Return of the $1 meals

Something that I haven't been bothering to do lately is ordering off the main dining menu in our staff mess.

I have gotten back to doing that in the last few days, and I wonder why I haven't been doing it sooner.

If you remember from my previous post a while ago, you can order from the same menu that the guests have in the main restaurant, and it only costs the tip to the staff mess attendant who gets it for you.

Today I had french onion soup, caesar salad, and herb crusted rack of lamb.

Visiting the Equinox

The new ships are not a lot larger then the one I am on, and from the outside only look a little larger, but when you get inside the difference is massive.

The one thing everyone says when describing the ship is how open it feels. All of the main guest areas are very large and many places like the shops have high ceilings.

One of the new things that the ship has is something that is new to all cruise ships, and that is the lawn club. A large field of living grass on the top deck, where you can play lawn bowling, croquet, and other games, as well as just having a drink, or lying on the grass. There is also a glass blowing show that is performed in an area on the lawn, you can see it in the background of the picture below.

One area that shows how truly large the ship is, is the central atrium, where the glass elevators are. You can see from the top deck where the pools are all the way to the main lobby many decks below. There is even a large tree suspended between the elevators.

The ship also boasts 4 separate specialty restaurants, a Asian, a french, a healthy choice restaurant, and a steakhouse. As well as many other smaller cafes.

There are also 19 different bars on the ship, from martini bar, to a wine tasting place.

Even the crew areas look very nice, and there are some really nice things like massage chairs, and a arcade area that is free to play.

The only downside to working on the ship is the very, very small cabins. A new thing that theses ships have is a single cabin with a shared bathroom. This seems good as more people get their own cabin, but the side of it quickly makes it lose its appeal. The cabin has a desk and sink that is in the main cabin, and a bed that folds down. And the bathroom is a shower and toilet. But the cabin is so small I could touch all four walls at the same time while lying in the bed. Compared to the room I have now its about half the size of my room.

I'm not sure how big the shared cabins are.

The ship is beautiful and there are many other aspects that I haven't mentioned.

But I think I would rather cruise as a guest then work on the ship. But I might have a chance to do both eventually.

Making a move

Well, I had to get up early today, after packing all my stuff and moving it.

This was because I have been able to get myself moved into a single cabin. Hurray!

I am now back at the front of the ship, which is where my office is, so its a faster commute to work.

Although a smaller cabin, its only me there so its a good deal.

This move come about because 2 of the new cast members wanted a room that had a window, and were offering their single cabins to trade.

Now i just need to unpack everything again.

I have been in 4 cabins in less then 3 months. But im pretty sure this will be the last for the contract.

Scuba Diving in Santorini

The other day a group of us went scuba diving in Santorini.

We had planned to meet our ride to the dive site at noon, but when we got off the tender boat at 11:45 the line for the cable car was going to take way to long, possibly an hour.

So there was only one option and that was taking the path up the cliff.
The last time I took the path it took me 29 minutes, but we had to meet someone so we had some motivation, and we managed to make it to the bottom of the town in 20 minutes.

We did meet our ride, a bit late, but it didnt affect the day.

There were 4 in our group that were certified divers, and another 10 that were not, but some like me had dived before.
We had to go through the basic training to give us a understanding of what to do, and then we got geared up and headed for the water.

I was diving only a few months earlier, but it was at the great barrier reef, so its unlikely that any location will ever compare to that, but this was still a cool experience, and there were some interesting things to see. And there were a lot of fish that clustered around us because we had some bread that we fed to them.

One of our group had a underwater camera, but I haven't copied the pictures yet. I will post them when i get them.

Thats 2 continents I have now scuba dived in.

Bigscreen TV for the broadcast office.

Hello all,

New samsung LCD screens have come to the ship to replace some of the old tv's in the guest cabins.

But first they need to be made compatible with the ITV system.

So I now have a nice 32" TV on my desk.

Reminds me of my old computer desk at home, and its big TV/Monitor.

There are currently some issues with the tv's and the ITV system, so I hope I can keep the tv for a while.

Boo to my Sister!

My sister, shown here with me in Sydney last year, unfairly, is going to work on a brand new ship, the Equinox, and will get to see a bunch of cool cities and sites before me.

Totally unfair.

She is supposed to work on cruise ships that go to cold dreary places in Alaska.

Not super awesome places like Egypt.

But seriously I am very happy for Kelly, getting a job on a great new ship, and a great itinerary in Europe.

Possibly watch for a sister site blog (haha) in the future.

Gondola in Venice

The last time I was in Venice I was a tour escort to Murano the glass blowing island, and a gondola ride.

The tour first did the gondola ride, they had us in groups of 6 on each one. I was in a group of people from Montreal. There were many of us so there was a good sized convoy of gondolas going down the canals.

The gondola ride is fun, but more of a novelty, I had been on one many years ago, but its something that is always worth doing.

After we left the gondolas we boarded the boat that took us to Murano. There are speed limits in the area around Venice and the ride was long and the boat was hot.

Once we got to Murano, we watched a glass blowing demo. The main master and his team had left, so we only had one guy doing the blowing.

After the glass blowing demo we had some time to shop in the store, but not really enough to see much of the island. I wish we had more time in Murano because I love watching glass blowing, and I wanted to look around the shops more. I will probably go back on my own next time. So I can buy some stuff.

Once we left Murano we went to San Giorgio Maggiore, a cathedral on a small island directly across from St Marc's square. The cathedral has a bright white marble facade, and a bell tower similar to the one in St Marc's square. I have always seen the island when I was on the main island of Venice and had wanted to go over and see what was there.

After that we dropped of guests that wanted to stay in Venice and then headed back to the ship.

Unwanted Hiking in Santorini

The last time I was in Santorini, there were a few other cruise ships in port. By the time I got off the ship the usual way to get up the cliff to the town, the cable car, had the longest line I have seen so far. Hundreds of people.

Not wanting to wait in line, I figured that it would be faster to walk up the trail. And it probably was, but was it worth it? I'm not sure.

The trail used to be the only way up before the cable car was built, and then it was used to get all supplies up to the town. Donkeys were used then for this task and they are still used, but only for tourists to ride.

As my friend and I started up the trail we were making good time, but it wasn't a cool day by any stretch. And it wasn't long before we were taking breaks at each shady spot we found. The total height to climb is 220 meters, and it takes the cable car a few minutes to do this. Not counting the time to wait in line and load and unload. We were able to make this climb in 29 minutes.

One in the town, we needed a long break. A cold drink and a gyro later didn't leave us with a lot of time to do much but wander around the town a bit.

When we wanted to go back down, a quick look at the line for the cable car saw that it was somewhat long, and in the past this line goes down very fast. So we went into a few souvenir shops and then upon exiting the line was past the shop and more then double the number of people.

This left us with the undesired option to walk all the way back down. But it was a much faster decent, only 15 minutes.

Walking the trail was something I wanted to do, but in my head i planned to wait for a cloudy day or something like that. Oh well, perhaps next time I will try taking a donkey.