Long overdue update

Pride of Hawaii tied up in Maui

Tendered in Kona

A little downtown street in Kona, reminded me of Puerta Vallarta

Okay, I have finally convinced Steph that we NEED to get wireless internet so that we can update blogs and check email without having to pay the outragious $20/ 3 hour rate that the ship charges. So very soon we will get a cellular card from verison and be able to log on almost every day. I feel bad about not updating this very often; however, our ship was infected with Norwalk for 2 weeks and before that we were so busy with learning the ropes we just didn't have time. I think everything is settling down now, nobody is pooping and puking uncontrollably (Norwalk) and we are getting used to ship life. It was a big bummer to first get on and find out that we wouldn't be living together, but we both have great roommates and God is really blessing us. One of the things we didn't expect was to have the same schedule, but when we asked they readily gave us the exact same schedule for work. Today we had a great afternoon and evening off in Kauai, we got a good deal on a rental car and drove up to the north shore to spend the day on the beach snorkeling. Then we went to a walk up chinese food place where I got walnut shrimp and Steph got eggplant pork, both very good. The walnut shrimp was just like the stuff we get a Kwans in Salem. Hit the spot after a long day at the beach.

We have been working a lot though, especially with the extra cleaning duties during Silver service (the procedure of serving custmers potentially having Norwalk) both of us racked up 80 hours a week for both of the silver weeks. But that is over for now hopefully not to come back for a while, the only part we liked was the paycheck after it was over :). Okay I am being a hog, here is Steph.

Well, relented is more like it, not convinced. Of course, this is the first time I've looked at a computer in a month so he is probably right.
So week 1 was trying to find our cabin once we were at sea and the water tight doors were all closed. (In port you have 4 or 5 stairwells that will lead to your room, at sea, just 1!) . Week two was OK, I think I can find my way to work, food and sleep and hopefully to my muster station (My first boat drill was horrible!!!!! I was the last one to my muster station, I would have gone down with ship!) and then half way thru, Norwalk. Guest couldn't touch anything, we had to put salt and pepper on their food, tabasco on their eggs, butter on their bread plates.....needless to say the manpower required to do that is enormous and everyone was pulling triples. For a brief, sickening hour we thought we were going to have to be on silver service for one more week. The last day of the cruise, Sunday, 5 guests came down with Norwalk and corperate was thinking of continuing with silver service. Fortunalety for us they didn't and as far as I know, no one has gotten sick this week! I can't believe that this is our 4th cruise week already! We have gotten to interact with guests from all over. I talked with an older couple from Iraq that now lives in North Carolina at breakfast the other day. That is one of Matt's and I's favroite part of the job. It is easy to make them happy for the most part. We were out of Fruit Loops in the buffet so I jetted down to the 6th floor to get them from a different restaurant and then gave them to the little girl in the buffet. The mother thanked me at least 3 times....all for a bowl of fruitloops! :-) Course there was the one lady who insisted that she was taking Carnival next time because I couldn't get her icecream at 9:30 in the morning! Oh well!
In case you are curious, we had a good Thanksgiving on the ship. We were served in the Grand Pacific which is a very nice restaruant, by all of the Officers on the ship. The captian was carving Turkey, the Hotel Director scooping gravy. It was a little weird to see white uniformed officers in the dish room mucking our dishes but it made us feel special. Of course afterwards there was no after Turkey nap for us, it was an 8 hour shift of serving 2600 hundred passengers their Thanksgiving dinners. They put Matt and I together as front and back waiter. I have to say that we did all right. There were things out of our control like a 20 minute wait for Turkey and an irrate old man who left because he couldn't get Lobster, but what a day to be put as a front waiter for the first time! Linda our supervisor is really good and assigned us a bar guy to handle the wine and drink orders as neither Matt and I have the micro's card needed to take care of all of that stuff.
I could write a lot more but I don't want you guys to have to endure a novel. We should be able to post more often now. We think about everyone often and hope that you are not too rainy or cold! :-p
Lots of Love,

Matt and Steph