{"id":5689,"date":"2020-03-20T19:53:28","date_gmt":"2020-03-21T02:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=5689"},"modified":"2020-03-20T19:53:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-21T02:53:28","slug":"welcome-to-the-hotel-california-news-from-abroad-fort-lauderdale-at-sea-03-20-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=5689","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the Hotel California \u2013 News From Abroad \u2013 Fort Lauderdale\/At Sea \u2013 [03\/20\/2020]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"[When it was all over] we just rolled the Zamboni over the ice and we played hockey. [\u2026] and then I went home. And I cried. I realized, I hadn\u2019t let myself cry the whole time.<\/em><\/p>\n

~ Come From Away<\/p>\n

<\/em>or<\/p>\n

Mirrors on the ceiling
\nPink champagne on ice
\nShe said \u201cwe are all just prisoner\u2019s here of our own device\u201d
\n[\u2026]
\nRelax said the nightman, we are programmed to receive.
\nYou can check out any time you like. But you can never leave.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last night, on the final night of our Grand Voyage, we sailed through what is coming to be known as \u201cthe Caribbean Cruise Ship Parking Lot\u201d. The Captain told us we were going to do be doing this, and he approached it with a great deal of respect. \u201cThis is a once in a lifetime sight, that I hope you never have to see again. I hope you never again have to see this many passenger ships out of service.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was an eerie, eerie sight. At least 14 vessels, sitting there at anchor, only half lit. As we passed, each ship of our own fleet flashed its signal light in solidarity. The passengers didn\u2019t completely fully understand, as they were all focused on getting home in the morning. The crew though, most of us just stood there at the windows and railings in silence. Some of us cried. Because for foreseeable future \u2013 that stretch of ocean just off the coast of the Bahamas, that is<\/em> our home. Each set of lights that we saw, represented at least 600 crew, which meant that we were sailing past about 7000 crew members from different lines, all feeling the same as us: scared, confused, stressed, homesick and trying to find ways to keep ourselves distracted.<\/p>\n

Amras and I stood there at the observation lounge window, and I heard the words come out of my mouth without really realizing I\u2019d said them:<\/p>\n

Honey\u2026.?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes?<\/em><\/p>\n

When are they going to let us go home?<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know honey. I don\u2019t know.<\/em><\/p>\n

And then we went back to silence again.<\/p>\n

This morning the guests debarked the ship as planned and on schedule (thankfully), Amras successfully went through his brief immigration check (mega-thankfully!) and then that was it\u2026the ship was ours. You would think that would be a much cooler experience than it actually is at the moment. It feels extremely surreal. We are all still working, but you can\u2019t shake the feeling that we are all still working because if they didn\u2019t keep us working there would be no semblance of normality; and we would probably all go more than a little bit nuts. As it is, we have full access to one deck for dining and recreation, including the use of the pools, and our communication costs have all been lowered so that we can easily talk to home. They\u2019ve limited the purchase and consumption of alcohol onboard, not because they don\u2019t trust us, but because well\u2026the Captain put it best (I may be paraphrasing here)<\/p>\n

This is not because we\u2019re trying to tell you what to do. It\u2019s because when there is a change or a loss in purpose, along with a difficult situation, it\u2019s easy to fall into a bottle and we really want to avoid that. All of us.<\/em><\/p>\n

So yeah, I get that.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t limit coffee, tea or chocolate though, so hey I\u2019m good!<\/p>\n

It feels strange being the only ones onboard, our entire purpose onboard is supposed to be to serve the guests. Now we have no guests to serve. Most of us are used to having a strictly scheduled routine, and not having that feels\u2026well it makes some of us jumpy. The ship feels like a ghost ship, with all the background music off in all the areas except the pool deck that has been recruited as our recreation area. I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll all relax and start to unwind a bit in the next few days. I\u2019ll start offering classes to the crew, we\u2019ll have movie nights, the cast will probably do at least one show. And because we\u2019re being kept to certain areas rather than being allowed to spread over the whole ship, it is a chance for us to finally get to know each other outside the segregation of our own departments. One way or another, our days will return to as normal as they can given the circumstances. There will doubtlessly be at least one party.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to something else. I want anyone who reads this to know that I am fully aware of just how lucky we are to be where we are.<\/p>\n

We are in a position where we are fed, paid and cared for. We are in a situation where we are in basically no danger. While we have to be careful of social distancing still, the ship itself is uncontaminated so we are still able to have gatherings, see our friends, get fresh air, we are still able to hold onto that semblance of normal. We know that even though this version of normal is strange for us<\/em>, it is much much more than the majority of the rest of the world has right now. We are 600 people effectively quarantined together in a very big, very luxurious space, and I am not for one moment taking that for granted. There will not be very many pictures posted on any social media of our time onboard from now on, because it would be neither fair or respectful to show of pictures of us well\u2026being pretty close to normal\u2026when so many others don\u2019t have that option. So for those of you who follow my facebook, know that that\u2019s why it will likely be somewhat quiet.<\/p>\n

As I type this right now, we are on our way to that same parking lot we sailed through last night; where we will become ship #15 to join the silent, half-lighted ranks. We\u2019ll get there at somewhere around 7am, and there we will stay until we have to either go out into international waters to process water or head the other direction to pick up supplies.<\/p>\n

I have no idea when this will end. I have no idea when I will come home (my contract is due to end May 6th<\/sup>, hopefully I will be long home by then). I don\u2019t know or understand much of what is happening with the world right now. Despite my knowing that Amras and I are somewhere safe and secure, there is a large part of me that would rather be back in the real world, despite it\u2019s current fear and insanity, would rather be with the rest of the people we care about than out here alone among 600 other people.<\/p>\n

But I do know this. Eventually this thing will<\/em> end. Eventually everyone will<\/em> be able to come home. And the best anyone can do until then is to, as the British say, \u201ckeep calm and carry on\u201d. And like I, and many others keep saying, when all else fails \u2013 be kind.<\/p>\n

Talk to you all as soon as I can.<\/p>\n

Keeping all of you in my thoughts and wishes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[When it was all over] we just rolled the Zamboni over the ice and we played hockey. [\u2026] and then I went home. And I cried. I realized, I hadn\u2019t let myself cry the whole time. ~ Come From Away … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hotel-california-layup-updates"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-1tL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5689","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=5689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5691,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5689\/revisions\/5691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}