Welcome to the Wardy and issues with 'The American'

As I've mentioned the Star had two bars the regular crew bar and an officers ward room and the rules on the Star meant staff such as myself could go to the Wardy (as it was known). Beyond the clear ship class issues this created it was nice to have a usually quietier bar where you could have a conversation with someone without having to yell at them over eastern european techno. A big issue with the crew bar is that many crew will sit in the bar by language or department and their respective mafias, over there the Italian officers hitting on any girl that moved with most old enough to be there grandfathers! Then you had the Indian and Fillipino mafias who kept the ship running, indeed on most ships those two nationalites make up the bulk of a ships compliment.

So to do breakdown the hierahy of a ship once again - Officers (or stripes as we called them & heads of departments) basically had the run of the ship and could go and do what they wanted, cabins usually had windows, proper beds and a cabin steward to do their laundry and make their beds! Next was staff (the group I fell into) and are cabins were ususally at just above the waterline and we'd have no view and two bunkbeds, meaning someone always had to clamber up a ladder after getting back from the bar. Lastly was the crew who would usually be based on the lower decks (the ghetto as we called it) who had to get their head of departments persmission to go about the ship in their time off. Also Officers could use any restaurants they wanted, staff could use the buffet and speciality restauarnts by booking and crew had the crew mess only, this division even went as far as the cabin doors as staff had blue door cabins and crew had red.

Unfortunately now as we were beginning at the start of the Alaska season I had to move into my regular photog cabin, my roommate was Rich an experience quiet Kiwi photog who mostly avoided the bar scene and spent most nights watching movies with his girlfriend who worked in the onboard shops. Rich was fine as a roommate and I rarely spent anytime in the cabin anyway, and most nights by the time I got back to the cabin they'd be asleep.

I'd had some initial issues with my American junior 'Chad' which were not work related as he was a decent videographer and quick editor. No the problem was he was a bit of a dick who no one liked as he would constantly complain about everything citing he was being victimised because he was American and that most of the crew hated Americans, yeah he was beginning to be hard work. Worse still was his behaviour in the bar, after his gay slur against the dancers on my first day onboard there had been more incidents on almost a daily basis.

In my first week I got a call from the senior first officer Brett, now there should be absolutely no reason for the senior first to be calling a videographer as there is literally no reason for the two of us to interact for any reason. 'Is this the senior videographer? barked the angry sounding Geordie on the other end of the line. 'Yeah... this is Neil' 'Right we'll tell that fucking idiot junior of yours...' 'Wait..Brett?'

Yeah I recognised the angry voice on the end of the phone and thankfully for my junior I had worked with Brett before and knew him from a previous contract. 'Look Brett, I've only been onboard a few days but what's he done now? Turns out 'Chad' had been hitting on Bretts girlfriend one of the bar managers while she was working and was not getting the hint to leave her alone, also 'Chad' being a dumbass and not understanding how ships work didn't realise you definitely did not want to piss off the senior first officer. 'Ah, right yeah he seems a bit of a dickhead Brett, I'll have a word and explain to basic human behaviour to him'

Another issue with Chad was that whenever we went to the bar, or we saw him in the bar he would get shit faced and then leave really early and passout back in his cabin. Then like a lechourous old man he'd come back to the bar around 1am and set his sights on the drunkest girl there, before being rejected and then loudly complaining to anyone within earshot that 'she was probably a lesbian'.

He tried hitting on the new Aussie cruise staff girl Nicole on one of her first nights onboard and tried luring back to his for a 'cabin party', she had mentioned it to me earlier in the night and I laughed and said 'sounds great let me know how its goes', 'what your not going? she said as I laughed and walked off. Later that night there was a knock on my door and it was Nicole, Chads cabin party was Chad and a bunch of alcohol and no one else. She'd managed to make her escape pretty sharpish and also managed to nick a bottle of booze from his cabin, we became pretty good mates for the rest of the contract after that and Chad hated her from that point on!

Mostly photogs from L-R

Chantelle from Australia, Ela from Poland, JP & Lara from South Africa, Rich from New Zealand, Sandra from Peru, Nicole from Australia, Me & Deanne from Canada.

The Star was a big ship and as well as the photogs above our manger Cassie was from South Africa, we had Liam from London, PJ from Chile, Rey from the Phillipines and Ben & Nigel from South Africa as well. Like myself most of the team had only just joined or been their a few months at the most and this meant the bulk of the team would be together for the next 5/6 months onboard to finish out the Alaska season.

With the new stupid Alaska state law about shoreside employees only being American this meant I never had to work a day in port the whole contract, I could go out on excursions for fun if I wanted, but I'd already spent close to 5 months in Alaska the past few years so I ended up spending most of the contract in the bar instead as you really drink to excess when you don't have to get up for work till 5pm at the earliest!

The weekly schedule came together without much thought we'd both film sailaway from Seattle each cruise though it wasn't the warmest or most picturesque and we dropped filming it fairly quickly, the next day would be the first formal night and we'd usually have a few demos in the day such as Martini Demo & Ice Carving or Bar Wars and then we'd double shoot the Champagne Waterfall with me completing the edit straight afterwards and still making it to the wardy for midnight.

Later in the week I'd film 50s night, country night and the 2nd formal night atrium party and the work highlight of the week would be filming the glaciers at Tracy Arm which would be only be a half day shoot compared to Glacier Bay as we after traversing the Fjord we'd dock in Juneau around 2pm and I'd make sure the edit of Tracy Arm was up before I left the ship. Then I would technically be of from 2pm in Juneau and my next event would not be until 9pm the following night as we left Skagway.

On the next cruise diaries - Alaska All Nighters!