2/28/09: Day 126: New York

Well…it’s all over. For Jen, Larrance, Brett, and Ryan at least. Yesterday was our last improv show. Ray the cruise director has always told us for the adult show that he didn’t care what we said as long as we didn’t say “mother f**ker or cock sucker” but last night he intro’d us with a farewell to the four who were leaving and said “Remember what I always tell you not to say? They are fair game tonight. The Second City!”

We didn’t quite go there, but it was probably our dirtiest show.

This time is different than our last contract. I remember some very sad goodbyes at the end of our last contract. Granted, we aren’t the ones leaving, but I think isn’t as sad to see the cast go because chances are we’ll see Ryan and Brett in Chicago, and fate demands that we see Jen and Larrance once a year.

This morning Deanna and I moved down into a crew cabin…the one Jen and Larrance were living in. It is organized so there is more open space. This means a smaller shower and bed, but oddly enough more closet space. It will take me awhile to adjust. There is much unpacking and cleaning to be done.

We already got a call from Ric, one of our new cast mates. Right as we left the ship they were getting very close to getting on.

So, today starts our brand new FOUR MORE MONTHS!

2/25/09: Day 123: Nassau

Time is ticking by. We had our last main stage shows a couple nights ago. Typically the last shows are where people try and mess with each other a little bit. There wasn’t a whole lot of it, and it is always a fine line between “hilarious bit” and “I just ruined the show.” I decided to try something subtle. Jen and I do a scene called Bagpipe where we’re both dressed in kilts and she ends up being in my arms as a bagpipe playing Amazing Grace. She jumps into my arms, sticks her thumb in my mouth, I start marching and blowing and she starts making “hi-ya” sounds to the tune. For the last show I decided to simply lick her thumb after the high note. She broke. It was fun and simple.

Today we met with one of the business partners who happens to live on the island and went to lunch and then his house for dessert. He has a very nice house and a sweet fishing boat. I took some pics.

2/22/09: Day 120: Sea Day

Well, we’re here. Our last week of this contract. It feels a little strange because Deanna and I have separate agendas now. Everyone else in the cast will be experiencing the “this is our last time in this port” feeling, getting signed off on turning in name tags and such, and packing up for home. Just today I played Mario Kart on Brett’s Wii and he let me know it was the last game because he is shipping the monitor back home tomorrow.

Deanna and I aren’t totally at a loss…we get to pack all of our stuff up and take it down to the crew cabin!

Today our ship just stopped. Not power failure, but Coast Guard ordained. Apparently a fishing ship tipped or sunk. There were 4 men on board and they found 3. So we were on temporary search and rescue help. Once another ship came into the area we were allowed to continue along our way.

Scripts!

2/19/09: Day 117: Freeport

We got our scripts! The past two days have felt like 5 or 6. Today I felt like I HAD to blog because I hadn't in sooooo long. Then I checked and saw it was only two days...two.

We had great shows on our mainstage and a great improv show last night. We ended our improv set with a Day In The Life Musical. We asked for a volunteer to tell us about their day and a woman named Clair volunteered. The quick summary of her day was that her son had diarrhea. She then told us the rest of her day and we acted it out as a musical.

My shining moment? I played "Diarrhea." There was a slow song that started and my lyrics were mostly along the lines of "When you're sliding in to first and you feel a juicy burst...that's me." Resume worthy.

We also went to the aquarium at Atlantis and saw some great wildlife. Jellyfish, sawtooth sharks, hammerheads, etc.

Anyway, we have our new show to work on so I may be offline for a few days.

2/17/09: Day 115: GSC

They switched movies again…now they all suck. Pink Panther, I think a Pirates of the Caribbean one, and some movie about Hayden Paniterre (Cheerleader from Heroes) racing a zebra in a horse race. I don’t know if the pirate movie is a PotC movie because Deanna is locked into the zebra one. It is AWFUL…and what takes it about the norm? What makes it extra terrible? Talking animals. I liked Babe…but that had a decent story to it, right? I feel like every other movie thinks “Babe had talking animals and did great! More talking animals!” instead of “More great stories!”

I gotta get out of here.

2/16/09: Day 114: Port Canaveral

Florida. We went to the mall as usual, only this time I didn’t need to go to the chiropractor and spend $80 on the journey!

We’ve had a minor adjustment on the ship. You may remember from the early posts that this is a newer ship and has a movie system similar to hotels. You got to a menu and movies are almost all around $11.95. Well, they are updating the system so we have three movies that play movies all day. Yesterday Harry Potter III (I think…Prisoner of Azkaban) was on. It played all day until around 8:00pm and then switched to some other movie. BUT, one of the other channels switched to Harry Potter IV. Nice to actually have movies.

“But Rance, that sounds optimistic of you. Anything else?”

Advice for the teenaged girls from New York/New Jersey:
A) If there is silence on a shuttle it isn’t necessarily a request for you to fill it with sound.
B) All the stuff you think is funny, probably isn’t…especially if it is something you’re doing.
C) Since you brought it up, yes, we do all think you’re on crack.

Advice for the mothers of said girls:
A) As you stand nex to me, your clothes smell like cigarettes.
B) As you sigh heavily, because of the length of the 3 mile shuttle trip, your breath smells worse.

Its going to be a tough cruise. Here is a conversation between the above people that sealed the deal.

MOM: What ship is that over there?
DAUGHTER: It isn’t ours.
MOM: I know! But I can’t tell what brand it is, can you?
DAUGHTER: What, do I have Spiderman eyes?!

You know…’cause spiderman can see so good.

Of all the things that went through my head of what to say or do on this shuttle ride the only thing I thought I could get away with…and I don’t have the skill to do this…was to puke on them and pretend it was an accident. Because who can just puke on people at will…no one…well, Spiderman can.

2/15/09: Day 113: Sea Day

Happy Valentine’s Day…yesterday!

I don’t think a whole lot o’ stuff happened on the 12th or 13th. We’re in the middle of waiting for scripts, planning our move to another cabin in the crew area, and trying to piece together our future. While thinking about all that stuff little else happens.

We did find out who our director will be and that we should have scripts in a couple of days. I’m excited for scripts because there will be plenty of time for memorizing on our travels.

Yesterday in New York Deanna and I went to the top of the Empire State Building for Valentine’s Day…to find Tom Hanks. He wasn’t there. It was a great view and there were bold pigeons. Getting up there could have been a lot worse. There were enough stanchions around to last awhile if full. The weather was also 40 degrees which is very good compared to our last 3 or 4 visits.

So now we’re back on our Bahamas itinerary. Port Canaveral, FL: which means we go to the Merrit Square Mall…I’ll probably go to the space center eventually. Great Stirrup Cay: The private island…probably the passengers’ favorite port. Nassau, Bahamas: internet and DVD shopping. Freeport: waking up at noon and realizing we’re gone already.

There are a lot of passengers this time around. As I said, about 980 kids. We also heard there are about 600 people between the ages of 18-24. So, a very young cruise in comparison.

2/11/09: Day 109: Tortola

Farwell Caribbean. Today was our last port of our last Caribbean cruise. We don’t have much time in Tortola…unless we want to wake up at 7:00am. Today the plan was to meet some of our friends from the Dawn at a restaurant called Pussers at 11am…one hour before we needed to be back on our ship. Jeff and Tim from the Second City cast were supposed to be there as well as Jon-Paul and Roman from the JARs (who were on the Jewel with us).

Deanna and I got there around 10:30 so we would actually have time to eat something. Jeff and Brett showed up around 11:15 because Brett went on a tour of the Dawn for some reason…he was on that ship on his last contract, and there was a mix up with getting him on board. Tim showed up around 11:25 without Jon-Paul or Roman. This happened the other time our two ships were in port together so I wasn’t surprised. Luckily as we headed back in Roman and Sascha (the ballroom dancers from the Jewel) were both hanging out by the ships incase we got back. We only had 5 minutes until we needed to get back on, but it was good to see them.

Our improv show went great. We had a much better turn out than last cruise. Some how I made it into three scenes as a dolphin…as the same dolphin in each one. I think the second time was based on the suggestion that my character was actually a dolphin, so I just kept being the character I was the first time I became a dolphin. Hard to explain.

2/10/09: Day 108: St. Maarten

What to report…good shows yesterday. We all went to various beaches in Barbados…or at least we all got sun. Ryan was “passenger red” by the time we got to our shows. Brett cooked his legs. I’m burnt in random places that sunscreen missed. Sun is hot, y’all!

For being our last time on this itinerary we’re taking it slow. Antigua was all internet. Beach in Barbados, and today in St. Maarten we went to an internet café after a walk. The signal is slow so it is minimal downloading. We had planned on going to the beach, but then we got burnt. Luckily it is cloudy and sort of rainy today so it wouldn’t have been the best beach day anyway.

That’s about it. Miss you! Bye-yiiii!

2/7/09: Day 105: St. Thomas

Today was our last day in St. Thomas. This whole cruise is our last of its kind for us. On valentine’s day we switch back to Bahamas and then later back to Europe. Deanna and I went to the Butterfly farm right by the dock. We’ve been to the one in Chicago a few times and to one in Cozumel. This one had okay butterflies, but a really great tour.

Some important info about butterflies. If you want butterflies to come to your yard research what kind of plant they eat as a caterpillar…their host plant. The female searches out this host plant to lay eggs on and can detect the host plant as far as 7 miles away. If they can’t find the host plant they don’t lay the eggs. Butterflies live for two weeks and are basically drunk, looking for sex or both…at least the ones at the farm. They feed off of old fruit which is basically fermented and therefore, alcohol. Butterfly poop is called frass. A group of butterflies is an “imagine” (stupid).

An interesting thing about the farm, with its butterflies all trying to have sex all day, is that they aren’t allowed to breed the butterflies. If any non-native butterflies got out into the island it could alter the eco system. They have 500 chrysalises shipped in each week. And of the types of butterflies they have, they don’t grow their host plants…so they never breed. That wasn’t the case in Cozumel.

From the farm Deanna and I took a skytram up to a view point. The view point has a live bird show ( that was cancelled because the trainer was sick) and a kitchen (that closed at 3:00pm). But a great view.

Deanna and I have been watching Big Love the TV series. We learn about so many things via TV series. Suburban drug trafficking via Weeds, and now polygamy via Big Love.

2/5/09: Day 103: Sea Day

Yesterday was New York day. We didn’t do much. I went to GNC and then the library for internet. Deanna went to Starbucks, Duane Reade, and the library for internet.

One barely interesting thing of note…Brett downloaded the first episode of the new Flight of the Conchords season. It didn’t work on my laptop…only audio played. He has a mac and it worked for him so we played it on Deanna’s mac…no audio, just the picture. So we synced up my laptop audio with Deanna’s video and got it close enough to be watchable.

Today has been pretty rocky. Not the worst that we’ve had, but bad enough to where we’re wondering whether or not they are going to cancel the dance show and have us go on.

Today is also Larrance’s secret birthday. His birthday will never happen on a ship because they only work for Second City in the winter. So far this contract we’ve had Mike’s birthday, my birthday and Deanna’s birthday…with Jen’s happening on the last cruise. So with secretly planned on today being his birthday.

2/3/09: Day 101: Sea Day

The storm showed up in the middle of the night. Some huge rocking going on that tapered out a little by the time we woke up. There was one more big wave during breakfast and the rest of the day has been rocky, but not as huge as I was expecting. They did tie down all the tables and chairs in the great outdoors.

2/2/09: Day 100: Sea Day

Day 100!...nothing really happened today.

I watched Jumper and Hellboy II on DVD. I ate. Yeah…that’s about it.

The storm we were supposed to hit hasn’t really shown itself. Maybe tomorrow.

2/1/09: Day 99: Tortola

Today was Tortola and our all-aboard time was 12:00pm. Also, my exact wake-up time was 12:00pm. So, I didn’t see much.

I DID spend the day learning languages and working out though. So there is that.

The REAL action started at night. Super Bowl could be seen pretty much anywhere on the ship except our rooms. Ruslan, the bass player, is on his last cruise and Deanna organized a dinner for him…tonight…during the super bowl. It seems like a crappy time, but it was also the best time to eat at restaurants because a majority of people were watching the game. We ate at the Mexican restaurant which is right in the crystal atrium. The game was on in there and it was loud. I was sitting at a table with people I couldn’t hear anyway so I went closer to the game to watch until our food arrived. I missed the interception at the end of the first half. But I caught everything else.

I watched the game from the Great Outdoors after dinner and Deanna joined me after watching the ventriloquist show. I hope the ventriloquist comes back because I haven’t seen him before and I wasn’t about to miss the game. I was rooting for the Steelers…mostly because they are Rene’s team…but also because Palumalu is a bad ass.

It was a great game. The only downfall was that we were getting it through ESPN and only got to see crappy ESPN commercials during the breaks.

Our improv show was immediately after the game, so 11:30 for us. The crowd was small and the cardinal fans were crushed. I intro’d the show and came up with a line that got a good reaction and helped washed the dreary slate a little for the fans of the losers. They didn’t really react to one of the first patented audience “energy testers” so I said they must all be Cardinal fans. Too which some people said “no” and applauded that their team won. My line…”Well, we’re all from Chicago. If the Bears aren’t in it it is pretty much just a Springstein concert to us.” Zing. It was a nice change of pace to have Ryan improvising with us.

In other news, the next two days should be interesting. All of that winter storm stuff that has been happening…Miami even getting cold…I think it is heading straight out to sea. Decks 8 and below have had to close their portholes and there is the possibility of 30-50 foot waves. Granted, this was heard through the grapevine, but it is getting rockier and rockier. Keep posted!