Cruise Ship Diaries Part 20

.I disembarked the ship in Miami and flew British Airways back to London where my parents picked me up at Heathrow, and around 9 hours it was one of the shorter flights I'd end up taking over the year.

My first contract on the Coral had been a real mixed bag and burn out was defintely starting to creep in towards the end, its funny because most other crew think you have one of the best jobs on the ship. You get off every time the ship is in port and you go on all the excursions and see more of the places than any other crew member. However once you are locked into one itinery you will go to the same place in each port every cruise, also how far you can go is always limited by what time you have to be back at the ship.

When I'm off filming an excursion I don't have to worry about the time as if we are running late the ship has to wait and I'm in no way responsible as I'm still working, if I was out with friends and we were late, depending on our lateness we'd either get our laminex (shore pass card) taken off us as punishment or if you were really late and missed the ship you had to make your on way to the next port of call where you would 99% be sent home by the captain.

After the initial wow factor of a place fades you realise you'll be filming pretty much the same thing every week and it was usually the excursion that had the most guests on it. Also on the rare occasions you do have a port where your not filming you cannot travel to far afield as there is the pesky allboard times to adhere too.

The joke about sleeping for a week when you get back from your first contract is fairly true because the fatigue of six months with no days off builds and builds and then on your last cruise, your are trying to do your regular job (which is still tiring), enjoy the social life as much as possible and then take a transatlantic flight while still drunk.

This was also my first experience of jet lag and my first few days back was sleeping, TV & video games, in fact it was about a week before I even caught up with any of my friends purely because you need that week to decompress and adjust to 'real' life after ship life.

You find out who your real friends are as they are the ones who will rip the piss out of you 'oh, i didn't know you worked on a cruise ship?' or 'while you were swimming with dophins last thursday I went to B&Q and walked my dog!' and treat you as normal, but there were a few who simply disengaged from me completely. I had been so burned out from the contract mentally and physically that I hadn't even asked or cared about where I might be going for my next contract, at the time I still had not made my mind up about even doing another contract.

The time began to pass and I was happy enough with the little things in life that you miss on ships like going out at night and not having to be home before my house leaves! Also the fact you could go out for drinks and not worry about being fired in the morning and the absolute luxury of sleeping in your own bed and not being woken up by your crazed roommate at 4a.m whose brought half the crew bar back to your cabin to play poker and blare Indian house party music! Yes, the little things like sleep were massively important.

There I was enjoying doing as little as possible and I'd been keeping up with friends from my first contract like Liam & Amanda, and Amanda had sent me an emails from her 2nd contract on the Sun Princess out in Australia, the pictures & places looked awesome and everyone looked genuinely happy in them. She said how different it was from the Coral and that the photo team was great and how relaxed and different the experience was from the Coral. Nice, but I still hadn't decided if I was going back for another contract and I doubt i'd be lucky enough to get that amazning ship and itinerary.

A few weeks later I had another email from Amanda excitedly telling me that I was down for the Sun as their current junior guy Ryan's replacement, again she reiterated how great the experience was and that she couldn't believe I was considering not coming back! But the clincher was when she said 'Don't you know where the ship is going?' 'Around Australia right?' 'Yeah for a but but then its heads over to Asia fora while and then you get a 75 day world cruise!'

Although I hadn't got the promotion I'd been promised I had been given the next best thing! A world cruise is mana from heaven for a videographer, it means every time you go ashore you will be in a different port of call and we would have 75 days (roughly two and a half months) of this.

I hurriedly went on the web to research the itinerary and any lingering doubts I had were gone as I would spend a few months alternating between long 18-21 day Australia & Asia cruises before starting the world cruise. That would start in Sydney, Australia with a quick run though Australia & New Zealand before heading over to Malyasia and Thailand. From there we'd cross over to Alaska (but only for 3 ports!) and then head over to Victoria & Vancouver in Canada. From there onto Russia briefly before continuing on to Asia, here we'd visit the Great Wall of China, Hong Kong & various ports in Japan before rounding the pacifc back to New Zealand again before finally going back to here we started in Sydney.

Add to that I had friends onboard from the Coral and it was a no-brainer!

On the next cruise diaries - Here comes the Sun!