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In the first part of my cruise diary I mentioned how my expectations and concerns about coming back to river cruise “business” fortunately didn´t fulfil. On the contrary, I was kindly surprised about some facts concerning days off and I was nicely welcomed to my new team in the restaurant. However, after one week the company sent me to Portugal. To the ship which urgently needed help as they didn´t have enough waiters onboard. And probably because I was the new one, they decided to send me.

The day I arrived onboard of the new ship in Portugal, my hell just started…

Why hell?! Fact by fact:

• after 8 hours of travelling my new maitre´d welcomed me onboard with a phrase: “Welcome in the hell, everything here is upside down.” – you can imagine that such welcome didn´t make greatest impression on me
• this ship isn´t the long ship which I am used to, on the contrary, it´s a classical small ship with a capacity of 100 passengers – which could mean less work (it doesn´t) but at the same time extremely confined space – many things are missing here because there is no space for them, waiters must push in the kitchen during service, etc …
• I share my cabin not only with one girl as I was used to it on long ships but with three other women – no privacy at all …
• there are steep stairs which must be “conquered” on our way from kitchen to the restaurant during service time – can you imagine what it means when you run like a chicken around 20 km a day?!
• my team consists of 5 men, 1 maitre´d (also man) and me – I don´t have problems working with men, on the contrary I usually like it, however, if your team comprises people who are not organized enough and too slow, then there is a problem
• because the team is not organized enough, there is less free time for us – by less, I mean A LOT LESS – and no day off as on the previous ship …
• departments do not cooperate between each other very well – lack of information, lack of support and lack of willingness to help each other – teamwork simply doesn´t work here
• another unpleasant matter is matter of money – as this ship is smaller with less passengers, it also means less tips – general and even personal – my tips for the first week onboard of this ship was not even half of the tips I made on my previous ship
• last but not the least matter is the fact that the only thing I was excited about before coming here (exploring Portugal and its beauty) hasn´t been realized yet! There is no time for going out, and if there is any, we are just sailing so no way of going out and explore something. And in case we are finally docking and having free time at the same time – the docking village is so small that there is nothing to DO or SEE at all

Before my arrival to the first ship in this season I was mentally prepared for the worst. But the contrary happened to be truth. My very first week onboard of the first (previous) ship was simply amazing, however, as all nice happened so quickly, also all nice finished that quickly… Now I only hope I will be sent back to my previous ship as soon as possible where my lovely, fast and organized colleagues are waiting for me. 🙂

In the third part of my cruise diary I will mention how my men colleagues are treating me here, how the whole situation is developing, whether someone from HR contacted me about my planned return to previous ship, and much more…

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