It's hard to believe but I am now over half-way through my contract, and I thought it would be good to summarize what the cruise-ship lifestyle has the potential to offer. Working on a ship has a the potential to be a destructive experience, but it also has a lot of potential be an incredible growth opportunity on many different levels.

The obvious destructive habits that people pick up on these ships begin with heavy drinking. This ship in general is actually not too bad for this, since the access to alcohol is not quite as limitless as it is on some other ships I've heard about, although it still is incredibly prevalent. Musicians and production cast in particular can get into the habit of compulsive drinking even during the day, since there is so much free time to kill to the point that they do it out of boredom. Luckily that has not been the case with the people I've known on this ship, but I've heard many stories about it on other ships.

In addition to excessive drinking as a potential destructive habit on ships is excessive eating. There is 24 hour access to food on this ship of all different kinds, and if you know nothing about nutrition or just don't care, then you can really eat as much as you want of some terribly unhealthy food. Again, the risk is greater for those of us with more free time, and some people get into the habit of watching movies in bed all day, snacking on chips and leading very lethargic lives. This is okay obviously from time to time, but gets pretty bad if it's your entire life. 

A third destructive habit on ships, again specifically for musicians and others who have lots of free time, is a destructive outlook and attitude. For those who have never experienced this kind of lifestyle on a ship, it's pretty difficult to imagine what there is to complain or be negative about, but human beings are incredible at adapting to new situations, and a lot of people seem to forget very quickly just how good they have it on ships. With no real-world problems to complain about, they start to complain about pretty trivial things. This I think is principally a result of wasting their time on the ship and losing motivation to do anything, which is thee danger of having too much unspent free time. 

As I said, there is a lot of potential for a very unhealthy lifestyle. There is, however, plenty of good that can be achieved on ships, and if you decide to focus on these things it is actually a lot easier to get them done here than on land.

For myself, One of my main things that I've been devoting time to on the ship is going to the gym. It adds structure to my days, and obviously has great health benefits not only for my physical health but my mental health as well. The nice thing about having health as a focus on a ship is that, because I don't want to hinder the positive effects of going to the gym, it has encouraged me to eat healthily, and limit my drinking to a reasonable amount.

In addition, for musicians, there is plenty of time to get practicing done. Of course the material that you perform on the ship you will adapt to and learn very quickly and not need to practice after a couple of weeks, and so you will have to come up with your own materials to work on.  Practicing is one thing I would like to focus on more for the last half of my contract.

There are plenty of other good uses of your time to come up with on this ship. Writing a blog is a great habit that I've been able to get into to help keep people up to date about my experience as well as giving me a time to focus and reflect on what I'm experiencing here. I spend a lot of time reading as well. Other people I've talked to have mentioned things like writing music, practicing gymnastics (for the gymnists in the production cast), learning new languages, drawing, playing basketball, watching tv series, and more. 

Perhaps the best experience to get out of working on a ship is life experience. You can become a more worldly person not only from traveling to the different counties, but also from meeting hundreds of new people, forming friendships very quickly and also having to see new friends go home at the end of their contracts. The range of personalities you encounter on ships is pretty vast, and keeps things interesting.

And of course, being on a cruise ship is a very sheltered existence without any real-world stresses, like deadlines, agendas, having to make food, clean stuff, plan stuff, remember anything important, etc, not to mention you have very little access to the media at large which means you are not constantly being overloaded with information. 

I will stop this post here as I could go on and on about this stuff, and I might add more to it later.  

Thanks for reading!

This post is from a couple days ago. Enjoy!

December 2nd

I can't believe that it's been 10 days since I last wrote anything, but the longer I am on this ship the faster the time seems to pass by.

Things have been pretty routine for the greater part of those 10 days, but the last few have had a few blog-worthy happenings.

Tuesday, we were in Grand Caymen. I went to a local bar for internet and some beer with the ship's guest DJ, and had a great time, but came back to the ship about an hour later than I was supposed to. For the most part it turned out okay except that it was payday and I did not get back in time to get my cheque at the alloted time, which really isn't a big deal in the scheme of things but I did get some minor grief for it. It was worth it though, and I had a long un-deserved but definitely appreciated nap upon returning.

The evening brought some new interesting turns of events. We had two sets, one jazz set to back up the ship's comedian, and also our regular Tina Turner set. However, our guitarist, after seeing the nurse, was diagnosed as possibly having G.I (Gastro-instestinal something), and since this ship doesn't take any chances on these things, he was promptly quarantined for 24 hours. To make matters worse, our piano player without warning had to leave the ship to go to hospital for eye surgery. I've been told that he's not coming back, so we are now down a piano player. As a result, we had Fabrizio, the piano-bar entertainer, sit in for our jazz set.  As for our Tina Turner set, we had no piano player, but we did have the guitarist from the ship's cover band, Next Stage, sit in for our guitarist. Despite not being able to read music, he pulled through amazingly after having listened to the recordings and gone over the music with our band, saving the day.

Wednesday we were in Cozumel, which was nice but a little rainy and overcast. I went out only briefly, before returning for a late lunch. I spent the afternoon by watching some tv, and going to the gym. I went to Bamboo Restaurant (the ship's sushi and asian fusion restaurant) for dinner with the now un-quarantined guitarist Andrew. It was excellent sushi except it had far too much rice proportionately on each roll, causing us both to overestimate how much we could eat. It was a good meal nonetheless, but at 15$ a cover charge seemed far too expensive, being accustomed to an overflow of good and cheap sushi in Vancouver. Afterwards we went for some cigars in the cigar lounge, where we chatted with our saxophonist. Later I went to watch the end of rock night, played by Next Stage, and then headed to bed.

The unfortunate result of stuffing myself with sushi, or really anything, right before going to bed, is that my body doesn't let me sleep until it has digested most food, which I apparently have yet to reach. It did however give me an excuse to write this post, which I would have otherwise continued to put off.

There is a huge change-over of crew coming up shortly on this ship. Between December 12th and sometime in early January, no crew finish or start any contracts due to the busy-ness of the Christmas season. As a result, December 12th will be an extremely hectic day of embarkation and disembarkation of not only of 2000+ passengers but hundreds of crew members as well.

Before that, however, on December 3rd, our cover band, Next Stage, leaves and a new one will embark. It will be sad to see them go as they are not only an amazing band are also amazing people who I will miss. However, my experience so far with every change-over of this nature has been positive, and I am sure that the next band, once adjusted to, will rise to the occasion and do a great job.

Something that I just found out recently and am excited about is that in January and February we will be having two chartered cruises. I don't know much about the January one, but the February charter is a Rock cruise, and it is being headlined by The Barenaked Ladies, who will be supported by a number of other bands, including Great Big Sea and The Odds. I am incredibly excited to see these great Canadian bands, and as it will be happening on my last week on the ship it will be a terrific send-off for me.

That is all for now!