Kusadasi Canine.

I was perusing the fleet news and looking at the upcoming new ships checking out the new Emerald Princess and Royal Princess itineraries. Crew like to see what’s going on early so we can try and adjust our contract dates to get the new ships or the great itineraries on our next contracts. Have you looked at the itineraries of these two ships yet? Who’s EXCITED about the launch of the new 680 passenger Royal Princess in 2007? Have you seen the amazing med itineraries it will be doing?? You all know how I feel about the Med and Med cruising but O.M.G! Check out the itinerary on the Princess website. It is listed under the new press releases. She is going to TROY for gosh sakes! How exotic. I can tell you from my experiences cruising the Med, this is going to be an amazing run and an amazing ship to do it on. If your thinking of booking her, book early.

Looking at her itinerary made me think of one of my favorite ports, Kusadasi, which the new Royal will call into. Absolutely the BEST place I have ever been to for purchasing Turkish rugs and LEATHER. Leather everything, especially jackets, for incredible prices. You can also rent a harley for pretty cheap.

We used to go ashore in Kusadasi allot to have a couple beers and EAT. I mean honestly to crew members every port reminds you of some fantastic food that you had. In Kusadasi it was the incredible seafood FEASTS you can have for really low prices. Open air restaurants and heaps of shrimp and crab and fish and squid, you name it. After the feast and a few beers you regret that your crew and have to go back to the ship and work!

I remember one day my buddy and I went ashore in Kusadasi to find a place called “Shirley Valentines” run by a British woman of the same name, or perhaps named after the woman in the famous movie… we didn’t know but we were aiming to have a couple Effes beer and find out the history behind the pubs name.

We wandered around for quite some time searching for the place. My friend was certain he knew where it was but apparently he was mistaken. I was just about to tell him to call off the search while we still had time for a cold beer when he looked across the street and thought he saw the place. It looked like what had been described to us, a high rock walled open air “pub” with a narrow stone entry down a narrow alley. Ok, so far so good.

We walked into the narrow alleyway, only wide enough for one or two people, and pushed open the black Iron Gate which was the “door”. The gate made an incredible loud creaking noise as we opened it and inside we could see that there was indeed a bar, bar stools, a few tables and…most importantly…Effes beer taps on the bar. We walked into the place and up to the bar… but it seemed closed. There were no patrons or bar staff. In fact the place was completely deserted. We were looking behind the bar to be sure there was no staff around before we decided to leave, and I was commenting to my friend how strange it was that they would leave the place like this without even locking the door if it was closed… when we heard the loud creaking of the gate behind us. We both looked around, hoping to see a bartender who would pour us a long cold draught, and instead saw the largest Doberman Pincer dog that has ever walked the planet; and unless he was an incredible well trained canine he wasn’t here to pour us any beers.

It seems that this sneaky creature had sat quietly behind the Iron Gate as we pushed it open and waited until we were far enough inside to ensure our capture, and then revealed his position by pushing the gate closed and standing between it and us! I felt immediate dislike for the cunning beast. The thing that was most scary about this dog was that he didn’t bark or growl. He just stared at us. I could see he was tied up with a chain, so he only had about 5 feet of freedom, presumably just enough to guard the gate, so at least he wasn’t going to rush us. He was just waiting, and staring. He knew we had to get out via the gate that he blocked and you could see in his black little eyes that he was wondering which of the two tasty morsels was going to try for the exit first. Luckily neither my friend nor I are scared of dogs, but we are not stupid either. It seemed to us, after looking at the situation logically that if we put our backs FLAT against the wall and did the Tom and Jerry wall scoot we should be just beyond the reach of the cunning canine and be able to skirt out the side of the gate.

The thought did occur to us that we could test the beer tap and see if it was working, and then just sit and wait for rescue. But what if no rescue came and we were still sitting at the bar waiting when the ship left without us? It would be a hard thing to explain to the Captain and PSD twelve days later when the grand returned. Almost like telling your teacher that your dog ate your homework. Besides, what if the next person to show up was a large Turkish fellow who would not be happy about us drinking all his beer? They do say owners and dogs become like each other...so we decided to try and escape.

I am not sure how we decided who went first, but I managed to win this one and my friend ended up taking the lead. I followed along closely behind him. The plan being that if the dog COULD reach him I could try and pull him free and then return whatever body parts remained to his family for burial.

We put our backs against the rock wall, and started skirting slowly toward the gate. I remember my friend saying to me "just go slow and don't look into his eyes" and BAM... I looked ( DOH!). I am telling you now, believe me or not, I saw that dogs eyes and I could SEE his little doggy brain working hard to figure out what we were doing... and I could see the exact moment when he did... and he got mad. He got REALLY mad and started tossing a fit like I have never seen. He was tugging so hard on the chain that held him that it sounded like a dinosaur stamping his foot whenever he pulled it tight. He barked, he snarled and he spit his worst canine curses at us but we just kept on skirting the wall as flat as we could make ourselves.

As soon as my friend was in range I realized I had NOT gotten the better end of the deal by going last because I could see how close the dog was to his face and belly with his impressively white and plentiful teeth! It would have been better to have not known this going in, because I admit I got just a tad afraid. But not wanting to look the wuss in front of my buddy I sucked in my belly as far as I could and skirted past Fido’s fury. If you’re wondering how close he really was; I could see he had raw chicken for lunch, some of it was still stuck between his back molars.

We walked casually away from the closed pub doing our best not to look like thieves, because the dog was making such a fuss now everyone was looking at us like we had just burgled the place ( I suspect he was bitter we defeated him). We decided to pull into a little pub for the cold beer we had set out for in the first place and lay low a few minutes. As we sat down a waitress came over and took our order, and as irony would have it, wouldn't you know we were in Shirley Valentines.

I love the Mediterranean. You just never know what to expect.


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Ship shape shopping ashore.

Have you ever wondered why in hundreds of ports around the world the locals set up shops, markets and bazaars right on the pier? They sell essentially the same things you will get in town, but for a little higher price. They do it because they are counting on two major influences in the retail world; the impulse buy and convenience shopping.

A great example of this is St. Thomas. You all know what that is like, Havensite mall right there beside the ship, convenience shopping at its best. A huge complex selling everything you can imagine (and good Chinese food to). Crew LOVE it, even if we don't want to buy we go look. But we DO buy.

Crew like it when you go to a port and find there is a mall, or market or ANYTHING right on the pier. We love to shop, and even if they are not selling what we want we will STILL go shop. If they ARE selling what we want then look out, you will have lines of crew. We like pier shopping as a little “break” as well, often times we will just “pop ashore” onto the pier to look around, buy a trinket and enjoy a change of pace.

When we DO get time off we don’t get a lot of it; maybe 2 or 3 hours at most in a port. If we want to go and shop, we want to shop. Not spend all our time looking for a store that’s open, that sells what we want, and then have to deal with slow customer service and formalities. We are a harsh bunch, ignore the pleasantries, ignore the fancy store, we just want product and lots of it made immediately available for our browsing pleasure and if it’s brought TO US at the ship, even better. We will buy from you.

Obviously the cruise lines try and help the passengers with their shopping. As you know we have shopping advisors onboard the ships that will direct you to the guaranteed places and best priced stores. These used to be called “port lecturers” but the format has changed and now we have only shopping advisors. After all a port lecturer is really not required because we do have experts on every port right at the Shore Excursions desk and they can tell you anything you need to know, even if you DON’T buy a tour ;0). I know that the onboard shopping advisors can seem a little pushy and sometimes a little to slick… but they really do try and help you. The stores they recommend really are guaranteed and the prices are the best you will get. I know because the crew uses them as well. We are always asking them about prices and best stores when we want to buy diamonds or electronics. Most of them are jewelry experts and I think they are of the most value to you (or us) when it is jewelry that you want to purchase. But they are knowledgeable in other things as well and can always help out at least a little.

I know that sometimes the presentations given by the onboard shopping advisors can seem confusing and high pressure, but they are trying to pack so much information into a small time slot that they really need to cover ground as quickly as possible. If you just can NOT stand the presentations but are considering a purchase of something, it would be worth your while to go see them during their desk hours, or leave a message at the purser’s desk for them. I have seen passengers buy expensive jewelry only to find out it was fake, or misrepresented by the salesman and when they tried to complain to the onboard shopping advisor there was nothing that could be done because they didn’t go to a Princess guaranteed store. I know, I know what you’re thinking... “that sounds like a sell” but it’s true. Trust me, buyers beware!

When I think about shopping and cruise ships, there is one thing I know for certain; if I had any spare cash at all, I would set up a business that catered to the needs and desires of crew members. I promise you, show up on the pier, or as close as you can get to the ship, with the things we want and you will make sales. We don’t care if you’re selling from the side of a van, to us it’s about convenience and price and that’s it.

Take my advice, any entrepreneurs out there with a little start up cash. Show up at a ship selling what we buy from the trunk of your car, a table or a blanket on the concrete and we will buy. Show up with a CATALOUGUE and take orders that will be delivered the next time the ship is in port and your going to make sales.

Interested to know what it is we buy? I’ll tell you.

Men and women’s white shoes; do you know how hard it is for us to find the time to go browse shoe stores looking for the right kind of white shoes? Forget about it.

Electronics; specifically cell phones (top of the line quad and tri band only. We are techno freaks onboard), Stereos, televisions, IPOD, portable DVD players, PSP and etc.

Luggage; A crewmember at the end of a contract always needs a new suitcase.

Philippines food and POT NOODLE!; We love Pot noodle. Bring cases of it and I promise you we will walk of the ship buy 2 or 3 cases and walk back on all in 2 minutes. We LIVE on pot noodles. Remember 60% of crew is from Philippines.

Subway and Domino’s pizza!; Have you ever done Panama Canal on Coral Princess? Remember the big pier in Cristobal where the little mall and market is where all the locals sell? Did you see the little Domino’s Pizza booth? Did you see the line up of crew? That is our favorite 4 hours stop over. Domino’s pizza and a cold beer, nothing could be better after work than that.

DVD’s and music CD’s; We love movies! Better yet do a movie rental service. Bring the movies and let us rent them for a cruise until next time the ship is in that port. But think of some other guarantee than a credit card because 60% of the crew will not have one to leave you. We deal mostly in cash. Cash deposit works best with crew.

I went shopping myself today in Sydney, and so shopping was on my brain so I thought I would blog about it. What did I buy? Toys for the kids, stuffed animals for the kids, cloths for the kids... the usual.

Now if only someone would come to the pier and help with box shipping for me… We were in on a Sunday and the port agent refused to take my box and mail it for me on Monday! So now I have to wait another ten days JUST to get my box to the post office! Hmmm... sounds like another business idea to me. Pier Shipping!

:0)