Top ten reasons this gig is better than the previous gig
10 - Amsterdam is a bigger ship, in length and width. I thought I was comfortable with the small-sized Maasdam, but to my surprise I’m enjoying the extra distance from here to there.
9 - The crew mess is not off-limits, thus far anyway. I don’t have to dress up and go upstairs to the public area where the buffet is. Instead I can walk a few feet across the hall in sweatpants and T-shirt, grab whatever simple stuff they have there and be done with it. Some of the Indonesians look at me kinda funny, like I’m out of place, and why would I want crew food. Well I want crew food because it’s easy to get to in the morning.
8 - Laundry room is bigger. Perhaps this only makes sense because the crew is bigger, but there are 3 ironing boards instead of one, and the pressure and competition seems less.
7 - My cabin is bigger, by about two feet in each direction. Thus far has had the unlikely result of making me neater, as if the big wide uncluttered space might make me think better.
6 - My cabin is nowhere near the crew bar. On the Maasdam and the Ryndam, my cabin was only a few feet away from the crew bar, and the noise leaked through into the hallway. Sometimes the drunken kids wound up in the hallway too.
5 - I don’t have to carry a fan from my cabin to the piano bar every night. I got so used to doing it on the Maasdam, I forgot how ridiculous it was
4 - Lounge logistics. Once again, I’m surprised that I’m liking rather than disliking this. There are no chairs around the piano -- and I’m reaching out to people sitting 10 to 40 feet away. After a few bad starts, there is now a monitor system in place, where I can hear my own singing without being too loud for the room.
3 - No tinny raspberry piano. Instead, a beautiful Yamaha with a lovely rich tone.
2 - a musical director who makes it his business to help me. He was a tremendous help in getting the PA system in the lounge to sound right, i.e., twisting the soundman‘s arm. He provided a CD containing photoscans of sheet music I needed, he lets me know each night when I can expect the audience to start filing out of the main showroom. That’s just to name a few things.
1 - the itinerary, the itinerary, the itinerary
Monday, September 29, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday September 24
I’m pretty good at grasping concepts of the earth’s rotation, revolution, axis, and consequences like seasons and star movements, etc etc. But this International Date Line thing is a little too weird.
I am presently looking at a list of places and dates comprising the itinerary of this ship for the next two months. Since yesterday was Tuesday Sept 23, today ought to be Wednesday Sept 24 right?
But noooooooo…….today is Thursday Sept 25. It says right there on the itinerary NO WEDNESDAY SEPT 24. Wednesday never happened. We just jumped right over to Thursday. What would Rod Serling say about this? “Submitted for your approval…2400 people on a cruise ship wake up one morning and find that yesterday was really the day before yesterday….”
I assume that people in the New York area are experiencing Wednesday Sept 24. I hope somebody will write and tell me what it was like.
I came onto this ship with the promise of playing along with pre-recorded tracks, but for the time being the tracks are not needed. My lounge has a dance floor, but adjacent to this lounge is another lounge, ALSO with a dance floor, with a terrific 4-piece group playing ballroom and swing dance music.
I can’t compete head-to-head with this dance group, and the existence of the two dance floors right next to each other on Deck 5, is silly. Somebody tried to explain to me how it came to be this way, with some story about the history of the ship. The bottom line is that the extra dance floor in my lounge is a leftover from a previous concept that’s been abandoned. It’s only a matter of time before the ship goes into drydock and the dance floor get ripped out.
In meantime, my audience is distant, with no chairs around the piano, and a small dance floor (about the size of the one at the Jolly Swagman) helping to provide even more separation between the audience and me.
When I use the tracks I can get people to dance….but I’ve decided to go with my stronger suit -- singalong, spontaneity. It’s a very nice piano (NO RASPBERRY), so I’ll be as pianistic as possible. Thus far nobody is twisting my arm to use the tracks. But I suppose I should be prepared in case they suddenly do.
The first port in Asia was supposed to have been Russia, a town called Petropavlovsk. But a few days ago I heard that this visit was cancelled. Apparently the authorities of this town have been rather rude to the cruise ship industry, screwing up ships’ schedules by delaying their docking time, without good reason. Russia is inconvenient to visit by cruise ship, but this particular town was pretty along the way to Japan and the other places. I hear it was a crappy city with little to offer except the fact that's "in Russia"
So another Japanese port has been added, and the ship will go directly to Japan -- Hakodate, Miyako, Osaka, and (the new one) Aomori.
Looking way ahead on this itinerary, I now see that the ship will go back across the International Date Line in the other direction, on November 11.
The result will be - you guessed it - we get back the day we lost. Tuesday November 11 will happen twice. If you people write and tell me what Wednesday Sept 24 was like, I promise to write and tell you what the second November 11 was like.
I am presently looking at a list of places and dates comprising the itinerary of this ship for the next two months. Since yesterday was Tuesday Sept 23, today ought to be Wednesday Sept 24 right?
But noooooooo…….today is Thursday Sept 25. It says right there on the itinerary NO WEDNESDAY SEPT 24. Wednesday never happened. We just jumped right over to Thursday. What would Rod Serling say about this? “Submitted for your approval…2400 people on a cruise ship wake up one morning and find that yesterday was really the day before yesterday….”
I assume that people in the New York area are experiencing Wednesday Sept 24. I hope somebody will write and tell me what it was like.
I came onto this ship with the promise of playing along with pre-recorded tracks, but for the time being the tracks are not needed. My lounge has a dance floor, but adjacent to this lounge is another lounge, ALSO with a dance floor, with a terrific 4-piece group playing ballroom and swing dance music.
I can’t compete head-to-head with this dance group, and the existence of the two dance floors right next to each other on Deck 5, is silly. Somebody tried to explain to me how it came to be this way, with some story about the history of the ship. The bottom line is that the extra dance floor in my lounge is a leftover from a previous concept that’s been abandoned. It’s only a matter of time before the ship goes into drydock and the dance floor get ripped out.
In meantime, my audience is distant, with no chairs around the piano, and a small dance floor (about the size of the one at the Jolly Swagman) helping to provide even more separation between the audience and me.
When I use the tracks I can get people to dance….but I’ve decided to go with my stronger suit -- singalong, spontaneity. It’s a very nice piano (NO RASPBERRY), so I’ll be as pianistic as possible. Thus far nobody is twisting my arm to use the tracks. But I suppose I should be prepared in case they suddenly do.
The first port in Asia was supposed to have been Russia, a town called Petropavlovsk. But a few days ago I heard that this visit was cancelled. Apparently the authorities of this town have been rather rude to the cruise ship industry, screwing up ships’ schedules by delaying their docking time, without good reason. Russia is inconvenient to visit by cruise ship, but this particular town was pretty along the way to Japan and the other places. I hear it was a crappy city with little to offer except the fact that's "in Russia"
So another Japanese port has been added, and the ship will go directly to Japan -- Hakodate, Miyako, Osaka, and (the new one) Aomori.
Looking way ahead on this itinerary, I now see that the ship will go back across the International Date Line in the other direction, on November 11.
The result will be - you guessed it - we get back the day we lost. Tuesday November 11 will happen twice. If you people write and tell me what Wednesday Sept 24 was like, I promise to write and tell you what the second November 11 was like.
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