Friday, April 16, 2010

On the other side...

The hump has been ascended. Kris and I are officially over halfway through the Carnival Valor. There certainly has been a lot lately swirling around this ship. Some good, some bad.

The Good - My showband is currently in the midst of an overall in personnel which will effectively leave behind the most disgruntled and unpleasant of our band. As of today, our guitar player is no more. He was an awesome player in his own right but very moody, very hard to talk to and essentially had a complaint every time you did. Our current MD, who needs to go (he would tell you this) leaves a week from Sunday. His replacement comes this upcoming sunday. Apparently he is a free-flowing relaxed piano player from Detroit whos been with the company forever but is now assuming the MD (musical director) position for the first time. Our trumpet player has only good things to say about him. Our new sax player will arrive a week from Sunday. Like I said a whole overhaul of personnel.Cha-cha-changes!! Its a good thing. Kris and I also celebrated her 30th on the 7th and it turned out to be a great day. The afternoon spent on a gorgeous beach in Isla Roatan, a mid-day massage for her, a trip to the Supper-Club, which is our on-board fancy eating spot. You pay for it, but it is worth every penny. And a night capped off with "Moulin Rouge". Apparently I scored major husband points and Kris started off her 30's right. Yay!!!

The bad - Kris's team is not nearly in the good kind of shape that she would prefer. The other two incumbents on her team drink too much, sleep through too much and in general don't do anything to make Kris's job easier. To make matters worse, and maybe this should go under the ugly, an unfortunate incident involving her other team member, got him fired and no host is coming to replace him. So now her and the other two guys are operating a 4 host schedule with a 3 person team. Thank God her ACD (assisant cruise director) is on top of his job and genuinely cares about Kris and is trying his best to take care of her. I think it all came at a really bad week too 'cause on top of losing a host Kris is host-on-duty so shes already spent and exhausted from the usual haul of work that comes with that position and now she has to pick up more slack for a missing team member.


So there you go. It should also be noted that our new dance cast has been much more receptive to Kris and I then the old one. We have good hopes for them for the next 3 months. And we're more then excited to have familiar faces on board :) There's more good for you.

Lots of love from your high sea friends!!