Month no. 9, A new team and a mob hit!

When I started 8 months ago on the Sapphire Princess in Mexico as a junior videog level 2, I didn’t think in my wildest dreams I’d be coming up to my 8th month onboard as an acting senior videog about to head across the Pacific ocean again with a two week holiday in Sydney at the end of it.

As with a big team turnover it immediately gives the ship a bit of life and its almost like a new season of a soap opera as we all tune in to watch new episodes of ‘Crew Bar’ & ‘Ward Room’ My roommate Rich had left and I hit the jackpot with my new roommate Kenji whose girlfriend who joined with him was the assistant spa manager and she had her own cabin! So, result my own cabin for my last month onboard!

Matt was a level 1 photog from Wales, Marcin was a level 5 from Poland, Linky was a level 5 from South Africa and Tank (and I’ve honestly forgot his real name!) was from the States. Sarah was another level 5 from Canada and that left Mario (known as El Mariachi) from Mexico another level 5. Even the first night with these guys onboard it ended up drinking till daylight in the corridor, well I’d had 8 months of drinking to prep me so at least I could hang with these guys. Like most starts of a contract the new team got on really well and we pretty much lived in the bar those first few weeks.

I thought things were going well onboard but one day I was summoned into the managers office and it was like a scene from a gangster movie, both assistant managers were sat behind the manager each side of him and I was in the firing line in front of all 3 of them. I mean yes I had been partying a lot this contract but sales in Alaska had been good (taking into account Chad & John) and I’d never had Cassie (the previous manager) pull me up on anything so this all came as a bit of a surprise to me. Rich the new manager had been on for a few weeks already and apparently in this time he had already decided I wasn’t working hard enough and that there was many things associated with the senior video role that I wasn’t doing. He outlined a massive list of things he wanted me to do which I honestly can’t remember but I did know I couldn’t really question any of the things he asked and they all seemed good ideas. I was ironic that I was now working with the manager that had fallen out with and transhipped with senior from the Sapphire at the start of this contract also Rich and here I was on his bad side as well.

The irony was that I was going to have to really knuckle down and work my arse off when I was pretty much mentally checked out, but Rich was one of the top managers in the company at the time and he’d been on the same ship the year before for the Antarctic run so he wanted everything set up in regards to the video department how Bevan it when I first joined.

I think I grudgingly won him over the next 21 days as I was by myself doing two videogs jobs on and my plan to kick back and use some generic footage I had from the ports from the Sun had gone out of the window as Rich wanted me out filming new footage in every port, this was also on top of covering the ship events and getting more requests from the new cruise Director another Richard who I also wasn’t getting on well with.

Because I didn’t want to piss off one of the top managers in the fleet right before the end of my contract I remember very little for those first few weeks until Cyrus arrived except that I was stupidly busy and did everything I was asked. I know in one of the Hawaii ports I had to do the earliest tour available (swimming with sea turtles) and then rush back to the ship and set 3 cameras to film an hour long traditional Hawaiian folkloric show in the ships main theatre that I’d be making into a separate DVD that we’d include in our Reflections DVD package. (put in order form jpeg)

La Haina in Hawaii was awesome again, and you really can’t beat going snorkelling with sea turtles as an experience let alone as a paid day of work! (add pics and videos from la haina) Hilo was a little different with the weather shifting between perfect conditions and monsoon a few times during the day, but I think i enjoyed this run through Hawaii more as as much fun as the volcanos were the altitude / van sickness you can get reaching the top of them was not missed.

Finally in our first non American port I got a Chad replacement in Cyrus a quiet Filipino videographer who I think was a level 2 junior but head office obviously though well of him if they were entrusting him for the South America and Antartica run. It was immediately obvious that the guy was a complete breath of fresh of air compared to Chad, his skills were of a much higher level and he had that typical Filipino way of being great with the passengers from day 1 which is crucial in getting them to buy your DVD’s!

I even managed to win over Rich when we docked in Apia, Samoa as when we stopped their last year on the Sun Princess we had local fire dancers performing dockside as the ship prepared to leave and as many of the PAX were too busy getting dinner they missed it and it was one of the most popular ‘bonus’ shoots on our world cruise set. That time I was filming the wide shot from the ship and I remember having a nightmare trying to get the exposure right as the sun was going down but you also didn’t want to take the cameras ISO up to much that you would have a really noisy image. Adam (my senior on the Sun) knew his stuff and told me what settings I’d need for shooting this if I ever got the chance again.

Because I’d remembered how to shoot it properly and the footage looked awesome at the time (plus it made us money in stills and DVD’s) I think I’d finally got Rich onside, I’d taken everything that had been thrown at me, while doing 2 peoples jobs (waiting for Cyrus to arrive) and worked my arse as I entered the 9th month of my contract. But the end was now well in sight!