Well, my career with cruise ships have come to an end. If anyone follows any other blogs by techs youd have seen a trend. Due to changes within the company a lot of us have decided to call it a day. To call it a clusterfuck is pitting it mildly. But alas its happened and I couldnt see a future for myself there anymore. Eventhough I was head technician it still irked me that my team was seen as expendable. But let me not hammer on about that. What did I get up to in my last contract last year. Well... here we go...
My first ship was the Mariner of the Seas, fixed with a Crest V12 which apperently has beenreplaced with a Digico SD10. Then I moved on to the Liberty of the Seas which had a Digico D1 and where I mixed the epic beast called Saturday Night Fever, and that was some entertaining fun. From there on to the Navigator also equiped with a Crest V12, amd was she in need of some serious TLC... and then came my last two ships.
My first ship of my last contract was the Spelndour of the Seas. She was pretty but old. However, its true, on small ships you get to know everyone aroind you. There I also had a great team around me. The LX was, like myself, a big ship guy having done the Freedom class and Oasis class, and the Lounge Tech was a real Pro... in the theatre I had a DM2000 which was weord but it did the job eventhough I wanted to cry sometomes because I despise Yamaha. It was a good trip though because I got to go to South America and also see my GF which stays in Buenos Aires, amd that aas where we hatched our future plans.
The shows..... the less I say the better. To think that I got paid less than some of those premadonnas on stage started to really irk me badly.
But alas ot was a good ship with good people!!
Then off tp the Serenade of the Seas. This ship is part of the Radiance class, which is a very pretty class of ship but still small. The theatre was quite nice though, reminded me of am Oasis type theatre with a better layout and acess points as opppsed to the Voyager and Freedom class. The theatre had a Digico SD8. Loads of fun working on that console because I was always a Digico fan and its a console design which os very easy to navigate. I also had a few more toys as compared to the Splendour bit the shows were utter crap. I did however work on some nice headliner acts as I did on the Splendour as well.
And so the contract went on. A big power outage which showed how useless my LX on that ship was, amd I ended up pulling a crazy 49 hoir shift to get the ship back online which was only seen by my boss as "why did you do that?" And apprently the answer "well, you do wamt a sjow dont you?" Was not the correct answer... just amother reason to leave.
After the ship I found myself on my epic backpack journey with my GF through South amd Central America which ended in Mexico. During that time I also resigned from the company with no idea what to do but not caring. And then my email beeped, and today Im sitting in South Africa as Head Sound Designer/Head Technical Operations at a premier television company. And what makes it better is being joined by my soon to be fiance in a few weeks.
So the reason for this entry is not so much about working onboard but to say, for all those who are contemplating about leaving, there is a life after ships.
Did I enjoy my time. Well, yes, ,ost of the time. Bit as time moved on I found myself wanting to leave more and more. I will miss the people, I will however not miss the BS from Cruise Directors (who now on land answer to me, and not the other way), Production Managers who have no idea how to run teams amd head office BS where the all mighty $$ determines that their human assit is rather an expendable comodity as opposed to a valuanle cock in the wheel.
