My first day working onboard (3)

The gangway for crew was at street level, and I had to make my way to the cruise staff office. I found out that in the crew area, there is a walkway from the front to the back of the ship called the I-95. It’s like a super busy street where you meet all your fellow crew members going around—from the mess to their cabin or on their way to work. A nice way to greet and chat with crew.

Also, this is where the cruise staff office was. I entered and met up with my Assistant Cruise Director at that time. She was a nice lady and helped me find my way to my cabin. I had some time to unpack and settle down.

I was sharing my cabin with my cruise staff colleague Valerie. The question is always: who sleeps on top of the bunk bed and who sleeps on the bottom? The unwritten rule is: whoever comes last sleeps on top—until your colleague finishes their contract. Then it's time to move down.

It was an inside cabin on Deck 2 forward. I really liked sharing my cabin with my cruise staff colleague, and we had a lot of fun during that contract—watching movies together, partying together, and sometimes getting to spend time in the ports.

In the evening, the ship started moving out of port and we had the Welcome Aboard Show for guests. It always started with mingling with the guests before the show, followed by a small introduction of ourselves and the activities we had going on around the ship during the cruise.

It was so nice to mingle with the guests, get to know where they were from, and hear how many cruises they had taken. The Legend was doing longer cruises, so you really got to know the guests much better and had fun with them throughout.

On Royal Caribbean International, at that time, we had the Ship Shape Program. Everyday, there were many sports activities happening around the ship. Guests who attended an activity would receive a Ship Shape Dollar, and at the end of the cruise, they could redeem them for prizes like a sportsbag, towel, or T-shirt. The activities where: walk-a-mile 4 laps walking around the sportscourt around the ship, sit-to-be-fit, aqua-aerobics, dance-class, golf-putting, bean-bag throwing.

Once the ship arrived in port, the cruise staff helped the shore excursion colleagues with bringing the guests to their designated tours—from the lounge, outside the ship, all the way to the bus.

Sometimes, we even joined the tours and acted as tour guides for the day. You had to keep the group together and make sure everything ran smoothly.

In case we were tendering, there was always a cruise staff member on the dock to help and greet the guests. My first pier duty was in Geiranger, Norway—what a beautiful place to start!

Pier duty tendering Geiranger Fjord

Norwegian Troll