This post is part 18 of a series of stories recounting all the ups and downs of my ~6 year journey around the world to all seven continents and seven seas.
I didn’t need anyone to tell me I was living in a dream– I knew it.
On this particular morning, I’d woken up docked in France, spent the afternoon in Monaco, and would be in Italy later that evening.
Every ship varies in terms of guests and crew, and for the time I was on the Freedom, the crew were the happiest and friendliest I’d ever been onboard with.
Nearly every situation I was in that could’ve ended up negatively was turned around by the kindness of my fellow crew members, many of whom I didn’t know at the time.
This was the case in Villefranche, France, a tender port, which means a tender boat is needed to take people off the ship and onto land.
Even though my primary job was in the kids’ club, we had other duties, like welcoming guests at shows, dancing in parades or theme nights, and my least favorite— pushing wheelchairs.
If getting a wheelchair from ship to tender wasn’t difficult enough, the narrow and steep ramp had a sharp 90-degree turn that could only be navigated if the wheelchair was slightly lifted and turned.
With a person sitting in it.
I always dreaded this shift.
On this day however, before I could even take the handles of the first guest that came through in a wheelchair, the security team that was there to check guests off the ship told me they would take care of it.
I watched as two of them maneuvered the guest and wheelchair down the ramp, around the sharp turn, and up into the tender.
For every wheelchair that came through during my two-hour shift, the security guys proceeded to take turns doing my job without any hesitation.
I thanked them repeatedly and offered to help them with their sanitizing tasks but they refused, telling me to just keep them company and enjoy the view.
After my shift was over, I went ashore and decided to try my luck tagging along with a tour to Monaco as an escort.
I approached the crew member in charge and asked if there was room and again, to my surprise, he was so chill about it and said it’d be no problem.
So off I went to Monaco for the afternoon without having to pay a penny.
It was a day that could’ve easily gone south, but instead it turned out to be one of my most memorable days from the contract.
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