cinco De Mayo everyone!!!

And if you made it the whole way, Congrats!!! I definitely commend you. I promise to be more regular with these so they’re not as long. Oops!