day 1 - embarkation day

up early at hotel (nice room!  thanks, boss!) to get a shower and breakfast as i knew it would be a long day – made my way downstairs to find a veritable reunion of other cruise staff i have worked with before – each time i go out, there are a few more familiar faces, so i definitely no longer feel like the new kid… two ships worth of familiar embarking crew out of miami/ft. lauderdale, so caught up with some folks… had breakfast with the new boyfriend of my MIA acupuncturist friend (brianna, are you reading this?  must I really shame you on my blog to get you to holla at your girl?!?) and heard the latest from him… got the shuttle to the ship, back to my familiar room (soooo lucky to get my own room, and a pretty nice one at that!) and my favorite ship, too… the housekeeping staff turned the room over right away, so i was glad i could unpack and settle in – a compulsory training, picked up my life vest, dropped off my medical documents, got a flu vaccine and had the rest of the day to check in with friends, meet a few embarking guests, have lunch, get a nap and be ready for my first night in the piano bar!

the first night of a cruise is always a little different… there are the looky-loos who want to walk around and just peek in everywhere to check out the overall scene… there are die hard piano bar nuts who come with songlist in hand… a lot of folks are tired so they don’t stay too long, and then there are those (even on a long cruise like this!) who are ready to get the party started and hang on until the wee hours… well, on this cruise, i quickly discovered i am up against another contingency – the hard core fans of the guy (we’ll call him piano man) they THOUGHT was going to be here (gulp!)… so rather than, “hi!” “hey, there!” or, “hello, my name is ___!” it was an instant glare, accompanied by one (or two) raised eyebrows and the immediate indignant inquiry, “where’s piano man?”  this will clearly be the group i need to win over the most as they are feeling somehow betrayed, and i am the closest moving target as the messenger of this unfortunate revelation… and you can’t start off being defensive or explaining to the disappointed guest that piano bar players are like snowflakes in that no two shows are really alike… and that you wouldn’t want to do someone else’s show, the idea is to develop your own – i do have my own little games and gimmicks and will have to convert the piano man die-hards gently and over time… i am deciding at the top of this trip to not take their iciness or disappointment personally – i do my own weekly travelogue version of the song “piano man” and call it “piano broad”… i think in episode 1 this week, i will humorously in song attempt to make an overture to piano man’s disappointed constituency… then they will know i care (one hopes!), right?  first night theme was “getting to know you”… largest identifiable contingencies on board are canada (better dust off the leonard cohen and anne murray), and florida (definitely will play some jimmy buffet on this cruise!)… the uber band stumper request of the night was something called “Hut Sut Olsen” from dan from florida (formerly NYC)… can’t find it in any of my resources.. don’t even know if this is correct spelling as i have never heard of it – any help out there?  xo, df