Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Life on a ship . . .

I have gotten a bunch of emails with people saying they enjoy the pictures of the ports and all but they want to know what it’s like to actually live and work on a ship. So here are the basics.

Life on a ship mainly depends on your number of stripes (rank). You can break it down into three main categories:

Crew: waiters, bar staff, technicians, janitors, room stewards etc.

Staff: Entertainers, cruise staff, shop employees, salon employees, printer etc.

Officers: head of departments and anyone who works on the bridge.

Your rank limits you to certain privileges. These privileges include everything from where you live and eat, and access to passenger areas/activities.

As a printer I have 1.5 stripes. I get to live in a passenger area with my own room. I am allowed in the somewhat nicer cafeteria and I am allowed to go into certain passenger areas as long as I am dressed in the appropriate clothing (i.e. uniform or dressed up). Your life revolves around these rules and you always have to follow them as they are pretty strict about them on the ship. Other random bits are things like not walking in passenger areas with civilian clothing and having to greet a passenger whenever you see one in the hallway.

Also I took a video yesterday of the print shop. It’s not much to see but it gives you a look into my world and where I spend a lot of my time. Down in the shop is just my boss and I, we each have our own computers and fridges. We also have a TV, coffee maker and a sound system that is constantly playing music. Not too shabby . . .

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