Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada (eventually)

And so my journey home continues… The trip started last night in Papeete, Tahiti… 10:00 pm departure on Air Tahiti Nui Flight 101 to Los Angeles, then on to Alaskan Airlines Flight #703 up to Vancouver…

So why all this talk of flights and schedules? Well apart from the fact that it’s what will eventually get me home later today, it also ties in to today’s topic which centres around the Food & Entertainment Schedule that are created on Cruise Ships… I figured since I was just on the STAR Princess that it might make for a decent topic for a Technical Tuesday…

Before getting to the STAR for this latest contract I had received two different stories about what I was going to be expected to do by my agent in Miami. When the contract was first confirmed this is the note I got –

You will need the 75 min…probably a full show & split bill show.

This was then changed to –

They are asking for a full show & a short piazza spot…so you will only need 55-60 min, not 75. like I initially told you.

Then, when I got to the ship and checked the Food & Entertainment Schedule that details the show schedule for the time I was on board, I discovered that the cruise director was in fact asking me to do two completely different 45 – 50 minute shows and then in addition to this he got me to do mini-street style shows in the Piazza.

“Subject to Change”

Seemed to be the catch phrase when it came to my performance schedule aboard the STAR Princess this past week.

Usually, what my agent tells me and what actually transpires when I get to the ship are one in the same thing, so I’m not exactly sure what happened this time around but I am thankful that I was somehow able to pull it off. The Food & Entertainment Schedule usually details the schedule for the week and when you get to a Princess Ship, these schedules are either included in your welcome aboard information or are available in the cruise director’s Office.

Now, even though these schedules are usually very accurate, it does sometimes transpire that changes are made on the fly (like they were for me this week) for a variety of reasons, so it’s important to be flexible enough and travel with enough material to be able to roll with the punches and make sure that what ever your asked to do, you’re continually delivering great shows to the audiences. Do this and your long term career aboard ships is pretty much guaranteed!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under Cruise Ships, Performance, Technical Tuesdays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.