May 12th - Anacortes

So today was my first day going out on tours. We were in Anacortes, WA, which is a very small town, but does have some nice places to go. In the morning we went on a "Walking Orientation" which was basically just a slightly narrated walk town the main street of Anacortes. We had the town crier get on the ship before the tour and welcome everyone to the town. It was pretty entertaining.

After the walking tour, we had lunch on the ship..then went out to LaConner on a bus ride that was narrated. LaConner was pretty nice because I got to eat ice cream and go shopping while everyone walked around! After we left the town, we went to a Salmon Tasting and got to eat delicious smoked salmon!  

Even though the beginning of the day was fun, the best part of my day was that night. Jon, Angelo and I went out to Anacortes and ran around the streets. The boys don't really get a chance to get off the ship during the day, so I made them go for a walk with me. I didn't realize how crazy the boat can make you until I went to hang out with Angelo that night and he was laying on the bed staring at the ceiling and he started venting to me about his life as I sat on the desk haha. Since we basically had a therapy session so I called our walk our Mental Health Walk. Except it ended up being so scary and ended up freaking us all out. Anacortes had this artist come in a paint murals of people all over the walls...so you feel like people are staring at you while you walk by. Also, the town was so dead that when a cop passed us walking down the street, he went around the block and slowly drove past us again to make sure we weren't up to no good lol. All and all, it was really fun though and we got to finally act like ourselves and not like managers for the first time.

May 11th - Seattle

Today was my first day as a Cruise Director in training. My day started out at 5:55am and I didn't stop working until 10:00pm. The combination of jetlag and having no idea what I was doing was not exactly the recipe for success..but I survived. It was definitely hard walking onto a ship full of people that know each other and being new. I was so thankful that I had Jon and Angelo with me.
The day was pretty much full of just following around the other Cruise Director and trying to learn the ropes on turnaround day..which is the busiest day of the cruise. Turnaround day is when one cruise ends and another cruise starts, so we have to flip all of the rooms and greet all of the new passengers. It gets a little crazy, especially when you have 3 managers in training that don't know what they are doing yet haha.
Once my day was over, I did not get off the boat at all. I'm pretty sure I just fell asleep the second that I got to my room haha.

These pics are from when we sailed from Seattle to Anacortes.

May 10 – CT to Seattle

Today was the big day. 5 of us lucky managers got to get in a nice Escalade that took us to the airport at 5am. We arrived at the Harford airport at around 6am, where we had breakfast together and said our goodbyes. 2 of the guys were headed to Portland, and the 3 of us were going to Seattle.

Before we made it to Seattle, we had to first stop in Chicago. The airport was pretty cool, but we went to this Mexican place that clearly doesn’t know what Mexican food is. I had a “quesadilla” that was more like a pressed burrito with no rice or beans. It was weird.

Once we landed in Seattle, I was super excited!!!! We got to drive all through downtown Seattle before we got to the ship.

Day 4: Guilford, CT

Today was food service day. This was definitely the best day of training! The stewards had to learn how to wait tables, so we had a chef come in and we got to eat breakfast as many times as we wanted! They made smaller portions, but you could potentially eat breakfast 5 times if you really wanted to. I had 2 portions before I started playing Cruise Director and had mock conversations about excursions for the days to all of the tables. It was pretty fun.

During all of this commotion, I managed to get into a conversation with one of the guys from the Home Office, and we got to talking about what had just happened in my life. He told me that he had heard that I was graduating the day before training, and that he was impressed because I didn’t look as stressed as he imagined someone would look who went through what I did. That made me feel great! Even though I was really freaking out about how fast everything was happening, I was so happy to hear that they couldn’t tell.

At around 4:30pm, the lady who is in charge of scheduling showed up to tell us where we were going to be spending our next few weeks. It was at that time that I found out that I was going with Jon and Angelo to Seattle the next morning to board the American Spirit for the next two weeks. We all started freaking out a little bit, because originally we were not going to be leaving until Sunday or Monday…but now we were leaving on Friday. So we spent the evening running all over Connecticut trying to get everything that we needed.

We finally finished at around 9pm, so Tabitha and I decided to try to find somewhere to eat. Every single place in that darn town was closed…except for the diner. So we caved and at diner food on our last night in CT.

After dinner, I quickly packed up my stuff and went to bed. 

Day 3: Guilford, CT

Today was Cruise Director day. I had been looking so forward to this day because I finally was able to hear about my job and all that it entails. It was really interesting, and so great to be able to ask questions! In the afternoon we talked about Sales and situational awareness. By the end of the day, I was dead tired. Once we got back to the hotel, a few of us went over for some desserts at this really cute diner across the street. It was nice because not all 7 of us went, so we were able to bond a little better.

 

Day 2: Guilford, CT

Today I spent the entire day in training. We trained from 8am-6pm…but we had delicious food catered to us for lunch and dinner! It was definitely a long day of powerpoint slides.

We also got to meet the stewards that were training, so it was really fun to be able to introduce myself as a manager to someone haha. The managers sit at their own table, and don’t have to set up or break down any tables. It was awesome finally getting to be on that side of the line.

After training, Tabitha and I went for a super long walk. In total, it was probably about a 3 mile walk, but it was beautiful. We walked through the town and saw gorgeous houses and landscapes. It really helped our stress levels to go for a long walk.