Sorry It's been so long...Been missing you!

Hello everyone!

I am so sorry it's been so long since I've posted! For a while there wasn't much to say, it's been the same old same old...Seattle, Hubbard, Juneau, Ketchikan, Victoria, Seattle...Things have started changing now though, so I do have something more to say!

First, The weather has finally been getting better, I actually wore shorts in Seattle during the last embarkation day (friday)! I had to go get them out of my suitcase, as I hadn't worn them since Mexico!!! I heard it's supposed to be nice in Juneau tomorrow, and I think I'll get to go out, so that'll be great. I got to go out in Ketchikan again FINALLY last week, it was such a nice day, it felt like home, it was raining just a little bit, but still warm, and smelled like home. I admit, I did get a little home sick, but I enjoyed it SO much. I took tonnes of photo's of flowers (to be posted on Picasa soon!), and did a bit of shopping (bought 2 pairs of earings for myself) and had a nice breakfast and lunch. In Seattle I finally found some really comfy good sturdy walking sandles, so now that it's nice out I can still get out for a good hike without over heating my feet!

As many of you know already, the bank on the Celebrity ships are all closing, ours was the last ship, and we closed this past friday in Seattle, we had our last morning during disembarkation, and before we'd even finished balancing our floats, they'd taken the 'BANK' sign down! So, due to this our jobs have changed a bit, as well as our schedules, we are required to spend 6 hours a day in Guest Relations, watching them with their cash transactions, and getting them all trained up, then at least 2 more hours in the admin office doing whatever else is necessary for our job. It was really crazy the last couple of days as we also had to get payroll done! So far things are going pretty well, guest relations has really stepped up and are doing a good job, but of course it's not busy yet, the last day of the cruise will really tell us how they can handle the pressure of handling money! I've been enjoying the time with guest relations, getting to know the staff, and I've started to make some good friends over there. Ana, from Portugal, Josue from Peru and I have spent a few nights having Martini's in the Martini bar over the last few weeks! Love the Martini Bar! I've also been really enjoying Latin night in the crew bar, man, these guys can dance! Josue, Daniel, Marco, Alex, and even Wilmer...Wilmer claims to have liked me since I signed on more than 3 months ago, but had to ask me what my name was last week...LOL - dumbass...

I've been making some other friends as well, Rosalba, the Captains Club Hostess (and probably the most beautiful woman on the ship...guys...unfortunately she's in drydock...LOL), also Carolina, the international hostess, Daniel, who works in our Shore Excursions department, and he's a sweetheart, I think we've become pretty good friends...It's good to finally be starting to make some more friends, though, Rosalba & Carolina both leave within the next couple of weeks! Ah, but this is ship life, others will arrive to replace them...

Hmmm, what else is there...I'm still seeing the same guy that I started seeing about 6 or 7 weeks ago, unfortunately with the changes for my department, and his busy schedule, we've hardly been able to spend any time together, we finally got to speak for 10 minutes tonight after hardly exchanging a word since about a week ago...you'd think it would be easy on ships, but, it's not! Especially since we are still keeping things quiet - I'm quite surprised that no one has caught on yet - it's a rare thing on ships to keep relationships quiet...I think maybe it helps that I'm spending time with other guys (Daniel & Josue), it throws people off the real trail...LOL!

I believe now that I have about 10 and a half weeks left till my scheduled vacation in mid September, so that's exciting, just 2 and a half months! I did some training with our guest account purser, Liza, last week, so it feels good to be progressing towards a promotion. It'll be a bit hard to train over the next couple of weeks while the transition of the bank to guest relations is going on, but I hope to get a few more hours in during that time. Javier, our Financial Controller has told me that after I've trained a bit more he wants me to do the GAP (guest account purser) job for one entire cruise, with Liza just shadowing me! So exciting! And a bit scary! I think it's really gthe best way though, for me to learn everything, and to deal with issues as they arise rather than hope that Liza contacts me to tell me or show me what to do with them. I hope to be able to do that by the end of July. I think Javier thinks that I can do really well at it, so I want to prove to him that I can. Although, I've got a good life on this ship, so I don't really want to be promoted and moved to another ship before the end of this contract either! LOL

Alrighty, I think that's about it for me for now, I'm sure your eyes are tired from reading all my updates! I love you all, and miss you so much!

Love,
Tabitha