Contract 4 - Azura

A 164-day adventure by The Ships Photographer Read more

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Trip start
June 7, 2018
Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Pearson Airport Terminal 3
June 7, 2018 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C
Said goodbye to my parents and now waiting in the line to get through security at Pearson.
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Heathrow Airport
June 8, 2018 in England ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C
Arrived in London. Now to wait in the long customs line and then headed to my bus to Southampton.
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Southampton, UK
June 8, 2018 in England ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C
It’s too early to check into the hotel so I just dropped my suitcase off and now for the traditional lunch at Standing Orders. Just by myself this time though. Get to be reunited with Jackson tomorrow and we won’t have time for our lunch date then.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Southampton, UK
June 8, 2018 in England ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C
Had the depressing discovery that the wifi doesn't work in my hotel room. So i'm sitting in the hotel lobby using the half hour of free wifi they provide. You can buy internet for 24 hours for £3 but there's no point when it doesn't work in my room.
After my lunch at Standing Orders I went back to the hotel and passed out. I had set an alarm for 5:30pm to get up and get the shopping I needed to do done but I completely slept through it. I didn't wake up until 8:30pm. Luckily the 2 places I wanted are open late. Asda for my shopping and once again Standing Orders for my dinner and wifi.
Tomorrow I have to be at the ship for 9am so I'm headed back to my room for some relaxation and sleep before the chaos starts tomorrow.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Travemunde, Germany
June 12, 2018 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C
Went on my first tour today in a very long time. The tour went to Lübeck an historic town on an island near Travemunde. The awkward part of the tour was when they started talking about how the British bombed them during world war 2 and destroyed part of the city and showed the damage caused by it. Showing a massive book listing all the names of people who died.
The city was nice but the tour was not very exciting. You have to be more interested in the history of Lübeck to enjoy the tour. They did give us free coffee/tea and a nut marzipan cake but I’m not a fan of marzipan either.
The great part of it though was that it was an assigned tour for work so I get to start late and finish early tonight.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Helsinki, Finland
June 14, 2018 in Finland ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C
Had training this morning so I couldn’t get off until the afternoon. Now Jackson and I are sitting using some free wifi before we walk around a bit. We don’t have much time so we’re basically just going out for some fresh air before work. We even came across a make your dream magnum place and I resisted. Which for me is very impressive.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Saint Petersburg
June 15, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Saint Petersburg
June 16, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Tallinn, Estonia
June 17, 2018 in Estonia ⋅ 🌙 18 °C
I love Tallinn but did not end up getting off today. I had made plans to go out in port with another photographer who had not been there before. I however slept through my alarm and woke up at the time we were suppose to meet to go out. So I just told him to go without me. I ended up having a sleep day instead.
At work in the evening I was taking photos in one of your main restaurants and one of the passengers asked a waiter this riddle, what travels around the world but stays in the corner. He was stumped so went around asking everyone else and also stumped all of us. So everyone spent the night trying to figure it out.
After work they had the movie Red Sparrow on the sea screen on the top deck for crew. It was definitely an “interesting” movie but we had fun.Read more
TravelerA stamp!
6/18/18Reply
The Ships PhotographerI only ever figured out the answer because I googled it. It was driving us all crazy all night!
6/18/18Reply
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Stockholm, Sweden
June 18, 2018 in Sweden ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C
Another day of basically just going out for some fresh air and wifi. Jackson and I don’t have much time so we wandered around for a bit and are now sitting in Starbucks. Using the wifi to do the updates on our phones and so I could call and wish my Dad a happy belated Father’s Day.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Skagen, Denmark
June 21, 2018 in Denmark ⋅ 🌧 14 °C
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Southampton, UK
June 23, 2018 in England ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C
We could not restart the tradition of brunch at Standing Orders today because we both had to work all day. I had to get up in the morning because we got a bunch of brand new equipment that we had to bring on. Then I was on embarkation taking photos of all the new passengers as they get on the ship. Many were late because of a traffic accident. Normally I would have had to go to the Passenger drills but ended up being exempt to help get the last people to the drill. Then restaurants for the rest of the night. Followed by a movie night with Jackson.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Stavanger, Norway
June 25, 2018 in Norway ⋅ 🌙 11 °C
A very interesting start to the day. The ship does drills all the time so everyone knows their emergency duties. Today however was a bit different. We had a drill in the morning but it was a ship evacuation where most of the crew had to evacuate the ship. Chris (manager), Rob (photog) and myself were all exempt from the drill however. Chris was up on the bridge filming and taking pictures well Rob and I were on the quayside. Rob taking pictures and I was filming. We were freezing to death so we were very glad we didn’t have to stand in lines like all the other crew.
There was another Norwegian videography team there filming. They had a drone but they wouldn’t come in the security area around the ship so they had to use the drone and film through fences. Apparently we were also on the local news. There was a helicopter that flew over a few times and I learned later that is what it was.
By the time the drills was done I just had time for a quick nap before I had to head to work for the evening.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Olden, Norway
June 26, 2018 in Norway ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Flaam, Norway
June 27, 2018 in Norway ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C
Had my first meeting today as the new representative for all the concessions at the Ship’s HESS (Health, Environment, Safety, Security) meeting.
As soon as that was finished Jackson and I headed out into Flaam. We ran into the gangway guys so of course we got a photo. Then we just wandered around for a bit before stopping for some lunch at Toget Café which is a café made from an old train car. We’re having a nice lunch date sharing a very yummy pizza.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Bergen, Norway
June 28, 2018 in Norway ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Southampton, UK
June 30, 2018 in Scotland ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C
Wasn’t able to get off today because of work. The next time I’m here I’ll be giving my parents a tour and they’ll be meeting Jackson for the first time.
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Orkney, Scotland
July 2, 2018 in Scotland ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Lerwick, Scotland
July 3, 2018 in Scotland ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C
Would have loved to get off today but chose today as one of my IPMs because I was able to get off yesterday in Scotland and I didn't want to miss any of Iceland. Today was also a tender port which means we don't dock. We just anchor off shore and take a tender boat in.
So instead of getting off today I'm having a relax day where I'm doing hardly anything. Normally when you're IPM you have to get up for gangway but we're not doing gangways this cruise. So I don't have to do anything until I start work at 4:00pm.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Reykjavik, Iceland
July 5, 2018 in Iceland ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C
Had a bad start to the day but it ended amazingly. We had crew drills in the morning after which Jackson and I had plans to go out and do some exploring. Jackson even took his day off today so we would have lots of time together. We got all ready and when we got to the gangway to get off we found out Jackson is IPM. Made even better by the fact that i’m IPM tomorrow for the second day in Reykjavik. Luckily it’s an overnight and neither of us are IPM from 6pm today to 6am tomorrow. So it did not mess up our plans to go on the crew tour. I got off work early and we headed to the Blue Lagoon one of the top 25 wonders of the world. It was so nice! It was like a MASSIVE pretty hot tub in the middle of a lava field. There was silica face masks and you got a free drink. I had a blueberry smoothie. When we left it was almost 1am and the sun was still a ways from setting. Our skin feels so soft but now it’s 2am so it’s time for some sleep.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Isafjordur, Iceland
July 7, 2018 in Iceland ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Akureyri, Iceland
July 8, 2018 in Iceland ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C
We’ve rushed out for a couple hours during Jackson’s break. We wandered around some stores for a while finding lots of Indian restaurants for Jackson but they were all only open for dinner. Then we found Akureyri Backpackers. Which is a hostel, laundry-mat, and cafe. The food was really good and so was the wifi. If we were coming back to Iceland we would definitely be stopping here for lunch again.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Belfast, Ireland
July 11, 2018 in Northern Ireland ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C
Got up early this morning to get off with Jackson because he starts work at 12. We headed into Belfast with the only plan to be to get some brunch. We got a map that listed Victoria Square and it said it had restaurants so we headed there. We had a hard time finding an open restaurant but we eventually found Frankie & Benny’s. We had the entire restaurant to ourselves and our pancakes and waffles were good. After we ate we made the mistake of taking the stairs up to the viewing platform at the top of the mall in the dome. It’s a nice 360 degree view of the city where we could even see the ship but the stairs was a mistake. Now we are slowly headed back towards the shuttle to go back to the ship.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Cobh, Ireland
July 12, 2018 in Ireland ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C
We got off in the morning again before Jackson had to go back to work. We wandered around and spent 2 hours hunting for Kennedy keepsakes with the coat of arms on it. We found lots of places with magnets, coasters, keychains, etc. But a lot of places were sold out of Kennedy. I did eventually find and decided on a pin for my camera bag.
During our exploring we found lots of references to the titanic. With Cobh being it’s last port of call there’s a museum, memorial and lots of souvenirs regarding the titanic. Yesterday I would have liked to go to the titanic museum which was built where the titanic was built but didn’t have time.Read more
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Contract 4 - Azura The Ships Photographer
Southampton, UK
July 14, 2018 in England ⋅ 🌙 15 °C
Got to show my parents around the ship today and they met Jackson for the first time. As I knew they would everyone got along great. My parents also seemed to really enjoy their tour.
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