Orlando time with the Bunch’s

2 Sundays ago we got to see the Bunch’s. They were on vacation in Orlando and since we were only 45 minutes away we hopped in a rental car with a few of our friends and got to have breakfast with them. It was such a blessing! 

No Clothes Party

Every month there is a crew party and these parties always have a theme. A couple of weeks ago, the theme was “anything but clothes party.” Meaning, wear anything that isn’t actual clothes. (Such as: towels, paper bags, etc.) As you will see in the pictures below people got extremely creative with their costumes. 

 These girls spent forever on these dresses… aren’t they quite impressive. The all black one is made out of garbage bags – just cut up. And the other one is duck tape and magazine pages!

 Whitney and I decided to take down the curtains for our bunk beds and wear those! I tried my best making mine look like a toga but it more or less turned out like a dress.

Tomorrow night is our Halloween party. Can’t wait to see what people come up for that one!

Hocus Pocus

Last night at Midnight - some of the crew came together and watched the movie "Hocus Pocus" in the Theatre on the big screen. It was so cool! We were all lounging around in our huge theatre in pajamas munching on candy and popcorn celebrating the spooky time of year. I love making cool memories like this. I'm so bummed we forgot to bring our camera, but I'm sure we'll do this more often. Halloween is such a fun time of year. I'm sad we are unable to carve pumpkins this year but we are having a Halloween party on November 1st!

Videos so Far

Sorry we've not posted in a week. But we put together a compilation of our videos up to this point. Enjoy!

Cozumel, Mexico

Friday, October 7^th

We had the entire day off so we spent a good 6 hours in Cozumel, Mexico. We all ate at La Choza for lunch and then went to a place called, No Name, with free Internet, a pool, and the ocean all right there. We couldn’t have asked for a more relaxing day off. I’ll let the pictures explain our fun!

 

 Later that evening we met up with the majority of our cast for a fine dinner at Chops Grille, which is on the ship. Guests and Crew are allowed to eat here with a reservation. There is a flat rate fee of $30 that includes a 3-course meal. We were there for 3 whole hours. We each ordered 2 appetizers, one entrée, and one dessert. As you can see the Filet Mignon was a popular item on the menu. We had such a great week on the Western Cruise. Now on to the Eastern!

 

Cruising back to College

Ship Life is a lot like college in a way. Obviously the living quarters are almost identical to a college dorm. But the nightlife really takes us back to those college years. Practically every night, our cast wants to go out and do something. Whether it’s going to a club, party, game night, or just hanging out. These crazy people are up until wee hours of the morning having fun. Whitney and I have gone out a few times but we are never out past 2 or 3 am which is extremely late for us. The next day we hear stories on how some of our dancers only got 2 hours of sleep and they still perform like they got 9. How do they do it?? Whitney and I need 8-9 hours of sleep and sometimes we even get a nap in the day! What is really annoying is the prep time that goes in to these get-to-gethers. On average we will get done performing around 10:30pm and then our cast will plan some event but it won’t start until midnight, because of course, they need to go back to their cabins and shower and reapply makeup and look their best. Whit and I are thinking… umm… why can’t we just wear what we have on and go out now? We’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because the majority of our cast hasn’t experienced college. They’re fresh out of high school or never went thus needing that party indulgent. We feel bad most of the time because we’re like, sorry, no, we don’t like to get drunk and we’d prefer to be in bed… oh about now. HA, at times we’ll say, hey, we’re like grandparents, we like our quiet time and our sleep time!

We could NOT imagine doing this contract without one another.

Crew Black Light Party - woo!

Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

Thursday, October 6^th

Beautiful water!! We noticed the waters here are every shade of blue, which is breathtaking. We didn’t have much time at all in this port unfortunately because we had a tech run in the morning and only gave us 2.5 hours off the ship. 30 minutes of that is spent getting to and from the island from our ship. A smaller boat takes each guest to and from. Naturally, our group decided to eat at Subway because they had free wi-fi!

Falmouth, Jamaica

Wednesday, October 5^th

Let’s just say this port isn’t the most exciting…

 Now, there are some cool little venues to shop at… kind of like a flea market – many people setting up their stuff and try to get you to buy everything. Falmouth in all honesty is a poor area – the reason why Royal Caribbean docks there is because it’s in between Ochos Rios and Montego Bay. However, to get to either of these places you have to commute about 1.5 hours. We heard some guests went through Royal Caribbean transportation buses and got to go to some cool excursions, so it could be worth it.

 

Labadee, Haiti

Tuesday, October 4^th

Thus begins our contract in its regular schedule! Finally! Whitney and I are on the Western Cruise and the first port is Labadee, Haiti. This is a private owned island by Royal Caribbean. Everything is so beautiful and clean. Since this is owned by Royal Caribbean no one needs to bother using cash – the food is freeJ anything else, guests and crew use their sea pass cards (which is nice because then you don’t have to worry about losing money).

Whitney and I were eager to get off the ship and explore the beaches. We went with a group of our cast mates and we had a blast! The most fun of our day was when we played on the “wipeout” floating devices. Unfortunately we don’t have a waterproof digital camera so we can’t show you pictures of this. Labadee has this section of floating devices that you can climb up and jump off of. They also have slides. We were not only getting a nice tan but we also got a work out. Guests have to pay for this but as crew we didn’t! Us cast members were all laughing at the fact that we were actually getting paid to play in the sand and water.

Tonight we have 2 shows of “Now You See It” (the Magic Show) let’s hope we have enough energy;)

PS… Last night, Monday, we ended up doing our Captain’s Reception without a pianist. It ended up being completely fine, Praise Him, we were so nervous without those chords but luckily the guitarist played the missing ones for us.

PSS… I, Nathan, have been getting a lot of headaches lately. I’ve been getting about 3 a week consistently. I don’t think they’re migraines because I can still do things, but still it’s super frustrating. Include me in your prayers that they go away. However, my wife has been so giving, because she’ll give me a head rub each time and it helps tremendously. Every time I get a headache – the Lord reminds me of Karen’s frequent migraines. Bless you Karen; know that you are constantly being prayed for.

 

 

Sleepy...

Blog #8:

     Rock a Bye, and Goodnight, Go to sleep little cruisers……zzzzzz…..

This is the lullaby that our ship sings to us everyday. The motion of the ship (especially on an EASTERN cruise) passively makes you sleepy. 

You could have gotten 9 hours of sleep, wake up feeling completed rested, have a great breakfast, be ready for your day and then catch yourself continually yawning and your eyelids feeling heavy. This is something that we are having to get used to. We also have to take into account that we have been in Tech Rehearsals for the past 3 WEEKS! We are exhausted!! We haven’t had a day off in 3 weeks, and are very tired. Luckily all of our shows are up now and running, and we get to start our normal schedules this week! We get to really understand what our daily life is going to be like for the next 7 months.

By the way….small fact from the past week. Nathan met an elderly guest who informed him that this was her 67^th CRUISE! Yup! Sixty-Seventh! SHEESH! Can you believe that?

That should tell you ….the cruise life isn’t too shabby. We definitely feel like we are on vacation but get to perform and do what we love. We are always shocked when we get a paycheck. Lucky isn’t what we would call it – BLESSED!

The first week we were on board – we had an amazing pianist for our mainstage shows and our jazz sets. However, our first week was his last week. These past couple of weeks we’ve been working with the new hire accompanist. And.....well, he’s not good! He has messed up a lot. During our Captain’s Reception (when Whit and I sing 8 Jazz songs on the Promenade) he gave Whitney the wrong chord for one of her songs – which put her in the wrong key! Then when the rest of the band came in – she had to really listen and switch keys in the middle of her songs… soooo scary. Well, management more or less gave him a warning. Now, we just found out that he is leaving tomorrow, Sunday October 2^nd because his mother is dying. So awful, and now we are in need of a new pianist!

I guess we will see what happens this week without a pianist. We will keep you posted!

Here are some photos from this past week:

Here are most of the cast members. 

Abra Cadabra!

  Blog #7:

    On Friday of Last week, we opened the MAGIC SHOW! The show is called “Now You See It!” and features the illusionist, Drew Thomas who was seen on ‘America’s Got Talent’! This is definitely one of mine and Nathan’s favorite things we get to do on the ship. His illusions are very impressive and so entertaining! It is an honor to perform with him. We got to see the show 2 times with the previous cast, and we weren’t able to figure out ANY of his illusions. We are now under contract to keep all the secrets safe with us and are not allowed to reveal ANY of them…so don’t even try to ask. 

   The one thing I’m not crazy about in this show……..is my costume.  It is a blue unitard. Many have tried to pinpoint what this costume reminds them of.

What do you think?

A.     Avatar

                                        B.     ABBA Singer / Mamma Mia

      C.     Smurfette

                 D.    Aerialist Barbie

           E.     ______________

We have decided that Nathan’s costume looks like he has come out of Star Trek.

Our other costumes aren’t that bad. However, our cast says it looks like we have gotten remarried on the cruise ship and this is what we have chosen to wear.

The magician, Drew Thomas has an adorable 4 year old son named Sam who loves coming backstage and seeing his 'friends' (the cast). He likes pretending he is a magician like his Dad. So Adorable!

We can’t wait for our friends and family to see our shows on the ship! We are having a blast!

Rock The Boat! (I mean...Ship)

 Blog #6:

     Nathan and I are continuing to have a wonderful time here! We have just completed our 3^rd week and we have 29 more weeks to go! (But who’s counting?) We have figured out that the EASTERN Cruise is definitely a rockier cruise than the WESTERN cruise. (We alternate each week between Eastern and Western). Some have said that it is rockier because we are farther away from land on this cruise, and also because we have less ports, therefore we have ‘sea days’ more often. This week we had one day where the boat was so rocky everyone looked like they were drunk by the way we were walking down the hallways. J

    The day started off normal and we didn’t even notice the movement of the ship, then right around 6:00pm the boat started having swells from left to right, left to right. It was quite comical. And…guess what? We had a show to perform at 7:00pm. All of the cast was backstage getting ready, preparing for a rocky show. Our cast prepared me and Nathan for the show by telling us that it would be harder standing still on stage then when you would be moving or dancing.

     Nathan and I said a little prayer before the show because we knew this was going to be a new experience we hadn’t been through before, and we didn’t want to get sea sick or fall on stage. During the first number, we had one girl fall on stage – which Nathan covered really well with a brilliant Ad Lib. The girl who fell was playing ‘Cinderella’, cleaning the floors before the ball, and Nathan was of course playing a ‘Step-Sister.’ After Cinderella fell, Nathan blurted out “Oh! You fell because you missed a spot! Get back to work!” (Good Save, Nathan!)

   During one of my numbers I stand on stage and slowly and gracefully walk across the stage to look as if I’m floating, and a there is a timed cue lighting that I have to make sure I get to each mark on stage in order to fall into the pool of light. I made sure to keep a wider stance on the ground and tried to engage my core in order to not fall, but lo and behold – as I started ‘gracefully’ walking to my left, the boat decided to swell to the left, which gently started pushing me faster and faster to the left to where I was doing a nice little skip to Stage Left, right into the darkness - not anywhere near my light. J It was funny.

    I think one of the funniest moments of the night was to see the cast as a whole all shift to the right and then shift to the left as the ship rocked us back and forth.

   Overall, no one got hurt and it was more comical than anything. A brand new experience for me and Nathan and one that I’m sure we will experience MANY more times in the next 7 months!

P.S.

 I am getting bad Bunions. It started about 2 years ago. Boo! It is coming from these horrible dance shoes that I have to wear ALL the time. Therefore, in order to help my feet I where this crazy contraption on my feet. I think its helping...???