An ice skater on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship reveals what it's like to be back performing after a year without cruising

[Sylvia]

Article on Jordan Bauth, 24, who competed for USA at the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012 (with photos contributed by Bauth):

An ice skater on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship reveals what it's like to be back performing after a year without cruising

Jordan Bauth is a figure skater on Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas. She learned her entire skating routing while quarantining in her cabin.

www.insider.com

Alternate link: https://news.yahoo.com/ice-skater-royal-caribbean-cruise-110500534.html

Excerpts:

She flew from her home to St. Martin, where she quarantined for three nights in a hotel on the island.
Finally, on April 28, she stepped onto Adventure of the Seas, where she will spend the next nine months figure skating for passengers.
"I had to pinch myself," she said. "I teared up a little bit signing on. I had been waiting for that moment for so long, to be back where I'm happiest and where I thrive."
To prepare for the return of passengers, Bauth quarantined for two weeks and learned all of the show's choreography - without ice or skates.
Before Bauth could welcome back passengers and start rehearsing with her fellow cast members, she had to be vaccinated and go through a two-week quarantine.
Isolated in her cruise-ship cabin, she spent most of the time rehearsing for the upcoming show and virtually getting to know the nine other figure skaters on the ship.
Bauth said she had to learn the entire show's choreography from her tiny cruise-ship cabin where they had daily Zoom rehearsals with spotty WiFi.

Bauth said before COVID, her figure-skating career never relied on floor choreography. That changed after learning an entire routine inside her tiny cabin.
By the time she was out of quarantine and on the ice, "it was almost like muscle memory," she said.
The group had about a month before passengers would arrive, so everything from costume fittings to dress runs were squeezed into that short window.
Bauth said the first show was "like Christmas day as a little kid."
"I'll never forget that feeling," she said. "This last year, it felt like it may never happen again … so just to finally see the guests' faces was incredible."
Bauth performs about two shows during sea days. With Royal Caribbean's current COVID protocols, only 150 guests are allowed into the show and passengers sit socially distanced and about two rows away from the stage. Typically, the studio fits about 700 people, she said.
But even with the distance and COVID changes, Bauth said their energy is "contagious."

ETA that she has a YT channel and this episode is about her 2012 YOG experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPKZWtM4d5o

Bauth appeared on The Athletes Podcast in April 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWorgX2d_Cw