In eight years there isn’t a great deal I haven’t done on ships, but this will be my first time working through maintenance cruise. To say this is a little bizarre is a bit of an understatement, I have never ever experienced anything quite like this.
This morning I walked into my office to find the doors already open and corporate IT setting up to use it as their headquarters. I knew this was coming, but I had hoped to be a little more prepared for it. Thankfully, Amras recruited himself to help me and the culinary host haul 24 rather large all in one computers downstairs to the guest room where they will be stored behind a double-locked doors for the duration of wet dock. Once that was finally done I actually stopped and took a look around.
The moment the last passenger left the ship, the army of working crew and contractors went to work coating every good carpet in white plastic, crates containing who knows what get stacked up in the library (which thankfully is locked up for the duration), the whole back area of the ship looks …white. And the front of the ship? Suddenly there are no carpets, the floors are sticky with sawdust and carpet residue and well…that sawdust is everywhere. Water has been shut off on the 6th deck – which happens to be my deck, those of us who live there have an extra room lower down so that we can do the little things like sleep and shower.
Everyone in the entertainment department is walking around in civilian clothes, with just our nametags to show we even belong on board. And while we do have to clock our hours, there are no hours to clock. Except for maybe one hour for a meeting and the time I was moving the computers.
Somewhere in the midst of wandering up to lunch it struck me…there are no passengers here for a week. This ship? It’s ours. It’s being torn apart and put back together but it’s ours…we can use our phones, we can hold hands in public, we can be people.
This…is seriously bizarre. Fun! But bizarre.