Exhausted, but pressing on

Well, RCT (Royal Celebrity Tours) hasn’t wasted anytime in getting our feet wet. We put 40hrs of work in in the first 3 days! Needless to say, it’s been a bit exhausting. I am constantly bombarded with facts, papers, tours and info. Wed night I literally felt my brain hurt because there was no more room for anything to be crammed into my brain. I don’t think it’s the lack of working for a year (although I’m sure that doesn’t help), it’s just mainly that there is SO much information and I have to be an expert on every subject (and the perfectionist in me hates not having it perfect), so it’s daunting. Although…

Today my alarm went off at 2:30am for my 3am show time – yea, that’s right, I had to be at worked, dressed make-up on and cheery at 3am (which, surprisingly wasn’t too bad…it hit about 11am). I put in a 10 ½ hr day and I was done at 1pm ;) so nuts! Anyways, today was my first experience on a real tour as I shadowed a girl. We picked up our guests from the Cruise Ship and headed back to Anchorage. While on the bus, I had the total peaceful feeling of, “I can do this”. It’s more relational and logistics above the commentary I’m to memorize, so seeing it in action made me feel better. The average cliental is about 55ish…and I have NO problem connecting and “Smooshing” with them, so I’m hoping that’ll get me through, if my commentary doesn’t’.

I have an awesome new team (there are 3 new people and 4 who have been switched over to Tour Directing) so that makes the days easier when you enjoy your co-workers! We also all feel totally blessed as there were over 120 applicants and only 3 of us are new! No Pressure J

To give you an idea and location: I am located in Anchorage (with my AWESOME apartment!) but we drive to Seward to pick up our guests off the ship, then there are 22 different tours, so depending on your tour will depend where you go, but you are either in Seward, Girdwood (at an AMAZING resort called Alyeska – look it up!), Anchorage, Telketna, Denali or Fairbanks. We spend one night in each place (unless they have chosen a short tour and you cover a couple places a day). I am learning so many facts already and I can orient myself by the different mountain ranges. Speaking of, the Alaskan Mtn range that hold Mt. McKinley/Denail is 100’s of miles away from Anchorage and yet today, you can see the mountain range over the ocean – GORGEOUS!!! I’ve seen so many moose already. Highlight was the one running down the main road (Fred Meyers parking lot) in a small town called Palmer. The beauty is majestic and continues to point to a CREATOR!!

My roommates are great too. There is 6 of us so far, the 7^th is arriving June 3. We all had dinner and hung out last night, so that’s super fun. I am truly blessed with a place that feels like home.

Once we get internet, I’ll post some pics so you can see the beauty as well ;) I leave tomorrow for the 2^nd half of our intro tour (I’ll be heading to Fairbanks and all the stops inbetween). There’s talk of a helicopter tour over Denali (possibly landing on a glacier), so I’ll keep you updated with on that.

This journey is NEVER dull!