No sleep till LA:My first cruise on the Sapphire: Part 1

Our 7 day cruise would start from LA, but a fairly shit part of LA where there was not really many places you could get in the time you had ashore bar the now standard shuttlebus to the nearest mall. Therefore my inital excitement at being in LA once a week quickly diminished purely because we didn't have enough time to get anywhere of inportance before we had to go back to the ship. Also we were told don't go further than this block north and this block east (I think) as they were sketchy neighbourhoods, it seemed crazy to me that you could walk a few metres and be in a dangerous place.

We usually ventured about as far as the food trucks for ironically probably more authentic breakfast burritos than we'd get on the ships tours in mexicos and there was one good restaurant a few blocks from the ship that did great takeaway subs. My one solo venture into the 'dodgy' part was to get a haircut, the place I walked into I was the only non-latino and no one seemed to speak English. They got the gist that I wanted it all off and I proceeded to get the closest shave on a haircut I think I've ever had in my life.

As you can see from the above video there wasn't much in the way of scenery or epicness to film leaving from an industrial port in LA, but this was one of the first times that both videogs double shot the sailaway. Rich concentrated on the scenics and architecture shots of the ship and I filmed the dancing and waving at the sailaway party. The Sapphire was my first grand class ship and had 2670 PAX onboard whereas the Sun only had just over 2000.

What made my experience unique on the Sapphire was that they held the sailway parties on the back of the ship so the event took place over 3 different decks and the band would play ontop of a covered over pool. It differently gave a different vibe to the proceedings but I think the key reason was that it crammed more people into a smaller space and by proxy made the event look much busier than it would have been on the ususal main upper deck pool area.

Once the deck party is finished and we'd sailed out into the open sea we'd usually stop filming and start edting, but as our sailaway time was a little bit earlier I also liked to hang around outside for a bit introdcuing myself to the PAX and plugging the video while also waiting for the sun to go down to we could get those nice scenic shots to end the video. This was probably the start of the way I would go onto edit almost all sailaways for the rest of my princess career. Establishing shots of the port and initial shots of us sailing away, I'd then cut over to the party shots and and throw in a few scenics once in a while to break up the dancing and waving, then once the party was over I'd switch music to a mellow acoustic song and do nice slow scenic shots of the sun going down. Then of course it would be a mad rush to turn the edit around so that it would be on TV as soon as possible, at my best I could have it up in a few hours and the very latest first thing the next morning.

On my first sea day it was my first shipboard event with my friend Collette from the Coral shooting yet another Martini Demo, the difference here was Rich the senior was double shooting it with me and he had planned in advance so he knew what drinks were being made and made graphics showing ingredients onscreen that I had previously not thought to do myself or seen anyone else do.

The main thing I hate about the above video is how shitty the slow motion was because at the time I knew nothing abotu different frame rates and retiming and I would simply slow the speed of the clip in Final Cut Pro and be happy with that. It was always good doing a Martini Demo with Collette as she was great on camera, always funny, always plugged the DVD for me and introduced me to the crowd.

As I mentioned Rich was the first senior I worked with who was not averse to ship events and actively seemed to enjoy shooting them and on the Sapphire 'Pool Games' (see above) was one of the biggest events we had. On the Coral or Sun Pool Games rarelt took place and even when it did there was little to no interest around the ship for it. On the Sapphire it was massive the decks would be lined with crowds, the pool cleared and, the deputy cruise director would host and we would double shoot it with a underwater camera in the pool so we could cross cut the action.

Rich had even created an opening graphic for Pool Games and found a great piece of music that was reminicsent of Back to the Future, as Rich was fairly tall he would stand in the middle of the pool with the underwater housing and hope the PAX didn't crash into him or the camera, we'd defintely not get away with that due to health and safety these days.

On the same day we'd also have Bar Wars which is another drinks demo but outside on the open deck and again Rich had made a great intro that riffed off Star Wars that was also played up by the cruise staff

It would be formal night on the same day which meant the Captains Welcome Party shoot again with two cameras, Rich would set up to shoot the speeches and I'd work around the atrium filming PAX getting their picture taken at the backdrops, it was still a fairly simple edit which I think Rich edited most of the time as I would be out on tour the next day.

Finally I had my first tour ashore in Mexico which was in Puerto Vallarta and you can see from the above video the great graphic templates that Rich had made for each port of call. Little did I know I'd be doing the same tour almost every week in PV because a former Princess photo manager had sey up shop as a tour operator in PV and would refuse to let any Princess staff on his excursions which severely limited our options for film in that port.

Thankfully the most popular tour was one of the few that we could film - a tequila factory and mexican fiesta your. We'd walk around a tequila factory and get told all about the process of making tequila, before drinking ourselves into a stupour before midday by having around 10 sample shots. After the booze came lunch and we'd watch a traditional mexican folkloric show which meant a quick lunch as I'd have to film that as well.

As it was a 7 day cruise it also meant that we'd usually have a ship event to film every night and on the same day as PV it would be Country & Western night, which bizarrely was dead on this ship despite the other events being much more well attended.

This chapter was originally going to cover my first cruise on the Sapphire and it was only around this point I realised this chapter would be way too long as I'd forgotten how much we crammed into one week during the Mexico run.

On the next cruise diaries - My first cruise on the Sapphire:Part 2, featuring Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and even more onboard events!