I'm back again!

Well I’m back here on the Dream and almost three weeks into contract number three… it’s going really well! I’m settled into my new department, they were all very welcoming and with every day I’m there I ask less questions so that’s good. It’s definitely very demanding… if merchandise was a country road then guest services is a highway! 

There’s a lot more responsibility in this department – firstly you’re handling money. That alone requires plenty of concentration and filling out forms correctly (if you’ve read my blog for a while then you’ll know my life revolves around filling out forms for everything!) and then we do things like change gratuities, move guests into different rooms, track down lost luggage, make housekeeping requests… all the way down to running around the ship to source carrot cake for a guest! No joke, I did that today.

I definitely feel there’s an element of being a server in this job in the sense that in both departments you have to constantly be thinking about several things at once, chasing up jobs that need doing and multi-tasking along with working out when you can fit things in. Even just right now I’m on my break but I know when I go back at 5.30pm there will be at least three things for me to do and several rooms to visit all around the ship to drop things off.

But overall I’m loving it. The schedule is much different to merchandise – you work either an early shift, mid shift or late shift… last week I was on the early shift so I started at 6-7am and finished at 8-9pm… this week I’m on the mid shift so I start at around 9am and finish anywhere from 10pm to midnight-ish. And then there is the late shift where you don’t start until about midday but you finish at 1-1.30am in the morning. Of course we are open 24 hours a day so we have one crew member who works a night shift… maybe one day I will be given the responsibility to do that. I hope so because it’s a good opportunity to show you can cope alone and also you get the whole daytime off!

Since I’ve been back we already had a character meet and greet with Mickey & the gang dressed in their Halloween costumes which was fun. I think we just have one more Halloween cruise which starts tomorrow and then… CHRISTMAS! I’m very excited for the festive season this year! We also had our crew Halloween party which was great fun – I went as a 90s kid but I saw some great costumes… Russell from Up, a ghost of the titanic survivor, lots of clowns, frozen Anna, Pocahontas, Rapunzel, Jasmine, lots of witches, the joker from Batman, a box of Crayola crayons, the list goes on. Everyone makes a lot of effort for the Halloween party and that’s no mean feat when you have limited access to shops and creative sources like glue, glitter, make up and paper! We have a recognition party on Saturday to reward us for some great results for past voyages and we even have a dinner in Cabanas coming up… I will be starving myself in preparation. We also just changed our schedule and now we are in Port Canaveral on Mondays and Fridays… so nobody knows what day it is now, I have to actually think about even where we are each day! I can’t get off the ship much now I’m in GS… in 3 weeks I’ve only been off the ship twice – once in Nassau and once in Port Canaveral.

The only thing that has been weird so far this contract is the fact Nick isn’t here. He gets back in 3 weeks. It’s been good to be able to adjust to my new job before he gets back but I will look forward to hanging out with him once we are both back here together. My mum and dad have just booked flights to come and sail on the Dream in February – super excited!

Here we go again... contract number 3!

Quick update before I go back to the craziness of the ship in 3 days time! As requested by my friend Hayley, I will try to update more often (easy to say, hard to do on the ship!) but I might move towards more specific blog posts because my life is very repetitive! It's also quite hard to keep within certain guidelines about posting... as you can imagine the world is a very open place with the internet and blogging at our fingertips and it's all too easy to get into trouble when you're posting about a company such as Disney. I love working for Disney so I am not negative about the company but remember, my opinions are just that - my opinions. They are not official word on behalf of the company and so I have to be careful :)

Anyway, what I can say is that I'm returning to the ship.... AS GUEST SERVICES!!!! This is the role I've always wanted to do whilst working at Disney, preferably in the parks of course but that won't happen right now so the ships are the next best thing! Also, they didn't change my start date (this saturday, 12th Oct) and they only shortened the contract by two weeks so I finish on the 20th March 2015 (prospectively of course!). Nick finishes his contract on March 7th I believe so we will overlap 6 weeks on vacation which is pretty awesome.

 If things go well in this new department I'd like to work the contract system to be able to get off for Christmas 2015 - that would be amazing! It's all about planning ahead and swapping end dates usually. This year I'm missing my 4th Christmas in the UK in a row which is a bit of a bummer... it's definitely the biggest sacrifice you make working on a cruise ship - not specifically Christmas but those important family events throughout the year; birthdays, weddings, days out, holidays etc. Celebrating Christmas aboard the ship is still fun and we come together as the Dream family but nothing beats getting up early, eating chocolate for breakfast, unwrapping the presents, having family Christmas lunch, watching the Queen on TV and rubbish Christmas movies all day - whilst it's cold and windy outside!

Anyway, so I get a new costume which is a white skirt with black (Hogwarts-esque) blazer and the same shirt underneath I wore in merchandise. Also with the new role comes varied shifts at last so not the same thing week in week out. It does mean I will not have as much time in port, will work a few more hours and probably will end up on night shifts at some point as guest services is a 24 hour a day role. I also get to NOT do cycle counts, deliveries or traffic controller duties running up 9 decks of stairs twice a week which is rather exciting!! I'm sure there are the equivalent things in GS that are less exciting but I'm ready to discover them.

I also get a cabin a bit further up the I95 and obviously a new roommate who I don't know probably so that's a nice air of mystery to be revealed on Sunday! Bring on the new chapter...