After I got over the initial shock of how much my life was about to change I decided to combine two of my passions in life, traveling and having fun! I took a job as a youth counselor on Princess cruise lines. This
experience was literally life changing and couldn't have come at a better time for me. The people that I worked with were from all over the world. I kid you not that out of over 1,000 staff and crew, only twelve of us were Americans. It was truly amazing to see people from over forty different countries and cultures work, live and socialize together in a respectful manner. It's really strange but now I can say that I have friends that live all over the world (Australia, India, Brazil, Philippines, South Africa, U.K. Etc) and I am very much looking forward to visit them!
The other, probably more obvious advantage to working on a cruise ship is traveling. This particular ship
began in NYC, which has been on my places to see list for some time now. WOW. Ya know, being from Chicago, I didn't think that New York could be that much more impressive than the city of big shoulders, boy was I
wrong. It was absolutely incredible to see all of the sights. Central Park, Times Square, Empire, Rok Center, St. Pats, 9/11 memorial, Bryant Park, Grand Central, Statue of Liberty. You see it over and over in movies but until experience it in person, it's not the same. I didn't get a t-shirt but "I LOVE NY".
From the Big Apple our ship sailed all the way to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Canada. The towns we stopped in were Halifax, Charlottetown and Sydney. I'm not going to lie, I don't care for Canada, it's cold, kinda boring and most Canadians I know are weird. There, I said it...
Now onto the good stuff, USA! Next on our itinerary was Bar Harbor, Maine. Which consisted of
massive amounts of lobster, blueberry pie and football. Then down to Newport, Rhode Island where you have never seen so many sail boats and yachts in your life. Here i took a boat tour of the area, passing some outrageous mansions and touring a lighthouse. Did you know people live in those things? Some friends and I grabbed lunch at the oldest tavern in the US, the White Horse Tavern. Then onto Beantown, or Boston, whatever your fancy. Upper deck trolley tour is the way to go here to be able to see the entire city. I was amazed at the history and actually at how small the city actually is. Finally, I'm able to say that I've visited New England area and I fell in love with it!
Lucky for me, my ship didn't just stop there. We also made a run to the Caribbean. This included Bermuda, St. Thomas, San Juan and Grand Turk. It was a lot of sand, sun and snorkeling, including encounters with stingray and reef shark! The waters were so blue I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they dump food coloring into the area.
Oh yeah, I guess I should explain a little about my job and why I was on a cruise ship in the first place. As a part of the youth staff I literally got to play all day long. It depended on which age group I was with but my daily activities consisted of fooseball tournaments , wii dance, pajama parties, ice cream socials, karaoke, disco parties, dodgeball, boardgames, movie nights, arts and crafts. Tough life, huh?
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