DAY 2

I am typing on my laptop sitting at a desk in my cabin (1101) aboard the MV Artemis. It is Monday August 2nd, 2010. The day’s events are as follows…


Today started off badly because I woke up late again, causing me to miss breakfast again. I guess I am still in vacation mode.

It was a pretty slow day at work. All the lifts are working well at the moment. There are no major faults on the fire detection system. Life is good.

There was an email sent out yesterday by the tours manager asking anyone interested in being a tour escort to come to a training session to learn how to do it. A tour escort is someone who goes on a passenger tour and helps out to make sure the passengers have a good time. Generally it just means you make sure everyone meets up at the proper places and times and note down any complaints they may have.

I attended the training session at 1815 in the tours office and it literally only took 15 minutes to complete - probably because the tours manager Sam Craven (woman) was up to her elbows in paper work. I was given a booklet of all the passenger tours available for the entire cruise, which I could request to be an escort for. If there are lots of requests for one tour I won’t always get what I want, so I need to put down a few back-up choices. I asked for Dublin, A taste of Dublin and Guinness. I should probably get it so I’m looking forward to seeing downtown Dublin as well as the Guinness Factory.

At the beginning of every cruise there is supposed to be a Wardroom Committee Meeting and tonight it was held at 1900. The meeting can be attended by all wardroom members.

A wardroom member is anyone who is of officer rank and pays a monthly fee of 10 pounds to the wardroom to subsidize events and other expenditures. The committee, however, is made up of only 4 people; the president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer. There was no vice president at the time so I volunteered for the job and nobody contested it.

During the meeting we decided on some events to have such as Wii Night, Indian Curry Night, Skool Disco, Movie Night, Race Night, Pre-Dinner Drinks Night, and Quiz Night. A few of the nights are also pour-outs, which means a certain amount of alcohol is bought from the bar using the wardroom funds for everyone to drink.

There were welcome aboard cocktails (WOBs) at 1815 and 2015 tonight. I only managed to make the 2015 ones since I finished work just after 1800. At WOBs the officers mingle with passengers and the captain at some point goes up and makes a welcome speech that is almost always the same for every new cruise. This captain is pretty funny and is good at acting like he doesn’t know where we are going; asking the audience to help him out with port names. The whole affair usually lasts about 30 minutes. All the officers attending must wear their formal uniforms and mingle with the passengers. Sometimes you meet some really interesting people and other times you meet the dullest people in the world. We may drink cocktails and eat the nibbles that come around as well, which is a plus.

After the cocktails, I and two other officers went up to the Conservatory to have dinner. It was Trattoria night, which is an Italian menu and the waiters bring everything to you like a regular restaurant. It is usually a buffet in the Conservatory except for these nights that happen a few times per cruise. Officers usually need to reserve a table in advance on Trattoria nights as it is a popular night with the passengers.

After dinner the three of us went up to the Horizon Lounge for a drink and chatted for a while. It is quite nice up there with a good view of the ocean. At about midnight every night there is a disco with a DJ who takes requests.

After one drink we went back to the wardroom to say hello to everyone in there. I stayed for a little bit then went off to bed.