by Micha Berman
I scurried to the top of the ship to join the passengers. It was a rare place, so much happiness in such a confined area. Everybody was hugging, jumping up and down, laughing and waving to the crowds down below on the dock and yes, there was even confetti. The hubbub became louder and louder as the ocean liner inched away from the pier. In many ways I shared their uncontrolled elation as I looked out at the beautiful image of Miami fading away. As we passed fellow cruise ships Gary made wise cracks about all the other cruise lines like,"Hello everybody aboard Royal Caribbean's Sovereign of the Seas, sorry to hear you will have no alcohol this week, but enjoy your cruise!" Soon we were surrounded by ocean. The passengers quickly dispersed in all directions to explore the ship, but I remained rooted to my spot, contemplating the scene around me. I was not a passenger and yet I was a traveler and a visitor on this cruise liner, anxious to find its rhythms and ways. I didn't fully understand my role yet but as I looked out at the sparkling blue ocean and felt the frothy waves crashing up against the hull, my body was filled with euphoria. Happy and content, I inhaled the crisp sea air and thought about all the people who mattered to me back home. I reflected on the trip I was about to undertake. There is something about looking out at the ocean that makes people do a lot of thinking and I was no exception. Was I making the right decision? Would I last? Taking one last glimpse at the water I turned and headed back to my cabin.
Since I had a couple of hours before the introduction show, I decided to go back to my room and unpack. After walking through the passenger areas all day long, my curiosity for the crew areas had grown. Below the main level of the ship existed a world unto itself, the decks where the hundreds of crew members worked and lived. As I walked through these decks it dawned on me that I was entering a different neighborhood, one with its own culture and rarely seen by passengers. The first sign that you had entered crew city was the obvious lack of carpeting on the floors and the sheer bareness of the shiny metal walls. The exuberant colors of the passenger halls were replaced by a stark hospital like setting and a general feeling of unadorned survival. A second clue that this was not passenger living quarters was the trash littering the floors, the most common item a shred of wet cardboard standing guard outside a crew member's door, the last remnant from a six pack of beer. Finally in this new neighborhood, hallways also served as soccer fields. Crew members, many from Latin America, often held soccer matches in these hallways not wider than 3 feet, during their off hours, bouncing off the doors, screaming and hollering, there was no way to stop them from enjoying their national pastime.
The staff living quarters consisted of five decks. The lower the floor, the more cramped and dirty the conditions and the more unsafe it was to wander. Think of it as the United Nations with the top floors representing the rich and fortunate nations of the world like the United States, Europe and oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The bottom floors might be closer to third world countries such as India, Sudan, or Guatemala. Fortunately, my room was on the highest level, an area reserved for managers and special guests.Whereas each deck below had cabins with bunk beds for two crew members and sometimes an extra cot for three people, my floor had all singles, many of them with portholes.
It was the cleanest crew deck with the most services available. However, on one of the largest cruise ships in the world, the rooms still seemed tiny. As I stepped into my cabin, I couldn't help thinking I was moving into an office cubicle, one with dimensions no larger than nine feet by nine feet. This room made my college dorm seem like a Ritz Carlton Suite. If I stood in the middle of the room with my arms fully outstretched, I came pretty close to touching the walls. The walls, bare except for a couple of minor holes where thumbtacks once stood, were painted a dull tan color punctuated by tiny metal reminders such as "no smoking in cabin," or "life vest available under bed." The total inventory of furniture was minimal, a small desk, cabinet armoire, the style akin to ones at a clearance sale from a furniture wholesale dealer somewhere in Brooklyn. A phone hung on the wall that connected to all crew members' rooms, but not to passenger cabins.
I stepped through the narrow door leading to the bathroom where I confirmed once again that just stretching my arms out would allow me to touch the sink, toilet and shower simultaneously. This opened up the possibility of showering and peeing into the toilet at the same time, a male feat worth bragging about. I felt lonely staring at this sterile room, its lack of permanence bringing my spirits down like a depressant. In a couple months I transformed the room into a much cozier place as I shipped in my television, VCR, CD player and computer. There was no reason for all my goodies to be locked up in storage; this was my new home and I wanted it to feel like it. The most disheartening feature about my first room was the lack of a port hole, the mariner's version of a window. When I woke up every morning it was pitch black and I had no idea whether it was noon or ten in the evening, let alone what the weather was like. I felt like I was in some National Geographic science experiment, the ones where people are secluded in subterranean caves and not allowed to know the time of day. Eventually, I was moved to a cabin with a port hole and it literally lit up my day to be able to see the sunshine in the morning.
The intercom clicked on. "May I have your attention please, this is your Captain speaking. In approximately 15 minutes we will be having a boat drill. We ask that all passengers and crew report to their assigned stations." The words were spoken in a thick Italian accent, every three words grouped together in illogical islands of grammar. My job was to stand at the top of a stairwell on deck and instruct the yawning passengers where to go. They were supposed to have their life jackets already on, but in most cases the only thing they were thinking about was whether to have their margaritas salted or not.
The boat drill was supposed to be simple, as passengers only had to take a glimpse at the life vests in their cabin to discover where to go; it was all wonderfully color coded. However cruise goers were too overwhelmed by the ship to think about anything practical during their first hour at sea except to marvel at the size of the ship and the fun and games to come. After twenty minutes the drill was declared over by the Captain. His deep lilting voice was heard throughout the ship as he thanked the passengers for their cooperation and wished everyone a great vacation.
Exhausted, I returned to my cabin for a nap. The Introduction Show would begin in two hours. My eyelids heavy like sandbags, I sunk gracefully into bed. Oversleeping the buzz of my alarm clock, I quickly rushed to get my navy blue pants and blazer on. My heart beat a rapid dance as I realized I would be late to my first event on the ship. This was the last thing I needed on top of my anxiety over my first public appearance as Assistant Cruise Director. I was close to a nervous wreck as I sprinted down the hall to reach the Sapphire Lounge, a large theatre seating over 1500 people. Arriving backstage just in time I could hear Gary's unique voice warming up the audience with corny jokes. The passengers loved Gary and his carefully suited blend of sardonic and self-effacing sick British style of humor that many Americans don't quite get. Since my father hailed from South Africa, once a part of the British Commonwealth, I was well-trained in this type of good natured humor and quite at home in its wickedness.
The Introduction Show was the big event on the first evening of the cruise and it was literally the only show in town. Passengers filled the Sapphire Lounge to meet their cruise director and the rest of staff who will entertain them throughout the week. I had already met most of the dancers who made up the entertainment cruise staff and frankly there was no better way to describe them than gifts from God. I considered myself a pretty decent looking guy, six feet tall, brown curly hair with turtle green eyes, but these women were stunning. British and beautiful, the curvaceous dancers were always fun to be around. They were incredibly open and acted with few inhibitions, unlike any American their age I had ever met. Like their ring leader Gary, they were loud, crude and provocative, a combination I really enjoyed. Samantha was a gorgeous buxom
blonde with a body that created traffic jams on the ship. Her penchant for pulling up her top at the most opportune moments created an enormous fan club; behind the façade Samantha was a sincere gal with a sharp mind to go with the killer body. Tracy, a brunette with eyes as innocent as the ocean and a giggle as precious as a teddy bear, was looking for that special someone, and was often lost in thought about her family and life back in England. Paula, a statuesque and slender aerobics instructor turned dancer was one of those rough blue collar types with a low voice and a tough demeanor to boot. It was hard to tell whether she wanted to love you or beat you. Claire, petite and cute as can be, was the thespian in the group, dramatic and when not reciting Shakespeare, reciting the list of ex-boyfriends she left behind in London. To complement this team of gorgeous amazons was Simon and Richard, two gay male dancers. Simon, tall and lanky, Richard, short and stocky, queens by nature and as proud and vituperative as I had ever met. This was the staff I was to live and work with.
I would eventually work backstage with the dancers and got used to them walking naked in front of me. For most males backstage, meaning Richard and Simon, this was not an issue; for me it was a fringe benefit of the job. Many times during the evening performances I would catch a stagehand peering into the women's dressing room which explained why many a night the timing of show's cues were just a bit off. Over the next few months I would develop little crushes on certain dancers but they never seemed to match the intensity of the dancers that became enamored with me. Many of them had studied dance in England and this was their first professional job. We all gathered behind the heavy red curtain where we heard the cruise director beginning his welcome speech to the captivated audience. Each week Gary would run through the same jokes and each week the audience would go crazy with laughter. "The buffets are so good here, you come on as passengers and we ship you off as cargo." At a certain moment in his speech he would mention the cruise staff and that was a signal for us to come out. We would march on stage and introduce ourselves one by one. Each British dancer would reveal the town they were from in England, "Cotswald, Shrewsbury, Stratford, and York." Some weeks Richard would proudly yell his hometown as loud as he could. It meant absolutely nothing to the American audiences who looked befuddled and confused by the strange accent and even stranger town names. Finally my turn would come and I would say that I was from the United States and the place would go nuts with applause. Next I would say Washington D.C., the closest relative to my actual hometown of Baltimore, Maryland and the arena roared like I had just declared my intention to run for President. I felt patriotic every time I stood up there as the sole American on staff. It was the Olympics every Sunday night and I had the gold medal clinched.
After introductions Sam and I would remain on stage with Gary. It was time for a game called spoons. Sam and I walked out into the audience and picked out six people to bring them up on stage. Certain passengers were dying to come up, but I often picked on the ones trying to pretend they were invisible. It was sort of cruel but there was always a gem living inside one of those shy bodies. I lined my team up alternating men and women. The cruise director would show two spoons each with a long string attached to the audience and instruct that the first team to take the spoon through each team member's shirt and pants from one end of the team to the other would be the winners. Gary would instruct us to pick women with low cut dresses or exposed cleavage in order to create excitement. It was all orchestrated down to a tee. It was part game show, part televangelist revival. The crowd roared with laughter as the spoon was pulled through each member's clothes. Often the spoon would get stuck in one of the passenger's undergarments, including one night when we had to perform an emergency operation and cut the string."You all just wish you were the spoon," Gary would predictably joke. As Gary stood next to the winners I would bend the spoon behind my back and then hand it over to him. He would show the bent spoon and give a crazy look to the last member of the team. Guffaws and laughs would erupt from all sides of the theatre.
After handing out champagne to all the participants, Gary wished everyone a good night and the first evening came to a close. Passengers went on their way to explore the ship or get an early night sleep for the next day. It had merely been one day, simply eight hours but in ship time and for everything I had seen and experienced on my first day on the M.S. Ecstasy, I had lived a lifetime. Though my mind was eager to find all the hidden treasures awaiting me on the ship, I was drained and the only place I could dream of was that small prison-like cabin I called home. Soon I was still, breathing evenly while rocking to sleep in the giant arms of my aquatic mother and new friend, the white whale that had so intimidated me at first was slowly becoming familiar.
Crazy Cruise Trivia
Did you know?
Dramamine has not always been
the recommended cure for seasickness or "mal de mer."
Some interesting favorites of the past two centuries include:
Tomato sauce
Pork Fried with Garlic
Cocaine
Morphine
Sea Root
Arrowroot with wine
Sea Water
Mustard Leaf
Chapter 3 Man on the Mike
Any loyal fan of the Love Boat knows that every cruise began with a shot of Julie McCoy standing on the gangway, wearing an infectious smile, greeting arthritic travelers in her perfectly tailored uniform while clutching a small brown clipboard close to her heart. True to television, my job as Assistant Cruise Director was first to smile as much as humanly possible and second to guard with my life that magical clipboard containing the endless array of games, contests, and tournaments that would entertain each and every Carnival customer. Each morning a newsletter with the activities for the day, including trivia contests, bingo and shuffleboard information, would be slipped under vacationers' cabin doors. My job was to facilitate all of these games and provide the running commentary; my nickname could have been the "man on the mike." Whenever any type of event required an announcer or "M.C.," I was called upon. Most people freeze with a microphone in their face, but since grade school I had been faking a microphone with my thumb and a clenched fist, announcing confidently to my loyal gang of childhood chums, "Welcome to the Micha Berman Show." I had graduated to prime time and now my voice was booming to audiences from all over America, well kind of. I wasn't exactly Dick Clark, but rather his three-eared demented cousin who had been locked up in the attic for too long performing to a captive audience.
Cruise activities are a form of extreme sports for the recently inebriated. Among our zaniest selection was the ping-pong stuffing competition for newlywed couples. This event took place on the Lido deck that contained all the pools on the ship as well as a pair of jacuzzis. During the day this part of the ship was crowded with sunbathers lying on those cheap greenish blue lounge chairs that populate every community pool in America and freeze in the most unfortunate poses. For the truly risqué, an upper level on the Lido served the topless crowd and soon became a favorite sightseeing destination for curious peeping toms and male crew members. The Lido flowed with music and reeked of grease as a reggae band played all day long surrounded by buffets of endless fatty assortments of hamburgers, hot dogs and french fries. Each corner of this entertainment center was bookmarked by a huge bar with ten foot mirrors and racks of liquor bottles serviced by an army of bar waiters. Tray upon tray of rainbow concoctions were delivered to the kings and queens in their greenish thrones while little children played at their feet.
After the reggae band finished their first set, Harold, the lead singer, would wink at me, my cue to enter and take over the entertainment. I climbed to the edge of the pool with my microphone in hand and spoke the magic words, "I am looking for a few honeymoon couples who are looking to have some fun, come on up!" The couples would jump into the pool and fill their partners bathing suit with as many ping pong balls as they could in 60 seconds. The couple that stuffed the most balls was declared the winn
er and it was my job to make jokes along the way and make sure the ping pong balls remained white after the games were over (one of my sick jokes). On good days I followed this event with a belly flop contest tempting the tipsy tourists to challenge the waters of the pool with their pink fleshy stomachs--the pool won every time.
Then there was the beer drinking competition, an event most passengers had been training for all week anyway. Americans are tremendous beer drinkers, but no one did it better than the Germans. I started the competition by grouping passengers into fours and the first person to down a can of beer and turn it upside on their head moved into the next round of competition. Finally, in the end, we were left with two coed teams who competed against each other to see who could drink a yard of beer (equivalent of 3 to 4 beers) first. I witnessed incredible drinking feats during my time on the ship including one couple that appeared to have been trained in Germany's Black Forest beer drinking academy, finishing the yard of beer in an incredible eight seconds. The woman who I will always think of as a Helga, consumed most of the spirit. Often, if passengers didn't vomit from seasickness, the beer drinking competition did the trick.
All of the events of the week built up to the finale on the last night of the cruise with the Male Lingerie Competition. Each week over fifty men fought for the right to be named Queen of the Cruise Ship. Why would fathers, doctors, plumbers, businessmen from states as diverse as Texas, Alabama and Florida all fight for the chance to dress up as a woman and parade in front of their 2000 fellow cruisers is a mystery I never could figure out. It was the closest thing to the World Wide Wrestling Federation that ever possessed our ship. An hour before the event I would gather all the contestants in a lounge to go over the rules and hand out an information sheet prying for such vital information as chest size, favorite position and secret fantasy. Each man was adorned with a wig and wore the ugliest dress or undergarments their wives and girlfriends could salvage from their suitcases. Pink was a popular color to go with the dark pulsating lipstick stamped on their face. The scene each week in the lounge was absurd as the guys chased each other around the room trying to squeeze their recently constructed breasts. Stodgy forty-year-olds became a pack of screaming teenage lunatics in a matter of seconds with me as their babysitter.
