Last week one of the bobbleheads that we gave to the bloggerss during the cruise on the Carnival Fantasy sold on eBay for an astounding $47. I had hinted that our President and Chief Executive Officer Gerry Cahill had sold some of his pet fish and used the money to buy it and that it was now sitting on his desk……………..looking at him.

Then it was revealed that this was in fact bollocks and that a lovely lady blog reader had snapped up this bargain. And now I am told that the bloggers T-shirt, mouse pad/photo frame and other wobbly heads have now found their way onto the auction site.
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You won’t believe this one!

Guest: Mr. ________ Ref: 846009233A
Cabin: _____ Booking#: ________ Added-Changed: 02/27/09 – 02/27/09

EMERGENCY DENTAL WORK REQUIRED – GUEST CALLED 911
Guest called 911 emergency line stating that he was bleeding heavily from his mouth. Guest said that he had tried to take out a bad tooth by tying some string around the cabin door handle. Nurse and security informed and full accident report submitted.

This is a joke, that’s what you’re probably thinking but I assure and promise you it isn’t. I have heard of some self help reminds before but trying to yank out your own teeth. And by tying string around the tooth and a door handle? If you’ve completely lost your mind, why not just invite the local psychopath round with his pliers?
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Yesterday, I had to write out a security report. I can’t tell you what it was about yet but maybe in a few weeks I can. It’s nothing to worry about and the point I am trying to make here has nothing to do with the report other than I had to write it using something called ………….. a pen…………and the words just wouldn’t flow.

Am I part of the last generation for whom handwriting was taught as a vital skill and it got me thinking that in the near future, handwriting will only be used by people who keep a diary? I suspect that there are young people today who have never received a letter written on paper and mailed in an envelope with a “stamp.”

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From: VALOR GUEST SERVICES
Sent: THURSDAY, February 26, 2009 9:44 AM
To: VALOR ASSISTANT CRUISE DIRECTOR; VALOR CRUISE DIRECTOR;
Subject: BIG SCREEN COMPLAINT

Good Morning John.
I just met with a guest who insists on talking to you regarding the movie on the big screen last night. She felt it was unsuitable for family viewing. Can you call her please and let me know what happens?
Thank you and kind regards,
Olav
GSA – Guest Services

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Our crew is amazing and as I have mentioned time and time again that whereas in other areas of the service industry standards are falling quicker than Andrew Dice Clay’s career did, Carnival’s service continues to shine.

However, in every barrel of apples there is one that is going to be bad and yesterday I came across one.

I was walking through a guest area when I heard shouting coming from way ahead of me. As I approached I saw a junior manager giving a crew member quite a bollocking. He towered above the young Indonesian man and as he screamed his finger was prodding him in the chest. …………….and this was in a guest area.
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Just before I start today’s blog can you believe that someone bought my bobblehead of eBay for $47?………………………And I just found out who got it…..tell you that later. OK, do you remember the days when you came back from the mall with a new and shiny electrical appliance? And found it had been sold without a plug. You then had to go back out and find a plug, buy it and hope that you had the knowledge to wire the thing to the thingy you just bought. Nowadays, though, thanks men with beards any domestic appliance with a flexible cable must be fitted with a plug and the plug must be fitted with a fuse link that conforms to some standard and removing it is illegal and will result in a SWAT team bursting through your door. That’s a different SWAT team to the FBI SWAT team who will burst through your door if you dare show a DVD to a group of more than four people without permission. (more…)

I opened my gift from Heidi this morning that was labeled “for your first day as CD on the Carnival Valor.” I opened it and inside the careful wrapping I found a book called A Loo with A View.The note inside the cover was even better, it read “This is to prove you can do two things at the same time……….poo and read.”………………..charming.

Whatever, A Loo With A View is a splendid little book, featuring toilets around the world that are blessed with spectacular outlooks, from the top of the Alcatraz guard tower overlooking San Francisco Bay, to a bamboo hut said to be the best place to enjoy the sunrise over Mount Sinai. It’s nice to think that there might still be tablets at the top of Mount Sinai, albeit bearing the words “Thou Shalt Wash Thy Hands,” rather than the Ten Commandments.

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“Oh Bugger,” I said this morning as I was finalizing the schedule of events for my first day back in the CD saddle…………….”It’s the Oscars.” knowing I would have to show them on the Seaside Theatre big screen.

I hate the Oscars. Every year, I stay up to watch it, and every year, the same warm, sticky magic descends on me. I’m swept up in the glamour, the glitter, the gorgeous-ness, and ten hours later I’m wrung out and gasping the annual question: how in God’s name is it possible for the largest, richest entertainment industry ever conceived, with access to every big star in the world, every technician and special-effects wizard and hairdresser, and an international audience of billions make a show that looks like something we were producing on the Mardi Gras in 1989?
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Hoping that I would have a few hours of relaxation during my travels I went DVD shopping in the UK and bought some TV box set thingies. Well…….I flew out on January 20 and yesterday February 18……I watched the first two episodes of a series called Mad Men. The series set in an advertising agency in the Fifties and Sixties is hugely popular in the UK and I guess it’s the same in North America. Demonstrates that we are now more excited by the past than the future or the present. This makes particular sense in an economic climate best summed up by the phrase “You’ve never had it so bad,” in which the evening news resembles a serving of grey gruel, heavily seasoned with gloom.

Heidi tells me women’s pages are bursting with Mad Men fashion, featuring models in pencil skirts and skin-tight sweaters in the style of the series’ inimitable secretary, Joan Holloway, a girl with more curves than the aft of the Carnival Dream. I have to admit that it has left me brooding on what tremendous fun it would be to chain-smoke and openly ogle the office trainee without anyone suing you for sexual harassment, and never once be expected to do the washing-up at home. For me it was like watching a really brilliant commercial. It was slicker than a lap dancer’s pole, smoother than a pair of silk underpants and as moreish as Carnival’s chocolate melting cake. If only we could stick our heads in another decade for long enough, we think, this one with its credit crunch………. might bugger off.
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So, here we are docked at the island of Roatan, which, together with Utila, Guanaja and 65 small cayes, makes up the Bay Islands, off the north coast of Honduras. Long and thin, like a miniature Cuba in a hidden corner of the Caribbean, Roatan is an island that cruise ship traffic is just waking up to. Like its more established nautical neighbors, it has pristine white beaches, swaying palms and a tropical interior, home to parrots, iguanas and monkeys. It also has the laid-back atmosphere that comes with an average annual temperature of 80F and year-round sun. On Roatan, though, the atmosphere has a Latino twist, a product of being simultaneously part of the Caribbean and Central America.

The twist — “Yeah, maaan” one minute, “Si, si” the next — runs through everything on the islands, not least the islanders themselves. Mr. Google tells me that it is a former British territory, ceded to Honduras in 1859; the Bay Islands today are home to the descendants of white Cayman Islanders, freed black slaves and more recent Honduran emigrants from the mainland. The result is an ethnically diverse mix, some speaking Spanish, others English, with many speaking a strange hybrid of both. Along the main strip on Roatan’s West Bay, Woody’s Groceries sits next to La Pulperia; hawkers on the beach sell both ice cream and helados; while in the beachfront bars, reggae vies with salsa. Ask a Roatanian what he’s up to and more often than not the answer will be: “Nada-much mon.”
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