random thoughts while in starbucks

1. maybe i should've had a hot chai tea latte instead.
2. he has garfield's eyes
3. i wish the ship didn't have to leave at 11:00.
4. i hope i find all i need in st. thomas tomorrow.
5. i hope they give us a copy of last night's crew show
6. they have the bodies exhibit here. the same one that was shown at the south street seaport in new york two years ago.
7. ang lamig naman dito!!!
8. seven pounds starring will smith... looks interesting.
   

it's icar's fault

i was intrigued and so i clicked on the entry. imagine my surprise when i saw my name among icar's answers...

here goes...

Two names you go by:
1. pia

2. patricia

Two things you are wearing right now:
1. a brown shirt
2. jeans

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
1. a boyfriend (not very badly)
2. an iphone (very, very badly)

Two people who will most likely send this back:
1. mommy candice (candice, this is the 2nd time your name was mentioned. now you have to participate! hehehe )
2. joyee

Two things you did last night:
1. settled a last-minute guest concern

2. performed in the crew show

Two things you ate today:

1. curried beef pita

2. brocolli & cheddar strata from starbucks

Two People you just spoke with today:

1. the captain

2. reyan

Two things you're doing tomorrow:
1. working
2. going out in st. thomas

Two longest road trips:
1. manila to pagudpud (as a passenger)
2. crystal river, florida to centreville, virginia (as driver)

Two favorite beverages:
1. water

2. iced/hot chai tea latte

monday roundup.

it was a very busy week for me...

• i was chosen to be the unit secretary for the ship's unit meetings. the unit meetings are the crewmembers way of voicing their concerns to the ship's senior officers, so each department is represented. the unit secretary is automatically the administration representative. in other words, more work for me.
• monday night we had the filipino crew show. this particular show was special because it was filmed by a professional crew and will be edited and produced as a dvd as part of holland america's plan to market the filipino and indonesian cultural shows.
• my crush hung out in the neptune lounge this evening. actually, first he walked back with me to the neptune lounge (deck 7 midship) from suite 4176 (deck 4 aft). he hung out for a bit and did his rounds. 5 minutes later he was back and he stayed for about 20 minutes, until a guest came with some questions. syempre natuwa naman ako na tumambay sya diba? babaw...
• my crush watched the filipino crew show. he stayed for the entire thing. it made me glad that i was part of most of the numbers. he knows i sing. now he knows that i dance too.
• we have a filipino guest relations manager now. i have to say that she's very good. i am now convinced that filipino supervisors and managers are so much better than their foreign counterparts. they're smarter, have a great work ethic and still manage to show compassion to their team.
  
• to be completely honest, the guest relations attendants are also better than the supervisors. for one thing, we know more things and perform our tasks better than they do. the only thing that gives them an advantage is the stripe on their uniform.
• they're showing "a few good men" on the crew channel. i never grow tired of this movie. especially the court exchange between tom cruise and jack nicholson. perfectly written and executed.
  

honesty is the best policy

upon disembarking in fort lauderdale, passengers need to clear customs before finally heading home. this is u.s. law and there's no getting around it, not even - or especially - for a former u.s. senator.

one of our suite guests from the previous voyage found this out the hard way when he falsified the information on this customs form so he could go through the process faster and make his flight. unfortunately for him, customs officials discovered the inconsistencies in the information he provided and they leaned on him quite a bit.

they asked him about his activities in the different ports, particularly if he went shopping in st. thomas (a brief fyi: the allowance per person is doubled to $1600 if any purchases are made in st. thomas). instead of telling the officials that he and his family went on a tour in st. thomas, he decided to lie and say that they didn't even go ashore in st. thomas. the customs officials checked the ship logs and, of course, found out that they did go ashore. so they leaned on him some more and proceeded to thoroughly inspect their bags.

our hotel manager witnessed all this and tried to help our guest by reminding one of the officials that he is a former u.s. senator and actor. the official told him that no one was exempt from the process. our hotel manager then told the wife to just tell the truth so they could clear customs and catch their flight.

maybe it's because our hotel manager's dutch and they didn't want to be further embarrassed in front of him in their territory, or maybe they simply thought that he made sense. whatever the reason, they decided to heed his advice and cooperated with the customs officials. they were cleared in no time at all.

our hotel manager told me and my co-concierge this story earlier this evening and we couldn't believe it. personally, i felt embarrassed for him and very disappointed as well. he's a former u.s. senator. he was even his party's presidential candidate once upon a time. he's supposed to uphold his country's laws and he couldn't even comply with simple customs rules.

i just hope america is in better hands with the new administration.

walang patawad

saan ka naman nakakita ng penthouse suite guest na nagpumilit na i-credit ang account nila para sa isang bote ng alak na regalo lang sa kanila? ni hindi nila binayaran.

ipaglalantaran nila na $15,000 ang binarayan nila para sa cruise tapos pagpipilitan nilang i-refund sila ng $19.

seriously, how cheap can you get?

p.s. they did not pay $15,000 for the cruise. i checked their records.

just one more and i'm off to bed

just how upset am i with my guests on my previous post? i completely forgot that we had a fire on board at 3:00 this morning.

yes, at 3:00 am, i was awakened by the fire alarm. i thought i was dreaming at first. but when i finally got my wits about me, i put on my uniform and went up to the front office to await further instructions from our manager.

instead of being instructed to post signs all around the ship, the passenger notification team was told to sweep the decks for any guests who were roaming the halls and inform them that everything was under control.

i stayed in the front office to field the calls that came in.

finally, at 4:00, the fire - located in the boiler room - was extinguished and we were told to stand down. so we all went back to our cabins and those of us who had 7:00am shifts tried to catch a few more hours of sleep.

i, of course, had a difficult time getting back to sleep. i don't even remember when i finally dozed off. what i do remember is waking up with a terrible headache when my alarm went off.

venting

we have a very high profile, high maintenance political group - a former governor and senator are among our suite guests - on board, the members of which are driving me up the wall.

each time one of their members comes to lounge with a concern, i simply cannot fathom their extreme sense of entitlement. it's annoying how petty and spoiled and overly dramatic these people are.

i understand that they have this mentality because it is stated in their declaration of independence "that that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

it's definitely not a bad thing, to have this belief. but i believe that it can only truly be good if they uphold each and every word. but with what i've observed from these people since sunday is that the only one that really holds true for them is the last part, the pursuit of happiness.

it doesn't matter to them who else is inconvenienced. it's obvious that they don't think that "all men are created equal". they have no awareness at all of how selfish and petty and spoiled and dramatic they can be.

i am not a political person. although i'm glad obama won the recent elections, i do not view myself as a democrat. although i do hold a liberal stance on a lot of issues, there are some things that i am still very conservative about.

after observing this group however, compounded by all the negative comments other guests have about them, i cannot help but think that the change that is supposedly happening could not have come at a better time.

thank god for small victories

yesterday was a very challenging embarkation for the neptune lounge. it started out quite normally. suite guests were lined up at the concierge desk making dinner requests, booking shore excursions and spa appointments, reserving cabanas, asking questing, complaining... same old, same old.

by mid morning, things started unraveling. the cabanas i booked had to be cancelled because the beverage department failed to register the pre-bookings. some of the guests were understanding. but, as the saying goes, there is always an exception to the rule. in this case, there were two.

i received an earful from two different guests. it was nothing i did wrong. i was just the front of the line. i was the one they could rant to. at least that's what i kept telling myself. still, the way they spoke to me, the things they said, hit close to home because they were talking about the ship (company) i was a representative of. so, even though there was truth to what they complained about, their complaints annoyed me. besides, no one likes being yelled at.

today, everything turned around for me. those two guests who yelled at me yesterday? they came back to apologize and thank me for all my help. why? because everything they complained about i was able to fix for them. they thought i couldn't do anything to help them. they became impatient.

now they're on my side.

a long overdue roundup

i'm finally online again!

• first of all, congratulations to bukas palad for winning the cmma award for best religious album.
  
• i'm back in the neptune lounge. it's twice as large as the one on the veendam with three times the number of guests. the past two cruises have been very challenging and little bit overwhelming.
• it's amazing how there are people who will complain just for the sake of complaining. and they're the ones who don't even have reason to complain. they're just really cheap.
• we had the life success charter, headed by bob proctor, on board two weeks ago. bob proctor is the man who gave us "the secret". it was so funny because you could see that guests who were coming to complain really wanted to lay it into us but held back. of course they had to keep a positive attitude. it was the whole point of their cruise.
  
• i'm really looking forward to the jazz legends charter cruise in january. i'm even more excited because i'll still be in neptune at that time. i wonder which jazz legends will be staying in the suites...
• i switched cabins. i'm now located on c-deck in a bigger, quieter and better laid out cabin.
• i miss my friends dvd set.
• the eurodam superstar contest was re-scheduled. the semi-finals will be held on november 6th. wish me luck!
• they showed wall-e on the crew channel. the same though crossed my mind while i was watching: if robots can get what love is all about, why can't men? and i still wish the cockroach died.
  

i'm sure there are more. i'm just too tired to remember.