Day 41

St. John’s, Antigua. Merry Christmas Everybody! Today was filled with many splendors and glories. Late last night Deanna and I exchanged presents and it was a ship-bound success! She got me DVDs and a man-bracelet (Kenneth Cole…look for it on my right arm in future pics). What DVDs? Well, let me start off by saying I’m not the easiest person to buy gifts for. For the past few years I haven’t liked having “stuff”…anything that added to the clutter of stuff we already had was more than what we needed. Especially if it is something just bought out of feeling like a gift needs to be bought. So…that being said…I think I told everyone (because we had a secret santa pre-meeting where we all answered questions about what we wanted) that I wanted Borne Ultimatum on DVD and man-jewelry. Deanna got me those, plus Casino Royale (007) and Band of Brothers (HBO series on DVD). I’ve never seen Casino Royale (until now) or Band of Brothers, but they were excellent guesses on her part. Casino Royale had me at the opening credits graphics…plus they went to Atlantis Casion in Nassau which is where we went on our first cruise of this contract. So all that was good.

As we headed off the ship to see what was up in St. John’s there were people already coming back on saying “town’s closed.” Some with a little bit of anger in their voices…well, what stays open in your town? Movie theater…right? All the duty free stuff was open, so there was that. I had one goal…get to the internet café. I hadn’t been there but the speed was rumored to be fast. As Deanna and I walked toward it and saw all the closed shops I said “well, if it is closed they may have left the signal on.” It was an open-air bar and…yes…they left the wireless on. Deanna and I were the only ones there…then Sascha showed up…then Andy…then Roman and Sveta…then Jen and Larrance. That was it. All us. Oh, and one guy who was just there to watch over the place. I plan to buy that guy a drink in two weeks when we’re back.

Tonight we also had our crew show. It started with a dance by 8 of the JARs…a super sexy dance. Then we did a 40 minute set with a few things from our main show and some other things that probably wouldn’t fly with passengers. We had a really good turn out and they were very appreciative. I got to enter a scene bare-chested as the Lord of the Dance and that was a big hit. I also was the voice of the captain on the intercom at one point. The captain was in the audience an we were a little worried, but we heard he loved it.

The show started at midnight so that more crew could be available to see it. After that we went to “the Goon” to eat. Keelan and Charolette (magician and assistant…they do some great illusions and some great quick-change) joined us, which was nice. Roman and Sveta showed up right around 2:45am as well. Our meals have gotten into the habit of starting as a table of four and growing quickly to 8-10 people. Six of us, then usually Roman and Sveta, and now sometimes Mossimo and Allisia and Sascha. These people are great. This job is like summer camp for adults.