Meeting the Cruise Ship

As I said in my last post, I accepted a job on a cruise ship and had to leave in 5 days after my phone interview. I was panicking since I didn’t get my flight information until 6pm the night before I was scheduled to leave. I had also assumed that I would be flying out of the small, local airport. Good thing I looked closely at the flight information, as they actually had me flying out of a larger airport that was a two hour drive away! Luckily the flight was on a Saturday so I was able to find someone that could drive me to the airport.

The contract was just a short 3 week holiday contract, so I didn’t pack a whole lot and only had carry-on bags. It was an easy, 2 hour direct flight to Tampa. The hotel that was reserved for me had complimentary airport shuttles, so I was picked up at the airport. I knew I was going to have a roommate in the hotel room, but didn’t know when she was supposed to arrive. I took the time to relax and nap in the hotel. I was watching the Titanic when she came in the room around 11:30pm. Luckily she had done some other short contracts on cruise ships so I asked her a bunch of questions.

The next morning we were picked up at 6:30am along with about 15 other people that were joining the ship. We went to the cruise ship terminal and had to talk to HR and fill out some paperwork. We went through a security scanner and were given temporary room cards. When we arrived on the ship, we all had to wait for our respective bosses to pick us up and show us our rooms. I had a roommate that was sleeping, so I dropped off my bags and then started my first official day working on the ship.