Cruise Travel
Bucketlist
So I wasn’t sure whether to publish this, I made a list sometime ago and added to it over time, but essentially this is a list of things that if I could start again from scratch I’d do again – or things that I almost had the chance to do, and still want to do.
Whale Watching from Juneau, Alaska
Quad Biking from Agadir, Morocco, through the villages, Dessert and along the beach.
Ride the Sugar Cane Train on St. Kitts.
Drive the North coast 500 through Scotland
Hike The Fairfield Horseshoe from Ambleside, Cumbria
Walk around the Skytower in Auckland on New Zealands North Island.
Cruise the Maid in the Mist on Lake Niagara, Canada
Walk to the top of Malham Cove in the Yorkshire dales
Visit Stonehenge
Travel to Lands end and John O’Groats
Sail under the Golden Gate Bridge and past Alcatraz, San Francisco.
Sail around Stromboli as it erupts, Italy.
Climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Walk the beach at Brunswick Bay.
Watch a meteor shower in the middle of the ocean.
Drive New Zealands Surf Highway on the North Island.
Search for the Polar Bear on Svalbard
Walk to the Pulpit Rock in Norway.
Take a train ride through India.
Tour New Zealands South Island
Watch the sunrise over the Sognefjord, in the fjord lands of Norway.
Watch a cup final at Wembley, London.
Cook a proper Sunday Dinner with roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding.
Live in London
See the Northern Lights
Take a winters ghost walk in York, England.
Visit Gullfoss and Godafoss in Iceland
Propose to your other half.
Visit the pyramids of Giza, Egypt
Walk to the lost city of Petra in Jordan.
Visit the Krak De Chevalier in Syria
Experience a Christmas market in a foreign city.
Witness the power of High Force in Teesdale.
Take a helicopter flight over the pitons of St. Lucia.
Make friends with someone from another country.
Travel by any means necessary
Travel by the Eurostar.
Go deep sea fishing in South Africa.
Take a tour of Robben Island in South Africa
Ride the cable car up Table Mountain in South Africa
Drive to the Cape of Good Hope National Park
Go in search of the Polar Bear in Svalbard, Norway.
Walk to the pulpit Rock in Norway
Take a train ride through India
Tour New Zealands South Island
Watch the sunrise over Norways, Sognefjord.
Watch a cup final at Wembley
Cook a proper Sunday roast dinner, with Beef.
Live in London.
See the Northern Lights in Alaska.
Take a winters ghost walk in York.
Visit Gullfoss & Godafoss in Iceland.
Propose to your partner in a memorable way.
Visit the Pyramids of Giza.
Walk to the lost city of Petra
Visit Krak de Chevalier in Syria
Experience Hamburgs Christmas markets.
Witness the power of High Force in Teesdale.
Take a helicopter flight over the Pitons of St. Lucia.
Make friends with someone from a far away country.
Travel by any means necessary.
Ride the Eurostar.
Go Deepsea fishing from Durban.
Visit Robben Island.
Ride Table Mountain’s one of a kind cable car.
Drive South to the Cape of Good Hope and explore the national park.
Deliver presents to an orphanage at Christmas
Play football with locals in another country (Costa Rica)
Back to BC!! Ft. Lauderdale to Vancouver
So in the space of a year I was back to beginnings, we were heading on a re-positional cruise back to Vancouver with some amazing ports to call into.
The main points of a repo. Cruise is exactly as it sounds, it’s to get a ship from one part of the world to another but generally unless it’s a half day repo, companies still use the cruise to make some money at the same time.
We left Ft. Lauderdale and Steve behind, and headed for ultimately Canada. We had a couple of management changes over the coming month. There was this one asshole who’s name I can’t even remember, and there was a kiwi guys who was pretty cool.
So again It was a long time ago when We did this cruise so i can really only remember the highlights, which for me were Seattle, San Francisco, and then actually getting back to Canada, which I think included a stop in Victoria.
It’s a strange one because even though we may have been out of Florida, it was rare we got to actually see a great deal of an American City. San Francisco is somewhere where I had always dreamed off visiting, and to get there was a dream come true. I really want to go back because again as usual I still didn’t get to see half of the things I wanted to. Of course I went to Alcatraz which was a massive highlight and always will be as long I draw breath.
I also got to hang out a pier 39, and take a ride on one of the world famous trams which again was something I’ll never forget.
San Diego should have been amazing too, I was desperate to go to the zoo there but that wasn’t to be but what can you do, I never made it further than the terminal.
Seattle was another incredible experience too, I went to the Space Needle, the music expo and then took a ride on the monorail. Of course no visit would have been complete without some shopping. I really want to revisit and hopefully will one day since I now have family there.
Then there was Catalina Island, which was incredible and about an hour from San Diego, I remember it was a little overcast, it was a tender port too so I ended up shooting gangway and just stayed shoreside for a bite to eat. I know it was about this time when I had had enough of being ill so went to the docs and had myself signed off, just wasn’t really able to eat properly.
The last two ports were in Canada if I remember rightly and we all got to hang out with in an old friend Jessica in Victoria before heading back to Vancouver where it had all started.
So when we got to Vancouver there was another Managerial changeover where our new gaffer embarked, his name Paul. Now this was a two way street because apparently we’d both been heard of previously. He had been working for NCCL where apparently some moron called Tamas, I had had encounters with whilst on the Imagination, had been filling him in on how lazy I was and how little I liked to work. Paul on the other hand we had all heard loved a drink – oh how true that was 🙂
So anyway off course there was a holiday in between two contracts but our cruises out of Vancouver would have us heading North through the inside passage and then to Seward, Alaska and back south again.
We continued doing 10 day cruises like this through the summer but there were a couple of pivotal moments to tell you about first.
The first would be as we entered Glacier Bay, now this was somewhere we were to go in and out of during our cruises once a cruise for the duration and whilst doing so the ship would be under the navigational guidance of the local pilot. As we left Glacier Bay on one occasion the ship lurched to one side, something not out of the ordinary in these waters. There were Icebergs everywhere, but still we continued on towards Seward, I think this was a day at sea and we arrived the following morning.
So we had to open morning gallery, and then strip the gallery from the last cruises pictures and prepare for the next cruise, until the ship was clear of guests and we were getting ready to go ashore, when there was a very large break from the norm. The Captain made an announcement asking all staff and crew to make there way to the theatre. This was something in my three years at sea which I hadn’t encountered previously.
Once everyone was assembled we began debating what was going on, why everyone had been assembled at such short notice and the Captain made his way to the stage. Apparently the lurching ship the day before was the vessel hitting an iceberg, this in turn had ripped a hole in the side of the ship big enough to prevent us from sailing. We ended up with an impromptu overnight in Seward. Our passengers where allowed to embark and stay on the ship overnight, and the onboard security who were trained divers carried out initial inspections. Lloyd’s the shipping safety experts were flown out to oversee and inspect the repairs to ensure the ship was safe enough to sail the day after. Even now one of my best souvenirs is a copy of the local paper which sold out in no time as passengers and crew scooped copies as souvenirs.
We sailed the day after after the key repairs had been carried out, but lost a port to make up for time on the way back to Vancouver. We also then had to follow this up with further repairs once we reached Vancouver, which in turn meant two more overnights in the port of Vancouver. he repairs needed their were even more impressive to see than the hole being patched in Seward, as the propellers had to be replaced.
So that was the ship side part of the drama.
On one of the return trips towards Vancouver we were transiting the latter part of the inside passage and I’d been up for Pizza, I was making my way along the open decks to a crew elevator and was lucky enough to catch the show, not the crew show or the show in the theatre, but the Northern Lights. It’s spellbinding, it’s breathtaking, it’s awesome, there are too many words to describe, but if you get the opportunity to go to north Norway or Iceland or if you live the other side of the Atlantic, then just go, just do it, believe me it’s worth it.
I enjoyed for the most part my time in Alaska, the ports of Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway, Sitka were incredible and again I regret not doing more and going in search of bars with others. It is what it is though and the only thing you can do is learn from your experiences and move on and do more when you travel again.
I actually enjoyed doing the dress up shoots, but like always I loathed going into the restaurant. I didn’t mind doing gangway, and I didn’t mind embarks as the passengers knew the score.
Formal nights became a ball ache though, they would knock over lights, trip over cables which had been duc-taped down, and then try to lean against backgrounds which were being held up by auto-poles. It all just became a lot of a chore.
Towards the end of my contract things started to sour, I started to regret actually rejoining the Summit. I knew I was ready for a change but things weren’t quite rosy onboard with the team, we weren’t getting along at all and to be honest I just wanted to leave. I spoke to some people who arranged initially for me to transfer to another ship which was in the area, I thoughts about it but knew deep down I’d just had enough and wanted to go home for a whilst. I’d already resigned and retracted because I wasn’t going to be forced from a role I’d worked hard for.
I saw a couple of photogs sacked for “exposing themselves in a public area” and then just thought you know what I’m out the door. I asked for early vacation and left the following Vancouver.
I knew that as far as photography was concerned I needed a break, and I knew that as far a ships were concerned I needed a break for more than a few months so that’s pretty much what I took.
– Thats all for now
The Summit and some ports of the Caribbean
So as I said in my last blog I explained that as a photographer it was always too easy to find the nearest bar and perhaps I was extremely naive and didn’t appreciate where I was.
It was stupidly simple to start taking places like Mexico for granted as everyone was doing the same thing as I was.
So yeah when we called into Cozumel there were a few things that as a group you did, I was still a relative pup when it came to ships don’t forget but I was already growing tired of actually having to deal with passengers.
So plans were made for the following days when after leaving Florida and dealing with a long formal night day at sea, you wanted to escape, so a group would head to the mini golf where you could get hammered play a round, and then head to the internet cafe to catch up on the football scores.
So to elaborate a little more the mini golf in Cozumel was like no other I have ever been to. Sure the sun was shining, and a putter is still a putter, but here your given a radio so when your beer is empty they will send you more to whatever hole your on.
Of course the more you drink the slower you play, and well it’s just a good crack. After a few too many there and a bite to eat in one of the many burger places then depending on the time you sail or if your working or not later (and even that didn’t always matter) you’d head back to the pier bars, Carlos and Charlies or Fat Tuesdays.
This was pretty much the pattern of the time onboard the summit. I suppose my one regret from all my time as a photographer is, and more so since I was where I was, is not even checking out if we could escort tours. Especially since after leaving Festival where we went to Marrakech and the Granada Palace and a whole host of other tours.
So I think then you have to look at maybe St. Kitts where thankfully I was lucky enough to revisit later in my career at sea now there is lot of things you can do in St. Kitts but as with everywhere else because the food had become so mundane onboard then that’s usually what we decided to look for usually in this case I think KFC or Subway was probably the most likely destination.
Since re-visiting though on the Braemar I’ve been on the sugar cane train and then on the prince arranged a crew tour to go quad biking. I think in the end though it’s all about perspectives and if you only have one perspective you can’t look at something from another.
There were a couple of friends that took me to a beach on the Island of St. John, It’s called Hawksnest beach and it’s a short ferry ride from Redhook on the Island of St. Thomas. It was absolute paradise and in all my life I’d never seen anything quite like it. Aqua blue see through water, white sand and there was nobody else for miles. The cabbie took us and picked us up just as he said he would, If I remember rightly though we almost missed the ship, something which any crew member would dread.
It’s strange because since leaving home when I was just shy of my 18th birthday all I wanted to do was explore, but in truth I didn’t really know how to. I think this is something without doubt I learned to do as I got older.
Anyway I just wanted to say a little about a few of the ports, so I’ll finish with the disappointing ports of Ocho Rios, Limon and Colon. You see I think by comparison Cartagena, Columbia would have been a blessing.
Ocho Rios to start with, the port, was generally the same all the time, there was pretty much one thing to do if you were a passenger, and that was to head to Dunns River Falls. There were taxi’s waiting at the port but no real places of interest to go to that I can remember (I might be wrong). Now the distinct memory of this particular port is the masses of drugs being sold right at the port gates.
I think most of the time here I shot gangway and got back on board.
I did venture out a couple of times literally to escape for a whilst, there was a shopping mall called the Taj Mahal, small with some local shops but it was nice just to get out of the port and away from the ship.
Next up there was Limon, Costa Rica, which there were things to see and do further away from the port but within it and in the town, nada, nothing one of the biggest dives I’ve visited.
Finally and I’ve left Colon until last, quite possibly one of the worst places I’ve been to. Mainly because of the lack of safety for tourists, but just generally not many of us could really comprehend why it was on the itinerary at all.
So that’s pretty much that as far as our Caribbean run goes, I’m going to end this short and sweet blog off for the time being and start a new one for the next part of my summit adventure.
Ft. Lauderdale and beyond to the Caribbean
So what exactly can I tell you about the port of Ft. Lauderdale, it’s no Miami put it that way.
I don’t remember much about either if I’m really honest FL as I’ll refer to it is pretty industrial and there is a couple of places we generally went to if we had the day or morning off.
There was an Irish Pub which most tended to head to or alternatively the mall which again I can’t remember the name off and other than blowing our wages I don’t recall why we went other than to escape the ship for a few hours and return to normality.
There were little vans in both ports selling pop/soda, and the worlds worst chocolate, they have no idea what good chocolate tastes like or how to make it if they haven’t left the states. Hersheys is the worst chocolate I’ve ever tasted, and that is a fact. I think I relied on m&m’s or haribo and other crap from the gift show, skittles too.
So we used to cruise alternate eastern, western itineraries when we we’re in the Caribbean. So from what I can recall, a bunch of the ports I visited were Key west, in the Florida Keys, Cozumel a Mexican Island just off the mainland. We called into Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands a little home away from home, next up was Limon in Costa Rica which was definitely one of the not so nice places I’ve been to and then of course on this run we had Panama, ah yes, Colon, Panama. You see Colon was aptly named because you couldn’t really go too far from the port for risk of being attacked.
There were a bunch of guys who did go out and they had there wallets, cameras and anything else taken some of them were actually attacked. There were a few places in the port to go, and again the food places were pretty much subway and a bunch of local places and that’s about it.
We were supposed to visit Columbia, I think Cartagena but because of issues with passenger safety we never actually visited. So then I think we landed at Ocho Rios, Jamaica a drug paradise and that was pretty much it on that run.
So on the other route which was hands down the better run of the two, so this time we headed east towards what I like to call the Caribbean arc. We called into ports like Castries, St. Lucia, St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, I’m not sure if we called into San Juan, Puerto Rico – I have been before on the Triumph but not sure on this run. We called into Basseterre, St. Kitts, Bridgetown, Barbados was somewhere I grew to love a lot later in my career but at this particular time I rarely spent anytime ashore here as it was only a half day call. I think we may have called into St. John’s, Antigua but again can’t be 100% sure on that one.
So that’s how it was for the contract for about 10 months of my live, it was total plain sailing if you’ll pardon the pun, there were as at Carnival a lot of ups and downs. I like to think I got through this contract due to a close knit bunch of friends again. Andi, nick, Kelly, Alex, and latterly Al and Emma all who worked in the shop spring to mind. There were a few others too, Alex on reception and Kat who was on the cruise staff were all good friends.
So like before progression was quick and even though I embarked as a number 6 it didn’t take long to work up to number 3 as people left to go on vacation.
So the team I joined was initially led by a guy from Wales called Steve Stiling, he was nice enough bit weird but he was nice enough. Mind you when the last photo manager I had was Kim, the North Korean dictator there was a shitload of room for maneuver. I think when I went out there I just wanted to shoot and travel again you know as long as I had a few dollars and a few beers at the end of the night i couldn’t really give a shit.
There was a really funny instance I think it was the day after a formal night in the gallery and some ass came upto me and Alex who were working the desk and asked when the “Captain’s Picture’s” were gonna be out? I explained the handshakes as we called them with the Captain were already out on display. I said the Pictures from the studios would be out the day after. The woman turns to her husband and says “what did he saaaaaay”. Instead of asking me again, Alex was fighting the urge to laugh I could tell. I explained it again and they shuffled off still not getting it in a huff.
It’s just how it was, we just took the piss out of the passengers, they would ask insanely stupid questions like does the elevator go from the front of the ship to the back, and where do the crew sleep, and do the crew eat onboard? Just ridiculous.
Most of my time in the ports was with Alex, nick and Andi in the nearest watering hole where we could get served without ID. We had our crew passes but no actual proof of age.
As for onboard it was a constant piss up on an evening, well when there was a Martini Bar onboard it was always going to be messy. The only thing that got in the way was the work 🙂
As I worked my way up though the responsibilities increased so on an embarkation day I had to put away the ships stores, photo paper, chemicals and yes films, remember that photogs, rolls of fricken film.
Again I’m going to leave it there for now and pick this up next time about mis-spent time off, time in bars instead of exploring etc.
That’s all for now.
– JD
Celebrity Cruise Lines, The GTS Summit
So hey there, it’s been quite a whilst since I last posted anything of substance, so for that I apologise. I wanted to tell you a little bit about the time I spent working for Celebrity Cruise’s.
I’d taken a few months off following my slightly acrimonious departure from Festival. To be fair I’d been made team manager too young, too soon and spent too long on the same ship. The break I needed even if I didn’t know it at the time. It was good to get some time off though, and I knew I’d have a job to go back to. In this case I had to take a few steps back and just go back to shooting images without any additional responsibility.
If I remember rightly I flew out to Vancouver, Canada to join the Summit. I flew in on the 10th September 2012, so tensions around all of the airports were high following the events the year before.
One of the best things about flying into Vancouver was it meant I got to hang out with a friend I’d stayed in touch with, Christie from my days on the Imagination. She let me crash at her place and we went bowling and grabbed a bit to eat too.
One of the best things about this lifestyle is the friends, the real ones who are around after the contract finishes, not the ones who you never hear from after the contract is done, and believe me there are enough of those.
So embark morning came around pretty quick and Christie drove me to the port, via the scenic route albeit. Vancouver is easily one of the best cities I have ever visited, probably I’d say up there with Stockholm.
The first views of the ship were a welcome relief, I had done some web research so knew it was quite a modern vessel. I think it had a capacity of about 2200 passengers, off the top of my head anyway I maybe wrong.
I embarked the ship in the modern port, handed all of my documents into the crew purser and made my way to my cabin. It was a rarity as the day I signed on, so did my roommate Alex. It’s not often that this happens but we hit it off straight away, he was from Guisborough, which is somewhere North of Yorkshire.
I felt pretty much at home within the usual 4 week time frame, and I met some great friends onboard during my time. Some of the closest I’m still in touch with, and have seen since the two contracts I spent onboard. The likes of Kelly, Andy, Nick, Emma and Tina I still count as close friends now.
So my first couple of cruises, the first more so will forever be stuck in my memory. You see on any US ship as a non-American citizen you are given a slip of paper which allows you to get on and off the ship. If i remember rightly it’s called an I-95, visa, this is in addition to the C1D visa which you have to obtain prior to embarking onto a ship calling into a US port.
So the reason for me telling you the above is that within what must have been hours of me stepping onboard and collecting my I-95, I lost it, The only problem is I didn’t notice until the night before the first port or the morning of the first port. We had 4 days at sea on our way to Hawaii. Even with all of this in mind I now had no choice but to wait until we reached our turnaround port of Honolulu until I could meet with immigration to get a replacement. I couldn’t so much as set foot ashore to shoot gangway.
I felt like a total idiot for losing it in the first place, but it also meant I was confined to the ship for 10 days straight. Still what could I do, the situation was as it was.
As I mentioned our first four days were to be spent at sea, which meant plenty of time to meet new people, and as usual the photogs and the shoppies were a social bunch 🙂
In many respects it was nice to be back on a US ship, little things like we could order of the menu in the staff mess which doesn’t sound like a huge deal but trust me being able to order a cheeseburger when your at sea for four days is huge.
I’d come from a ship where there were only 3 on the team, the ship was full of predominantly Germans, the food was pants, it was a small ship, ran by Greeks and they knew it. Even though the ship was owned by a Greek company it was a different world from the one I had left behind in Kiel, Germany earlier in the Summer.
So after that first cruise we made it to Honolulu, and I went to see the immigration officials and thankfully managed to get a replacement I-95 Visa. This meant for the first time on over a week I was able to get off the ship. So when in Honolulu, do as the Hawaiians do right, yeah right, so I went to Hooters hahaha.
So we completed our turnaround I think I only had a small amount of time off as I had to be back to shoot embarks, and then we headed back towards Vancouver. The only other noteable thing I recall from the two cruises, was the night cruise to the Volcano, It was incredible to see an active volcano at night, and the molten lava flowing into the ocean.
As crew we had an awesome advantage as the forward deck, where the helipad is located was a crew only deck, meaning pretty much we had the best seats in the house for this and a number of other occasions.
So as we arrived back into Vancouver we had a repositioning cruise to look forward to which involved my first visit to Acapulco, and then my first transit through the Panama Canal and then over towards our new home port of Ft. Lauderdale.
So we left Canada behind, and looked forward to the upcoming cruise which in the end involved a game of football in Costa Rica. The funny thing was the pitch we were supposed to play on was double booked so we ended up playing with some local kids which was an awesome experience. Neither side could really speak to each other but it didn’t really matter as the game was just played out without the need.
Moving down the itinerary We entered the Panama Canal, something which I had never done before, and the main thing we had to do, was to take photographs of people on the open decks as we transited the canal. The one thing I will never forget is the humidity of the environment, the heat was so dry it was crazy. That was in the early hours of the day too, so it got even hotter, the air conditioned environment of the ship definitely provided some welcome respite.
All this in mind, it was still an amazing experience, something which I’ve done on one other occasion since.
So as far as the rest of the itinerary goes, I think we called into Cabo San Lucas, and Acapulco. Both of these ports are in Mexico, one is a tender port and the other is alongside.
Cabo I’ve been to twice and only got off once. It’s probably better known to the spring breakers and jetset of the US residents, but otherwise it’s all about the beaches here.
As for Acapulco, and the cruise contingent there are a couple of things generally which people will want to see or do. Either the cliff jumpers/divers for passengers or crew, or for the crew the beaches and the bungee jumping which is not too far from the port.
Other than that we had a fairly uneventful repo to Ft. Lauderdale as I recall where we began cruises east and west to the Caribbean.
Thats all for now I’ll break off and fill you in on the next part of the adventure soon…..Oh and don’t forget to follow my Instagram for my travel photography.
– That’s all for now
JD
Festival Cruise Lines (The Poulides Dream)
So the next chapter, well I spent as long as I could at home, I even took a job working back at Jessops in Huddersfield.
I stayed home for a couple of months though before after making some enquiries and a low key interview in Huddersfield I took the plunge and signed on with Ocean Images.
It was a funny one though because when I left Carnival I never wanted to pick up a camera again. Ironic yes, then you might say given the next contract would be another ship as a photographer since I always thought it would be as a shoppy (shop staff).
So Ocean Images were a company based out of Southampton and supplied photographers all over the world to a huge number of ships.
If you read my recent posts on Carnival, then you’ll get the idea of the sizes of ships I was used to. Boy was I in for a shock really now then.
I think it would have been around April in 2001 when I flew out to Genova (Genoa) to join the Flamenco, which was a tiny ship and carried about 7-800 passengers and crew, seriously it was tiny. The Flamenco was part of the Festival Cruise Lines fleet, and one of at the time three or four ships. The other ships were the Azur, which was smaller, the Mistral and I think the European Vision was being built or planned, later would come the European Stars.
So yeah I joined up in Genova, and met up with my new team which was a team of three, Andy who was the Photo. Mgr. and there was Phil who was the other photographer.
Phil was a quirky guy, but nice enough and from Hull. He was also who I’d be sharing a cabin with. Andy seemed nice enough but he could crack the whip when he wanted to.
At the time I joined the ship it would probably have been completing it’s Med, North Africa and Canary Island itineraries. If I remember rightly and not in this order we had, Funchal (Madeira), Arrecife (Lanzarote), Almeria & Malaga (Spain), Safi & Casablanca (Morocco), Alicante (Spain), Marseille (France) I think that’s it but as I said it was 12 years ago.
It was all a bit of a crazy time again though because It was all new again, it was a different way of doing things, totally different from the Carnival way I’d known before. The gallery was tiny, loads of the kit had been allowed to fall into disrepair, I think I was using a Canon eos 50e at the time, which was ok, but the lens was a piece of shit it was some 28-200 I think. It’s amazing what you learn as you grow as a photographer.
It was a strange atmosphere on the ship, with it being a Greek run company, came the Greek mentality. So you had the Greeks, the rest of the staff and then there was the crew. So naturally outside of the working hours there was plenty of drinking, and because it was a Greek ship there was plenty of theme nights too.
So the first month zipped by, there was a load of training for safety drills and classes which I had to go to which was par for the course, and I had to do a course run by a senior Captain. He was from the port of Piraeus I think. Anyway one of the funniest things I remember from the early days, we were in the middle of this course and a life raft had been prepped , this Capt. Pulled the wrong line and we just heard a hissing noise of the raft starting to inflate inside the shell (casing) of the raft. The next thing he starts yelling back!!, back!!
This shell blasted open and the raft continued to inflate, which we all found hilarious, him not so much though.
There was a huge difference in crew bars from carnival, just a small bar at the aft of the ship next to the crew mess, but we all had a good time in there most of the time. Except for the “not so random” alcohol tests, I have no issue with the fact that it happens, it happened all the time on every ship I worked on, but they were never fucking random. They were spot checked on certain people. How else do you expect some people being done every month when there were three hundred crew onboard.
The cruise director onboard was awesome his name was Paulo Freitas, who some people liked, some people didn’t like whatever, he was a nice enough guy with me and we got on well. He had an obsession with cars and was pretty proud about the fact that he was Portuguese.
There was another couple of CD’s during my time there, Franco Pili, who was pretty famous within Festival, then there was Maria, who I can only compare to someone like medusa, because she was good looking yes, but she’s just as soon a bad mouth you to someone as smile at your face.
There were a bunch of other people but there is no need to mention everyone, there are a couple of others, the first Nikos Glezakos, who was a safety officer onboard when I met him. Years later he had become captain for Louis Cruise Lines. I didn’t exactly see eye to eye when we first met, and to be honest I didn’t take safety tremendously serious, something that changed in a big way as my career progressed.
So after I’d missed enough drills that Nikos had had enough and looking back it was fair enough. So for those who missed drills on a regular basis were “invited” to a drill on a sea day which was basically class room based.
It meant you didn’t have as long of a break in the afternoon (I’ll come back to that) so it was meant to encourage you to attend drills.
So I went along, all cocky (I was 19 I think, just) and of course Nikos took great pleasure on asking me loads of questions, one in particular I remember should have been answered “the Coxswain”, only I answered with the driver. He thought it was funny anyway.
I should mention the excursion team Marcin, Cecille, Fabrice and there were a few others, one of which I actually had a telephone interview with for Holland America, I got offered the job but I didn’t feel it was the right thing to do at the time.
Anyways so yeah the itinerary switched and the ship reposition to a place called Kiel, in Germany which involved a transit of the Kiel canal for the first time. It also meant transiting the English Channel for the first time onboard a cruise ship. The ship would then cruise alternating itineraries from Kiel to the Baltics and then to the Norwegian Fjords.
There were a bunch of ports I visited for the first time including, Flam, Gudvangen, Geiranger, Hellesylt, Bergen, Tromso, Honningsvag, and Longyearbyen, Molde, Andalsnes all in Norway. Also we visited Stockholm & Visby (Sweden), Tallin (Estonia), St. Petersberg (Russia), and I can’t remember where else we cruised to on those Baltic cruises. In addition I was lucky enough to visit Reykjavik in Iceland during my time based up north.
So this was another incredible experience and Norway remains today one of my favourite countries and I’ve spent a good number of summers luckily cruising Norwegian waters and the tiny coastal towns to huge cities.
Festival was a long time ago now, of course there was a girl during my time onboard who for the sake of this will remain anonymous, and then there was Andy. Who come the end of him being onboard became a total nightmare. I was glad to see the back of him come the end of it all and that left me in temporary charge. I really enjoyed the challenge and to be honest
It was a huge step, and there were ups and downs, some massive run in’s but I was lucky in a way I made good friends with the captain onboard and still managed to piss off the hotel manager who was a total prick. I also upset the inventory officer onboard, to be honest that was the funniest thing, during a hotel meeting I’d asked for some stores/supplies about four times and just been ignored so I brought it up in a meeting. It didn’t go down too well, but it got my point across.
There was another incident which happened minutes before we set sail from Kiel, to the Baltics, there was a massive commotion down the passenger corridor where the photo lab was. We just saw our onboard security and some German Police haul off a couple of passengers and a couple of cases. We later found out that the cases were full of drugs.
Anyone who has ever been to Norway knows it’s not a place to go out and get blind drunk, but sometimes you also just have to think, you know what I may never be back here. In the port of Honningsvag there is a bar/pub called Noden Pub, and this place is awesome, full of football memorabilia all the locals are a good crack and generally it’s recommended for an overnight or a late sail, though I’m sure we had an overnight.
I spent about 16 months onboard the Flamenco and I had a few clashes with people, but it depends on who you ask regarding my next statement. It is possible to stay too long on a ship, and for me, at my age I did exactly that. I think my first contract I stayed around 11 months, the usual at the time was 6-8 months.
One of my favourite times was during dry dock in Genoa, which was the only time in 10 years I experienced dry dock. I did so with one of the new photographers Martin, who was a Belgian photographer who, during drydock introduced me to Leffe (yes another Beer).
We drank, we ate Pizza, we didn’t do a lot else with the ship in drydock if I’m honest, the ship and Genoa were fucking cold though, it was December. I remember they was no smoking onboard anywhere as they were in all of the ballast tanks, and some jackass was smoking onboard. I went to speak to the captain but nothing got done because seemingly the engineers were Greek too.
One of the memories I do hold was actually being asked to go into the drydock to photograph the ship and the works which were being carried out.
The storm which we encountered was not uncommon, I mean the ship was tiny, I’ve said that already it got tossed around the open sea like a tin can. I recall once sailing off Iceland the seas so rough that the aft lifted out of the water and you could hear the props spinning around in the air.
We were warned ahead of the cruise to expect bad weather for the duration and sure enough we got exactly that. Working on a small ship you sort of get used to the conditions and everything that comes along with it.
Our equipment at the time were Konica machines if I remember rightly, we had a film processor and a printer. The printer was a huge machine, and this was the main thing that was damaged we lost a couple of cartidges which again were not small, and the printer separated and the alignment was then out too. The lab was a mess the chemicals went everywhere.
In the end we had an engineer come out but it was a massive disaster, we even ended up taking films ashore to process them. I can’t even remember if the engineer may have had to sail with us to the next port.
9/11, nobody will forget that date, nobody that was old enough anyway. The ship at the time I think was on a late season Baltic cruise, and we were leaving Tallinn. The library was tiny, but it was the only place in the lounges that had a TV and we had a huge charter of Americans onboard who sat glued to the TV for hours. It was a horrible harrowing experience though and I’ll certainly never forget it.
I started the following year back in the Baltics and Fjords and If I remember rightly I disembarked the ship which must have been sometime around July I think. I didn’t want to fly so opted to get the train from Germany, back through Holland, and then jumped a ferry home from Rotterdam.
**I said earlier about coming back to something which I’ll write about separately in a separate blog, afternoon breaks.
CCL (Carnival Cruise Lines) – my working experience
What can I recall from a couple of days which happened 13 years ago, well I wish I had spent my time more wisely but one of the best things is actually arriving into NYC.
We all woke early in time to see our arrival, sailing down the Hudson, I remember it was cold, it was windy, thankfully it was dry though. We were flanked by fire ships and so many smaller boats as we arrived. It was amazing to see the statue of liberty in person, something I’d dreamed about since I was a kid. The twin towers which at the time really to me weren’t as significant as I’d never heard of them and the Empire state all completed the skyline of this famous city.
So once the ship was eventually cleared I can’t remember how long it took but I seem to remember walking for miles, we took a walk through Hells kitchen, and through times square, took a cab ride and used the phrase “follow that cab”, missed our transfer to the airport, made a mad dash via the Bronx to the airport.
Thankfully we just about made our flight to Miami. I should elaborate on the we really, the purpose of the two weeks we spent on the Victory was to train. We were now being distributed amongst the fleet of ships into service. Now some were sent to ships pretty much straight from training others were lucky enough to spend a week in a hotel, playing golf, hanging out on south beach, and just generally having fun.
There were a group of about 6 or 7 of us who were stay and after the first couple of days it got smaller and smaller before there were just three of us left who were all joining the Carnival Triumph. The Triumph was the third of the destiny class ships and the second to be delivered, the Victory was the third and newest and the Destiny was the first in its class.
Anyway so embarkation day came and it was a real blur, the ship was huge and although you would think I’d know it inside and out from being on the Victory we had no idea about crew areas. There were about 13 decks and some were passenger (pax) cabins only, some had pax and crew cabins, some had no cabins. It was crazy as it comes and took some getting used to.
There are loads of parts to getting used to being a seafarer (I deliberately avoided the use of the word seamen). Sure you have the mental aspect of working at sea, but there is the mental aspect of a prolonged period of time away from friends and family too. Inevitably at some point you will suffer from sea-sickness, and the home sick will get you at some point too.
You usually become quite a close-knit bunch, almost family like.
My first roommate I won’t ever forget he was such a funny guy, from Bali, and called Dewa, Dewa Arsa. It’s funny though because I worked at sea for around 10 years, covered more than a ship per year but I still remember him and a bunch of people who I’m no longer in touch with from the Triumph.
Likewise it’s disappointing that I’m not in touch with as many of the team from the Victory as I’d like either.
There were some funny memories and it was a great team on the victory, but there were some also not-so-funny at the time, but hilarious looking back memories.
I had to dress as a pirate which was one of the jobs I actually enjoyed, it’s quite a funny thing to do though after 6 months it got a bit old. The pirate outfit varied across the ships but in this instance it was a Captain hook outfit, though when I was 18 I was still pretty baby faced so the beard had to be drawn on.
I actually really enjoyed most of the first month aside from the homesickness that almost saw me quit inside of two weeks being on the Triumph, but that’s when the friend-like family rally round you. They make you want to stay.
So a few of the screw ups then well one of the basic ones I think was on a formal night I showed up wearing an informal uniform, I think I was 9 decks up from the lab aswell so back up 9 decks and then back down again.
When I got back to the lab I picked up a video tripod for a still shoot so again back down 4 decks to come back up again, that wasn’t that great an experience at the time but came down to inexperience.
The luckiest one could have cost me a lot of money though. When we were training we had been told time and again, to disconnect our cameras/flashes from the battery packs (the big metz ones) when we put the camera down on the side.
Only the thing was with everything else which was going on, and everything I’d had to take onboard (pardon the pun) I’d started to forget things.
I put my camera down and took a step away from the surface and heard something crash down behind me. I was gutted, it was the last thing I needed or wanted in my first few weeks.
One of the guys picked my camera up and started to check it out, I got so lucky, we were using the US equivalent of an F90, which were good strong bodies. My had pretty much got up dusted itself down and cracked on, with a new filter ring on the Tokina lens it was good to go again.
Like I said, lucky but lesson learned, most of the guys had seen a shutter curtain go, or had someone put their thumb through one. Both are not good.
It was another incident that littered my first couple of weeks but things quickly settled down and thanks to the people around me I bounced back with a few brewskies haha.
Something else which always makes me laugh, is how I mentioned about one particular costume (pirate) earlier, well there were all kind of things like that, pilgrims, pirates, grim reapers and a bunch of other costumes. One of my favourite shoots was the iguanas, which wasn’t a costume but actual iguanas. Now we got off to a pretty rocky start me and one particular iguana, in short he pissed down my bright white, brand new polo shirt, and I dropped him, so would call it evens after that.
It was awesome though, they were heavy little buggers, and every time we arrived in Cozumel this little old Mexican lady would come down the pier carrying this hessian sack which contained the Iguanas.
Most of the passengers were terrified of them but it was good fun seeing their reactions when you bring up this lizard from your side.
Speaking of Mexico, and Cozumel in particular, it was a party place, there was so much to do there, and you could take an island tour, rent a jeep, swim with dolphins, or erm play mini golf downtown. The latter of which I was introduced to and loved it, they gave you a putter, a beer and a radio for when you ran out of beer and they would bring you more.
So we frequently sailed late from Cozumel which meant some kind of parties which in turn meant some kind of Mexican themed shoot, in this case Mexican hats (q another screw up). There was or is an long running thing about getting a roll (like film) count as much as you can onboard ships. Well I came up with an ingenious, or stupid way of increasing my roll count on this shoot. Forget the fact I was half cut I thought I could get a shot of two people together and then spin the camera around and crop in a little tighter and get head shots aswell – I so should not have been shooting this thing.
So yeah I mean Carnival are know as the party ships and they are that for a reason. My time on the Triumph believe it or not was shortlived, I stayed there for about 4 weeks before being transferred again. This I really was not happy about, but I had no idea why either, initially one of the other photographers was supposed to be transferred to the Imagination but with 2 days notice the plans changed and as I quickly learned that’s how things go sometimes.
I said my goodbyes the following Miami and made my way down the pier to the imagination which was alongside also, made my way up the gangway and onboard.
It felt strange though not as homely, it smelled funny, and it looked dated too. Nevertheless I had four months left and I’d have to make it here. After I signed on I don’t remember at what point I met Kim, or any of the other photographers but it soon became evident that I was slap bang in the middle of a split team.
Probably the one person who I can class as a friend was Dindo Reyes, a friend of Dewa’s from the Triumph, they were both lab techs too.
So here was the problem, there was Kim, who was from Korea don’t ask me which side, but either way he was an asshole, a control freak and very much like a dictator. Everything was his way or not at all. I later learned that he had been fired as he got into a fight with a guy he found in bed with his wife. He was re-hired evidently later as he made the company a lot of money or so the rumour went.
So then you have his two sides, there was the Eastern European side, and the South American side, I didn’t get on with any of them, even Sagay (shortened) the Indian photographer who was so ignorant it was unreal. He would just grunt and yell things that was about it.
When I talk positively about my time with carnival it is only from the first two months, the last 3 (I think it was Jan when I came off), were a nightmare. I spent little time with my so called team. For the first month on the imagination I worked, slept and went ashore alone and it was horrible.
I didn’t set foot in the crewbar once.
I’ve skipped something I should point out too, when I first came onboard I’d had morning duties on the triumph, I was then through immigration on both ships then I had to go to the safety briefing. In the safety briefing I fought to stay awake but having been awake since 6am my chin kept dropping and hitting my chest.
So I was sent to see the safety officer, not because I hadn’t answered a question but because some jumped up Italian officer wanted to get one over. So on I went and I got screamed at for five minutes because I couldn’t identify a fire extinguisher, and then threatened to be disembarked in the next port.
He sent me away and told me to find out and come back the next day (at sea) and tell him, I was in pieces when I left his office, I’m just glad I held it together until I left, but it was horrible.
So after a month, pretty much in hiding, I decided to cave and head out to the crew bar with some of the shop staff I’d become friends with and the pursers too (Tanya, Anoushka and Juaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan would kill me if they didn’t get a mention).
They were pretty much the people that I then started hanging out with away from work and to be fair time started to go by a lot quicker.
Thats all for now – TBC
Planes, Trains, Ships and Automobiles 