Wearing a 2-stripe uniform and sitting in a little office down on B deck is a young Russian lady named Kateryna. One of her duties is to provide activities for the crew, both fun and educational. She puts together a calendar of events, month-by-month, and it seems like there’s something going on every day. Ping Pong tournament, karaoke night, French class (?), Bingo night, Salsa class, athletic events, movie night, Wii night (Wii is some kind of Nintendo game), etc etc
….and occasionally an excursion. Many weeks in advance she started advertising an excursion to the Reykjavik hot springs tourist attraction called The Blue Lagoon, requiring a $30 advance fee.
The bus was almost full, 67 seats filled out of a possible 71. At 12:15 on 7/31, the bus left Reykjavik proper and drove through many miles-worth of an otherworldly landscape, a lava field with zero vegetation and a kajillion pieces of ugly volcanic rock strewn as far as the eye could see. Kinda reminded me of those photos taken on the surface of Mars, except that Mars is a lot prettier.
The Blue Lagoon is a highly-touted hot spring, “geothermically” heated, mineral-rich water which would make me look 30 again. Yeah right. After an hour of sloshing around in this Fountain of Youth, I looked at myself in the locker room mirror and alas, saw the same old face. Oh well, “Live slow, die old, close the casket“
Everybody visited the large Blue Lagoon gift shop and unloaded whatever Icelandic money they had left, since this was the last stop in Iceland (going back westward).
The ride back to Reykjavik was more spirited, since all of us were purchasing cups of Viking Ale while in the waters. A nifty plastic bracelet with a computer chip inside was able to a) open and close my locker and b) record my beer orders, so that they would get the money from me later on when I surrendered the bracelet while leaving.
Sitting behind me on the bus was two piano players -- Anthony the very trained and skilled sightreader in the orchestra, and Mortimer (not really his name) who has the job title “Utility Piano Player” -- Mortimer plays in a very florid, arpeggiated, Liberace-esque piano style, and he gets deployed to various pianos around the ship, in restaurants and public areas, playing solo piano.
Mortimer really likes to drink -- hardly a secret down on B deck. On this day he got started with at 11:00 in the morning with beers, and he burped a few times down my neck on the bus.
But he had a special reason to drink on this day -- for him Reykjavik Day was a Day Of All Days -- Only the previous night I found out that Mortimer a) was gay b) was a cross-dresser and c) would be participating in the Ms. Maasdam competition later in the evening.
He was scheduled to dress in drag, sing “Hey Big Spender”, and strut and wiggle in front of hundreds of crew people at a big late night party down on B deck, in competition with 3 other singing drag queens. Mortimer had never gone public before with this, so for him it was a Breakthrough. Leave it to a cruise ship crew to help a closeted person “be himself”
The Ms. Maasdam contest wasn’t even a new thing, Kateryna informed me later on. There has been Ms Ryndam contests, Ms. Volendam contests, even a combined Ms Oosterdam/Veendam contest on a day that both ships were in the same port. Now THAT’S serious Event Planning.
The party was actually a reward for Job Well Done, as we’d finished most of the 35-day long trip to the satisfaction of the guests. The Ms Maasdam contest was the icing on this particular cake however, and I was curious to see what the hell Mortimer would look like.
I finished up the piano bar work a little past midnight, apologized to guests and excused myself somewhat abruptly, saying Sorry Folks I gotta go downstairs and watch a Drag Queen contest.
I was too late for most of it. Each contestant had sung, the voting (by applause) was over, and Mortimer had won the $75 second prize. However, the four “girls” were asked to one last sexy slinking dancing, a final strutting of Their Stuff. I arrived just in time for that.
There was Mortimer, in a wig, makeup, short purple dress, 42 years old, and clearly not as young and pretty as the others. Did I say “pretty” ? Ugh.
The contest was followed by live LOUD music. Bass, drums, guitar, and a lead singer not singing in English. For lack of any real insider knowledge of this music, let’s call it Polynesian Punk. All these young room attendants, all male, jumping up and down in front of the band and crashing into each other. Sex Pistols via Sumatra.
Three of these tunes was enough for my ears, and Mortimer was certainly enough for my eyes, so I made my typical early exit. But not before stopping by Kateryna and congratulating her for a job well done on Reykjavik Day
Showing posts with label cruise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cruise. Show all posts
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Maasdam by the Numbers
(1 )- Horn Player
The ship orchestra has the rather odd 7-person lineup of one bassist, one guitarist, one drummer, one (mostly useless) percussionist, one pianist, one synthesist (who would rather be the pianist), and one sax guy. One reliable source told me that the reduction in horn players is Holland America’s attempt to look and sound “hipper”.
The acronym for this cruise line is HAL (Holland America Line) and the orchestra is called the HALcats. In fact every HAL ship has a band called the HALcats. Every HALcats band reads music and backs up the comics, singers, ventriloquists and other such “guest” entertainers that perform in the main Showrooms.
The Maasdam HALcats are sometimes deployed to a lounge up on Deck 12 called the Crow’s Nest where they get a chance to demonstrate their hipness. A young black female singer is added to the group, they read her charts. They are then billed as “Kalyka and the HALcats”
Oops. Make that “Marisha and the HALcats.” Kalyka got off the ship recently.
(2) - escalators
An up/down pair running from Deck 5 to Deck 6 near the middle of the ship. Passenger escalators are rare on ships, so it‘s very cool if you happen to be in that area. I like it because there never seems to be any waiting time, you just hop on. And you don’t have to hear inane elevator talk from confused old people from Iowa.
(3) - sunny and clear days that I’ve seen in the 38 days I’ve been on this ship
Not the ship’s fault of course. But don’t ever visit Nova Scotia in May or June.
(4) - stripes on the shoulder of an IMPORTANT officer.
There’s only a handful of these 4-stripe guys - the staff captain, the hotel director, the chief engineer, and the master of the vessel…. Basically the equivalent of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty. (was there a piano bar on the Enterprise?)
(5) - departments the passengers are asked to evaluate at the end of their cruise
Food and Beverage
Culinary
Housekeeping
Front Office
Entertainment
Yeah I know “culinary” sounds like it belongs with “Food and Beverage”. But culinary is responsible for how the food tastes. Food & Beverage has to do with how it’s served.
(6) - pianists on the ship
The two aforementioned pianists in the HALcats, plus the Filipino pianist in the ballroom dance group, the chamber group pianist, the piano bar guy, and one “utility pianist” who get deployed here and there to do cocktail music.
(7) - pianos
Rembrandt Showroom (black)
Rotterdam Dining Room (black)
Explorers Lounge (dark blue)
Crow’s Nest (black)
Ocean Bar (raspberry)
Piano Bar (raspberry)
Half Moon Room (black - nice practice piano, room not used much)
(8) - Whistle blasts signaling the general emergency drill (7 short blasts followed by one long blast)
First day of every cruise - 4:15PM. Put on life jacket with “Traffic Director” apron, go to stairwell that almost nobody uses during this drill. Bring written song lyrics to memorize, to break the boredom. Whole thing last 45 minutes.
(9) - Bars on ship. Best one of course being the piano bar
(10) - Minimum hours worked per day by cabin stewards, culinary and bar/food svc. people. These Filipinos and Indonesians don’t get much time off. “10” is also the typical month-length of their contract.
(11) - Deck 11 - the Lido deck buffet, where all musicians go to eat and angst over the tons of food available there
(12) - laps around the walking deck, amounts to a 3-mile walk
Almost every day - my way of dealing with the abovementioned angst
(13) - decks on the ship
Actually, there’s a deck 14, but only because the labeling system skips “13” -- same triska-deckaphobia (get it? triska - DECK -aphobia ? HAHAHAHAHAHA) that you see in NYC buildings.
(14) - ships in the HAL fleet
The newest, called the Eurodam, just hit the water two weeks ago
(15) - age of the Maasdam
Christened by “godmother” June Allyson in Fort Lauderdale in 1993.
16 - tons, whaddaya eat?
Another year of this, I won’t see my feet
The ship orchestra has the rather odd 7-person lineup of one bassist, one guitarist, one drummer, one (mostly useless) percussionist, one pianist, one synthesist (who would rather be the pianist), and one sax guy. One reliable source told me that the reduction in horn players is Holland America’s attempt to look and sound “hipper”.
The acronym for this cruise line is HAL (Holland America Line) and the orchestra is called the HALcats. In fact every HAL ship has a band called the HALcats. Every HALcats band reads music and backs up the comics, singers, ventriloquists and other such “guest” entertainers that perform in the main Showrooms.
The Maasdam HALcats are sometimes deployed to a lounge up on Deck 12 called the Crow’s Nest where they get a chance to demonstrate their hipness. A young black female singer is added to the group, they read her charts. They are then billed as “Kalyka and the HALcats”
Oops. Make that “Marisha and the HALcats.” Kalyka got off the ship recently.
(2) - escalators
An up/down pair running from Deck 5 to Deck 6 near the middle of the ship. Passenger escalators are rare on ships, so it‘s very cool if you happen to be in that area. I like it because there never seems to be any waiting time, you just hop on. And you don’t have to hear inane elevator talk from confused old people from Iowa.
(3) - sunny and clear days that I’ve seen in the 38 days I’ve been on this ship
Not the ship’s fault of course. But don’t ever visit Nova Scotia in May or June.
(4) - stripes on the shoulder of an IMPORTANT officer.
There’s only a handful of these 4-stripe guys - the staff captain, the hotel director, the chief engineer, and the master of the vessel…. Basically the equivalent of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty. (was there a piano bar on the Enterprise?)
(5) - departments the passengers are asked to evaluate at the end of their cruise
Food and Beverage
Culinary
Housekeeping
Front Office
Entertainment
Yeah I know “culinary” sounds like it belongs with “Food and Beverage”. But culinary is responsible for how the food tastes. Food & Beverage has to do with how it’s served.
(6) - pianists on the ship
The two aforementioned pianists in the HALcats, plus the Filipino pianist in the ballroom dance group, the chamber group pianist, the piano bar guy, and one “utility pianist” who get deployed here and there to do cocktail music.
(7) - pianos
Rembrandt Showroom (black)
Rotterdam Dining Room (black)
Explorers Lounge (dark blue)
Crow’s Nest (black)
Ocean Bar (raspberry)
Piano Bar (raspberry)
Half Moon Room (black - nice practice piano, room not used much)
(8) - Whistle blasts signaling the general emergency drill (7 short blasts followed by one long blast)
First day of every cruise - 4:15PM. Put on life jacket with “Traffic Director” apron, go to stairwell that almost nobody uses during this drill. Bring written song lyrics to memorize, to break the boredom. Whole thing last 45 minutes.
(9) - Bars on ship. Best one of course being the piano bar
(10) - Minimum hours worked per day by cabin stewards, culinary and bar/food svc. people. These Filipinos and Indonesians don’t get much time off. “10” is also the typical month-length of their contract.
(11) - Deck 11 - the Lido deck buffet, where all musicians go to eat and angst over the tons of food available there
(12) - laps around the walking deck, amounts to a 3-mile walk
Almost every day - my way of dealing with the abovementioned angst
(13) - decks on the ship
Actually, there’s a deck 14, but only because the labeling system skips “13” -- same triska-deckaphobia (get it? triska - DECK -aphobia ? HAHAHAHAHAHA) that you see in NYC buildings.
(14) - ships in the HAL fleet
The newest, called the Eurodam, just hit the water two weeks ago
(15) - age of the Maasdam
Christened by “godmother” June Allyson in Fort Lauderdale in 1993.
16 - tons, whaddaya eat?
Another year of this, I won’t see my feet
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