I can’t believe it’s been over a week now since I left for a 23 hour flight to Stockholm. By the end of our travels I was so over planes and really looking forward to having a shower and being able to sleep in a bed! We spent the night in a hotel in Stockholm before being picked up the next morning to join the Royal Princess.

The ship is identical to the Pacific Princess that I was on in 2003 and is just beautiful. It is one of the smallest ships in the Princess fleet and has a real boutique feel about it.

At the moment I am sitting in the Prince Albert Pub in Dover, today, is Wednesday, exactly one week since I boarded the ship, and the first day we’ve had the chance to get off the ship. This cruise is where the current cast handover to us, so we’ve been spending most of our time in rehearsals, costume fittings and dress runs of the shows. Plus we need to add Drew into our cast. Drew is the Singer Dancer of the current cast, he is doing a double contract and joining our cast. We therefore didn’t rehearse with him in Sydney as he already onboard and therefore obviously already knows the shows, but we need to slot him into our cast now.

Overall we therefore haven’t been able to get off in Tallinn, St Petersburg, Helsinki or Amsterdam…. But I’ll have heaps of time to do that once handover is over. Today we are in Dover, so we’ve been able to duck out for a couple of hours to stock up on supplies. This is the best port for us to buy things like shampoo and hairspray etc. The rest of the cruise stops in Le Havre, Lisbon, Cannes, Livorno and Rome. Rome is where our first cruise (and our handover) ends. The current cast go home and we are then on our own as the resident cast.

Thus far I don’t really have too much to report except to say that I’m safe and well and missing Chris terribly. 10 weeks til he comes on board!!! Life at the moment revolves pretty much around getting our 5 shows up. We’ll be performing 3 of them at the end of this cruise. Once they are over and done with we can really begin to settle in and enjoy our contract with these fabulous ports.

I’ll leave you with some photos of our travels to Stockholm, our first formal night and the disco in the crew bar. Most of the photos are of my cast, which are great… we’re going to have a good contract together. Plus my two best mates on board Dave the male singer in my cast that most of you know and David (aka Nipples) who is the Shore Excursions Manager on board. Both of these guys have been on all three of my contracts and are therefore really good friends of Chris and I. They look after me which makes Chris happy knowing I’m being taken care of.

Will write again soon. Love to everyone.

Jess xx