Marco Polo – Ship Life – A Memoir by Darren Donahue!

Oh my gawd! Two BLOG entries in one day! What’s happening?!?!?!

FIRST: MORE PHOTOS! On the front page of my MYSPACE page underneath the photos of me you’ll see a section where you can SELECT AN ALBUM. If you choose: CRUISE SHIPPIN’ – MARCO POLO WORLD CRUISE you’ll see a whole wack-load of pics I uploaded from all my ports 🙂 ENJOY!

So life on the Marco Polo is as “adventurous” as ever! Full of ups & downs & twists & turns & smacks in the face! I boarded the ship on April 11th, so I guess it’s been just under 3 months? About 1/2 through my contract including the rehearsal time in Miami.

We just lost our first cast member. Sara Brendel from St.Louis. We all miss her and think of her every day & wonder how she’s doing. But we know that she was happy to be able to go home so we were happy for her. Homesickness is a big thing when we’re out at sea. So a dancer from the previous cast has come back to the ship & rehearsals have been fine with her so far because she pretty much knows all the shows.

Yesterday we got news that we’d be losing TWO more cast members! Our other lead male singer & his wife will be leaving. So I got promoted to Company Manager and I think I even get to move into the big cabin with a fridge! There’s a little pay increase, but it’s not really worth the extra crap I might have to deal with! But it’ll make shopping less painful, so BRING IT ON!!

The ports are amazing & they’re the key reason I’m here. Ship life can be hard. A general sea day includes waking up at about 9am to prepare for BINGO. My BINGO session with passengers lasts about 2 hours. Then I go straight into rehearsal for the evening’s shows. That’s about an hour and 1/2. LUNCH. Then it’s time to prep for our afternoon BINGO – 2 more hours. Then I get a bit of time to nap. Then I have to greet passengers at the door of the theatre for the evening’s entertainment. Then I’m at the 1/2 hour call for my shows….and then I perform till about 11:30pm.

—–so you can see how a person can get burnt out on a ship when they have Cruise Staff responsibilities as well as their performances.

BUT we are lucky on the Marco Polo because we’re in port a LOT. So we don’t have many sea days and that turns into a good amount of free time for the cast. But still….all these little duties and tid-bits add up day after day & wear on some people. So everyone understands when someone wants to go home!