My cruise ship extravaganza has begun.

For those that don't know, I have just embarked upon a four month contract to play music with Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) on a ship called the Norwegian Dawn. I will be playing electric bass with the showband, which is essential the house band for the ship, and we will be playing material ranging from Vegas shows to cocktail music, dance sets and supporting other artists.

 The idea behind this blog is to help keep everyone back home up to date with what I am up to, in addition to helping me remember it all once I'm done. 

Having last flown with Delta airlines which was in hindsight pretty ratty,  My flight from Vancouver this morning with Air Canada was extremely nice. Everyone had their own personal screens with movies, tv shows, music and map functions to choose from. In addition, the seats were very comfortable, the staff were competent and everything happened either on time or early. Of course I was too exhausted to fully appreciate these things, having been up most of the night seeing friends before I had to go, but I was left with a very positive impression.

Having transfered planes in Toronto, I arrived in Boston at 6:30pm, and then took a shuttle to the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel which NCL has a contract with.  I am sharing a room there with an Italian fellow named Fabrizio who is a solo piano player who will be joining the ship with me tomorrow. He's been explaining what my schedule on the ship will probably look like, and it  sounds like it will be even less work than I was anticipating (which wasn't much). I will have a ton of time to kill but that's the kind of problem that I live for. I anticipate that I will spend lots of time eating, sleeping, reading and ideally practicing and maybe exercising, but only time will tell.

Tomorrow we take a shuttle to the ship at 8:30 in the morning, and then it all begins. I will take lots of pictures and hopefully get a chance to upload them and post again sometime in the next few days with an update about what ship life is really like.