The Swine Flu Cruise & the Catalina Golf Buggy Mixer!

A year into this current pandemic (Feb 2021) I'd actually worked through another less deadly one back in 2009/10 on the Star. Handover had been completed and I was about to start my first cruise as acting senior videograper on a 7 day Mexico cruise roundtrip from LA, having spent 3 months bringing up the numbers on the same run on the Sapphire I was fairly confident that if I'd did everything the same this first cruise on the Star we'd hit our video target and I'd make a good first impression.

We'd briefly seen news stories about swine flu outbreaks in Mexico but when you have little time for the outside world and news when you are firmly in the ship life bubble, if it didn't affect us in anyway then it didn't matter. I don't think I'd even gotten off the ship on the last turnaround day in LA as the ship docked far away from anywhere decent in Santa Clarita, it was a quick trip to the food truck for a breakfast burrrito to help soothe my first of many Star hangovers and then back to the video room to plan the reposition cruise excursions and schedule.

As I've mentioned its the seniors job to produce a schedule for the video department which is almost always you and one one other person so the levels of what you need to do can vary wildly dependant on the manager. Some managers wanted a daily email with what we were filming and how long edits would take, with a printed schedule delievred to them. More reasonable managers would check in with me at the start of the cruise and if we were meeting our sales target leave us to get on with it, it was only when sales began to dip or if the videographers were 'seen' (yet not seen if that makes sense!) to not be pulling their weight in the department. So far I'd barely seen Cass our manager and dealt more with the two assistants JP & Lara and they were supremely laid back and allowed us to get on with it.

Everyone on the team seemed to be getting on really well as most of us had only just recently joined the ship for the upcoming Alaska season and that mix of experiene and newbies as well as most of the team being fresh is important for that seasons success. I'd seen teams start well and get sick of each other and burn out really ruin the team on the Sun and I'd had issues with seniors on the Coral & the 2nd half of my Sun contract but I had a good vibe from the Star.

My first inkling that something was going to go wrong was when Bevan couldn't leave in the port he was supposed to, I forget the exact reason he couldn't disembark but there was some issue and he was onboard for a few more days, of course this was awesome for me as I got to keep my officers cabin that I had already fallen deeply in love with and I knew sooner rather than later I'd lose my cabin with a view and be relegated to the top bunk at the back of deck 4 rather than a short hop, skip and jump from my current cabin.

Sailaway from LA passed without incident and the next day was a formal night and to drum up business in the afternoon I was going to continue Bevans idea of showing 'The Spirit of Mexico' DVD in the Princess Theatre and try and get some extra Reflections sales from it. Princess head office produced several higher quality Special Edition DVD's that were mass produced and sent to us to sell onboard as bonus DVD's to go alongside the main Reflections. In theory this was a good idea but there was no quality control until Scott Martin got invloved and began personally making them, at this point we were asking people to pay $20 for a DVD that was at best 30 minutes and didn't contain anything they saw on their actual cruise. Some videogs would be smarter and make their own Special Edition DVD's onboard from folkloric events or massive highlights such as the Panama Canal or a tradtional Maori Haka onboard.

Myself and Chad (name changed for legal reasons) parked ourselves with a table and DVD order forms outside for before and after the screening hoping to get some extra Reflections orders, we handed out a ton of forms to people as they walked into the theatre and then just as production had queued up the film and it had been introduced by the cruise staff the captains announcement.

Due to the spread of the Swine flu pandemic our cruise to Mexico was going to be cancelled and instead we would be cruising around California for the next 6 days going to San Francisco, San Diegeo & Catalina Island. The crews ecstatic reaction to the news was not as well received by the passengers probably as they were almost all American and yeah, you guessed it...from California. It would be like getting a ship full of brits in Southampton ready for a cruise in the Med and then telling them they were going to cruise around the British Isles instead, the PAX were not happy.

If I remember rightly the PAX were offered a full refund if they disembarked at the next port of call or if they stayed they'd receive 50% off their next 7 day cruise so not a bad deal when you look at it. Chad being American started complaining that 'this is bullshit man' as he wanted to see more of Mexico, Chad complaining about things will unfortunately dear reader become a key part of these upcoming blogs!

After the Captains announcement literally everyone filed out of the theatre past us before the film started and the theatre was littered with discarded DVD order forms that we than had to go in and clear up, so not an auspicious start to my first cruise. Afterwards I went to shore-ex to see about what excursions would be on officer but there was a mass of people queuing throughout every desk in the atrium so I thought better off it and dropped then an email to let me know what was a good time to pop down, of course this wasn't a regular cruise itinerary for Princess so that meant that the Shore ex-staff were scrambling just as much as anyone trying to liaise with California tour operators to sort out tours for our remaining passengers.

The cruise was pretty much a write off from that 2nd day with at least 1/3 of the PAX getting off leaving us with a much quieter ship and no chance of hitting even our meagre Mexican budget, still we did manage a great blag as there was no offical tours that I remember for Catalina Island our next port and with it being a tender port many crew were also stuck onboard. In an attempt to get to know Chad (and also because I didn't have my drivers licence with me) we double toured and hired a souped up golf buggy that you actually needed a licence for and drove all over the highland stopping to film once in a while before grabbing lunch and heading back to the ship.

Swine flu barely registered although there was a fair few crew who came down with it, however I remember at the time that crew would pretend to be ill so that they could get a week of work. Depending on your department ships can be a brutal job and a week off with room service in your own (albeit noro) cabin can be just as a good as a vacation for some crew.

At the time to us it wasn't serious and was more like a bunch of crew were having the flu at worst, it even became a big source of amusement at one point where the ship began to run out of noro cabins and began to put 2 sick crew in the same cabins, probably not ideal if you were over-egging a cold and just wanted some time off. At one point one of the dancers and one of the spa girls who had both had the same boyfriend with a definite crossover period both got put in the same cabin. At least a few evenings entertainment was spent by some of us hiding outside and listening to the shouting matches, we figured they'd either kill each other or become best friends by the end of it.

So although my first cruise as a senior had techncially been cancelled I didn't really count it and had greatly enjoyed seeing San Diego, Catalina Island and San Francisco before the ship headed to Seattle which would be our turaround port every Sunday for the next 5 months.

On the next cruise diary - Welcome to the Ward Room!