Ahoy! ⚓️

Since I experienced so much in my first days on board that I feel like I could write a novel about it, I thought to myself, I’ll just do it! Not a novel, of course, rather a very long short story. So, without much talk and introduction: Have fun reading! (In case you get confused by my choice of words, I used google translate for the most part because I didn’t have enough time to translate it all by myself.😅)

Chapter 1: Hard Quarantine

Hard quarantine. Sounds … awful. Locked in a cabin for a week, completely isolated and without any social contact. At least that’s what I thought at first. But on the contrary: The week of hard quarantine passed far too quickly in the end.

I got on board last Thursday in Skagen, was warmly welcomed there and shown to my cabin. Deck 6, balcony, sea view. When I opened the door for the first time, I already knew that the week would be better than expected. A welcome snack was already waiting for me, which I enjoyed in my hammock on the balcony. I also found a letter from our entertainment manager, a clinical thermometer with a table in which I should enter my temperature twice a day, a voucher for 250 MB internet and a schedule including a list of snacks and drinks that I could order to my cabin. The following days were scheduled as follows: breakfast at 08:00, lunch at 12:00 and dinner at 18:00. The food was placed in front of the cabin by the crewmembers who were already on board and we had to grab it after they were gone. The portions were huge and the food was very varied, so there was always something for everyone. When I wasn’t busy eating or sleeping I would draw on my iPad, listen to music, workout, or talk to my neighbors on the balcony. I was very lucky that there were other hosts in the 4 cabins to my right, with whom I could talk and laugh a lot. One of them was Nils, whom I am supposed to greet inconspicuously here. Hello Nils. On the second day, we left Skagen and set sail towards the Canary Islands. Since we have planned 13 days for the trip, we only move very slowly and accordingly the waves hit a lot harder on the first day. But I’ll come to that in chapter three. Two small highlights of our trip so far were the farewell to AIDA Perla in Skagen with waving, cheering, AIDA sail-away music and a lot of horn blowing, as well as the sighting of dolphins on the fifth day. Unfortunately, I was just showering when four or five dolphins were next to our ship, but I was able to see a dolphin in the evening and was very happy about it. All in all, I was almost a little sad last Thursday after the negative Corona test when the captain announced  „you are now officially released from hard quarantine“. Of course, I was also looking forward to:

Chapter 2: Moving into my crew cabin

As already mentioned above, after seven days of hard quarantine and a second negative corona test, we were allowed to leave our cabins for the first time and take part in a town hall meeting. There the entire crew (of course with masks, distance and strict separation of the Soft Quarantine Crew from the rest) met for the first time. Then we were allowed to check in at the reception and we received our crew IDs. And as if all that hadn’t been exciting enough after doing nothing for a week, we moved to our crew cabins right away. At least half of us. The rest of them have moved to other guest cabins and will join us after the soft quarantine so that we can now occupy the double cabins alone. My first impression of the cabin was a mixture of „cuuuuuuute“ and „oh god, where do I pack all my clothes ??“. It’s a double cabin the size of my balcony from the week before. There is a loft bed (of course I took the lower bed), 2 and a half narrow cupboards per person, a chair, a stool, a television and a small bathroom in which you could theoretically sit on the toilet while showering. It’s small, but it’s definitely enough. I now live on the „Bremen“ corridor (the crew area is divided into different streets, but I’ll come to that again in another post). My cabin is in the very front of the ship on deck 3. So it’s loud, you can hear every wave that hits the ship and it shakes very strongly. Which brings me to the third chapter:

Chapter 3: Seasickness 

Anyone who knows me knows: I get seasick on ships. Yes, I know you are now thinking: „um and why are you working on a cruise ship?“ Because I heard that you get used to it. At least I hope so, I don’t have many more stories more to tell to my toilet bowl 😂. During the hard quarantine I tried to get through the whole thing without any pills and bracelets and convince myself that it was all just a matter of the head. Since Thursday, however, I have been taking a pill whenever I know I have to work and things are getting shaky. So far, I’ve had it quite well under control, while working I can easily forget it. As soon as I’m in my cabin though, it unfortunately overwhelms me. In addition, I have to spend a lot of time in my rocky cabin, since I’m still in soft quarantine and can only go out to work, eat and do laundry. I very much hope that my seasickness will subside a little during the course of this week so that I will be fit when the first guests arrive.

Chapter 4: „What are you doing now that there are no guests on board?“

Since Thursday was only my first day at work, of course I can’t give you a real picture of our daily routine, but I can tell you what I’ve done in the last two days. Yesterday only consisted of meetings in which we got to know our entertainment office manager and the entertainment manager, a short tour of the crew area and some inductions regarding safety and security, as well as medical and environmental matters on board. On Friday morning after breakfast we had a fever measurement and then a very exciting day began. Shortly after 10 am I had my first drill. I am on the Pax Muster team, which means that in an emergency I will meet the guests at their muster station and – should it ever come to that – get into the lifeboat with them. So I went to muster station X on deck 5 with a life jacket, sturdy clothing and a crew cap. I had already chosen the fastest route beforehand, but unfortunately I didn’t consider the following: no-go areas. During a drill, an emergency is simulated and if, for example, there is a fire, a so-called no-go area is announced, which we are not allowed to enter or cross since that’s where the fire would be. The no-go area of course was part of the way I planned in advance. So instead I just followed everyone else blindly and still got to my destination very quickly. Everything was explained to me in detail once I arrived. However, the drill was a bit strange because we don’t have any guests on board with whom we could practice together. After the drill we had a meeting in the kids club and the experienced hosts showed us the entire ship. Then we went to the Tailor to pick up our uniforms. We made the mistake of showing up with four people who have never worked on a ship before, which meant that the poor woman had to dress all four of us at the same time. Since we’ve never worn the uniform before, of course we had to try everything on and the leg length for the pants had to be measured. The whole thing took an hour and a half because it was a lot harder than expected to find the right sizes. But the woman was very patient with us and kept her good mood the whole time, which I really admire, because I think we stole her last nerve. After the whole procedure, we went to lunch and then to the so-called Entertainment All Meeting, where the entire entertainment department met and our entertainment manager introduced himself again. We also got a stage induction, in which we were told how the stage works and what we have to pay attention to when we are on (or under) the stage. The meeting was the last official duty for me. Then I washed laundry with Kathrin and we had dinner together and after that I had to go back to my cabin.

Bonus Chapter: One Clumsy Fool, Two Days, Three Encounters with the Bridge.

If you’ve made it this far, then I have a little goodie for you: Some good old second-hand embarrassment. I’ve been an official crew member for only two days and have already had three encounters with the bridge. At the induction yesterday we were told how to behave if we accidentally call the bridge. I thought to myself „huh, who is calling the bridge by mistake?“ Well, that would be me. Less than 10 minutes after the inductions I get to my cabin, put my backpack on the table and it falls over. Onto the phone, right on the speed-dial button to the bridge … I only noticed the whole thing when my phone suddenly spoke to me. „Hello, this is the bridge“. Then, very embarrassed, I answered and explained that I had called by mistake. Apparently nobody was mad at me, but of course it was still uncomfortable. First day and I called the bridge, it couldn’t get any worse. „I beg your pardon?“ Said the universe. “Challenge accepted!” At breakfast yesterday morning, Kathrin looks at me confused and says: „Umm, we have to go to the environmental officer, we forgot to sign something.“ Actually only Kathrin got this information, but since we spent the the entire day together, it was clear to us that if she hadn’t signed something, then I didn’t either. So we asked someone where we had to go now. “Deck 11, at the very front towards the bridge. You’ll find it. “ So towards the bridge, all right. Perhaps it would have been useful information that we not only have in the direction of the bridge, but to the bridge! So you can now imagine how confused Kathrin and I were when the door opened and everything in front of us consisted of computers and glass. By the way, you know that something went wrong when you are greeted by the security officer on the bridge with the words „Oh, you guys again“ !!! So we were asked in, apparently only Kathrin’s signature was missing, she signed and we went with bright red heads back towards the crew area. At that time, little did I know that my phone was gonna ring at lunch, I had not yet signed and should please come up again and do it immediately. So, back in the elevator, already with a red head, apologized ten times, back to the crew area. In the elevator a few decks below, people joined me and greeted me with the words „Oh, have you been called to the bridge again?“ Such news apparently spread very quickly on board. So now I’m Saskia, the one who had contact with the bridge three times in the first two days. Not quite what I expected, but at least I made some people laugh on board. And that’s what I’m here for as a host, right?

That’s it „already“ with my slightly different blog post. If you’ve read this far, thank you so much for your interest ♡

Sea you soon,

Saskia ⚓️