Well first off, let me apologize for not getting these posts up as often as I would like. Some of the fault is due to my fighting with my computer and the internets of Europe. Some of the fault is that I just haven’t written as much as I would like.
It’s been a very busy first cruise. There are lots of training classes to go to, and the show schedule is a few more hours than it has been in the past, and of course in the evening there are parties to go to, people to hang out with, and entertainment to see and hear. So it all adds up to not a lot of down time. Add to that, amazing places that I want to do my best to get the most out of while I’m there; well the blog is one of the first things to slip through the cracks I’m afraid.
So I spent the day in Naples recently. My friend Brian and I spent a lot of time walking around, which was great. Naples is sort of a dirty run down city, but with amazing old castles and millions of tiny apartments all stacked on top of each other down tiny crooked alleys. Laundry hangs on lines above you, people throw washwater out of their third story apartments into the street and the smell of urine is common. I actually saw an average looking woman helping her 2yo son piss on the sidewalk of a well travelled street. Pretty amazing.
Ayyyyyyyy.
Anyhow, fantastic cultural experience, but when we started looking for internet to use we ran into all kinds of trouble. The first place was a café where we bought drinks and then tried to connect. First it wouldn’t work, then we were told to move to a table (dragged into place) closer to the door. No? Well try this other network. Then my computer would connect, but strangely not Brian’s. The connection would stop and start and was never very good. Over the course of about 15 minutes we managed to download a single mp3 that Brian needed (he’s a jazz piano player). So we went inside the port to a much cleaner fancier looking café. They advertised internet, so I bought a sandwich and tried to log on. Didn’t work, so I went up to ask and the guy’s English wasn’t very good, “The ship, Internet byldidlnea doesn’t work,” so, something about the ship and the internet not working. When I looked confused he gets in my face and says, “Do You Speak ENGLISH?!” and repeats the non-english that he said before. The sandwich sucked.
So we headed out of the port and into town again. Lot’s of places are closed because it is Sunday, but we’re told to try McDonald’s. Great. Ok, so we go to Micky Dee’s and ask for the internet password. Get this. The password has to be TEXTED to your phone. Ironically, I , who have never owned a cellphone can receive texts; but only through my Google voice account. Fail.
So back on the ship I’ve been trying to get the $100 that I lost in the kiosk back. There is a kiosk in each of the 2 crew bars that allows you to put dollars on your ship account which you can then spend anywhere on the ship. There are no cash transactions on the ship. So on my first day, I open my account, I get my A-pass (ID card/cash card) and I go to the machine which is about 10 feet away and I put in two $50 bills. Something seemed not to go perfectly, but nothing too weird. I thought the machines just displayed messages a bit differently on this ship or somesuch. BUT when I go to get a drink at the bar the next day, no money, zero. A hundred bucks, poof.
So I head down to the payroll office and they tell me to come back in a couple days after they take the money out of the machine and balance it against what is in people’s accounts. If there’s an extra hundred, problem solved. I come back after going to Naples for the day. They tell me that they counted the money and it balanced. Great. But they say they will tell the Chief financial officer. I’m not optimistic, but ok, I’m told to come back tomorrow. When I get back to my room I get a phone call from chief financial and he asks me all about when exactly I say I put this money in and goes into detail about how they check and recheck the cash count and mistakes were not made. He was not threatening but was vaguely menacing, perhaps to see if I would stick to my story, which I of course politely did. “Well I guess we’ll just have to go back to the video and see if your story matches the tapes,” he says. “Yes, thank you, that would be great,” I reply. It is important to note here that not just the kiosks, but the entire ship is under constant video surveillance. It is in effect a giant technology facilitated panopticon.
As I’m setting up for the glassblowing show that evening, Helen, my team leader come up to the stage and says, “they say they have your hundred dollars.” And that I need to call right away and maybe run down to payroll immediately because the money went into another guy’s account and he and I both have to be there to sign papers. I felt kind of bad about this, because this other guy is apparently waiting there to lose his free $100 that he got the other day through no fault of his own. (he apparently used the kiosk before me, but I don’t remember anyone being there) So I call this number where there is no answer and then call someone else and they ask if I can come immediately, so I do. Oh and right as I get to the payroll office, an officer tells me she just closed the door and to bang on the door, so I do, and the nice (but confused) human resources woman opens the door and says, “you don’t have to bang on the door, it’s open.” The officer meant the other door inside the office. Oops. So the purser was there and she was waiting for me and gave me a paper to sign and, poof, a hundred dollars back in the account.
So in the end, the big brotherness of the ship got me my money back, which was awesome, but always remember, they might be watching.
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