Great Alaska Lumberjack Show

A Crew ID is GOLDEN! Many places realize that crew are their best marketing method, so we often receive deeply discounted tickets to shows and activities to we will spread the word to passengers. When I first heard about the lumberjack show, I thought it sounded a little lame. I wouldn't have paid to $35 to go see it, but when somebody told me that crew can see it for free I figured the only thing I had to lose was an hour of my time and it might be fun.

So, one day in Ketchikan Ashley and I headed over to the show. Not only would I recommend the show, but I have now seen it twice! Just last week I went again with my friends Jen, Karyn, and Will. It's a little bit cheesy (they're lumberjacks), but it's a lot of fun. The audience is divided in half and each half cheers on a team of two lumberjacks. Some of it is a little scripted, but it doesn't seem fake, just cheesy.

I never realized the timber sports were a legitimately competitive sport, but I guess they are. All the lumberjacks are professional athletes and they compete in twelve events throughout the show. After each event, the winning team gives a member of their audience a wood chip (I didn't get one either time. I don't know what I would do with it, but I still wanted one). Both lumberjacks I cheered for the first time competed the second time I saw the show, but they were on different teams.

The youngest lumberjack, Michael. He just graduated high school and Collette's reaction to the picture was "It's a baby lumberjack!" He is small, and young, but he was really good.

The Ax Throw seems like an accident waiting to happen! Sometimes they have perfect aim,


Sometimes their aim is not so good!
It is crazy how quickly they can destroy a log that large!

It probably took less than ten second for them to complete this cut.

The Climb
Log Rolling: This is about seconds before one slipped and landed straddling the log!
Who can resist a picture with lumberjacks?

So, if you are ever in Ketchikan and happen to have some free time, go see the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. You won't regret it, I promise!

Views From My Office

One of the best parts of my job is my desk! The library is lined with huge windows and my desk faces straight out! There will be some contracts where I will just see water, but there is no end of gorgeous scenery up here!

Here are a few pictures I took while from the Library!

Tracy's Arm

Sunny Glacier Bay

Overcast Glacier Bay

Meet the Volendam

I feel like most of my entries will involve my friends/co-workers, so I think I should introduce them to you.

Collette Wiederrich

Collette and I embarked together and will debark together. She is the Youth Program Coordinator, so in her own words she “entertains the small humans on board.” We are constantly mistaken for each other (we've decided it must be the hair), but there are worse people to be compared to. We have pretty similar personalities but she is a little bit saucier and wild than I am so she is known as my evil twin and I as her better half.

Cara Borghesi

Cara one of the Youth Staff, was my roommate, but she left July 13. Describing Cara is fairly difficult, she;s the type of person you just have to know! She has sound effects for EVERYTHING (one for walking into a room, one for standing up out of bed, happy dolphin, sad dolphin), and she's just overall entertaining!

Glen Barry:

There is truly only one Glen Barry and I'm not sure the world would be able to handle more than one. Although Glen has worked on ships since 1998, this is his first contract with HAL. HE has a plethora of stories about his time on Royal Caribbean and Disney Cruise Lines and he often entertains us with them. I am so glad that I ended up with Glen as my first cruise director because if I had ended up with someone boring or uptight I don't know what I would have done.

Corne

Corne (kor-NAY - I'm not even going to try to spell his last name), our Facilities Manager is affectionately known as Gru. I am convinced that the animators of Despicable Me used him as model for their main character. He's the only engineer who hangs out with us and he is a ton of fun and such a nice guy! His (failed) attempts at the Hand Jive during one of our shows has permanently endeared him into my heart.

Ashley Alishusky

Ashley is another member of the Youth Staff. At first, I thought she was shy and quiet, but she's not. Every now and then she will say something that comes out of left field and have us all cracking up. If I go somewhere exciting in port, I usually go with Ash.

Niamh Mason and Ian Kee

Niamh (said Neeve- it's Gaelic) and I started on the same day and we bonded over the fact that we were both dazed and confused. She's from England and basically I want to put her in my pocket and carry her around with me (which she thinks would be fun). Niamh is a photographer on board and, for the record, her camera is better than Ian's - Ashley, Collette, and I voted!

Ian is also a photographer on board. He was one of the first non-entertainment staff I made friends with because he and Collette had worked together on the Ryndam. Ian is a tease, which made me like him instantly.

Alabama's Finest

Several week ago we had a huge family from Southern Alabama, and they were really Alabama's finest. One guy really outshone the rest of the family and by the end of the week he still asked me for ping-pong paddles even though I had explained six times that we do not keep them in the library. If there was a prize for dumbest question ever, he would win!

Glen (my cruise director) walked past the dining room the last day of the cruise and heard the guy going crazy on the dining room steward. He was screaming, "You can't move things on the last day, it just ain't fair. I understand moving things the first few days, but you can't move them on the last day! I'm gonna write a complaint!" The poor dining room steward was really confused so Glen stepped in to help. He asked what the problem was and again the man started screaming that we can't move things on the last day. Glen asked which activity we had moved. "The showroom was right here the rest of the week and now you've moved it to the other end of the ship! It ain't fair to move things around when I finally figured it out!" Yes, he caught us, as night -in our spare time for kicks and giggles- the entire crew moves a two story showroom including the stage, seats, dressing rooms, etc from one end of the ship to the other! I would like to say he was joking. Unfortunately, he was not.

Directionally Challenged

A few weeks ago I received the following questions, three times each, from six different people while I was at my desk in the Library:

"Excuse me, can you tell me where to find the Library?"
Hmmm: Books, magazines, couches, computers, LIBRARIAN - have you tried the next deck up?

"Is this the dining room?"
Yes, this is the dining room. Times are tough right now and as a company we have had to cut back some so our meals now consist of coffee, finger sandwiches, and light pastries. Also, I hope you only plan on one plate each because our tables only have a diameter of about 18 inches and we sit sit on couches instead of chairs. Seating is limited, only about forty people, so come early.
*The Library is more like a bookstore with a coffee cafe.