How it all began!

Hello! Thanks for stopping by my blog! To give you a little background info…

I’m Monica Hernandez, 19 years young and about to start my greatest adventure yet. When I was younger my family would go watch my older cousins in their dance shows and I absolutely adored them. After every show I would dance around the living room and tell my parents they needed to sign me up for classes. Finally when I was eight I started taking a ballet/tap combo class and a jazz class. Most young girls take dance class at some point in their life I didn’t think much about it I was just excited to go to class… I had no idea that it would have such a huge impact on my life. Anyways I've been dancing for the past eleven years, I’ve trained in Ballet, Tap, Hip Hop, Contemporary, and Jazz. I've competed in multiple competitions, attended many conventions and have been in a variety of shows.

After High school many dancers stop dancing, I knew I couldn’t do that. I’ve worked too hard and love it too much to not do something with it. I thought about what I should do, and what I should audition for. I decided I wanted to be a Sea Gal for the Seattle Seahawks or audition for the Edge Scholarship Program, or audition to dance on a cruise ship. So I did some homework and looked at what was coming up. The Sea Gals try outs were held in April which was the soonest. I showed up to the open call auditions with about 200 other girls where we had to freestyle for a minute to a song they picked. After they watched everyone they cut a little more than half of the girls. We then stayed and learned a combo. Went back the next week to perform it to the judges, afterward they cut some more people. The remaining girls signed up for interview times for the following week before the finals. Then the finals were on a live webcast that Friday. When it was my turn I answered their question and danced for them but in the end I was cut. I was pretty sad about it. But reminded myself what my teachers have always told me “you’ll get more no’s than you will yes’s” so I didn’t let it bring me down I just used it as motivation to keep going.

One of My dance teachers Tonya texted me a couple months later asking if I was still interested in cruise jobs, I was like” yes!” Very much so! She told me about a Disney Cruise Line dancer audition that was only two weeks away in Vancouver B.C. I was so excited to get that news. I got my passport and drove up the day of the audition and showed em what I got. Haha But no, it was a good audition they started out with a clean cut jazz combo with lots of technique in it, made a cut. Then moved onto a princess like ballet combo where they were looking for you to show them a character and show them you could act like a princess from the way you ran, and waved to your smile. Anyways I made it to the end of the audition and they asked me if I was interested in being a face character as well as a dancer, I said yes I’d love to be a princess. Haha but after exchanging information I was hoping to hear from them because I thought the audition went so well, But I never did which was a bummer. I looked to see if there were other cruise line auditions and I saw Carnival was having one in Vancouver. So I went up a couple months later was a little surprised by their audition. We learned an old school hip hop combo to a 90’s rap song it definitely threw people off. We looked pretty funny in our shorts, crop tops, and bare feet gettin down. But I killed it, or at least tried my best, but it turns out they were looking for dancers who can sing, which is a bummer because I’m not a gifted singer at all. It was a good experience though, just proved that you have to be ready for whatever they throw at you.

A few weeks later I saw there was an audition for Royal Caribbean Cruise line dancers in Canada. So I told myself third times a charm right? I went up there and loved it. There was about 90 dancers they started out teaching an across the floor combo with lots of leaps and kicks and turns, it was all about technique. They originally wanted us to do it twice through but after the first time they watched us they then cut it down to about 30 dancers. I remember thinking “These are my kind of people” haha after that they taught the 30 of us a piece from one of their shows,  they wanted us to pretend like we were in the 20’s in a speakeasy flirting with people across the room.  I loved it! It was so fun to dance for them I was feeling pretty confident. Then they had us go in groups and made another cut, there was 7 of us left at this point. Every time they made a cut it felt more and more comfortable in the room with both the dancers and judges. It felt like we were all just taking class together… just trying really hard. They then taught us the final combo for the day; it was much different than the others they really wanted to see how versatile we were and how fast you could pick up details. At least that’s what I thought they were emphasizing. It was to bohemian rhapsody so really big dramatic moves. It was exhausting especially being at the end. But they had us all leave the room and go in two at a time. They took the camera out and asked us to slate our name and do all of the combos we had learned that day so they could film it. It was so tiring! But I felt great afterwards. They had us all come back in and said congratulations you made it to the end. Explained to us how we would be in their system for the next year (I believe it was) and how we could get contacted in a month, in a week, or maybe not at all. But I was just so happy to get that far. I knew I did my best. I just prayed I’d get hired from then on.

One day in March I checked my email and the title was congratulations Monica Welcome to the Cast of the Majesty of the Seas! I couldn’t believe it, I had to reread it about 5 more time until it really hit me; I just started crying happy tears. It’s been seven months since that day. That sounds so long but it came here pretty quickly actually. Todays the day I finally get to start this adventure I’ve been dreaming of.

My sister started a blog this year (twentysomethingrachie.blogspot.com) and suggested I start one so I can write down memories and post pictures to look back on. I didn’t think I would because I’m never this vulnerable letting people into my life on social media. But I’m getting over it. So sorry for such a long background story. I’m excited for what’s to come on this adventure. Stay tuned!