theCruiseView daily Jewel of the Seas West Coast Info Vlog

[DEIx15x8]

It's a bit late but better than never. If you've followed my previous threads I mentioned having issues at home that were preventing me from accessing the equipment I needed to edit these videos. Well on Christmas Eve I finally got everything I needed back in order and was able to start editing that week.

 

This series is going to be a little bit different than the previous 29 episodes. The Grandeur was a very fact based compass and ship focused series, the Quantum was very elaborate with many fact based segments with opinions between but still ship focused. This time there is a lot of ship information and the compass plays a major role, but while I was new to the ship the primary focus was the itinerary so for the first time the ports take center stage for this series. With each day a portion of the episode is focused around the excursion I took in each port while previously big segments like the daily dine and venue tour are reduced to more subtle roles since they would have been mostly redundant of previous episodes on other ships. In addition to the redundancy though it was also about capabilities. This sailing had just 1 sea day so the time to conduct interviews and film all the extra segments just wasn’t there this time, but I knew that going in and had already planned this port focused format from the start.

 

Unlike previous sailings where things came out as ready and dragged on, I've held things back this time. At this point I have the first 7 episodes finished and ready to go with the 8th at about 40%. That means that I'll actually be able to provide a schedule for the releases so you don't have to keep wondering when:

 

1. Wednesday February 10th: Day 1 - Vancouver, BC

2. Friday February 12th: Day 2 - Victoria, BC

3. Monday February 15th: Day 3 - Astoria, OR

4. Wednesday February 17th: Day 4 - Day at Sea

5. Friday February 19th: Day 5 - San Francisco, CA

6. Monday February 22nd: Day 6 - San Francisco, CA

7. Wednesday February 24th: Day 7 - Monterey, CA

8. Friday February 26th: Day 8 - Santa Barbara, CA


So I hope you enjoy the format of this sailing, and when I return again on Harmony it will be bigger than ever with a series full of segments in line with the Quantum series.

 

Now here’s day 1!

 

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Let me know what you think, I believe there are more clips inserted in than previous ones and for a few episodes I've put some extra effort into making special graphics to convey things. With each episode I'll also try to give a little behind the scenes on the filming. One thing I can tell you about this episode, I had a brand new lapel mic that had two mics to it. For the first few nights it seemed like it was picking up extra feedback from the iPhone and I was planning on not using it again (actually bought a second as well), but from day 4 or 5 on it sounds so much better than the old one used for Quantum.

 

Don’t forget you can also checkout my previous daily review thread for a photo and textual run down of the sailing including (16,000+ photos): http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2270913

My video series for full videos of the major events and each port of call:

As well as my complete Jewel of the Seas ship tour thread: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=48353657

[DEIx15x8]

Day 2 was the visit to Victoria, BC. I also focused in on the centrum onboard the ship. This was the only episode I've actually had to stop in the middle of filming. In the past I once was forced to stop during the Quantum series because I exhausted both batteries and had to finish in the morning after a charge. I believe that was the Martinique episode and I filmed the last 2 minute while in Barbados in the morning. I've also often had to stop and wait in the middle of filming because crew showed up to vacuum or move things around in the area. During the filming of episode 2 though I made a very poor choice in location. The shot looked great with the colorful pool lighting in the background, the bright lights of the bar in may area, and the ambient sounds of the jungle that play in the Solarium. Unfortunately though I failed to realize just how hot and humid it was in there, we reached the ocean and started swaying while I was filming, and it was formal night so I was in a suit. Any 2 of those would have been bad, but all 3 meant I had to stop and step out onto the pool deck twice during filming. Once I got started though I wasn't going to find another spot and start over. Hopefully I'll never make that mistake again. I was surprised it wasn't more noticable when looking at the video because I certainly felt out of it while filming.

 

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[DEIx15x8]

Day 3 was our return to the USA with a visit to Astoria Oregon. In this episode I featured both the Safari Club and the SeaView Cafe in addition to the usual port day activities. This episode was filmed near the Safari Club in the Game Preserve area where the self leveling pool tables are located. While I didn't feel too much motion going on I could see the pool tables were moving as you'll see during the Safari Club segment. More interestingly though I didn't notice it while filming but the camera was even swaying as you'll be able to see if you watch the edges of the screen, or while graphics are up. During the day in Astoria we had to go through a customs process onboard. To help convey that I created a special animation in Motion to show the paths that we were being taken through the ship. If you've seen my ship tour series you should recognize the rest of the graphic because I just placed it on top of my tour graphic to help complete the appearance.

 

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[DEIx15x8]

The fourth day was our one and only sea day which means that today's episode took a shift back to being ship focused with a variety of onboard activities going on. Since the day was spent onboard and it's the half way point I also devoted time in this episode to reviewing the ship itself and comparing it to previous ships that I've sailed on.

 

For this episode I filmed in the Centrum which offered a great background but is tricky to film in. I tried several nights during the sailing but almost every night the music would be too loud. Even when the band wasn't playing the piped in music would be too much, but on this night I was able to pull it off and it's probably my favorite background since being on the balcony of Two70 with a vistarama running behind me.

 

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[DEIx15x8]

The fifth episode features the port highlight of the sailing with our first day in San Francisco. Each sailing I try to film at least one episode outside. It's a surprisingly challenging thing to do. Naturally at night it's much darker out there making it hard to get a good shot, and then even worse it's almost always windy which makes recording audio impossible. I've tried several times each sailing, but usually one or both of those items prevent it. On the Grandeur I got lucky with a warm windless night off the coast of the Carolinas (yes, in January!) that allowed me to film at the aft of the ship on the promenade deck. On Quantum I never got the right conditions to film outside, but one night I was able to film by the iFly in an area shielded from wind and lit by the iFly itself. This time I had no wind to worry about since we were in port and the wind was hitting the starboard side rather than port. So I setup on the promenade deck just to the aft of the doors from the atrium allowing the atrium to provide some extra needed light. More importantly though unlike normal middle of the ocean black backgrounds, the Bay Bridge provided a beautiful backdrop for this episode.

 

Since this was our first day in San Francisco a lot of this episode will focus on what I did in San Francisco which was to enjoy their unique transit systems. For this I made a special graphic of our route and what transit we used for the different parts. I think it turned out really nicely, but it was surprisingly complex for how simple of an animation it looks. Hope you enjoy this first day in California!

 

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[DEIx15x8]

The sixth episode featured our second day in San Francisco with a visit to Alcatraz. This was another great filming location as I got to film in the Main Dining Room on one of the formal nights. I usually try to do this once per sailing. On most nights the crew is working until after 1 or 2am or they close the doors when they leave. This night I got lucky and the doors were open but with the exception of a few crew members running back and forth their was no actual work going on in the room.

 

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[Clarea]

Enjoying the video logs.:)

[DEIx15x8]

Enjoying the video logs.:)

Thanks for watching!

 

On the seventh episode today theCruiseView heads to Monterey California for our first tender stop of the sailing. On this episode I spent a bit of time reviewing how the tendering went on this day since it was a big part of the port along with the 70's Party that dominated the night. This episode was filmed in the Windjammer's side eating room. It's kind of odd, but the Windjammer is closed at night, but because the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines are located in there they must leave them accessible 24 hours a day. For this reason they lock the main door but open the doors from the lobby to the side area to access the Windjammer. I originally was going to go inside where the atmosphere was nicer, but some workers were cleaning the ovens and other areas that would have been to noisy, but the side area ended up being a great location too. It's amazing how many little quiet areas you can find on a ship at night if you try hard enough, and yet sometimes it takes longer to find a spot than to actually film.

 

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[DEIx15x8]

The final day of theCruiseView from onboard the Jewel of the Seas! This is a biggie covering two port days with both our actual day in Santa Barbara and foreshadowing our debarkation in San Pedro (Los Angeles) the next morning. I was considering doing a ninth episode to cover the debarkation day since it was another new port and this was the first vacation since theCruiseView started where I wasn't going home right from the ship. In the end though I plan the entire series ahead of time so I can make references and I had no guarantee that when I got to Disneyland I would actually have a nice private place, or even the time to film the 9th episode and couldn't go without a farewell episode. So the idea was dropped. Most likely in the future, it kind of stinks to never get to comment on the debarkation, but it'll likely always remain this way.

 

In addition to our two ports, since it was the final episode I covered my final thoughts on both the cruise and the ship itself. I also look ahead to the next two series of theCruiseView with the Harmony of the Seas 13 night transatlantic on 10/23/16 and an Anthem of the Seas 12 night Southern Caribbean sailing on 4/17/17. Since this was not the end of my vacation though in addition to the mention of our final port the next day I intentionally included hooks for everything I had planned for LA, so while it won't include opinions of them (they will be on my review thread), you will get to see what I did in LA. This includes a nice 90 second Disneyland video montage that was far more difficult to pull off than it looks. But was completely worth the effort.

 

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So I hope everyone has enjoyed this series of theCruiseView. As I mentioned next will be the Harmony of the Seas and it'll be another biggie like the Quantum of the Seas series was, including the return of the interviews. I am also working on a better way to present the entire series with easier access to the individual segments because I feel like many people don't want to watch the 30 minutes, or in the case of episodes with interviews often an hour. So they never even know about some of the informative segments included. It'll remain a single episode per day (though I've considered making the interviews independent of the days, let me know what you think), but using YouTube's ability to link to parts of videos it'll be easier to identify segments of interest and get directly to them.

Edited February 26, 2016 by DEIx15x8