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.

During the highs of the Spring Break cruises we would get continual requests from the college kids to get digitial only versions of the parties they went to, at the time some ships offered this and some did not and there was no hard or fast rule on it. However we had a surplus on 1 or 2 GB Princess Cruises flash drives onboard that we hardly sold, so what we started doing was putting HD video files of the 1 or 2 events the kids wanted to see on these drives and selling the drives for double the price, the cost of the flash drives and also the cost on an onboard special edition DVD which would be produced onboard to cover various folkloric shows on different itinaries. Basically as long as you could run it through the till and it didn't affect the onboard stock management would turn a blind eye. We were just ahead of the game in regards to providing digital files and we would have had to wait months to get head office to agree to that.

I know had three days to go before I transhipped to the Golden and I had received my new contract and flight details, I'd get off the ship in LA and travel to Seattle where I'd join the Golden and have to start all over again halfway through the contract. Sensing I was not happy about it Jason gave me the day off on my last port in Cabo but I just wandered around aimeslssly and went for lunch by myself but didn't really enjoy the time and I was close enough to the ship that my pager still went off, 'for fucks sake' I thought and seriously considered ignoring it but it was from the video room whihc meant it was probably Jason and therefore important especially as he'd given me the time off.

Once I was back onboard I went straight to the video room where Jason was working,'just got your page mate, whats up?' 'Got some news from head office, you're not going to the Golden anymore' I sighed as this was typical Princess changing things at the last moment, 'well, where the hell am I going now? 'the Star Princess' he replied, that ship didn't ring any bells and I didn't know where it was going to be cruising. Great, no Alaska I thought, after head office assuring me originally that I would be transhipped before Alaska when I took the Sapphire contract. We checked the MIM master schedule which showed where every ship in the Princess fleet would be cruising for the next year and looked up the Star.

Fucking Alaska!!! I was already on a ship that was going to Alaska, I'd been told I was going to the Golden in Alaska and then given some hope I'd not be going but the bloody Star was going to Alaska as well, I mean what a colossal clusterfuck! The problem is as a junior videog you only deal directly with your manning office (mine was Southampton) when you are off ship, onboard everything has to go through the senior videog. Jason agreed it was stupid before he dropped this pertinent bit of info 'oh yeah, but it says you are going as acting senior'. He clearly knew and had been messing with me, suddenly Alaska didn't seem to bad at all because as an acting senior you get paid the seniors wage provisionally for the whole contract, that meant my wages more than doubled, also with not being able to film ashore that would give me time to learn the ropes, dealing with admin and the head office side of the job.

Jason told me that he'd spoken to head office a few days ago and said it didn't make sense sending me to Alaska, let alone to someone less experienced than I was, and with Jason being one of the most senior guys in the company at that point they listened. He said whenever the next senior spot comes up I should be put forward for it which was a great endorsement from someone I'd barely worked a month with. Head office agreed but they simply had too many non-US videogs at the time so send us all to non-Alaksa ships but Jasons recommendation worked and they said 'well actually we need a senior on the Star right now as well'.

It just goes to show that having the right attitude and working your arse off but more importantly having good management does pay off sometimes as my roommate Scott who was the assistant manager and dating the manager said how he rarely saw me because I was always working which meant my manager Laura knew I was putting the work in as well. The other side of the coin is that I wouldn't have got the promotion and the Star unless Jason had made that phone call to head office, I mean the call wasn't even primarily about me! If I remember correctly it was to check in and let head office know about the equipment issues we'd been having. Right place, right time finally!

Crew bar time!!!

I was actually fairly sad for the first time to leave the Sapphire as from my first two contracts I'd gotten to the burnout phase and had issues with the photo teams or senior videogs at the end of the contract, this was the first time I'd had no issues with anyone in the department and working with two great seniors in Rich & Jason who had wildly different styles was a great learning experience.

I was due to get off the ship the next day in LA and fly to San Francisco where I'd join the Star that was just finishing up its own Mexico cruise before we'd have our reposition cruise to Alaska. As this would be my first contract as an acting senior I had to have a handover with the outgoing senior so I would be joining mid-cruise so that I could get some brief training in on how the Star differed from the Sapphire. I was already 3 months into my contract and we usually did 6 months in the photo/video department, little did I know I'd be on the Star for another 6 months completing my longest ever contract, but easily one of my top 3 ships of all time!

On the next cruise diaries! - First days on the Star Princess and meeting 'The American'