23-06-2012 saturday 3rd cruise completed

We did the eastern route again, I prefer this eastern cruise above the western one. The city centres are nearer to the port or nicer to walk. But I still need to find some big superstores in the ports (apart from Cozumel)
At least once a week there is a drill for the crew. It always starts with ‘Bravo- bravo - bravo’, very often combined with ‘Alpha – alpha - alpha’ this is to create panic and chaos.
Bravo means: Fire, collision, grounding , explosion, flooding or oil spil.
Alpha means: medical emergency. Always followed by the location. It is always fire, quite often with smoke flares. When the ships whistle goes 7 short 1 long, al crew has to assemble. At this assembling station your number is called and you get various answers. One drill was crap, my number was not mentioned, I could have drowned in a real disaster and nobody would have missed me, in the end they scan your board pass to check if you took part in the drill.
During another drill I complained to one of the officers and said that I fell cremated after standing for ten minutes in a fire, until somebody told me that the landing where I stood was on fire. Something wrong with the crew management. They kept the fire doors closed, but forgot to look every so often if somebody was behind.... At the end of these drills we are lined up and walk round the ship. In the beginning I didn’t understand this part, it always ended on deck 2 without instructions. Soon after this the captain comes on the audio system saying the drill is over. Now I know, in real emergency it ends up in the life rafts...
I gave the flower lady a serenade and played her a love song, of course I went on my knees for her, when I was finished I took her hand and put a little kiss on it. The audience really enjoyed this little act according to the cheers, hurrah’s and clapping. They must have thought there was a little romance going on...
Guest sometimes tells me they find this boat too big compared with the other boats. But they want to sail with the biggest of the world and some want to sail them all!!! I’m not surprised anymore if they say I sailed all the Carnival and Caribbean ships several times. You find these people on the helideck for their free glass of champagne.
Thursday night is the captains night, almost everybody is nicely dressed up to get their photo taken with the captain.

Photo’s: 2 Flow riders on deck 15 back of the ship
Other photo The back of the ship, but if you look carefully you see a man sitting the spoiler right. Yes you need a magnifying glass..

I’m still enjoying my stay, and get good write up’s about my playing.

Joeb, Piper of the Caribbean