Crew Talent Show - 21 October

The executive dean made the announcement this morning that we would be rearranging our class schedules and other events on the ship to accommodate security concerns. Apparently, we will soon be passing through an area that is rife with pirates – for real! Therefore, the ship will be going full speed for two days because speed is our best defense against these brigands (sorry, been reading too much). We also have water canons on the boat just in case they get too close to us. We were supposed to be having our Sea Olympics on one of the days we are going fast and they don’t want so many people out on the decks during this time because the pirates carry AK47s. We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto!

We have also been dealing with rumors up the ying yang about not going to Turkey. Due to the unrest in the area (which I know next to nothing about since we aren’t reading news here too much) people are thinking that it isn’t safe for us to port in Istanbul so everybody is spreading rumors about where we might go. There are some real humdingers too: Greece, Morocco, Italy, Ireland, and even Sweden have been mentioned. The executive dean is getting quite exasperated by these persistent rumors and told everyone in no uncertain terms that we are still going to Turkey. But I think people are having some fun thinking of other ports we could go to so the rumors continue to circulate around the ship.

Tonight we had a crew talent show. Every voyage, they put on a show for the students to raise money for projects and assistance for the crew. They were great! There’s a lot of talent in the crew – especially dancers. The crowd went wild when the dining crew did a dance. The cabin stewards also got together and did a song that was great. The students feel really close to them since we get to see them on a daily basis. It was mentioned last night that there are 197 crew members on the ship although we only see about 60 of them regularly. The show generated over $9700 for the crew which was a record amount. The show was a lot of fun and everyone had a great time.