First few days of turnover and Barcelona!

Well, so far so good with turnover week! It’s been a busy process but not too excruciating! On Tuesday, we got up at 5am to board our 6am shuttle to Civitavecchia and made it onboard a little after 9am. We immediately had to go to some crew meetings and right after those, it was off to rehearsal! We set the opening show, LUEY (short for Let Us Entertain You), onstage and had costume/wig fittings. Around 4:30pm, we had to report to our designated spots on the ship as traffic directors for the lifeboat drill that happens the first day of every cruise. Let me tell you, it’s a little nervewrecking to do on your first day because a) you don’t really know what to do and b) you don’t really know the layout of the ship! I had at least three people ask me questions (all while being stationed in a crew hallway) and I had to ask other traffic directors because I had no clue! I felt silly, but I did let them know it was my first day onboard J After the drill, we had a little bit of time to get ready and go back to the theatre to do a tech run for LUEY, and then perform it “for real” at 9:30pm. It’s only a baby 30 min show, with little snippets of what the passengers can expect from later shows, but it was still fun! It’s tricky learning to work with a moving stage. We have four risers that move up and down, and those are within the turning part of the stage, and then in front of all of that is the pit that goes up and down. SO my choreography corresponds with the risers going up and down, and the first time I did it during blocking I actually got scared because I forgot that one riser goes back down after we step off it! In time I’ll get it, and so far I haven’t had to deal with a whole lot of boat rocking yet so that’s good! But anyways, after we did LUEY, we had to stay and start blocking for our ballroom show, and we were in the theatre til around 2:30am, making for a 22.5 hour day!

Day 2 wasn’t as crazy as the first, but we still had to get up early for meetings and take care of a bunch of new employee stuff, such as getting signatures from different officers and taking training classes on the computer. In addition, we still had all of our rehearsals, and we there all day again up until around 2am. We finished blocking, and then had a heads and feet run after, which is where we were all of our shoes and headpieces (wigs, hats, etc.) We had a few hours in the evening to go eat dinner and sleep because apparently we were all so tired that the run we had wasn’t very good… so bless Tj’s heart (our rehearsal director) for giving us time to recharge ourselves.

Day 3 wasn’t too bad. We finally didn’t have any meetings so our first call of duty was at 11am. We had a run of the ballroom show at noon and we were done a few hours later after that. I was able to nap in between and eat dinner, and then got ready for our first two shows of Ballroom Blitz!  They turned our really well! I had a lot of fun! It’s a 55 minute show but it goes by soooo quickly. I literally feel like after I’m onstage, I change and then run back to get onstage for the next dance. It helps that we have dressers as well, which I am pretty sure are all Philippino. I was nervous about it at first, but there’s really no time to think about being completely undressed when you’re rushing to get into the next costume! I definitely wouldn’t make my next dance if they weren’t there to help. So overall, both shows were a success!! J

Today was a fairly light day! We didn’t have anything until 11:15am, which was only costume fittings, and then we started blocking our second show from 1-9:30pm. The theater is dark tonight because we are staying overnight in Barcelona! J The ship had a free shuttle for crew members to get to Barcelona, so Kellie, Sarah and I went and walked around for a few hours. Even though I only got to see it at night, it was still really pretty!!  We walked down one of the main tourist roads, holy crowded!! Kellie bought a piece of the most amazing pizza bread I have EVER HAD. Both of us were practically salivating because it was SO good! I can’t wait to go back during the day and go SHOPPING!! There were so many stores, all of which were closed because it was nearly midnight when we walked around, but I can’t wait to explore them! The roads don’t look like NYC or anything; they’re pretty alleys and make imperfect paths, AHH!! So crazy awesome!!

We’ve also been to Livorno and Monte Carlo, but I haven’t been able to get off the ship; obviously! We stay in Barcelona tomorrow until 11pm and then go off to Palma de Mallorca (Spain)!  So there is the beginning of my worldly travels; and you best believe that I am dancing in each country! Not only on the ship, but Kellie took videos of each of us dancing in the streets, so we’re going to keep doing that at each port we get off at J AHHH!! Loving this life!!! Missing everyone from home, but I promise that I am doing very well and I’m stoked to share as much as can with you all J Much love!!!!

It takes awhile to post pictures, so I've posted the bulk on my facebook. I'll try to post more on here later :)