Hello readers!
Ok, I must start by apologizing profusely for taking so horribly long to post an update. I ask your forgiveness, but hopefully this entry will explain a little bit of how my time has been occupied in the past 3 weeks.
Well, after a successful Christmas cruise down the Panama Canal, we dropped our passengers off in San Diego, picked up a new crop, and set sail again, this time through the Pacific Ocean towards Hawaii!
Have any of you ever Sailed to Hawaii? If the answer is yes, I hope you had a better time of it than I did. Truly folks, I have never had any major trouble with seasickness in my life (ok, one time in Florida!), but the conditions the first days were so rough that we were ALL in bad shape. Most often I didn't want to get out of bed, but that wasn't an option as we had to...what? PERFORM! Night two of the cruise we performed our Broadway revue for the passengers. Remember what I said long ago about dancing on a stage that didn't stand still. Let's do a little math equation...
Dancing + rotating turntable + Stairs + Motion of the Ocean + Seasickness=
A ROUGH NIGHT!!!
Ok, I had to get that out of my system. Now that I have, I can tell you that once we reached Hawaii, things got much better. The waters calmed down, we were able to use our cellphones, and the scenery was GORGEOUS!!!
My time in Hawaii was limited however, because we were in full swing on our next show, DINNER BELLES, certainly our most technically challenging show. Basically think a small, yet full scale book musical set in a kitchen where the oven and the fridge open by themselves. 3 women have to do 16 songs in 3 part harmony and one man plays 7 different roles, all requiring a different costume, wig, and personality. Oh, did I mention in the middle of the show the kitchen transforms into a beauty salon?
Are you starting to forgive me for my delay in posting an entry?
With all the elements, this was the show that had us a little concerned and continued to have us a little concerned up until the day of the show. However, in one of those amazing showbusiness hannukah miracles, the day of the show all of the elements fell into place. Nothing fell off, nothing failed to open, nothing cracked, nothing ran, nothing exploded. And wouldn't you know, the audience probably loved this show the most of any so far. (Incidentally, the audiences on this cruise are much much better than the first one)
MEANWHILE, somewhere in Hawaii.
I was able to steal a few hours of blissful Polynesian relaxation. I missed Hilo and Lahaina, but was able to spend a beautiful morning in Nawiliwili and then was able to have a full day off in Honolulu. (Have a little trouble with my camera so will post photos of this as soon as I can)
Our journey then continued with 6 sea days in a row. I probably would have developed severe cabin fever had we not been working feverishly on DINNER BELLES, which opened after day 4 or 5. (Time is very relative on the ship)
But happily, we finished all of our work in time to spend two glorious days in BORA BORA. Yes folks, I said BORA BORA. Are you jealous? You should be ;-) The beaches in Bora Bora are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen and the scenery...I'll just have to show you the pictures as soon as I can.
From there we went to PAPEETE, TAHITI. It was quite something getting off the boat and realizing...I'm in Tahiti! The town of Papeete is hustling and bustling with lots of things to buy and I am going to confess something...I didn't buy anything yet. I figure, we're coming back here in two months, I'll wait and see what I want then.
I'm also going to confess to something else... I have been very good so far about experiencing the local offerings of each exotic port. However, I am definitely an American, so after 2 months of discovering the new, I was ready for something familiar. So when I rounded a corner and saw those familiar Golden Arches that I hadn't seen in so long, I ran for it :-) And guess what? Tahitian McNuggets are just as good as American McNuggets!
So now we are back on the ship and making a few more stops on the smaller Islands before we start our journey back to San Diego. (Another 6 days at sea. Oy Vey)
OH!!!!!
Speaking of Oy Vey! I almost left out something very important that some of you will love and some of you will laugh at!
So, on the first cruise, I started attending the Friday night Shabbat services that were being held on the ship and conducted by a Rabbi who was on the cruise. I was very impressed with the way Holland America did thins. Manichevitz, Yarmulkes, Gates of Prayer, the ship even bakes its own Challah! I asked and was told by our Cruise Director Joseph that there is usually only a Rabbi on board during major holidays. Having seen how happy the passengers were that the services were offered, I did a little thinking and asked...if I could continue leading the services in the absence of a Rabbi. The Entertainment Director thought this was a great idea and so on the first Friday night of this cruise, it was "Shabbat Shalom Rabbi Adam". It is such a hoot! Thankfully I remembered everything from my Bar Mitzvah about leading a service and the passengers were kind of tickled that one of the performers was leading the services. They're happy, I'm happy, there's fresh Challah, who knew!!!
So it is here that I apologize once again for taking so horribly long to post an update and now that we are basically done rehearsing new shows, I will try to be much more dilligent in the future as we continue the seasinging of THE FLOATING STAGE!
Ciao for Now!
