AT SEA – FIRST CLASSES
Today, we were at still at sea, and I ran my first classes.
Tracy and Steve were doing crafts in the morning, and I was down in the programme for the afternoon, scheduled for 2pm. We figured this would easily give us time to run two classes; the first one at 2pm and a second at 3:30pm, to finish at 4:30 – meaning we should be cleared up and out of the Conference Room by 5pm.
As things turned out, the morning session was finished by 12 noon, which gave Tracey and myself plenty of time to get into the room, decide how to arrange the tables to maximise on seat capacity, and set things up ready for the class, and still have time to grab a quick bite of lunch.
We were in the middle of laying out the materials when the Cruise Director gave a rundown of the afternoon’s activities on the Public Address System. All was well (and the art class was mentioned), until he finished by saying that the informal, passenger ukelele group, who were down in the programme for meeting in Scott’s Bar would now be meeting in the Conference Room at 4:30pm. I looked at Tracey and she looked at me, and during the moment of incredulous silence that followed, I’m absolutely sure my jaw dropped in a cartoon-like fashion. Cursing under my breath, I stomped off to the Entertainments Room to confront Mitch, and ask him what on earth he thought he was doing… did he not know that we were going to be running two classes, and that I wouldn’t be out of the Conference Room until at least 5pm? Aparently… no, and no… and in his defence, he explained that another function had been booked into Scott’s Bar without his knowledge, meaning that the only place they could move the ukelele players to was the Conference Room.
In the end, we compromised… but I wasn’t a happy bunny…
Folks had started gathering for the class (that was only down in the programme as a single 2 o’clock class) from about 1:15pm. Fortunately, we were already set up, so we let everyone in early, and as soon as all the seats were full, I began (which turned out to be about 10 minutes to 2. I compressed the session down as much as I could, finishing at just before 3, enabling us to do one of the quickest turnarounds I think we’ve ever done. Tracey had posted a notice on the door announcing the time of the second class to be 3pm, so by the time we’d got the room ready again, there was a hefty crowd of fresh passengers waiting outside to come in.
I’m not sure how we managed it, but we managed to squeeze 55 people in, over the two classes. I wrapped at about 4:15, just as the ukelele players were starting to gather outside (although I’d told Mitch in no uncertain terms that they’d simply have to wait until we’d finished clearing up, and that was that).
A very tiring day, then, but it’s always nice to get the first class under my belt.
After the class was finished, we spent some time out on deck, watching the sunset, before heading indoors to prepare for dinner. In the evening, we watched comedian and impressionist Chris Gee do his stuff in the show lounge before settling down to read in the Captains Club.
Tomorrow, we are due to arrive at our first port-of call, Lisbon, in Portugal, where we will be on tour escort duty.
And just for the record; the portholes remain resolutely closed (harumph!).
