Small Town, Big Chains

After nearly a year of living on cruise ships, I still find this existence to be odd and surreal. Each day I smell coconut oil on a barely-clothed, bumpy human form that I wish I could erase from my memory. Passengers in fogged up sunglasses, wander aimlessly throughout the ship, bumping into you, because they are lost, drunk, or over-stimulated by the indulgences around them. Every day on the elevator I hear something along the lines of this: (insert thick New York accent here), “Maaaaa, that ain’t the spaaa deck. You gotta go up ta deck faaw-teen. Whaddaya stoo-pid?” Such a pleasure. And when you eat, sleep, and share public restrooms with the same people you perform for/ with, there really is no such thing as privacy. I am flattered by admiring audiences. But sometimes it’s weird. Like the night I was eating tomato soup and noticed a teenager snapping photos of me slurping. Or when I was standing in line to pee and some lady said, “Oh, YOU. I wanted you to die. You were such a b-i-t-c-h.” (I can only assume she is speaking of my Murder Mystery character that was nearly voted dead by the audience that afternoon).

Another unusual aspect of life at sea is that you have very limited daily choices. Do you want to go to big dining room (I hear it’s chicken piccata night)? Or do you want to go to the smaller dining room (also chicken piccata night)? Until now I’d never quite understood why people in small towns felt so restless. Now I know... You have repetitive options so it makes you feel trapped. Even a ship as large as this one already feels very routine. Wake up, exercise, same breakfast at the same Bennigans-type restaurant (cause it’s all that’s open at 11AM). Go do an afternoon show, eat lunch at the buffet (cause it’s all that’s open at 2:30PM). Take a nap, read a little, and do night shows (hopefully eat at the buffet or in a dining room depending on what’s open). That’s my predictable existence.

One thing, that I will never get used to, however, is the noises in my cabin at night. Now, most ships creak and squeak because they are in motion. They might even occasionally thud when they drop from a wave. This is expected. But my cabin makes metal-dragging sounds. Since the first night of trying to sleep, I would wake from a deep sleep to the sound of dragging chains, ala Ebenezer Scrooge. Then, just today, as I was waiting in another miserable Miami port debarkation line, I discovered something hanging on the wall outside of the security office. It was a draft of the deck plan. I located my cabin in the drawing, Room 6005, and then figured out which room was just above us. Lo’ and behold, it is something called the Chain Locker. Upon further investigation, I uncovered this. (See picture above). This is the room directly above our cabin. I am not crazy! The chains are real! And in case you forgot, we are just above the Carpentry Shop! This explains the noisy nights. Note to self: never sleep under a Chain Locker again.

Next and final blog (I swear) is my impressions of the ports of the eastern Caribbean...