Oh, my Goddess. The difference.
If there was one thing that I could pin-point about the World Cruise guests that isn’t something favorable, it would be the fact that they are extremely choosy about where they grant their praise – this is due mostly to the fact that they’ve sailed with us – and other lines – for so many days, that they’ve earned the right to be judicious with their applause. Normally this isn’t a problem, but it does mean that people like the onboard cast don’t always get the audience reaction that they genuinely do deserve. Which leads to people like me sitting in the back cheering their hearts out for their friends in a half-empty 10 o’clock show just so that they have something in the way of support!
Despite the fact that World Cruise is an extremely hard contract to work, it’s worth pointing out that it can become very smooth and almost laid back in some places. We know the people, we know their needs and desires and it becomes relatively straight forward after a while to groom and cater to those results. Also, the voyage itself is very high class, and very refined, the kind of contract where you check your lipstick four times a day and are never seen without stockings and high-heels in the evenings – and heaven help you if there aren’t creases in your suit trousers. Our evening uniforms matched, our smart casual was mostly smart. In short, the 110 passengers are a lot of fun, but their tastes are simple: they only want the best. And, naturally, we are more than happy to give it to them, but they are far from a party crowd.
Relocation cruises are the polar opposite.
New cruise, shorter cruise, means new crowd. The current group of passengers are here to be impressed yes, they are here to be pampered, that’s why people come on a cruise – but they’re here for a good time, not a long time.
The 9 o’clock Broadway show was packed to the rafters, with the cast getting the inter-number applause they had so long been without. You could feel them starting to feed of the long-craved energy of an audience that actually reacts when they do things like break out coordinated tambourines and quintuple pirouettes.
The Library is insane. Four hour shifts fly by like ten minutes. 11 hour sea days don’t start to drag until you get to the end of the day realize that oh yes it has in fact been 11 hours. The upstairs bar is rocking the waves every night, since now our onboard DJ is finally allowed to cut loose (and after 3 months of having to dot his I’s and cross his T’s being able to relax even a little is a pleasure)..
In sanity does not even begin to describe this place right now…but, while it may be a long 17 days, it should prove to be entertaining at least.
Glad the fun has returned to the sea. See, Neptune does know hoe to make a ship Rock-n-Roll