Heather had been lucky enough to do a helicopter shoot of the canal which we were all excited by the potential of the footage, however when we saw the footage it was extremely shaky and there wasn't much of it. This was disappointing because the plan was to make that footage into another DVD that we could package and sell as additional content, the bad news was because hiring a helicopter is expensive it took months before head office gave us permission to try it again and I must have bugged the shit out of Heather about getting the chance to do it the next time.

As had been established Panama was the longest day of the cruise, not bceause you would be working the whole time but because of the sheer amount of hours you would be off the ship. My old roommate Raj and my new roommate Morne were mates who had worked together before and this time the schedule rotated for all 3 of us to be ashore in Panama that day.

The world of travel is becoming increasingly influential and rewarding. Earlier, travel meant going to a particular destination on holidays, away from the bustling cities, school or work life, relaxing the mind and body. However, travel has come to mean so much more now. Travel is not only a medium to relax now, in fact it’s the complete opposite especially for travel bloggers. Travel bloggers visit different places, experience the culture, and then instead of unwinding at the end of the day, they come back to their lodges and upload videos, photos and content related to their day.

I will freely admit I know next to nothing about the Panama Canal before I actually stepped foot on it, and to be honest I still do not know as much as I would have liked to have known at the time.

With a rich history of colonalism and actual pirates of the Carribean, Cartagena, Colombia was something of a mixed bag when we visited on the Coral. In England at least at the time Colombia was famous for being a dangerous drug capitial and for being the country where a natinonal football player was shot dead after scoring an own goal in the world cup!

Starting a new life in a different country can be a scary thought, especially when it comes to adapting to a job in another environment. And even if you’re not actually moving to another country, but you’re just at the beginning of your career, you’re probably pretty nervous either way. In Australia, they make it easier for people who really are keen on working. For example, there are numerous reasons that employers from Down Under give you, in order to think about working in a restaurant.

ewAruba is a constituent country still ruled by the Kingdom of Holland and based in the southern Caribbean sea, along with Curacao & Bonaire they are collectively known as the ABC islands. It is a small island only measuring 20 miles from northwest to southeast and was my first port of call in the Caribbean but everyones biggest complaint was tiny amount of time we acutally had in port. We would offically dock at 6am and all aboard time was 1pm for a 2pm sailaway, and thats a 1pm all aboard if your a crew member and as such you also have to wait until the gangways are clear of guests before you can get off the ship yourself. These people were on vacation and most of them were not getting up at 6a.m in the morning!

Okay the long awaited chapter of my life I need to share. It's really a struggle as well as a blessing to work on board a cruise ship. Sometimes holding up to 7000 passengers at any given time, so you can imagine that we as crew come across some very interesting situations. Which leads me to this chapter.

There are so many misconceptions about what life is like on a cruise ship and how to come about working in the industry. I have been traveling since early 2013 and have many experiences that I feel will enlighten people. Plus, one day it’ll be a huge thing to tell my kids. To see my experiences and also so I can remember half of the things I went through as a teen into my early twenties – the fun, sadness, ups and downs.

In Part 6 I talked about some of the onboard events we had to cover (or as I later learned didn’t ‘have’ too) but on the Corals run probably the best event the entertainment staff ran was called Dancing Through The Decades (which you can see in the above link) which spanned the 1950’s - 70’s and also involved 3 costume changes for the cruise staff throughout the night. Starting with a 50’s rock n’ roll vibe, they’d be dressed up in outfits directly stolen from ‘Grease’. What I loved about the events was the character work that the cruise staff would put into it, you had the geeks and the jocks and an Elvis competition where three unwitting members of the audience would be pulled up onstage given an Elvis wig and blow up guitar and have to give there best Elvis to win a $2 bottle of shampoo (cruise staff joke not mine!).

Each cruise Heather would make our schedule from the ships F&E (Food & Beverage), this document would list all the days of the cruise and she would circle what events she thought or we would be required to film. As a senior videographer you can generally pick what you film in conjunction with the photo manager and entertainment departments, as a junior videographer you just get told what to film, though generally with a good senior you’ll rotate the events so that you don’t film the same events every cruise. Also the schedule has to take into account how long the port day filming will be as well, if you are going to be up at 7a.m and get back to the ship around 7p.m then you will need time to eat, shower and power nap before editing the footage you’ve just filmed that day. This also means if you’ve been on the long excursion you shouldn’t be filming the onboard events that evening, although as you'll see later this does happen!

Hey guys, so as I am traveling quite a lot for work now, and as traveling is my work, I must deal with being away from home and loved ones more than I would like. So, I came online for tips to deal with homesickness and wanted to share my experiences with people going through the same situations. If you are traveling for the pure fun of it, homesickness will be very rare, or none existent if you are going for a short holiday.