You Can Call Me Al

Fabulous day. Long, busy, hectic, but fabulous. Got to the yard at 6:45 am, finished at 4:45 pm and had a blast everywhere in between. I had two full tours today, both servicing guests from the Carnival’s Spirit cruise ship. These people were FUN. They laughed at my dumb jokes, listened to my commentary attentively, and played along with my goofiness, all the while teasing me mercilessly.

Today was another absolutely GORGEOUS day. Sun shining, clear blue sky, perfect. So after everyone had settled on my bus when I picked them up on the dock, I jumped in and hollered, “ALOHA!” They laughed and answered back with their “Aloooooo-HA!” I continued by welcoming them to the tropics of Juneau, Alaska, explaining that this weather was rare and that they must be good luck because they brought the good weather with them! (Although it was sunny and blue skies, they were all still bundled up in coats and hats because it was still pretty nippy out.) Anyway, that broke the ice pretty well and they were very congenial after that.

During my introduction and safety speech I always emphasize my name and bus number a billion times because people always forget and then get on the wrong bus. So I was telling them my name and bus number and could tell they were a group that would eat the goofiness up, so I finished by saying, “if you forget my name, you can just call me ‘beautiful’ and I’ll respond to that.” They LOVED that, and the funny thing was, a good portion of them called me “beautiful” for the rest of the day. HA. Love it. One gentleman got off the bus at our first stop and, pointing to his wife coming down the stairs behind him said to me, “Beautiful, meet Lovely.” Too cute. When I picked my group up from their first stop there were 3 buses waiting for passengers right next to me, all with female drivers waiting outside their buses. My passengers kept coming up and saying “We found you, Beautiful. You’re definitely the prettiest one!” HAHA. I was feeling pretty good about myself by the end of the day, let me tell you. It was fun that they went along with it.

Some of the men love to tease me. Because I drill my name and bus number into their heads so forcefully, they’ll come back to the bus at each stop and say, “Nice to see you again, Wendy” or “I was worried we wouldn’t find you, Jill” calling me the wrong name every time, followed by the wrong bus number on purpose. They’re so funny.

But man, these people ate it all up. It was such a fun experience having two groups who liked me and clicked with me and were interested in what I had to say and laughed at stupid things I said. I’ve realized most of these people just want a good time. I can still give them cool information, but I can definitely be myself and be a spaz and they love it even more (and tip even better! I got a new record for my season thus far with tips totaling at $69 today! I was VERY happy with that because Carnival guests are notorious among bus drivers for not tipping.) Even better than the tips though were the handful of passengers today who came down the stairs at the end of my tour and thanked me sincerely, saying it was a wonderful time, or that I had done a fabulous job and they had thoroughly enjoyed themselves, or that the tour was so well done. It just made me feel good that I had been able to help these people have a positive experience here in Juneau. Gee, I love my job.