All the Roadrunning

From the Atlantic - en route from NYC to Southampton, UK 

Despite my slight hesitation in the parking lot of the pier in Red Hook, Brooklyn moments before reaching the ship, I followed through in the end, finding myself walking right back up the same gangway I had so eagerly run down five months earlier.  And there I was, once again a part of the 1268 crew members from over 50 countries prepared to spend 10 – 16 hours a day serving 2659 vacationing guests on board the famous Queen Mary 2. 

All around me cages full of luggage were whisked into the elevators, pallets of lamb and bananas and napkins were brought on board, the floors were being mopped, the toilets scrubbed, the dining rooms being set up.  On such days when a voyage finishes and a new one is about to begin, the pace is dizzyingly frantic, with every crew member part of an incredible machine that must serve everyone breakfast at 6am, send 5000 pieces of luggage ashore, disembark all of the guests in an orderly fashion, clean the entire ship and all the cabins, embark another 2600 guests only 30 minutes after the last guest from the previous voyage walked off the ship and complete the entire process in reverse. 

There are two crew members who work non-stop practically every voyage, as they have the sole responsibility for serving our highest, and most demanding, VIPs, those special guests who live on the topmost deck, with the most impressive views, guests who are served only the finest and most elegantly prepared food, sleep on the fluffiest of first class pillows and require constant pampering.  They wear their expensive Queen Mary 2 sweaters, show off their freshly styled hair-dos and bark at the staff when things do not go their way.  On this voyage there are five of them and their names are ‘Boycie’, ‘Magee’, ‘Belle’, ‘Ganesh’ and ‘Maple.’  They are not American, British or German but are, in order of their names, a Pug, Yorkshire Terrier, Border Collie, Beagle and Shitzu.  This is the Queen Mary 2 after all, and there is no other ship like it.   

As for my return, it was a relatively easy transition, taking only a couple of minutes for me to recognize dozens and be recognized by dozens of others.  Unfortunately, I did not remember most of their names.  As photographers, salon staff, housekeepers, receptionists and social staff approached me with a “Welcome back, Derek” I could only reply with a “Good to see you…” and a pause.  Had they not mentioned my name I simply would not have had to mention theirs.  But as they did somehow remember mine, I was forced to steal a lightning quick glance at their chests in order to read the name off of their name tags.  It is an art indeed, to stare ever so subtly in the midst of a conversation while limiting the length of the necessary pause.  But it was only my first day back and I must admit that I failed miserably in this aspect, my stares more than obvious and now bound to cause much irreparable insult.   

After a first day of wearing jeans and doing approximately 13 minutes of work I was forced to wake up at 7:30am this morning, put on my neatly pressed white officer’s uniform and attend the Hotel Manager’s meeting.  But as the senior officers spoke of the need for supervisors to train their teams how to deal with New Yorkers (who were deemed ‘pushier than normal’ and ‘not the kind of guests our crew are used to dealing with’), I wondered how fast the time would pass until I would be sitting in the final meeting of my contract.  

Following the meeting I proceeded to work steadily for a lengthy 9 minutes, during which time I hung up on one guest after forgetting the reason I had called.  I also wrote a letter that will be sent to 100 guests disembarking the ship in Cherbourg, France on the 15^th, telling them such intriguing things as ‘vacate your stateroom by 8:30am’ and ‘there will be a staff member outside the customs hall to direct you to your clearly marked motor coach.’     

The reason I stopped working after only 9 minutes was because of the two-hour mandatory training session that I had to attend, that all new or returning crew must attend each time they join the ship.  The Captain spoke first, explaining the rules and regulations regarding such topics as drug and alcohol use, sexual harassment and suicidal cabin mates; the Staff Captain talked about Safety at Sea, what to do if we see someone fall overboard and what fire extinguisher to use if we accidentally ignite the french fries; the Environmental Officer told us not to throw anything over board, adding in the words ‘including passengers’ at the end but receiving only a few nervous chuckles from the crowd; the Crew Doctor stressed the need to use condoms and to frequently wash our hands in order to avoid contracting a gastro-intestinal illness and vomiting all over the vessel; the Security Officer told us to keep an eye out for Osama and pirates and lost old ladies accidentally wandering into crew areas looking for the Medical Center.   

The Environmental Officer did attempt to redeem himself at the end, offering the following joke:  “If you see a guest about to throw something over the side of the ship, you must approach them and say ‘I am sorry but we are not allowed to do that.  However, I will be more than happy to take that from you and dispose of it properly.’  The guest will then hand over their baby…”  Unfortunately, there were no chuckles this time, with those of us experienced crew members in the group shaking our heads in understanding of how ‘ship life’ affects our brains.   

I am in my cabin now, just having finished watching Mr. Bean and eating some blueberries.  I am exhausted and ready for sleep but am constantly pondering the question I was asked so often today - “How does it feel to be back?” At this point I could only offer the standard reply of “Ask me in two months.”  I don’t know how I feel at the moment.  It is slightly pleasant here on board, I am not too busy with work (definitely aided by the fact that the person I am replacing is still on board until the end of this voyage), the atmosphere is positive and the spinach canelloni was actually not too bad tonight (although the baked cod I ordered yesterday was completely frozen).   

These posts detail the world of ´ship life´ - the life of crew members on board cruise ships.  It is a world I once said goodbye to and it is a world I will briefly be returning to shortly.

I know this is a long post, but I had to start with some closure before I begin my upcoming journey:

My bedroom no longer sways in the night and I no longer work to the melodies of a three-piece Latvian orchestra in the background. Oddly enough, I now seem to wake up each morning in the same location where I fell asleep the night before. Nobody is cleaning my room every day, washing my windows (which have now transformed from round to square shaped), dictating what clothes I need to wear. If I am going to be late for something, I no longer have to make an announcement throughout the entire community where I live, informing thousands of people to expect some delays in my arrival.

‘Ship life’ is the term used by all the thousands of cruise ship crewmembers worldwide to describe the unique lifestyle that defines the entire essence of our existence. Whether working onboard a 150,000 ton, 3000 passenger ocean liner or a 500 passenger ultra-luxury ship, ‘ship life’ involves the rules, both written and unwritten, the interactions of several hundred crewmembers representing over fifty nationalities, the late nights in the crew bar, the fish head soup, the fake smiles and ‘good afternoon madams’, the cabin inspections, the obnoxious guests, the ‘Chinese laundry’, the security screenings, the consistently failing relationships. Nepalese security guards, Ukrainian dancers, Filipino deck hands, South African hair stylists, Moldovan bartenders – everyone survives in an unfathomable underworld that rules every second of how we live and work.

Ship life is also what I have just left behind. Do I miss it? Of course I do. It is a sense of community that I do not think is possible to experience any where else on this planet. But, just like many of those who live in the real underworlds that exist on land, I had to leave it behind before ‘ship life’ became the ‘only life’ I would know.

I will admit that as a crewmember I was spoiled. I would fall asleep in Barcelona and wake up in Athens, with the process simply repeating itself over and over again while the destinations constantly shifted from St. Lucia to Curacao to Hawaii to Quebec City to Rome to Dubai, Malta, Norway, Kuala Lumpur, Samoa and on and on.

My actual job was that of Tour Manager, responsible for the shore excursions we offered our guests in the various ports of call. I dealt with hundreds of local tour operators all over the world who taught me much and many of whom became my friends. As head of the department that sold their tours, and therefore put money into their pockets, I was constantly treated well, almost too well. Whenever I wanted (or perhaps a friend or someone I needed to impress wanted!) to swim with the dolphins in the Caribbean, ride a helicopter over the active volcano in Hawaii, visit the ruins of Petra or sail to a secluded island in the Mediterranean, I simply asked and instantly received.

In addition, my team and I were treated to gourmet meals, beach parties, private tours and unlimited rental cars, surfboards, resort passes and more, the cost of which was always taken care of by these tour operators. Seldom was it even discussed, it simply was the norm. During the Christmas holiday season we were truly spoiled, much to the envy of the other crewmembers, as we would return to the ship in the afternoon carrying endless bottles of champagne and wine, gift certificates, even iPods and $300 Maui Jim sunglasses.

Some would say that my team of five staff and I had the best positions on the ship. I would not for an instant disagree.

I did earn my salary, having to work extremely hard, seldom less than 10 hours a day and every now and then up to 16 hours, without a day off for the entire six month contract. The pressure bordered on extreme in regards to both exceeding revenue goals and ensuring the thousands of guests on tour remained happy. As a result, in between my paperwork, constant emailing and handling of guest issues, I usually only managed a couple of hours off in each port, a quick stroll or swim, a bike ride or some surfing, simple activities to maintain the last remnants of my sanity.

Crewmembers always joke to each other that the best times off the ship are simply when the ship itself is not in sight. A day spent on a beach with the ship still in view, is pointless, and better spent on ‘metal beach’, the crew sunbathing area on the topmost deck. For those that can get far enough away in order to truly release the day’s frustrations, they undoubtedly enjoy an extremely valuable period of time. But once you re-enter the port gates at the end of your day, and you wipe the sand from between your toes, that first glimpse of the ship forces a dreaded yet necessary alteration in mindset. Back to the routine, back to the ‘ship life.’

As time passed onboard and one six month contract became another six month contract and then another, it began to wear me down. My brain began to numb, I questioned my reasons for being onboard more frequently, I dreamt of going to the movies, having a normal relationship or standing in a bathroom bigger than the toilet it holds. When a new contract commenced, I would be fueled by a fierce motivation to make it my most productive and rewarding contract ever. But once the first two months would pass, this fire always began to wane, as I realized once again that this contract would be just like all the others. I then suffered through the final two months, cursing and vowing that I will never return, counting the days until vacation time, that moment when I can finally send my uniforms back down to the linen keeper for storage.

I always ran down the gangway when vacation arrived, as we all do, away from the impossibly long days and the unhappy guests screaming and demanding refunds for boring tour guides or rainy weather. I yearned to put the lack of social life that drove me to stare at the walls of my bland cabin in a state of comatose boredom, behind me. No more late arrivals to port, no more tasteless food, no more mandatory life boat drills that seemed to always take place on the mornings when I finally had time to go to the beach.

For the first two weeks of vacation I relaxed at home, adjusting to a new world where I had absolutely nothing to do at all. But then, after visiting family and friends, taking a short trip to Mexico or India, I suddenly always found myself less than a week away from my return date to the ship and without having found another job.

At this point, I am quite predictably no longer able to recall the frustrations, the boredom, the angry passengers or the life-draining intensity of my work onboard. I can now only remember the good times, leading me to the inevitable process of convincing myself, ‘The days were not so long, I had plenty of free time. I can handle the screaming passengers, it was not so bad. What a wonderful social life! The wine & cheese nights, the crew parties, the movie nights, the open-deck crew barbeques. Besides, this contract I will go to the gym and go to the crew bar more often and finally write that book I always wanted to write. I will not be bored at all.’

One week later I am walking up the gangway again, under a stupor of self-deceit, shouting my ‘Namastes’ and ‘Ciaos’ and ‘Hola chicas’ to those I recognize.

After this process repeated itself for four years, the notion of sinking deeper and deeper into this extended life at sea, causing me to be ever more distant from my friends and family, grew more intolerable. When viewed realistically, apart from the steady income, this job was leading me nowhere, except to more and more future contracts on a floating world of isolation. The balance of what I enjoyed versus what I missed had begun to change drastically.

Gathering up all of my courage, I recently resigned from my position, following that strong inner urge to head in a new direction.

In one phone call to the head office, I left behind the ‘coneheads’ (crewmember slang for ‘passengers’ – referring to the movie ‘Coneheads’ where the aliens left their brains at home before going on vacation). I left behind the management meetings that discussed such pressing and stimulating topics as the need for special technicians to remove the semen and blood stains from the sheets and the severe shortage of lamb and salmon for the upcoming voyage. I left behind the constant intestinal illness notification emails from the duty nurse, informing me of which crew members had a case of the uncontrollable shits and were now confined to their cabins for twenty-four hours.

Now that six weeks has passed since my resignation, and I remain confident that this was a sound decision, I can admit that I do miss certain aspects. But ship life does not allow you to have one foot at sea and one foot on land; you must definitively choose one or the other. For years I was unable to decide and so ‘ship life’ chose for me, as it does for most of those working onboard.

What I do miss has nothing to do with my position or the tour operators that gave me such a royal treatment wherever I went around the globe. Instead, I long for the underworld that ‘ship life’ represents. For months at a time, hard work and hard fun is intermixed with allegiances and alliances, secret lives and special favors. Nothing would be accomplished without them. The onboard crew mafias operate vital black markets that trade in a wide range of items, from printing services to drycleaning to alcohol to sushi platters to snorkeling expeditions and sex. Constant challenges to power and battles for control keep everyone alert and fighting to maintain their dignity and respect.

In such an environment, the appeal is great; everyone has a chance to be a superstar, to live the life of a gangster. I traveled the world, building bonds on many continents and within the vessel itself, both friendships and enemies alike. In some places and circles I found protection and safety, in others I faced danger and uncertainty. I had the power to make miracles happen and likewise to destroy lives within our confined and unique community. The potential rewards of such a lifestyle are immense - the money, the status, the fantasy - but the risks are numerous and powerful too. It starts out as honest work, but the essence of ‘ship life’ reverberates throughout your being, so effectively igniting that innate instinct to not only look after yourself and your interests but to improve the conditions of your life. Working onboard a cruise ship you can choose to hide in the background or try your hand at ruling the world.

Now when I try to fall asleep each night, the strong winds cause the maple trees outside my window to sway, leaving my room itself completely unaffected by its gusts. Although I no longer wish to float upon the seven seas, I still close my eyes in the hopes of fading into some sort of familiar dream, perhaps one in which the white sands stretch forever, the money flows and the world is my home. Or perhaps a dream in which I simply continue to rule the world.