The last days of the Sun Princess

This will an epic article that closes the door on my time on the Sun Princess with quite a few links to some previously unposted videos from my last cruise.

My last cruise (if my booze addled memeory serves me right) was a 12 day roundtrip from Sydney through the pacific islands, Fiji and New Caledonia so it was fitting my last sailaway of the contract was from Sydney, one of the best in the world to film.

It had a great sunset and to be faie to my senior he didn't throw any extra work at me and indeed we were out partying quite a lot on my final cruise.

One of the stops was Isle of Pines in New Caledonia where my tour (if you can call it that was basically a day long beach stop, though just what you need after 6 months at sea! I hungout on the beach, did way way too many timelapse shots and seemed to put almost every PAX on the beach in the video. It's not the best video looking back as you can see below

There are too many zooming out shots for absoultqly no reason and more shots of people walking than a Lord of the Rings film, I usually hate these type of shoots as its slightly sketchy having to go up to people on the beach, explain who you are and then get them to wave and plau up for the camera. thankfully because of the world cruise most PAX onboard knew who I was and would even greeet me by name as I filmed them.

I always enjoyed deck parties as firstly it was a great workout and I'd be a drenched wreck by the end of the night, but it was just as much fun to film as it was to take part. Also you'd usually pre-game the event in the crew bar / or open deck bar (depending on who was working) with the cruise staff to get a buzz going before the event started.

Now I'm not saying if you jump ahead to the 5.30 mark in the above video you'll definitely see me on camera attempting to dance, but you'll never know if you don't click!

Part of the reason for the extra hyper party was that Captains son was onboard and was getting married the next day onboard which was announced to the crowd, the Captain then got onstage and did some karaoke. God knows how we were in any state to film that wedding the next day!

Its far to say we were pretty bladdered that night and my shirt had definitely lost some buttons through the carnage. At the end of the evening after the party dances, games and two sets by the band the crowd was still on the dance floor and the cruise staff kept the party going for another few hours till well past 2am, thats what you get with a younger Aussie crowd onboard!

My last port of call was the island of Lifou in New Caledonia where I got to hang out with Dazza from the gym who had been onboard 3 months longer than me and was also finishing at the end of the cruise

One great story from this day was that being a typical Aussie Dazza was not scared by anything and on the way back to ship we saw a brownish / yellow snake zigzagging its way across the path blocking our exit to get back to the ship!

Not one to wait Dazza just walked up and jumped over the snake, the snake moved off and it was only later we noticed a little puncture mark and some blood coming a small wound on his leg. 'Perhaps the snake nipped you as you jumped over it mate? I helpfully suggested, 'still you'd know better than me with every other animal trying to kill you in Oz right? Dazza laughed it off and we went back to the ship.

As we were having lunch someone mentioned about the wound on his leg and from there the windup took on a life of its own 'looks like a snakebite to me mate' said Matt one of the cadets 'You look a bit rough mate, you sure you weren't bit?' someone else queried? About an hour later I had the angry and scary Spa manager on the phone 'Neil, did you convince Darryl he was bit by a snake...' 'Well, not just me... and I couldn't stop laughing!

He probably caught his leg on a twig or on something when we were snorkelling and didn't notice, also the reason he looked and felt like shit was that we'd all been on it hard at the deck party the night before and he was dehydrated and hungover. Still good windup though!

My 2nd last night onboard and last formal night of course meant a trip to the steakhouse with the spa, hitting the Champagne Waterfall party before heading to the Shootin Stars nightclub lounge. Watch the above video for way too many appearances of yours truly hammered and trying to dance..this is why I don't dance.

Then there was a secret production team birthday party for one of the prodcution managers and fellow Classy Boner memeber Alejandro and it was that secret I couldn't even tell you where the party took place.

By all accounts I had a pretty great 2nd to last night onboard and a nice and easy last day, doing 4 hours in the photo gallery handing out DVD's but most importantly making sure to get all the footage and DVD's from the world cruise that I wanted to keep.

Which led my onto my appraisal and like my first contract I was so burned out that I didn't really care what anyone said and I hadn't made my mind up if I was even going to come back again. Unlike my first contract I had actually worked with two really great seniors onboard one in Travis who I'd become good friends with and still check in on FB with today. My 2nd senior I didn't get on with on a personal level as much but I still respected his professionalism and the quailty of his work and most importantly I still learned new techniques from him. It was a similar apprasial to my first contract that said I was good at the job, enjoyed filming the events, but lacked focus and needed prodding on some projects to get done, and I'd need to improve on those going forward. So I was assuming at best I'd get my next junior level and go from Junior 2 to 3 for my next contract.

Overall it was a really mixed contract that was quite unlike any other I've done to this day, like a football match it was a contract of two halfs. It started off brilliantly with a great team, senior videog and roommate in Travis & Matt and I had great friends in the Cast & Spa for those first 3 months. Then within a month most of my friends left in the cast, I got a new roommate who was a nightmare and the lack of sleep caused by his snoring really messed me up for around 6 weeks. I also didn't get on Travis's replacement that well either, though at least he was great professionally but we just didn't click socially.

The changes in the photo team for the world cruise didn't help and instead of the young energetic team we had prior, we now had a more professional and experienced team but they always seemed to be arguing amongst themselves and the less said about 'relationships' in the photo department the better. I always felt sorry for Mick & Kirsty (manager and asst manager) as they were nothing but great the whole way through the contract and I remember how annoyed Mick looked when he tried to organise a 2nd team day out in Tahiti (after one of the highlights of the contract in a trip to James Bond Island in Thailand with the original team) and after a stitled lunch everyone split and went their own way.

Ports wise the world cruise was amazing but I really didn't enjoy the first 6 weeks or so purely because I wasn't getting any sleep and that was affecting my work and I was becoming very short tempered. Thankfully once the cabin situation was sorted and I'd taken a break from the crew bar drama I made new friends in the cast and musicians onboard and it was nice to hangout with people who were not constantly talking behind each others backs and sniping like the 2nd photo team. Getting involved in the crew bar band 'Classy Boner' and indeed all the band nights were some of the best nights I've had at sea. As the contract wound down I just concentrated on enjoying myself and the ports as much as possible and making the most of the time I had off.

On the next cruise diaries - Home again and where to next?