Who's The Daddy: The long hours and hard work are worth the rewards

But this week’s itinerary, from New York to the Bahamas and back, is under constant review as the ship’s captain skilfully dodges Hurricane Milton which, at the time of writing, had been upgraded to a Category 5. I daren’t look if there’s a Category 6. If there is, please keep it to yourself.

Daughter #2 FaceTimed us last weekend from the top deck as her ship was leaving Nassau to tell us that her job is basically like having the social life of university, but with a pay cheque every couple of weeks.

The crew has even started to plan for Christmas, Daughter #2 will be an elf on Christmas Day (at 5ft 10ins she’ll be the second tallest person dressed as an elf in history, after Will Ferrell) and working the ice rink while thousands of tourists have the most wonderful time of the year.

Changeover day is quite the challenge too, as 6,000 passengers get off and 6,000 new ones get on, all in the space of an hour. These cruise companies really have it down to a fine art.

Having said all that, she’s having a pretty good time of it herself and her time off looks like the star prize on a prime time Saturday night TV game show.

In the last week or so she spent the day in New York City and sent a short video of her coach ride into the city so jaw-dropping that could have been set to music - Gershwin, probably - as New York is literally a giant film set. And after that it was off to Central Park with her fellow shipmates.

A couple of days earlier her ship docked in Florida and she spent the afternoon at the Kennedy Space Center and got real close to, among other things, the Space Shuttle Atlantis. As well as being a remarkable piece of engineering, and way smaller than you might think, Atlantis has seen more than its fair share of use in 33 missions over 26 years, and its condition if it were for sale on eBay would be “used” or “parts only”.

In fact, when you get real close it reminds you of one of Alan Ball’s old white football boots from the 1970s after a long, hard season ploughing up and down First Division mudheaps and being kicked up in the air by Norman Hunter, Nobby Stiles and Ron “Chopper” Harris.

Still, Daughter #2’s pictures on Instagram look like a decent lottery win, particularly the afternoon swimming in the sea off CocoCay. Her lifestyle and workload would kill yours truly, but when you’re 22, and you’re being paid for the privilege then these things kind of bounce off you, whereas when you get to our age they embed in you like shrapnel.

It’s hard work, long hours and at times exhausting. But when your workplace overlooks the Caribbean, Florida and New York City, it kind of makes up for it.

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