Week One

Week One: The Pacific Coast and the Panama Canal

I’ll start with a recap of touristy stuff, since Princess basically pays their musicians to be tourists, then I’ll go into some of the actual work related stuff.

I am NOT A FAN of this leg of cruising. I am NOT A FAN of being harassed about taxis, hats, local art, massages, “massages”, weed, ganja, marijuana, pretty girls, tips, or handouts. And that was just in Acapulco. I didn’t even get off in Huatalco cuz I didn’t want to deal with it. I’ve heard two conflicting viewpoints about the Caribbean: one says it’s worse than Mexico, one says that it’s much better…we’ll see I guess.

Port of the Pacific Coast award goes to Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Though they had a blazing failure in the ability-to-get-American-dollars-out-of-an-ATM-so-I-can-buy-more-internet-time department, the people were AMAZING. I was not harassed once. My favorite thing about traveling is going to foreign countries and watching locals be locals. That’s what it was in Costa Rica. I walked along the beach and watch Costa Ricans be Costa Ricans. It was great. So welcome to the top 3, Puntarenas (1 &2 being Rottenberg, Germany and Launceston, Tasmania, Australia).

The picture above is of some boats called tenders. It’s a life boat-like craft we keep on the ship if we are porting somewhere that is too shallow for normal porting, as was the case in Panama, just before the canal. Take my advice: if you don’t need to go ashore in one of these ports, DON’T!!! Tendering is not the most horrible experience of my life, but it is close. Hot, sweaty, slow, and not worth it. Not to mention, Panama also failed in the ability-to-acquire-cash department. The one ATM at the pier was out of service. I ended up having to take a taxi into Panama City to get an ATM…yeeeeahh. The good news was that I found the Church building in Panama City.

The Panama Canal, to those of us with short attention spans, is mostly boring. But if you take the time to just look at the darn thing, and remember that it was constructed before most heavy machinery was even invented, it is an amazing piece of engineering. I was on deck for the entirety of the Pedro Miguel lock. It is very cool. Plus the feeling of going up on a cruise ship is something else.

Alright, about the job. The good news is that I get to play drums again. And it’s quite challenging. And the music, for the most part, is pretty fun to play. My weeks are split into 3 different kinds of gigs.
1. Production shows
2. Guest Entertainers
3. Dance Sets
Production shows are like show choir on steroids. We’ve got 10 dancers (6 girls, 4 boys) and 2 singers. We playing along with pre-recorded vocals and some orchestration that we don’t have (strings and stuff) Hooray for click track! These shows consist mostly of songs our demographic will connect with. Piano Man is a revue of songs by the great (?) pop piano men: Billy Joel, Neil Sedaka, Barry Manilow, Liberace, and Elton John. It’s my favorite show to play. Tribute is just that: Tributes to The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rat Pack, and Pop Divas (Whitney, Madonna, Diana Ross, and Cher). Good show, but the Rat Pack sequence goes on forever!!! Moments to Remember, which I listeneing to right now, since it goes up tomorrow, is like a jazz/swing history show, starting at late 20’s Dixieland and ending with the 90’s swing revolution. HEAVY DRUMS SHOW!!! LOTS OF SOLOS!!!! Scary….

Guest entertainers are our singers, instrumentalists, jugglers, whatever. We pick these cats up in one of our ports. We get their music at most a day in advance, at least 3 hours before. We have an hour rehearsal with the performer, then we do shows for 2 days, usually. Most often, their charts are very difficult to read, and the performer is also very…shall we say, “instructive” about what they want? This is the time when my colleagues in the orchestra are at their most cynical. More on that later.

If the dancers are doing a tracked show in the theatre, we are most likely in the aft lounge doing dance sets before a comedian or other secondary act. These are stripped down big band charts for dancing. Straight up sight reading. I have over 100 charts in my dance book. Whoo hoo!!
The biggest problem I’m having is with the overall attitude of my colleagues. I’ve never met such cynical people in my life. ABOUT EVERYTHING!!! If there is something to complain about (sound, charts, etc.), they will. From where I’m sitting, yeah, stuff’s gonna go wrong, music’s gonna suck, whatever. But you’re here, you’re getting paid, you work no more than 4 HOURS A DAY!!!, and you get to drink yourself to death at the end of the night, SO JUST CHILL OUT AND DEAL WITH IT!!! Not to mention, being the rookie drummer that I am, I get my fair share of complaints. Mostly about my loudness. THEY ARE DRUMS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!! I’m playing at 50% power the majority of the time, and they still complain about the volume. It’s frustrating because I can’t flex my full abilities at times because I have to look out for people’s ears. I wonder if they even realize that I eat the majority of the sound, too. It’s my job. We’re trying to get some plexiglass to appease them, but who knows when that will happen. *sigh* My bandmaster reassures me that I’m doing fine, so that’s a good thing, right?

Its hard being the odd-man out. I’m pretty much a loner because I don’t go out to the crew bar every night. The guitarist doesn’t drink either, but he likes his alone time. It’s hard. I’m not really connecting with anyone yet, despite my efforts. Long story short, I don’t have an official opinion on the job yet. I hope to have one after a month on board. But if I had to make the decision now, I would not come back for another contract. The money and the travel aren’t worth being away from my family.

For those of you that are now worried about me, don’t fret. I’m hanging in there. It’s all a part of adjusting to a new life style. Hopefully I’ll have more happy stuff to talk about in my next post.

-Beats