Week 26: Crew Mess Food is a Hot Mess

For those who warned me that I needed to watch the food on the boat because it could sneak up with me were right. Not for the reasons you think. The food on the ship is wonderful, fresh, and delicious: if you are a passenger. Granted we have the same fresh fruit that the guests to, but that is the only highlight of the crew mess. The only other safe food is self-prepared sandwiches or ice cream. I can get burnt out of sandwiches…ice cream is a different story. I was having chocolate ice cream and a butt load of added peanut butter for almost every meal. The other food is questionably not food at all. I gained 10 pounds from this ice cream diet. 

I bought a scale, step on and nearly had a heart attack. As it read 161 pounds, I released a long stream of profanities from my mouth. No sir! I refuse to back track. Since stopping my in take of desserts, getting over bronchitis, and getting slowly back into my workout routine, I have lost 4 pounds. I am now at 157. Getting closer to where I was before I came on board. My pants are still a little snug. I freaking hate that feeling. It is the feeling of failure cutting into the angry chub-a-muffin.

This week I had STCW training through the Coast Guard. During this week, most people go to training and get the rest of the day off. Not us. We worked our normal shifts on top of 40 hours of training. The overtime will be glorious but I am so exhausted that I do not know what to do with myself. I live off of caffeine. I would die without it here. The physical fire training and water safety course was on Saturday and a ton of fun. I didn’t realize how much I was going to enjoy it. Although I want to join the medical team on board, I will keep the fire team in the back of my mind (both teams get to use the guest gym up stairs which is a HUGE bonus). Currently, I am an assembly leader in the case of an emergency. This means, I will check in and organize guests into lifeboats if need be. This also means I will be one of the first crew members off the boat if we are going down. Booyeah! 

The crew gym is rather pathetic. I try to avoid it whenever possible. I like to move around on the beach or the crew deck (the top deck on the ship) to get some yoga, stretching, cardio, etc in. The gym de-motivates me very quickly.

I am getting a few hours here and there to go exploring. I got to fulfill my dream of swimming with turtles this week in Kona. 

My schedule this week rocks as far as timing goes. I work from 4:30pm-2am. It sounds sucky, but I get ALL day to explore the islands. It is amazing. The job they have me doing is FAR from glamourous. I am organizing silverware and folding napkins for main and formal dinning. I can literally feel my college educated brains turn to mush as I do so. After, I get to vacuum the entirety of both dinning rooms. They are HUGE. But I get to play in the Hawaiian islands during daylight, so it is worth it.

Today I am in Maui (although this picture I took in Kona). It is a beautiful day. 

Week 24: Aloha The Beginning of a Hawaiian Adventure

Aloha Friends!

Kauai

What a crazy couple weeks I have had. I have made my way to Hawaii and I am starting to get the rhythm of my new job on board Pride of America (Norwegian Cruise). I was bummed to discover I am not working with the wine department yet. I am a restaurant steward running around like a crazy person in the Aloha Café. I have already been “promoted” to beverage person, however, I don’t know how much of an improvement that is. It means I get my workout by haling 50 pound boxes of half and half around the restaurant and getting covered in the cream every time I change the boxes out. It makes me feel very glamorous. During our weekly meeting as a staff, my manager said, “I do not want to hear any of you complaining you cannot do something. If Katrina can be the first female in our history to do beverage station, carrying the heavy boxes for a quarter of a mile while smiling the whole time, answering guest’s tough questions, and not complaining once, you can do anything.  She is a beast and you could learn a thing or two by watching her and her attitude.”  This changed my views toward my new post.  I have already spoken with the Food and Beverage directors to switch to bar ASAP so I can use my major and passion for wine.

Fine Dinning on the ship- got the night off!

Hawaii is gorgeous. I usually have a few hours in each port to get off and explore. I am currently in Hilo. I am going to try to branch out and do some hikes and beach exploring on all the Islands. Right now I am focused on shopping. I will cut back on this shortly.

My favorite picture I've taken, so far....

Making friends is the key to success. I already have a core group of friends that have become my rock and sanity here. It is like a whole different world on the ship. It is truly like being on a reality TV show. We are in VERY close quarters and see each other every moment we are not in the bathroom or sound asleep. I am very thankful for the group that has adopted me. 

As for my workouts, they took a semi-pause last week. I made it to the gym a couple times, but I found it was hard to motivate myself. I was also going through training and had no time to do anything- include sleep.  I am starting to get closer to a predictable schedule and have been able workout more regularly the last few days. The gym on board is terrible for crew. It sucks the motivation out of you. However, I found out there are a few 24 Hour Fitness gyms in a couple of our ports. I am going to get a membership so that I can visit every time we are there overnight. It is very easy to eat healthy in the Crew Mess. They always have some sort of protein, salad, and steamed veggies to munch on. The fresh fruit is always amazing as well. I haven’t been AS good as I was before I left, but have not let all my bad habits sneak and takeover. I am at least proud of that fact. I also have no access to a scale. I am going to buy a cheap one and keep it under my bed. 

I usually work 10-14 hour days so I haven’t gained any weight because I am constantly on the go. My feet hurt so freaking bad, I can hardly stand.  Sleep has turned into a precious gift. However, spite it all, I am enjoying the experience so far! 

More pictures soon to come! SUPER DUPER slow internet! Email me with any questions or comments!

Katie