My last 3 days on the Carnival Spirit.

Well... it’s 4:09 am right now, on the day I leave as I write this and I have to catch up the last 4 days!
Manzanillo day, I woke up at 1:45 and went up to eat on lido. I worked on more 3d generated pictures and didn’t do a whole lot else until my gig. The first part of my gig was on lido for an hour. It was an OK crowd... but nothing to get me excited about. As I was leaving, a waiter offered me 30 dollars to copy all my tabs onto his external hard drive, which I agreed too. Really.. it’s just a matter of grabbing the files and moving them over. Took like 3 seconds, and it was an easy buck.
When I was at dinner, Noochie came over and talked with me for a little bit, and gave me her flash drive and she asked me for some of my pictures. So I spent the time in my room doing all that until I had to play at 9. The group of guys that were there the night before were waiting for me. So, I kicked it off with rock song after rock song, and kept it going until 12... and then it died. It was very busy though for most of it and the guys were very active.
After the gig, and I got some food in the staff mess and sat with Jess and Pat and talked about various things.. Came back to my room and was up for awhile before falling asleep.

Next day, I got up at around 12, and I just browsed the internet until I was hungry. Then I went up on lido for my last good meal, and chowed down. Came back to my room and watched some family guy, and packed a lot of my stuff. I managed to get a lot of it put away. But couldn’t really finish the process until the next day.
I had an orientation about signing off to go to, so I went to that at 3:30. They collected my VISA and gave me my medical papers back, and we went over the whole process. I would collect my last pay the next day, and I had to fill out a couple forms. As the meeting was over, I asked the MSA guys if they knew anything about my ticket. So I went to their office and they had one for me. Unfortunately it had me leaving at 10:40 at night and I wouldn’t arrive in Baltimore until 9:12 am the next day. I was willing to accept that, but then I looked at the luggage prices, and it would have cost me 340 dollars to get all my luggage home. So I went on Southwest.com and looked to see if I could find a better deal. Sure enough, I got a ticket and baggage cover for 260 dollars. And I get to fly out at 2.. and be at the airport by 11 pm.
I went to dinner and Marcus sat with me. He told me he loved the album, but really felt I should write more songs like Where to Begin. He loved that style.
I got to my gig at 8 pm, and played to a relatively quiet crowd. But by the end of my first break.. 9:30, it was slammed again and I sang straight til 12. It was hard to want to leave, because it was just such a good time. I got 100 dollars in tips, and it was just a rocking time. Eventually everyone just got up and quickly ran to the comedian at 12. So I finished up early and went down to the crew mess and got a quick bite to eat.
I came back to my room and put on Die Hard 2 and continued packing. Noochie called about picking up her flashdrive, so she came over and we talked for a few minutes, and then she left and I finished up the movie and fell asleep.

Today I got up at 11. I got online and checked all that stuff. Then I took a shower and got some lunch. I packed some more things like my razor. I called Felicia for a few minutes and then after that, did more internet stuff. Around 2, Jessica called and asked if I was ready to do my Contract Review. So I went over, and she told me I did an excellent job and I get a perfect score, and anytime I want to come out, ask for her and she’ll find a way for me to work for her.
At 4, I collected my last pay, which ended up being more than I anticipated by a couple hundred dollars. So that was nice. I donated some stuff to the CTC, and went to dinner. I sat with Peter and Randy and talked about my arrangements. Then I came back to my room and got ready to work.
I went up to restring my guitar at 7:30. I played 8-9 and took a break. At 9:30 I played for a small crowd until 10:30, then I took a break. I sat and talked with Casey for a bit. Apparently she has a thing for me. So.. At least I know I can make attractive 27 year olds like me.
At 11, I got up to play again, and it got slammed again and I played until 1:10, with encore after encore. I made another 140 dollars in tips. Many people came up to me and told me I was the best entertainment on the ship. Some people were surprised about how I could sing so hard for so long multiple days in a row. Towards the end of the night, Thom (keyboard player for high rise) and the guitar player came out and watched. He came up after the show and said he was so amazed at how I sang the rock songs like rock songs but with an acoustic guitar, and he gave me kudos.
I packed up everything, and sold my digitech harmonizer. I gave Lewis my laptop stand, since I wouldn’t need it for awhile. Lewis and Elizabeth wished me good luck. I broke down everything, and went down to drop the stuff off in my room. When I got to the door, there was a letter on the handle. It read:

“Hi Stu,

As Derek is signing off tomorrow I just wanted to say once again what a pleasure it has been having him as the entertainment in the casino for the past five months.

He has a huge selection of songs and tailors what he plays depending on the crowd in the casino, changing his playlist to suit the age of the guests at the bar or how busy the casino is. He has also been extremely cooperative with the casino department, which is so important on this class of ship where the singer is located inside the casino. His music is never too loud or invasive, which is often a problem with this set up.

I would appreciate if you would pass along my comments to his supervisor in the office so they know what a great job he has done and hopefully we will see him back out on another ship once he finishes college.

He will be greatly missed by all of us in the casino.

Best Regards,
Gareth
“

Gareth is the Casino Manager. So that was a pretty awesome email to receive. It’s being sent to corporate, and Jessica thought I should see it.
I went to the crew bar, and saw Claire. She told me she left me a message on my phone to come down and say goodbye to her. So I sat and talked with her until I felt I needed to say good bye to the rest of the dealers. So I went up and said goodbye to everyone. A few told me they would come down and buy my cd before I left.
I came downstairs and called Claire, and asked if she would mail the remainder of my CDs home, which she said she would.
I dropped them off in her room and said my goodbyes and came back to my room to get a phone call from those individuals of the casino, and they wanted 3 cds signed. So I opened up three and signed them, and they came buy and picked them up.
I took a shower then, and then packed up the rest of my junk, and here I am.. 4:47... One hour and 13 minutes, and the moving out process begins... Next time I update, I should be home. But I will say this.. it feels so surreal that I’m leaving. I’m really going to miss it out here. Miss my friends and the great times I’ve had. This place was my home for nearly 6 months.. and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. If I can’t get any band stuff going on land, I would easily come back out here because it really is a great job. I loved it and I’m going to miss it.

So... that’s it for the cruise adventures on the Carnival Spirit! I’ll do a follow up update, after I get a few days away from the ship. But I want this blog only to reflect my cruise ship experience.. So I won’t be updating much after the next couple entires.

Another busy night.

Well tonight was definitely slow starting. It seemed like a totally different cruise. Towards the end of my first set, Casie and Amy came and watched me play. On break I talked with Casie while Amy gambled in the casino. After about a half hour, I saw my Gyseppi (spelling is off terribly), and he gave me the other 400 dollars for the 12 string guitar. So now I’m all paid off. That money will be put into food lion gift cards for myself. That way I can’t spend it on stuff I don’t need, and I’ll have 3 months of food money. When I got up to play more, within 10 minutes my bar was slammed busy and everyone was singing along and screaming. I felt famous again! So I played 3 hours straight. Then I ended. It was rather funny, because I saw a guy hitting on Casie, and I didn’t know what she was like when she likes or dislikes someone, or shows interest in someone, but a guy sat beside her and ordered a drink, and tried some small talk to her. She answered... but then turned her back to him to limit the conversation. She’s very talkative to me.. So I guess she doesn’t dislike me.
After I finished, I went down to get some food and sat with Stu, and Pat. Randy joined, and the keyboardist from High Rise did. Then the rest of the band.. and our boss, Jess joined. I talked with the keyboardist about recording and school and such. He seemed very interested in all the stuff I had going.
On my way back to my room, I saw Pat talking with Jess, so I joined the little convo. Then talked with her about my plane ticket, in which there is no word yet when I’m leaving. But she said she’d let me know by Monday night, or ask them.
Now I’m in my room. Tired... worn out. Got work 4:45 and 9. I’m afraid a lot of the same people will be back, and I’ll be out of popular songs to listen too, since I played 80% of them last night. Oh well!

New Years!

New Years dinner was pretty freaking awesome, if I do say so myself. I got there at 5:55, which is usually the best time to show up, because they open at 6, but that way you beat the lines. And boy am I ever glad I did that on this day. They had shrimp, crab cakes, filet mignon, and some other wonderful delicious things.
Claire came and sat with me, and then we were visited by Sarah. Though at first I was a little bummed. A little less than an hour before that, I had gotten an email from my ex-girlfriend, Mary. It had been about 6 months since we talked and since our relationship kind of flurried out into nothing. She apologized and wished me well. I wrote her back a non-fighting email, and just left it at that. But honestly.. I’d prefer never to hear from her again. Leave that in the past.. Chances are I’ll never run into her again, unless for some reason I’m in Nashville and she happens to be at a show. But honestly, I think she’d avoid that, so I wouldn’t have any problems with that.
So dinner got my spirits high again, and before I left, I saw my boss, Jessica who said she had no word yet on when I’m flying out, and that I probably won’t know until Monday or Tuesday... which kind of blows, just because I’d like to let my dad know ahead of time. I asked her about dress code tonight, and of course no one told us earlier, but it was formal. So.. I had 20 minutes to shower and get dressed in my suit and be up on deck to string up my guitar.
Sure enough I was ready by then. I strung up my guitar. Casie, and Amy came by and watched a bit. The crowd was OK... but nothing ecstatic like I was told it would be. I played through until about 11:40. I then took a break and went into the atrium where it was slammed busy, and the jazz band was playing. Then I went up on lido. When I got up there, my God, it was slammed busy. The band High Rise was playing and everyone was dancing and going crazy. Casie and Amy saw me immediately and pulled me over to dance until count down. Amy was pretty drunk. She was dancing with a 11 year old... I’m sure he felt like a lucky son of a @#%#@$. She’s a real pretty girl. Anyways, Weasley (assistant Cruise Director) got on the mic and got everyone up and excited. It felt like I was Time Square or something. People were standing all over the place.
The countdown was loud as hell, and everyone gave each other kisses. After which, I had to run back down to the casino to play again.
When I got down there, all the casino dealers and workers were walking around giving each other hugs, and kisses. I shook hands, gave hugs, and gave cheek kisses to a bunch of them. Really just a great group.
I got up on stage ready to play for an audience of 0. So I played a song, and when nobody showed up, I broke down and packed up.
I then went back up on lido and ran into Tagger. He told me he listened to my CD and loved it, and said I inspired him to really take the guitar seriously and just do it.
I ran into Clair and Sara and they wanted me to come down to the crew party. So we did. I saw Sopemla, Noochie, Nina, and many others. I didn’t stick around too much. I was pretty tired. So I went to my room and went to bed.

The next day, I woke up at 1:34. I went and got some food up on lido, and decided to just get online for the day. So I talked with Felicia for the majority of it, as I downloaded an update to a program of mine. I did a lot of stuff like that for probably 6 hours. Then I went to dinner for a quick bowl of cereal and went back to my room and watched some of the Office, and packed some more stuff. I hit the sack around 2.
This morning I woke up at 11:30 to a phone call from Noochie. She apologized for not being able to hang out this week, which really at this point is fine.. I’m more focused on going home. So I told her no worries. I then got up and worked on some 3d photos of some scenery things. Did a little internet, and watched more of the office. I then went to dinner and talked with Sara for a bit until I went to take a shower. Now I’m anticipating work. 4 gigs left.. Less than 4 days left!!