Important note 7/13/07: I don't have any pics this week yet because my hard drive is completely full and I don't have a DVD burner to take photos off. I brought CD's to burn but am discovering that I've been so gung ho on photo taking that each day has between 250mb to 2.1gig of content and I've got 7 weeks worth on this computer so far and a whole week still sitting on the camera. I've got to figure out how to get them safely off my computer and to secure storage so that I can continue to take pics in these upcoming weeks. Yikes! No worries though, Juneau is supposed to rain again this week as is Skagway so I'm not too worried about getting out with the camera anyway unless I do an excursion. We'll see. I need to find a portable hard drive or something so that I can burn these folders to DVD or something, I don't know. It's so tricky in AK when I can't just run to Circuit City to pick up what I need and ordering takes so long to actually get the item at some port in the future. Yikes.
Wednesday July 4th: Vancouver, B.C.
Happy Independence Day! We are in Canada today, but thankfully the ship is still decorated really nicely for the 4th!! I have 55 tweens this week on board, so it’ll be interesting to see how many of them come to programming.
Well, I didn’t have to wait long to see that I did too good of a job promoting myself on the gangway to the kids. By quarter to eight this evening I had 22 kids waiting to break down the doors and pile in. That hopefully isn’t a sign of things to come.
Our new staff member is having a hard time adjusting to ship life so we’ll have to see how long he lasts. We did have a couple of entertainment staff crew come up to play with us tonight and I’m SO GLAD they were there. With the combo of my kids and the little kids we had over 30 in the tween room for the welcome aboard party. Yikes! That’s all I can say is YIKES!
Thursday July 5th: First Sea Day
The seas were quite calm today so I felt fine this morning for activities. It was good not worrying about feeling ill while having so many to program for. A bunch of them slept in, but I still had at least 12 off and on, maybe more, I forget. The new guy had a safety meeting and some other meetings that he was supposed to be at today, but he missed them and it’s looking like he may actually be disembarking tomorrow. We thought we were desperate for staff, but maybe not so desperate after all.
These kids this week are very loud and very hyper. I am trying to get their attention for games and such and they simply sit there and talk to each other with their backs turned and ignore me. I’m really glad that they all made friends, but I’d appreciate a little respect as well. We’ll see how the week pans out.
Tonight’s theme: Top Secret Assignment was a disaster. The photo scavenger hunt had so many kids participating that I broke them up into 4 teams in the fairest way I knew how, but because they didn’t pick their own teams they were miserable and taking it out on each other. They screamed while out and about the ship, went running through the library multiple times, etc. The Chief Security Officer and my roommate had to talk to them multiple times. Because of their bad behavior I’m going to have to cancel all of the rest of the fun scavenger hunts for the rest of the week because they can’t seem to handle themselves unsupervised. Oh and I almost forgot, to make the night even better -- about 4 of my boys tonight on two different teams got beat up by two teenagers while on the scavenger hunt. Of course that went over well with all of us and especially the parents of the boys. I felt terrible that that would happen while they were signed into my care, but unfortunately there wasn’t anything that I could have done to prevent that. The parents are mad at the boys and disappointed with me. I did tell them to contact security and file a report, because they will be better equipped to bring the culprits to justice if we can track down who they are. I didn’t see them, so hopefully the boys themselves will point them out to an adult as they see them around the ship.
Friday July 6th: Tracy Arm, Juneau, AK
At the end of our morning programming Liz and I went to hang with Steve in the Loft for a moment as he was finishing up a movie with the teens. As I was sitting there a boy with longish hair came in with a plate of fries and another boy came in a moment later and stood next to the post I was sitting against. All of a sudden one of the moms of my tweens that got beat up last night runs in and points out these two boys as the ones that did the beating. We now have our culprits and they will be dealt with accordingly.
Our staff member left today without so much as a goodbye. We are not too sad to see him go to be quite frank. I hated that it didn’t work out, I want everyone to have a chance to prove themselves, but in this case it is for the best that he left sooner than later. Now we can calm down and get back to work.
The weather was rainy again, so I didn’t get off the ship. I wanted to go up Mt. Roberts tramway or go to Mendenhall Glacier but with the bad weather I’ll save my money for a sunny (or at least not rainy) week. It was pretty foggy this week too so I wouldn’t have been able to see much. I am still exhausted this week and am napping every second that I can. I think all the drama that has happened since last Ketchikan (that I’m purposely not being too detailed about) has simply worn me out. Not to mention the really atrocious kids we have this week. I thought a few weeks back the kids were misbehaved and rude, this week tops that and then some.
Brave the Night theme night was a royal disaster. Out of 10 games we did 3 plus snack. I spent the entire night trying to get the kids attention. I simply should have given up and told them to go home for all the good my efforts were doing.
Saturday July 7th: Skagway, AK (today is 07/07/07)
Skagway was a bit overcast this morning. I got off around 10 or so and wandered around. I didn’t really have any ambitious plans today because I’m so tired and feeling burned out. I DID walk on my favorite trail and saw baby eaglets that were flying around above my head. I tried to get high enough up the hillside to see where their nest was exactly (I had a general location) but couldn’t so in the end I came back down and enjoyed watching them circle around.
By one o'clock it was blue skies and sun with high 70’s for the temp. It was a beautiful day, but windy as usual. I always have to “hang on to my hat” and also my lens caps! so that they don’t blow away in Skagway.
I tried to contact my friend Kristin today but her cellphone was now disconnected from the Davenport, IA number and I didn’t have the updated info. Thankfully her parents haven’t moved since I’ve known her so I called them to get the updated info and chatted with her dad for a bit. That was nice and then I called Kristin’s house and talked with her for a bit as well. It’s so weird that she’s back in MN close to Amee, but great too!
After calling people on the phone I went to the Kone Kompany and had a dish of real lemon sorbet that was like tart frozen lemonade in a cup. It was SO DELICIOUS! I also took a few pictures of the town as Mom and Dad have requested more building shots. I personally find building shots a little boring and touristy snapshottish, but if there is a demand I’ll try and meet it. Hopefully I’ve captured a few interesting angles to please the parentals as well as my own artistic sense :)
For the Country Carnival tonight we had over 30 kids attend the first part, but then the behavior got out of hand and so we had to ask a couple of them to leave. We had an actual playground type fist fight tonight (the kind where the kids all circle and cheer on the bully) between two brothers while Liz and I were dishing out snack around the corner. One small boy comes running over and says that so and so is crying because such and such happened. Oh dear. So the bully was kicked out of Club HAL and I’m not sorry. As soon as he left all of the older kids left as well and so by the time we actually played the carnival games there were only about 12 kids left and they had a fun time.
We found out tonight that the boys who caused all the trouble beating up my tweens have indeed been brought to justice. I don’t know all the details, but suffice it to say they had to make formal apologies to crew and kids and further actions were taken by the crew and parents. I’m glad that’s over finally.
Sunday July 8th: Glacier Bay National Park
We had a slow morning with only about 4 kids between 3-12. I’m so angry over all the bad behavior I’ve seen this week that I purposely held all of my programming in the little paint bucket room because this week’s tweens are “way too mature for that room”. Well good, then they won’t come and cause problems today on the longest sea day of our itinerary. :) I figure two can play their game. They want to disrespect me and waste my time I can play with 3 year olds and not say a word about moving back to the “big kids room”. When they act their ages we can resume programming for them and otherwise they can join the little bitties.
This afternoon was another disaster - this time due to crew mishap. We have guest entertainment and education all afternoon and one of these parties messed up their bit and actually used the F word and J#$% Ch#$% quite loudly and well pronounced right in front of the children. It was awful! When children get mad at the person and say “you shouldn’t use bad words” you know it’s bad. What else can happen this week.
Let me tell you! Three of our 4 hammocks in the teen hangout outside, the Oasis, have been ripped so that the centers have big holes in them. This causes the teens to fall out, very hard, when they swing the hammocks in full 360’s. Yep, you heard correctly, they are trying to flip each other around in full circles. Well, obviously not everyone has this much talent and so when they fall they have gotten quite seriously maimed. One girl’s eye is so bruised it has swollen almost shut and her face looks like someone beat her up. One boys arm is swollen by the elbow to midway up his arm in both directions. Where was the supervision you might wonder? Well, the geniuses that designed the Oasis didn’t provide any sort of permanent doors to this area of the ship. So, every time we kick the teens out for misbehaving (we can hear them in the paint bucket room as it’s so loud we think the ceiling will surely fall in this time) they immediately sneak back up about 10 minutes later. We have no way of blocking off the area to prevent this and spend all day chasing them away. They of course have now latched on to this fun game and laugh at us for not having control - they have taken control. It is clearly the most fun thing they can possibly think of on this glorious cruise to Alaska.
The damage to Club HAL in general is so bad (did I mention that the fire alarm got busted off the wall in the Playstation Room as well as cabinet door locks being broken clean off in the teen room?) that we are now on complete lock down and security as doing extra rounds as often as they can to try and help us out. Things are being broken, stolen, etc. at such an alarming rate I am ready to throw them off the ship tomorrow in Ketchikan. In all of my 20 cruises now to AK these are by far the worst group I’ve ever encountered. Can it get any worse?
Monday July 9th: Ketchikan, AK
Today I treated myself to a haircut in the spa. My layers were getting too long to have any lift in this temperate rain forest climate so it was time to get it chopped. I took off a good 3 inches from each layer and now it’s cute and bouncy again. Yay! My hairdresser is from Melbourne, AU and was very good at her job. I’m quite pleased.
After the haircut I got off the ship with Moira (this is her last week on board I’m SO SAD that they are leaving!!) and we walked to McD’s for a McFlurry and then I bought my Nabisco brand ginger snaps with real ginger and real molasses. I’ve tried a lot of brands this spring and believe me these are the BEST ever if you like a LOT of kick in your snaps. These things get me through the rough sea days when I normally don’t eat anything. I will have a handful of these babies and my half Bonine tablet and I’m good to go. :)
Afterwards we walked back to town in the rain, it was quite steady rain at this point, and went to a wonderful store called Ketchikandies. They have the best homemade candies and chocolate covered oreos there. So good! I bought a box of them for Liz for all the extra hard work she does for Club HAL without any remuneration of any kind. I really appreciate her so much. After buying the candy I went back to the ship. With the rain and cold it was so dark and yucky I was really tired. I went back to my cabin and ... napped of course. As if you thought I’d have done anything else. Why am I so tired? The staff member tired me out, the kids tire me out and something I haven’t mentioned until this point -- we’ve had late night baby sitting every night as well this week for a little “angel” and haven’t finished up until 12:30/1:00 am in the morning. So, I’m getting a maximum of about 6 hours of sleep at night, but usually more like 4-5 hours. That takes it’s toll when having to be so active during the day.
Tonight’s theme was supposed to be another scavenger hunt night, but the kids lost that privilege the first sea day. So, last night it was girlie movie night (to keep out all the misbehaved boys) and tonight is little kid movie night (to keep out all the older tweens in general). Again, two can play their game and I’m beating them at it without having to be mean or say a word. They have the choice to come to the “fun” activities I’m providing for them or not, and most are choosing to NOT. :) I’m SO BAD!
Tuesday July 10th: Last Sea Day
This morning we had hang time in the Loft for an hour and chilled out to some cartoons. Because the kids are now not in the habit of attending (after my antics with their schedule the past two days) we had 4 well behaved kids show up only. Awww. Then we went into the Playstation room and played for an hour (that room has been on permanent lock down since the fire alarm incident) and again not many checked in and so they missed it. Awww. I feel so bad for them :) Then they didn’t come to the cooking class they signed up for and we made such delicious snacks and got to eat them. It was a great day.
This afternoon I once again combined with Liz for activities and sure enough it kept out all the kids that definitely didn’t want to be there. Ohhhhh noooooo. For the final party we were combined in the tween room and a bunch of my kids showed up, but they didn’t get to do many games because they refused to listen. So, finally I asked a whole group of them to simply sign-out and go away because I was tired of their rudeness and it took me about 10 minutes to get them to vacate the area. They didn’t want to leave, they just preferred talking amongst themselves to listening to me. Finally they left and we finished out games, cleaned up and boogied out the door by 11:30. I plan to get to bed quickly now as I will have a little bit of time in Vancouver tomorrow to get off the ship in the AM before working gangway at 12:30 pm. The forecast for tomorrow is hot and sunny - YAY!!!! I NEED NEEED NEEEEEEEED to see some sunshine, I’m so deprived in AK overall. I am thankful that Skagway had some sun this week or I’d have gone crazy.
Well, I don’t have to deal with these kids any more. Tomorrow they’ll all be off the ship by 9:30 am and I can wash my hands of them and move on. Tomorrow will be better, it’s a new day and a new cruise with new kids. They certainly won’t be worse than this week so no worries.
I certainly hope your week was better than mine. I need to unwind and de-stress before tomorrow.
Blessings to you,
T
ps. I haven’t heard from anyone out there in a LONG time. If you’re reading this blog pleeeeeease email me. I need some fun emails to read in my “spare” time. :)
tlbuster75@gmail.com
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