Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

On cruise ships everyone starts their contract at different times. The production cast is the only group onboard that comes as a unit and leaves as a unit. None of is can be transferred or extend our contracts individually because we were hired as a collective group out of Vegas and through Mike Moloney Productions. This is not the case for everyone else. Anyone that works on this ship comes alone and leaves alone. They have a contract that has an expiration date unique to anyone else’s, and to keep too many new people coming at the same time, people are constantly coming in to replace each other. Transfers and promotions also happen, so if there is a position that needs to be filled on another ship and someone here is extremely good at their job, they will be pulled from their spot on the Century and upgraded to one of the higher-class ships.

Understandably, this makes sense on the business end, but for the people here it can be really difficult. We are starting to get to the point in my contract where people we have made friends with are leaving the ship for one of the reasons above. Waiters who have gotten used to seeing our faces in the dinning area, Broadcasters who have been filming everything we do, Audio Visual Technicians who help is with set changes and costume changes backstage, and even our Cruise Director who organizes our schedule and introduces every show. Were loosing them all to vacations and promotions.

One the one side we are happy for them, that they get to go home and see their families or that they get to make more money on a better ship with better conditions, but on the other side it means that we have to start from square one with a new guy or girl. We loose the people who we have started to call family in this house that moves on water, and it isn’t so easy to get along with everyone when your trapped on the same ship everyday. After this next cruise (of which mom and dad will join me), we loose more people then I care to think about, and though this may be part of the cruise ship life that one must learn to accept, it really sucks.