What will life on the ship be?!

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, I have a friend that just completed a contract as a singer on the Voyager... just like what I'm about to do. It's been so great to be able to call her up and ask questions. From my contract packet I've also gotten a better idea of what life on the boat may be like.

I will be living in a private cabin (thank goodness!) and performing in 5 shows. The revues are "Listen to the Music" (filled with 70's hits), "Ballroom Bravo" (featuring the ship's professional ballrom couple), "Jazz Legends", and "Champagne" (covering more musical theatre and classy, elegant numbers). Lastly, we will be performing the first act of "Romance, Romance." This is a little 2-person musical about a man and a woman in Vienna filled with mistaken identities and... you guessed it... ROMANCE! ha ha! I'm really excited about that piece because the music is great and the show is very smart.

In the course of these cruises I will be performing probably 3 or 4 times a week doing any combination of these shows. We will wake up and have a little rehearsal, go out to the port for the day and do the show at night. Once a week or so I will have some sort of duty like running a game on the boat and a couple nights a week I may be asked to go schmooze with the passengers during cocktail hour! Ha ha! It's so funny because since this is an ultra-luxury cruise line I am going to always be dressed up in country club gear to tuxes to a uniform for ship staff.

Performers have a few nice little perks, though. Becuase we are performers the passengers like to see us out and about. They encourage us to not eat in the crew mess hall, but rather to dine in public spaces and socialize with passengers some. We have access to pretty much everything on the ship that the passengers do. Beyond these responsibilities, I can get a tan, see sights, travel the world, and do what I love. I know- it's a pretty tough life, but...

...somebody's got to do it!

Preparing For the Big Trip

I received my packet from PGT Entertainment about two weeks ago, which included contracts, dress codes, rules, and procedures. It's been really fun to try and imagine what my little life will be like on this big boat. One thing that has really helped is that I have been able to contact an old friend who just completed a contract as a singer on the Regent Voyager as well. MK Lyerly and I worked together at Flat Rock Playhouse as apprentices the summer of 2006 and she has been a wonderful resource, answering any and all questions I may have

One thing that I've been able to do, though, is to make some purchases of items I may need on the boat. It's interesting buying things with the somewhat limited funds I have now, but knowing that soon I will be making a consistent salary. In the past week I have bought a few items....

1) Plain white sneakers required to be worn on the boat in my nifty uniform. (I can only hope that it may include a fantastic Hawaiian shirt and some white pants.)

2) Sunglasses for my wild adventures in the ports around the world. Specifically around the equator. Hee hee.

3) A beautiful navy blazer... that I paid far more than I would like to discuss.

Not all the items were necessarily REQUIRED by the company. I just know that I will want to have memories of this huge adventure. During my backpacking trip to Europe with my friend, Laura, she was in charge of pictures and did an incredible job of documenting those 5 weeks. She brought a camera and kept us snapping pictures. We ended up taking an average of 100 pics each day! Also- I am going to be spending so much time on that boat and I have to pick up a few new hobbies that I can learn. While I would love to learn a language or master another instrument, I just don't think those things are likely to happen. However... to make sure that I can try and keep up, I decided to purchase a camera. I got a few recommendations from friends and family before purchasing a Nikon D60 DSLR camera. I'm super pumped to start playing with it! Look for pictures coming soon!