{"id":2884,"date":"2014-01-03T20:15:56","date_gmt":"2014-01-04T04:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2884"},"modified":"2014-01-03T20:15:56","modified_gmt":"2014-01-04T04:15:56","slug":"world-at-our-feet-at-sea-01022014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2884","title":{"rendered":"World at Our Feet \u2013 At Sea \u2013 [01\/02\/2014]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"worldatmyfeet\"<\/a>If you don\u2019t know<\/span> you can\u2019t pick yourself up by the scruff of the neck and hold yourself at arm\u2019s length maybe you can \u2013 Polgara The Sorceress, David Eddings<\/i><\/p>\n

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that there was a time when I didn\u2019t live on the flagship. When the World Cruise was something I knew absolutely nothing about. My very first contract, what seems like a very long time ago Toffy \u2013 who was my EM at the time, long before she became my shore-side supervisor \u2013 called me into her office to figure out what contract I wanted to do next.<\/p>\n

Well, I heard that there was this cruise that went around the world, that\u2019d be cool\u2026someday.<\/i><\/p>\n

Of course they can\u2019t jump you from a seven day Alaska run to a 114 global circumnavigation; you have to prove yourself first, which I didn\u2019t know at the time. I wasn\u2019t trying to ask for the top, because I didn\u2019t know it was<\/i> the top. It just sounded interesting.<\/p>\n

And four seasons later, here I am.<\/p>\n

With really no idea how I got here, how I ended up with so much responsibility on what has always felt like rather a frail pair of shoulders, and how I ended up with\u2026a career? I\u2019ve never stuck with a job this long in my life. Except dancing, and that\u2019s never been a career, merely a passion that I hoped would one day lead to a career, that I still hope someday might.<\/p>\n

But, for now, well? Here I stand, and here I\u2019ll stay\u2026<\/p>\n

With Grand Cayman behind us, there\u2019s now nothing left in front of us except one more sea day and then the turnaround chaos of Florida. Already the ship is starting to show signs of the change-over. This afternoon, 51 Christmas trees were bundled up and rolled away to be prepared for offloading in our final port, from there they will go into storage to be tidied and redecorated for next season. The giant nutcrackers that have graced the atrium doorway on the lower level have been dismantled and packed away and the last of the artificial snow that we so carefully sprinkled down from the balconies at the beginning of the cruise has been swept away. Orchids have replaced the poinsettias in the buffet restaurant and the background music program hasn\u2019t played a Christmas carol in the last 48 hours.<\/p>\n

A lot of people don\u2019t realize that there is no turn-around time between these journeys of ours. Once we reach Florida, everyone will fall into their respective roles, working like a well-oiled multi-cogged clock until everything that needs to be accomplished, we\u2019ll shuffle through immigration, run the drills we need to run, drop crew off, pick crew up and we\u2019ll debark one manifest\u2019s worth of passengers and pick up another very different one\u2026<\/p>\n

And then, within hours, we\u2019ll sound those three long blasts on the ship\u2019s whistle, and disappear over the horizon again\u2026<\/p>\n

Four seasons\u2026and I never thought I\u2019d make it one\u2026<\/p>\n

Just goes to show how life can surprise you sometimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you don\u2019t know you can\u2019t pick yourself up by the scruff of the neck and hold yourself at arm\u2019s length maybe you can \u2013 Polgara The Sorceress, David Eddings Sometimes I find it hard to believe that there was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,72,73,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-grand-world-voyage-2014","category-holiday-cruises-2013","category-reflections-below-the-waterline"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-Kw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2886,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884\/revisions\/2886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}