Daily Life Aboard the Solstice

Well its been a long time since I've posted so here's some of whats been going on lately...

I have visited a number of amazing places and taken tons of photos, so you can expect a big Flickr update soon. There will be pics from the Acropolis in Athens, the ruins of Ephesus in Turkey, the islands of Santorini & Mykonos in Greece, Monaco, and several other places.

I also wanted to post about the general day-to-day life aboard the Solstice...so here goes:

There are 2 main types of days, port days and sea days. On port days I try to get up as early as possible to have as much time in the port as I can. It usually ends up being around 9 or 10, followed by a quick breakfast up at the Oceanview Cafe on deck 14. Oceanview is the guest buffet cafeteria and has tons of food available all day. As entertainment staff, we're allowed to eat there pretty much whenever it isn't busy. Then I leave the ship and go explore. Crew has to return to the ship around half and hour before the guests and I usually get back on the ship around 5. In certain ports, like Villefranche and Kotor, where I am right now, we are "tendering", which means that we sit in the harbor and take shuttle boats to the pier. It takes much longer to get in to the port because we have to wait for the guests to go in. After getting back to the ship I'll take a nap and/or shower to get ready for the evening.

On sea days (fairly self-explanatory) we spend the entire day traveling on the open sea. We have more limited hours of when we can go to Oceanview so we usually eat down at the crew mess. It was alright for a couple of weeks but after that, I got totally sick of eating there. Now, I'll just hold out for Oceanview whenever possible. Starting around 3:30 in the afternoon, Oceanview has an hors d'oeuvres buffet line with some amazing combinations of ingredients in small sandwiches and its a pretty good bet that you'll find Tim and I up there on sea days. A couple of my favorites are:

- tomato, mozzarella, and pesto on focaccia bread
- turkey, lettuce, butter, and melon on mini-croissant or small bun
- brie, lettuce, and grape on a slice of french bread

Tim and I have both decided that Cantaloupe or melon (as its known in Europe) makes the most amazing addition to any sandwich. I am definitely going to add that to everything when I get back to the states.

The jazz quartet's schedule is dependent on a number of things in the entertainment department, but our usual schedule is an early set, starting at 7:45 or 8 and going until 8:45 or 9, and a late set from 9:45 or 10 until Midnight. We mainly play in the grand foyer and the ensemble lounge, but we prefer the lounge. Its a much more chill and mellow place to hang out and listen to music. Low ceilings, low lights, and an intimate atmosphere are much more conducive for jazz than large open spaces and tons of people. In the foyer, we setup in between the two sets of glass elevators and the sound reflects directly back at us, meaning that its a really loud place to play. About a month ago I began wearing earplugs when playing in the foyer and its helped a great deal.

Sea days don't really affect our night-time routine at all, save for that "formal night" usually occurs. Formal night is an opportunity for the crew and guests to all dress up in tuxes and nice formalwear and take fancy pictures. The photography staff is great and they setup lots of spots where guests can have their pictures taken. One of those spots requires a remote flash to be setup behind where our quartet sets up. This flash has given Stu and I a lot of problems as its unbelievably bright and goes off several times a minute. We have recently started strategically placing music stands in our lines of sight to avoid massive migraines and possible (and eventual) epileptic seizures.

The biggest compromise that I've faced so far is choosing between practicing and going into port. Practicing on the ship is difficult. There aren't any dedicated practice spaces so if I want to practice it has to be in the Ensemble Lounge in off hours, which tend to be 12-1PM and 2-5PM. Theres usually a bunch of crew members milling about, cleaning or preparing for the night's festivities and out of consideration for them, I can't play very loud. Thus, practice sessions are usually somewhat frustrating. I've only practiced full-out once since I joined the ship; that is, once in 64 days. I'm getting better at practicing quietly though, which is something I've never had to do. Its is a skill that will probably serve me well when I start living in a city, so I'm trying to stay positive. Sometimes my quartet rehearses in the afternoon too, like if a passenger requests a tune we don't know or if we just want to add something new to the rep.

Daily life on the ship is easily contained to sleeping, eating, vacation, eating more, playing music, hanging out, and repeating.

I often spend time up at the hot glass show... more pictures and a blog post about that coming soon...

The Ensemble Lounge:


Here's the Foyer:


And here's some pics of my room: