SHIP-LIFE

Many of you have been asking about ship-life for us entertainers and how we do things like laundry and so on, so today I thought I’d tell you a few bits and bobs about it.

As Guest Entertainers, we have passenger status. On some ships, this means a Passenger Cabin, on others it means an Officers Cabin. The cabins are always very nice, although sometimes, they are inside cabins with no windows-however, I find they help me sleep as the darkness is VERY dark.

We have a Cabin Steward looking after us who cleans the cabin and takes any laundry you have to be dry-cleaned or washed/ironed for you-for a very small charge. Mine is Dolores on this trip and she’s lovely but oh my goodness, she works so hard bless her-such long hours. The way it works on ships is that the stewards train on the job and as they progress, they become Officers Stewards like Dolores, then after a while, she’ll become a Passenger Steward.

Some of the stewards, waiters and other crew are away from home on very long contracts-some 9 months or more, bless them-but they send money home religiously for their families. Most are from the Philippines or India, but there are people working on this ship from over 65 different countries, so it’s a very diverse culture and all their religious beliefs are taken into account and respected.

There is a Chaplain on board for anyone to talk to who is feeling low and they have a strong care-team looking after everyone as well.

We don’t have any other duties on the ship other than to perform, so the rest of the time, we are free to roam around like a passenger-although there is an expectation from the ships that you must represent the ship at all times, so must always be approachable, friendly and nicely dressed. That’s why some Guest Entertainers stay on their cabins most of the time lol!!

There is an Officers Laundrette which is self-service and really well equipped with big washing machines, driers, ironing boards and clever safety irons which operate on timers and automatically turn off if not moved within a minute. This is where I go to do my laundry-usually once a week or thereabouts. To be honest, on a sea-day, it gives me something to do and kills a few hours. I love the smell of fresh laundry coming back into the cabin. Little things eh?

We’re not allowed scented candles in the cabin-not even if they remain unlit. No candles…end of. So I bring one of those little bottles of scented liquid that has the sticks coming out of it and that keeps the cabin feeling fresh.

There’s really good air-conditioning in the cabin as well, so I can get the temperature exactly as I want it.

The bathrooms on ships are notoriously small and the shower is teeny, but does the job.

We can eat anywhere, including the Officers Mess, but I tend to stick to the buffet restaurant as you can go there whenever you like, any time of day or night-it’s open 24 hours.

There’s a poolside burger/hotdog grill as well, so once a week I have a treat and get a freshly-made burger and chips. There’s also a pizzeria but on this ship there’s a small charge for that-on other ships it’s free, but like I say, all ships are different.

Up at the buffet there are several drinks stations where you can help yourself to everything for free. There are umpteen different teas/coffee/hot chocolate etc and about four different soft drinks from a machine-on here it’s iced tea, lemonade, orange juice and cranberry cocktail (which is yummy and my favourite). There’s also an ice machine. The trouble is, with no tea-making facilities in the cabins, it’s a fair old hike to just grab a coffee, so my thermal mug is worth the world and keeps it hot until I get back to the cabin. I notice several seasoned passengers have them as well-and in fact, they sell them in the shops on the ships as well.

There’s also a free ice-cream station in the buffet as well, which does a roaring trade throughout the day.

We have TV in our rooms but the signal can be hit and miss so sometimes we lose some of the channels, but there are usually about 20 to flick through at any given time, plus some music and information channels as well, oh and also the ‘live-cam’ view from the bridge, which in a windowless room is great as it shows me what the weather is like-overcast and grey at the moment.

There’s a fully-equipped hospital on board including an operating theatre. There is also a mortuary. When you’re travelling on something with a combined population between passengers and crew of a small town (on average about 5000), there are bound to be times when these services are needed, sadly-particularly if the passenger-list is older.

Staying in touch with family and friends is so important when you’re away as you do feel isolated, but from a ship, it can be wildly expensive. However, we have access to the crew wifi package and it’s just changed in a rolling-programme across P&O/Cunard to one that is SO much better (cheaper!) I can’t tell you!!

They now have two packages on offer: one is ‘Connections’ where for $22.50 you can connect to the following apps for 28 days….

….so you can leave them on permanently for less than a dollar a day (don’t ask me why Cunard…that great British institution uses dollars onboard-I have no idea). So I tend to keep this on my mobile and it is SO fantastic to have it on permanently and not worry, I can’t tell you.

Then they have a ‘megabytes’ package for general internet usage….I bought 300 megabytes for $7.50 when I joined-just for my blog and to check emails…I still have 120 megabytes left….but this one, you have to get on, get off and log out to not waste any.

 

If I need any bottles of water, I can get them from the Mess or crew bar for a fraction of what the passengers pay. If I need snacks or any other bits and pieces, there’s a crew ‘supermarket’ as well, which is very cheap and has most things you may run out of, plus luxury items like hairdryers/straighteners or for the men-electric razors lol!

If we want to go on one of the organised trips, we pay like everyone else, but get crew discount-or of we volunteer to be an escort (counting passengers on and off) then we get to go on that trip for free. I’ve done that many times and actually have been escort on some trips where passengers have been taken ill or had accidents, which was stressful to say the least, but it was good to be able to help.

I thought we were in Vigo tomorrow but we’re in Porto…I thought I’d made a mistake, but the Commodore announced that due to some sort of strike in Spain, they’d changed the itinerary. That’s one of the benefits of a ship-the safety aspect. If there’s trouble anywhere, the ship can just sail past it. I remember being on a ship when that madman in Oslo was causing carnage-we’d been due to dock at Oslo that morning but sailed on, ironically passing the islands amongst which was the one where he was shooting nearly 100 youngsters, bless them.

Security and safety on a ship are paramount and strictly adhered to. NOBODY gets on ship without the ship expecting them and knowing who they are and what they are there to do. Even when we go ashore in Southampton, it’s just as strict and when we get back laden with shopping, it all still has to go through the scanners. They take no chances whatsoever. It always feels safe on a ship, I have to say.

So there you have it-message me any other questions if I haven’t answered them all in your comments and I’ll answer them as best I can.

So the ship has all the comforts of home.

Except it’s not home.

IT’S NICE TO GO TRAVELLING-FRANK SINATRA