Millenium

Hi everyone! This email is a little account of how things are going for me so far.

For those that don't know what ship I am on, it is the GTS Millenium, GTS standing for Gas Turbine, doing 12 day cruises in the Med. My itinery is Venice to Dubrovnik in Croatia, Santorini a Greek island, then back to the Italian mainland for Naples, Rome and Florence/Pisa, followed by Villefranche (Nice, Cannes, Monaco) and finishing off in Barcelona. When that is done, we do the same trip in reverse back to Venice.

From the last time that I worked on cruise ships in the Med, the ports that I hadn't done before are Dubrovnik, Florence/Pisa and Barcelona. As this is still my first cruise abord the Millenium, I haven't done much sightseeing yet due to all the safety and company policy meetings that I have to go to. But once all of those are out of the way, I intend to do all the touristy things that I can! Like last time, I'm going to get to see so many places that, if I hadn't taken this job, I doubt that I would ever have taken the time to visit them. I am especially looking forward to seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

The ship is nice, it is also unbelievably huge, not quite a quarter bigger than the Galaxy (the ship I was on last time, 77,000 tonnes comapred to 93,000). It is quite chunky in design, Georgie, my manager and good friend from the Galaxy, says the Millenium reminds her of a Lego brick, so chunky is it!

The staff in the casino are a nice easy going bunch. The fact that I already knew Georgie has really helped me to settle in. It's good and I'm sure that I am going to enjoy it, but the things that bugged me last time are still annoying this time: Sharing a cabin, bad food in the mess and boat drill.

I share with a little Indian fella called Jackob who is in all honesty, a pretty perfect cabin mate. He's quiet and keeps himself clean, but he sleeps all the time! Virtually any time of day, I'll go back to our room from a break at work, or I've just been off the ship in port, I come back, his bunk curtains are drawn and he's zzz-ing away!

The walls of the cabins aren't that thick and a couple of times since I've been here, I've been kept up by other people making noise in their cabin. On the whole, people are very respectful and do keep the noise down.

I haven't suffered any seasickness yet, although I came close a couple of days ago! We sailed into a storm, the beginings of which were very spectacular, I was out on deck on my breaks watching the thunder and lightening. Trouble was, it made the sea really rough. I came close, but did not throw up...

Other than that, I have had a little nausea from the motion, but nothing really troublesome. The strangest thing though has been the feeling of still being on the ship when on dry land! I can be sitting in a chair outside a restuarant in Naples and it feels to me like the floor is slowly moving backwards and forwards! It is quite odd, but I remember this from last time and I also remember that it passed after a while.

So, I have been here ten days, and I know that there is quite a way to go yet, but when signing my contract, I happened to spot that it had my projected sign-off date on it, and that was 3rd February 2008. This, as I worked out is about a month shy of when I thought I would be finishing. But I don't mind coming home earlier! That isn't a definate date, it is subject to change and all that, but I like it. I feel like I have something to aim for. On the Galaxy I didn't get my sign-off date for a couple of months so this is quite refreshing. There is an end to it! It doesn't seem like I'll be on here forever!

If anyone would like to find out where I am on any given day, go to www.celebritycruises.com and use the cruise finder tools to select Millenium then a month and you'll soon find where I am/where I'll be.

Not found any slot cars yet though...

Ok, I'll be off now, I'll fire another mail around in a couple of weeks, and hopefully I'll see you next February!

Ben