Neil Gregory
Founding member
Bio
Film and TV obsessive / World Traveller / Gamer / Camerman & Editor / Guitarist
Stories (118/0)
Oh Canada!!! Saturday Nights in Victoria
The single best thing about our 7 day roundtrip cruise from Seattle was that every Saturday at 5pm we docked in the beautiful city of Victoria, Canada and had the night off, of course the downside was we only got into port at 5pm and sailed at midnight taking the short trip over the border into the States docking in the early hours in Seattle.
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Wander
The sad tale of 'John' the 2nd American videographer - Part 1
By now you know my feelings on 'Chad' my American junior videog, he was a decent videog but as a person a complete piece of shit & self centred arsehole so whats bettter than having one of these guys to deal with.. how about two!!!
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Humans
Filming Elevator Idol & Where the Dancers live?
With the Alaska rule in full effect I was stuck on permanent night shifts fiming the onboard events and bar the scenic crusising once a week this was all I had to film for 6 months, so I could either half ass it like many senior videogs or go all in.
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Wander
All nighters and an average week on the Star Princess
There was a lot of drinking on the Star, I mean after barely surviving Spring Break in Mexico on the Sapphire I thought Alaska again would be easier on my liver. What I didn't take into account was that I was working my arse off on the Sapphire whereas on the Star the amount I had to film was much less and we had a much stronger photo team with great management in Cassie, JP & Lara the South Africian Mafia.
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Wander
Seattle turnaround days & looking for Kurt Cobain's house
I was really excited about our turnaround port for the season being Seattle as I was a full on grunge phase in my late teens and Seattle was the home of grunge music and Jimi Hendrix, our only issue was that we docked on sundays every week and had to be back onboard around 2pm and nothing if note really opened early on unless you just wanted to get breakfast near the Farmers market.
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Wander
Welcome to the Wardy and issues with 'The American'
As I've mentioned the Star had two bars the regular crew bar and an officers ward room and the rules on the Star meant staff such as myself could go to the Wardy (as it was known). Beyond the clear ship class issues this created it was nice to have a usually quietier bar where you could have a conversation with someone without having to yell at them over eastern european techno. A big issue with the crew bar is that many crew will sit in the bar by language or department and their respective mafias, over there the Italian officers hitting on any girl that moved with most old enough to be there grandfathers! Then you had the Indian and Fillipino mafias who kept the ship running, indeed on most ships those two nationalites make up the bulk of a ships compliment.
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Journal
The Swine Flu Cruise & the Catalina Golf Buggy Mixer!
A year into this current pandemic (Feb 2021) I'd actually worked through another less deadly one back in 2009/10 on the Star. Handover had been completed and I was about to start my first cruise as acting senior videograper on a 7 day Mexico cruise roundtrip from LA, having spent 3 months bringing up the numbers on the same run on the Sapphire I was fairly confident that if I'd did everything the same this first cruise on the Star we'd hit our video target and I'd make a good first impression.
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Longevity
A cabin with a view &'The American':The first days of the Star Princess
I joined the Star Princess in San Francisco already three months into a contract so at the halfway point I was starting again, only this time as acting senior videographer! The Star's regular turnaround port was LA but I had joined a few days earlier so I could do a handover with the outgoing senior Bevan a Kiwi guy who had just broke all the company records cruising in Antartica some months before on the Star, ironically this was the ship my first senior on the Sapphire Rich had been transhipped from to the Sapphire and here a few months later I was on his ship as a senior.
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Journal
Transhipping Take 2: & my last days on the Sapphire!
With a week to go on the Sapphire I was deeply depressed that I was going to be stuck in Alaska again working under someone with less experience than me. I didn't get a promotion after my 2nd contract (where I'll grudingly admit my senior was right) but I had worked hard on the Sapphire and our sales of around 13 or 14 DVD's had improved to around a 7 day Mexico record (at the time) of 60+ DVD's sold. We did break a few rules at the time to pad out our sales but at the end of the day the companies main reason for existing was money.
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Journal
Transhipping Take 1. & A trip to Stone Island
I'd really enjoyed my time so far on the Sapphire but from day 1 onboard I knew I'd be transhipping when the ship repositioned to Alaska due to their new state law concerning non-US citizens working ashore. Rich had left & with Jason the new senior onboard I'd be departing within the next two weeks but as usual we had heard nothing from head office on where I was going next and as I'd been working stupid hours I was encouraged to have a day of in port.
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Wander
A new senior, The HD nightmare & lab parties gone wrong
My senior Rich only had one cruise left and his replacement (yet another Canadian videog) Jason was on a cruise early for a handover as he'd been off work for a while to get married and we were in the midst of beginning the transition to HD onboard. Looking back it showed the company had no idea what HD was or how to implement it, but at the time there was a still an emerging format war between HD DVD & Blu-ray with neither established yet. Although we were eager to get to grips with the new technology we couldn't actually produce HD-DVD or Bluray content beecause we didn't have HD replication burners or even the software to master HD DVD's onboard.
By Neil Gregory3 years ago in Journal