As many of you know I am a huge fan of Jamaica. I love the people and the beauty of the island and unlike some other islands in the region, they still treat the cruise ship guest as someone special. Some islands have money oozing from their every pore whereas Jamaica realises how important the tourist dollars are. Yes, I know Jamaica gets some bad press but it is one of the most spectacularly beautiful nations in the world and in reality is its issues are very similar to other vacation destinations. Obviously taking a shore excursion from the ship is the best way you see the right places with the right people and I promise you won’t find more passionate people than the tour guides we use in Jamaica.
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Life onboard cruise ships are vastly different to work on land……..or is it. I was thinking this today as I realised that I had just 20 minutes for some lunch between some paper work and hosting my marriage show. And so that was me, shoving a piece of ham and a lump of cheese between two slices of wheat bread all washed down with half a cup of tea. I was thinking of how nice it would be to have a job where regardless you had an hour for lunch…..or more. When I worked in London many years ago lunch was never hurried and often included a beer or three.
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So Heidi returned to our home after it being empty of her and Kye and me for three weeks. And while she returned to normality in the house……the garden was another story all together. According to Heidi our garden looks as if the giant worms from the movie Tremors have been partying in it and a flame thrower would seem like a better gardening implement than the shovel and rake I have in my shed.
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I have complained many times before here on the blog thingy about my conversations with people from our marketing department and the fact that when they talk to me I have no bloody clue what they are saying. But its not just those blue sky thinking, tofu eating beardies who speak a language that makes my hemorrhoids flair up………it’s………..well…………..loads of people. It seems to be common place for people to have a conversation with me and in it use weird meaninglessness jargon.
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Its time to say goodbye to a great Carnival Cruise Director, a great friend to the blog and a great friend to me. I want him to have the final words so please let me say thank you to Chris for all the joy he has given thousands of Carnival guests. You will be missed mate.
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I bonded with a mate of mine yesterday over the raspberry, which praise be to God has full signal once again. The bonding took place between me and a pal because while he was in Italy and I was in the UK we were both in fact in hell……………because both of us were shopping …………with our wives…………….and both of us would rather have sawdust pumped into the crack of our bottoms than go shopping……….we would both prefer to French kiss Judge Judy after she has eaten seven cloves of garlic than parade through the mall……….both of us would rather blow torch our nipples off and nail them to a climbing wall then shop……..yep…….we both hate it.
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I want to talk to you about T-shirts and somebody wants to talk to me about them as well.
Guest: Mr. ______ Ref: 840017667A
Cabin: ____ Booking#: ______ Added-Changed: 08/19/09 – 08/19/09
WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK WITH CRUISE DIRECTOR
Gst spoke to GSA asking to meet with the cruise director John. Guest said that he had been embarrassed by another guest on a tour who was wearing a racist T-Shirt. Guest said that he and his family had been very upset by this and wants to speak to John.
It’s a tough job this blogging thing and tonight it was extremely difficult as I had to force myself to go to the supper club…………..actually……..lets get one thing correct …………… we must all get used to calling them steak houses now………not supper clubs. The menu is the same and the service is still the best at sea but steak house seems to represent the product better ………………..so steak house it is then.
Anyway, armed with my corporate sail and sign card (thanks Gerry for paying) I headed up to the steak house here on the Carnival Freedom which is called The Sun King ……. Steak House…………..so I could tell you all about the experience …………… tough life eh?
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Let’s start today’s blog with an amazing story about………….a bank. You remember banks don’t you? What with global warming, swine flu and Kye they might have slipped your mind. So, just to recap, they are quite big places – some of them have thousands and thousands of staff, even though they can only find one person to man the cashier’s windows at lunchtime. They’re where you put what little money you have left after the people who work there borrowed recklessly and invested fecklessly, causing the economy to go into free fall, people to lose their jobs, houses to be repossessed and the family pet to be roasted on the fire just to get something to eat.
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So I feel a lot better today about the world we live in despite AIG fund managers making my savings hit the floor quicker than Paris Hilton’s underwear. I don’t want to seem indifferent to suffering, and I don’t want anyone to accuse me of minimizing the likely effect of the recession, because the coming months will very probably be a lot tougher – for millions of people – than the boom times we have all recently enjoyed.
But after listening to our president and CEO Gerry Cahill speak about the economy today and Carnival’s position within it all of us felt somewhat reassured. Gerry’s message could be translated into Whoa! Steady on people! This isn’t the plague. Pinch yourself. Are you still there? Got a pulse? Thought so. Look out of the window. Those aren’t zombies. They are men and women engaged in the normal business of getting and spending and wanting to go on vacation.
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