The coming posts are going to be more directed at my job and lifestyle on the ship as opposed to Antarctica.

Yep, forget about me being in Antarctica, forget about all the great amazing photos of ice bergs and penguins and me saying “living the dream” (funnily enough my next post is going to be titled that). If I look solely at the job I am doing and forget about Antarctica, it is hands down the worst job I have ever done!

It may sound glamorous working on a 6 star cruise ship, but life is far from glamorous and this is what I want to portray in my coming posts and let you be the judge. This is only relevant to my position as part of the dining room team and is only relevant to Antarctic Expedition cruise ships that usually have around 100 or so passengers compared to the Carnival cruise ships that have 5000 plus passengers and a couple of thousand crew and have regular stops at many different ports.

So worst job, that’s a pretty big statement, well put it one way, I have just been offered to have my contract extended and go with the boat from Antarctica up into Europe and if I wanted I would be able to continue up for the Arctic season and could probably get Mandy work onboard as well, but not a chance

I was going to wait another week before coming out with this post and writing about the job, but at the moment I’m in the mood for writing a post like this. Why am I in this mood, I should be happy, yesterday I had my first sleep in after 1 month on the ship, I was lucky enough to start at midday (although still worked through to midnight).

Tonight we arrive in Ushuaia, and although I have lived there for a month, it is great to get back to civilisation to get some free time off the floating cage, some personal space. Considering last time, 16 days ago I didn’t get off during the day in Ushuaia due to loading, I was really eager to go and set up in a café with wi-fi and start chipping away at my to do list and have a nice meal and a coffee and just be by myself.

But the dining room team just received the great news that we won’t get any time off the ship in Ushuaia, as tonight after we finish serving dinner we will go straight to loading cargo until 2am, then we will get 4 hours off before starting again at 6am and work another full day loading again and then be back serving dinner tomorrow night with our new guests and off to Antarctica again.

That news is soul destroying, when you spend every waking hour in the restaurant working and every sleeping hour in your coffin sized bunk, a couple of hours ashore seems like gold! You’re all probably thinking, well at least I’ll make lots on overtime. OK, I’m not doing this job for the money, but let me share this with you anyway. I’m contracted for $1500 a month for 70 hour weeks, which works out to be $7.50 an hour, although bear in mind that I have no expenses (except internet which for me is about $150 a month). Anyway back to my over time, which by the way there is a lot of overtime, a 70 hour week is a myth. My over time rate is $2.64 an hour! I’m not joking, so for tomorrow I’m looking at doing a 14 hour day, so that’s 4 hours over time that should come out to around $10. Oh yeah, but I get a lot in tips…………………yeah I probably would if the company didn’t have a no tipping policy, haha, you just have to have a laugh, as somebody definitely is.

OK, that’s my gripe, I’m off to grab an hours sleep before starting back at work, back I stay posted as I start documenting life on board.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, I wanted this soooo much and I would of still done it knowing what it entailed, and I’m sooo lucky that I have this position (my next post is on this). I’m although thankful as before this job people always would ask me “what’s been your worst job?”, well now I can answer it. Also, it’s a great experience as you learn a lot more about yourself in testing times than you do in comfortable times.

Nuthing but love, Hap living the dream!