Are You Kamphey Approved?

Since I’ve gotten on the ship I still haven’t been out to some of the ports. Why? Because they are a pain to visit.  One, Labadee, Haiti, That’s the first port on the western itinerary and as we have come to learn, all the passengers visit the first port on the trip.  This is coupled with the fact that it is a tendering port, meaning, the ship doesn’t dock, there are small boats that come and load up 150 people to bring them to a small dock.

There’s about 3 or 4 boats rotating around but the process still takes anywhere from a 1/2 an hour to an hour each way.  When we do have time off we might only have 3 hours, at most 5 hours.  Take an hour off each way and we’re only going to the beach for a few minutes.  Labadee is only a beach anyways, not anything fun to see, which I am told about because even 6 months into the contract I have yet to land on Labadee.  Maybe next time.

The other tendering port is on the same itinerary.  It’s Grand Cayman.  Two  months in, I’m in Arcadia Theater now, no more driving the Zamboni, no more ice skaters to get in the way of.  Now I get to move actual set pieces around and get in the way of singers and dancers.

Grand Cayman is a beautiful place with great swimming.  But did you know they have great Thai food too?  Most of the crew know the best ports in relation to food. Grand Cayman is Thai food, Jamaica is Indian food, Cozumel is fajitas, St. Thomas is Sushi, St. Maarten is Chinese, San Juan is… well it’s a lot of things and I’ve heard but never seen cheap chinese food there.

So this great grand Grand Cayman story goes as follows.  My first time to go to Grand Cayman is with my production manager at the time and the head Sound tech.  They invite everyone to go for Thai food and I’m the only one who accepts the invitation.  So we have to tender.  We wait until the middle of the day to go because we only are going to eat and run back. All three of us have to be back on the ship and ready to go for a show that night.  The tender we take is almost empty except of us three and this one skinny girl taking pictures of herself.

I ask if she wants me to take a picture. She hands me her camera.  I point the camera at myself, give a big smile and snap.  Everyone is amazed, that wasn’t what she meant, but that was what I meant.  I hand the camera back to her.  My production manager being the gentleman he is takes the camera for her and takes HER picture.   We ask her what she’s going to Grand Cayman for, she says nothing it’s her first time to Grand Cayman. Great! It’s mine too.  These guys are taking me to get some Thai food, you’re more than welcome to come join us.

She’s a brazilian who works in Guest Relations. She has the unfortunate job of dealing with guests who have problems.  As we sit down to eat, who walks in? but none other than Brent the international ambassador.  He has the unfortunate position of dealing with guests who don’t speak english, or at least speak little.

I met him over scrabble if you can believe that.  I was itching for a game of scrabble and found out he played Scrabulous!  Yes, that Scrabulous.  So we played a few game and came out even in terms of winning and losing.  He’s a jovial well educated international man of mystery.  But really he is great and he sits down with us but not before yelling something at me about the fact that I am cheating on him.  What?  exactly. I’m dumbfounded. He goes on to talk to the pretty girl at the table in Portuguese!  I’m cut out of the conversation and just am boiling mad.  The meal was good though.

I try talking to her some more before getting back on the ship but Brent just manhandles the conversation and I feel like a dork.  I try talking to her a few times over the next week but she just doesn’t seem to be interested in me. She’s not.  Two weeks later I haven’t seen her in a while.  She’s been fired.  She was found in the Chapel on deck 15 making out with a passenger.  I guess she was really easy, easily fired.