Hello blog, I’ve missed you. I haven’t written anything new in quite a few weeks and for that I am sorry. I have no excuse other than at first I didn’t really have anything to add and then I got busy and distracted. We have arrived in our home port of Athens Greece and have started our official summer itinerary. We do two weeks of Greek island runs followed by one week in the Adriatic. Lather rinse repeat that until August. After doing only about one show every 10-12 days during the crossing, we now do four shows a week in addition to a ship wide party that all performers participate in. I’m not tired per se I’m just working more. But I’ve got my next idea and I’m ready to share it with you.

It’s not fair to say this was my idea, it wasn’t. My friend Sofia requested a cabin tour and I thought maybe I could spin that into a whole blog spilling the backstage secrets of the ship. This may end up being more of a vlog than a traditional practice in writing, but I couldn’t resist the request. I am aware that “behind the scenes” info is highly desired by cruising aficionados, so much so that my ship actually sells tickets to a backstage tour that is not cheap. Every now and then I’ll be trying to do my laundry and a group of 20 adult humans wearing special backstage passes are clogging the staircase to the laundry room. My friend Arther has been surprised in the dressing room while putting on his makeup and made to feel like an animal in a zoo. So here is your very own backstage pass to the very glamorous underbelly of living on a cruise ship.

Let’s start with my cabin. I made a video which covers it all, probably far more than you wanted to know. I had to divide it into three parts to make it fit here. You’ll hear me reference Sofia in the video, she’s the friend you can blame for this idea. In addition, a correction: when I’m listing all of my magnets, I say Eden New Zealand. That is so wrong, Eden is in Australia. Also my cabin lives in fire zone 4 near the front of the ship two floors below the dressing room where I do the show which is very helpful and right above the crew laundry which is also very helpful.

Speaking of laundry. There are two crew laundry rooms. One is the main crew laundry and is below me. This laundry room has 15 washer/dryers for 1100 crew. It can be a war zone. The machines malfunction all the time. If you are 20 seconds late getting to the dryer someone will probably take out all of your clothes and leave them in a heap. I’ve also known people to have their still sopping wet clothes taken out of a washing machine half done and left on an ironing board. It’s the wild west. There is one other laundry room reserved for officers in a secret location. This room has three washer/dryers and tends to be slightly more civilized. By trial and error I have found that doing laundry in the middle of the day on a sea day is the best bet as most other crew members are busy working during that time.

Let’s talk about dining. As I mentioned previously, my job comes with a perk level that allows me to eat almost anywhere on the ship. The company I work for used to be a lot more lenient about this policy, but lately with more and more passengers onboard, our requests to eat in the restaurants are more frequently denied. There are six restaurants that require a reservation. I do occasionally get to eat in these places and that’s a treat. One of my closest friends here happens to be the general manager, aka the most senior person besides the captain. Being friends with the GM can come with perks like walking into restaurants. Sometimes it feels like some restaurant managers really hate us in entertainment and enjoy denying us out of spite. There are five food places that don’t require a reservation but are forbidden to crew, including the pizza place. However, our managers can get us pizza when we want if we ask nicely. Delicious forbidden pizza.

This leaves two dining options on a regular basis. The galley, which is the passenger dining hall on deck 15, and the crew mess hall on deck 5. The galley is modeled after a NYC style food hall (lol says this judgmental New Yorker) and has multiple food stations. There is a sandwich shop, a taco stand, a noodle bar, a 24 hour diner, a salad bar, a sushi station and a bread/dessert/fresh fruit place. I eat in the galley often but the options are basically always the same and to say that gets old is an understatement. The mess is more like a cafeteria. The chefs there must cater to the tastes of all 1100 crew members, especially those who aren’t allowed to eat upstairs. That means that the offerings in the mess are completely schizophrenic. On any given day in the mess one will find rice, dahl, curry, fishhead stew, southeast asian dishes that I cannot read nor pronounce, sheet pan pizza, some kind of potato, steamed vegetables, some kind of chicken, sometimes burgers, maybe a roast, maybe tacos, a salad bar and two kinds of soup. They also give us fresh fruit and some pretty cute desserts. Sometimes there are “special” lunches and dinners in the KT with themes like “Mexico!” or “Africa!” or “Easter!” or “Pride!” Those moments are very exciting and we often text each other a heads up: “Crew mess is fire today”. When they give us ice cream its downright pandemonium.

The next place where I spend a lot of time is the dressing room of the theatre. There are two performance venues onboard. One is a nightclub which feels like an intimate cabaret theater and seats about 200 depending on the setup. The other is a bigger more traditional proscenium style theater that seats about 500. The big one is where I do my show. The nightclub is intimate and sexy with an intimate sexy dressing room that looks like a movie set. The big theater is big and convertible and full of all the technical bells and whistles and has a big dressing room that can accommodate a lot of people. It is not very sexy but is very functional. I have my own station and a little drawer with my name on it where I keep all my show stuff.

In a previous post I mentioned the A1A. This is the main thoroughfare that runs the entire length of the ship from aft to stern, ship words for back to front. On some ships this hallway is nicknamed the I95 because of it’s high traffic nature. Midway down the A1A is the loading dock. On turnaround day aka embarkation day aka the end of one cruise and the beginning of another, the A1A is very busy and dare I say somewhat dangerous. Lots of luggage and pallet movers and shipments and people moving around. Best to avoid it then. It should also be mentioned that proper footwear is required on the A1A, closed toed shoes only. In addition to the A1A there are crew corridors hidden behind walls all over the ship. Doors in nearly every hallway on every deck are marked “Crew only”. Behind these you will find all the crew stairwells and elevators and storage lockers and kitchens and so on. All crew areas are brightly lit and painted a sterile primary blue color on the floors with white walls and stairwells.

Yes, there is a crew bar. Two in fact. No, I don’t go to them. One crew bar is deep in the belly of the ship. It’s dark and small and smells like stale beer. I am a snob. I barely drink when I’m on contract but if I’m going to have an alcohol it is going to be fancy and the drinks served in crew bar are not good. The second crew bar is all the way up on deck 17 above the running track. This is also where the crew outdoor smoking area is. I do not go to this place for similar reasons. The only reason I might go to crew bar is for someone’s birthday or going away party. Apparently there is some kind of social media challenge where young people on cruise ships try to find the crew bar and get inside without getting caught. To my knowledge this has happened only once on my ship. Someone probably got in trouble. I don’t know what the big deal is, it’s a pretty shitty bar. The downside to not going to crew bar is that I rarely get to socialize with people from other departments and I miss out on potential hookups. A sacrifice I am willing to make.

I have two favorite spots for “working”. I put working in quotes because technically performing in my show is my only real job here, but what I’m referring to is what I’m doing right now as I type this. Sitting at my laptop and focusing on something. That could be writing this blog or reading emails or doing regular life admin. It can also mean writing in my journal, reading my book or doing my daily Italian lessons. I don’t work well in my room. The stool under the desk is hard and uncomfortable and if I try to work in bed I inevitably fall asleep. The one thing I can only do in my room is take zoom meetings which happens more often than you’d think (secret projects and what not). My two best options for “work” are outside on deck 7 (my number one favorite spot onboard) and the Den. Deck 7 is magic because it is one of the only public places onboard with no music playing. That is everything to me. There are big outdoor couches and the sea spreading out around you and the coffee shop is right there. The only downside to deck 7 is it’s publicness so on sea days it can get crowded with passengers who also crave quiet. That’s when I use option two, the Den. The Den is a multi purpose room that has been designated “crew only” on our ship. It is divided in half with a moveable wall, one side has chairs and tables and is usually used for meetings and trainings. The other side has bean bag chairs and cushiony stools and is used for lounging and video games. This is an easy room to put on my headphones, play some lo-fi beats, snuggle down into a bean bag chair with my water bottle and focus.

I could go on. I could tell you about where we get filtered water or how the medical center works (or doesn’t) or where the bridge is or those secret parties in the engineers workshop, but I think you get the idea. If there’s anything you’re dying to know, write a comment or shoot me a message on IG and I’ll do my best to answer it. Right now the sun is setting over Santorini and I’m hungry so I’m going to head to the galley for dinner. Fingers crossed they have something good as a special this evening.

PS. Dinner gave me food poisoning and I was put on a mandatory 24 hour isolation so I lost a day of my life. Questa è la vita in mare.