It’s the end of the World as we know it…
The strangest day of any Grand contract isn’t the final sea day, it’s the debark day. Love them or hate them you’ve known these guests for four months out of your life, they’ve left an impression. I’m the first to admit there are some ‘problem children’ that we are more than happy to see the back of, but there are some that are quite the opposite. I have some dear friends among the regulars on the GWV, though most of them are among the supplemental staff, and those I always miss.
More than missing people, it just feels strange. It’s hard to explain how much of a transition the flagship goes through when it changes from the World Cruise to a regular cruise. Not only is there a huge guest and crew change over, but the very feel of the vessel changes. It’s the little things really: the tea selection in its mahogany box disappears from the café counter as do the mid-afternoon snacks and the cookie rack. Certain kinds of fruit disappear from the salad bar, the menu in the casual restaurant changes. Basically all kinds of little ‘extras’ that we’ve all become used to simply melt away.
Last night I sat with our departing cruise director, event manager and our travel guide Jersey in the upstairs lounge for our traditional season-end drinks. We used to celebrate the end of the season with the entire entertainment team and a well-earned round of shots, but the rest of the team was busy or didn’t get the memo, and so it was just the small group of us – with wine glasses instead of shot glasses because of the new liquor policy on board we aren’t allowed to have anything but wine or beer anymore.
And the next morning, the whole ship changed. The day always begins early, sometimes painfully so – while the guests are all checking the last of their luggage and sitting around waiting for their debark number to be called, the crew is up as early as 5am to shuffle through immigration:
Is this your first contract?
No ma’am
Welcome back, thank you very much …next!
Groggy and still exhausted from four months ‘on show’ I was thrilled that I could go back to bed for a few hours before my day actually started, but – just our luck – there were a lot of crew members who weren’t reporting to immigration as they should, which caused the deck officer on watch to make announcements reminding them which were then piped through to the crew cabins every hour. Ugh. There went sleep!
At 10am I gave it up as a bad jump, tumbled myself back out of bed, curled my hair, donned a fresh uniform and slipped on my office heels, and proceeded back to work.