Waking up in Vegas

After taking a 1 hr flight from Manchester to Philadelphia, and a 5 and a half hr flight to Las Vegas (sitting next to two very friendly British gents ‘on holiday’) I met Mike Moloney where all the businessmen meet their expensive limo drivers by baggage claim. Mike and I chatted for a bit about the trip and the cast that I was about to join before finding my two 50lb bags, waving goodbye to my new British friends, and heading to the parking garage. Mike and I drove to the hotel where I met most of my cast, of which I joined for some dinner in my gross ‘I’ve been flying all day’ clothes while they all looked lovely and made up.
There are only four new dancers; two including me have never been on a cruise ship before, in our cast of 8 dancers and 4 singers. Everyone is incredibly friendly and welcoming to us newbies, trying to help us get as prepared as we can before boarding the ship. I found out that we will be joining our ship in Freeport, after flying to Miami on a red eye and hoping in a puddle jumper to Freeport. When I was told, it seemed like the travel plans were a burden and a pain, but I have never taken a red eye or a puddle jumper so along with most of this employment it just makes me more excited to try something I have never done before.
Day 1 of rehearsals started at 9am with a breakfast meeting in the lobby of our hotel. This meeting consisted of Mike showing up half an hour late and saying something like “Hey gang, were gonna have a good time. Today is going to be long, but lets have fun ok? Ok. Lets get started!” From there we headed to the Mike Moloney Entertainment facility about 20 mins away from our hotel. The facility has 2 offices, a music rehearsal room, a costume closet, and a large studio. We spent the hours of 10-1 learning the first dance of one of the rock ‘n’ roll based shows which revolved around boppy tunes and swingin dance moves (yes, it’s cheese- tastic). Though it isn’t technically challenging, it’s fast, so my endurance is definitely being put to the test. After our lunch break at Panera we headed back to the rehearsal to learn two more dances for the first show. We stopped rehearsal a little after 5 to finish up with some costume fitting before we left for the day. Heading straight to a sushi restaurant for dinner, I swiftly realize that my diet on this excursion is going to consist of bouncing from restaurant to restaurant. A few of my fellow cast members realized this also, so we made a trip to Target for some lunch snacks and to-go meals to save our tummys.
The numbers we have been rehearsing are all done in character shoes, so at the moment I can’t feel anything below my knees. After our lunch break all of the girls changed out of our heels and put on some jazz shoes, which made it better but not for long. The ‘after-lunch fatigue’ hit hard, and I’m told it happens everyday around 3pm. Fortunately this is when our cast bonded the most, due to the loopy state that our overloaded brains and over worked bodies slip into. There are now no strangers, and we’ve past the awkwardness of apologizing every time you bump into or touch a person by accident. Now it’s not only on purpose, but it turns into an event that leads to a joke, possibly one that will carry on throughout the whole gig. We call ourselves ‘Cent ten’…The Celebrity Century, of 2010. And coincidentally the initials of all of the ladies in our cast put together become ‘mmmkk’. These are just some examples of the stupid, yet incredibly entertaining moments that make up the minutes between learning choreography and ignoring my aching body.
But when all is said and done, I’m having a blast…and we’re not even out of the country yet : )