Cruise Journal Entry #1

This first entry picks up part way into the journey

Greetings everyone. As all of you should know by know I have started a new job playing drums for [removed for now]. It’s been two weeks now and it has been more than just a little bit crazy. My flight down to Jacksonville, Florida was uneventful except for US Airways didn’t lose any of my luggage.  I suppose that is an event in itself. However, [cruise company] did manage to lose 2 of my bags between the cruise terminal and the boat. The boat is about 75 feet away from the terminal. The bags lost contained all the clothes I wasn’t wearing as well as my laptop, cell phone charger, headphones, drum sticks, toiletries and other important items. If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have checked the smaller bag, but my bag had no distance to cover to get to me and I would not have tipped the baggage handlers. Not having sticks made me unable to rehearse at first, but the lounge band drummer loaned me some sticks which allowed me to get through a jazz set and the “welcome aboard” show as well as everything else for the next 2 cruises. We’ll talk about playing later.  First, the tale of my missing bags.

My large suitcase with my clothes showed up the first night which meant that at least I would have clean clothes for the duration of the trip. However, it showed up in unclaimed passenger luggage by the information desk and my giant 6” diameter lime green tag with heavy duty button clasps had been removed. My small bag remained missing. The info desk’s remedy was for me to file a missing bag report which is similar to stapling fliers to telephone poles saying “lost dog – has four legs and fur.” At the conclusion of the first cruise, I called my parents with my remaining 30 minutes of cell phone battery to quickly tell them about my predicament. This left me with a lot of voice mails. So I bought a 2 hour internet card for $20 to have some means of communication and a few days later I got an email from Dad saying that a UPS store in Jacksonville had my bag. Remember, the boat was 75 feet away. The UPS store is 13 miles away. If the magician on board could do tricks like that maybe people wouldn’t walk out during his show. Anyways, it cost me a $50 cab ride and a $25 holding fee that I’m going to try to pin on [asshole corporation] to get my stuff but I now have all of it. Everything was still in the bag and still functions properly.  All things considered I feel pretty fortunate.