Cruise Decent - not spectacular. Food was white bread, fiberless and average unless you paid another up charge (and very few vegetarian choices). A couple waiters calling Daya 'Sir' and all of that. I wrote a complaint about the dining service and it took someone 40 hours to get back to me. The "smoking room" (in the ship’s main atrium) had a single small ionizer to scrub the air and that was broken the first three days so an invisible cloud would hit us sitting in Crooners Bar and we'd have to leave. We never even considered the on-board casino due to smoke. Every drink and service had a 15% Gratuity automatically tacked on and if I left something extra, I later found the entire price of the drink with the extra gratuity charged again. They were also very anxious to convince us that our livers (ship wide) needed detoxing - snake oil. If they really wanted to help us, they wouldn't try to sell us a mai tai when we were clearly finishing our wine and daiquiris, one in each hand. A slippery up-charge slope but we were a captive audience and their only business.
Other things they tried to sell you - I mentioned the detox, which went with an ab strengthening lecture that slid seamlessly into up-selling the on-board spa and acupuncture sessions; a wide variety of mostly horrible art (we found one piece of the Statue of Liberty we liked, more to be kind than anything); Swarovski crystal jewelry; a ton of colognes in a very smelly shop off the atrium; purse knock-offs and lladros; t-shirts and Hawaiian prints next to Princess line cookies; a jewelry shop that featured fire opals with a too chatty clerk; emeralds and diamonds were best bought offshore in Jamaica (or so they told us); and they never stopped taking pictures to sell you. Conga lines, formal nights - there is a hilarious photo of Daya and I as we were embarking that we still laugh about. Three photographers even got off the boat at a Panama lock and shot video and stills up at the suite balconies, filled with passengers watching the sides of a 106' wide ship go through a 110' slot. It took a lot of restraint not to flip them off or flash them, but they'd publish those photos, I'm sure.
We were amazed that shipboard printing was filled with grammar and spelling errors.
The detox flyer that was left on our beds at some point. A lecture by Dr. Dean (and I should put Dr. in parenthesis) used a PowerPoint that was so full of errors, even strangers were seething that they felt they were being talked down to or worse, that no one cared to check the simplest of spelling problems.
Island Princess was of the Love Boat line, and entertainment there was a cruise line cliché - cheesy, flat and completely unnecessary. It could have been right off the Love Boat series (which aired two or three different episodes each day in our cabins). Some people must like stage shows that way - not Daya and I. We each picked out a dancer or two from the chorus and one singer from all of them, but the crowds applauded and cheered. Perhaps ten percent of the total civvy population was under 50, and they were, for the most part, shell-shocked, like an oil painting. The winky-pointy cruise director, Frank, would schedule things like trivia or LGBT get togethers and we'd show up with no staff member attending. Another contestant and I mocked him when I was waiting for my on video karaoke interview by pointing and winking at the camera behind the host. The cruise staff was mostly on auto pilot, although I managed to have a real word with several just once.
A few decent atrium pianists balanced the nasal British Crooners Bar performer who pounded the keys so hard, he broke three strings in his desperation to entertain. He was much nicer in person, quietly playing scrabble in the corner with his NY girlfriend. The other singer, Jean Mac, an older East Indian woman, played in a trio from The Great American Songbook with her husband George on piano and a bald bassist that would stare at you while he played; they were talented but were on breaks more often than not. She knew songs I would request, trilling and cooing the first line to prove I couldn't surprise her but wouldn't sing any but “Embraceable You” for Daya and “How Deep Is The Ocean” for me. She loved to chat with us during breaks and we know most of her back-story now by rote.
Daya's room was near a consistent smoker and located 50 yards or so from mine. My stateroom had a water reclamation station right behind my headboard wall which was active any time we weren't docked. One of the ship de-stabilizers thrummed along on another, rattling a Holiday Inn lobby quality landscape print as it passed back and forth. In addition, it was adjacent to an inner crew corridor so I would hear drills or announcements and dash into the hallway, realizing too late it was for crew. Needless to say, we won't be using a third party travel agent in Michigan again:>
Another cruise...hmmmm...would need to be with a group of people we liked and could do things with, perhaps on a charter that was focused on unusual food. Roger Ebert used to do a cruise that showed movies and they were discussed afterward, often reflecting where the ship had been. If it was a French cruise, they'd look at select Goddard films, if Italy, Fellini, etc. THAT sounded like a blast but now Roger can't even talk - he does all of his reviews via written word. The two guys who finally took over At the Movies got his blessing and we watch them weekly now.
On the brighter side, Daya exercised and maintained 90% of her weight loss. I'm not as heavy as I thought I was but am back watching what I eat as well. Fruit could be requested for rooms at no charge so we got kiwis, bananas, oranges, apples, pears and would secret the occasional cookie from the buffet. I did get myself into a karaoke contest and came in second place (one of the contestants brought 40 fellow Canadians in to tip the voting) on the last night. It was really nice to sing on a stage again. The crew was international and the best waiters were Romanian, the best staff member was Bryan, a blond Canadian, and the rest blended into the night. I'm sure shipload after shipload of people trying to recharge must be draining to serve.
The pastor and his wife, Dave and Linnea, who traveled with us, were a delight - they ate with us a few times featuring interesting conversation and laughs each occasion. We all weathered the huge waves with Uno and Hearts in the game room. Dave's a Harvard graduate who has written a book and only broached the 'preachy' side once when addressing mortgage primes and real estate blah de blah. His wife is a pistol that liked to laugh and Daya and I loved her. Good sports, both of them, and they were excellent traveling companions. Both Dave and Harvey came down with something in Acapulco that hit poor Harv several days longer. That's when we learned the on-board drugstore carried nothing. You had to call the shipboard doctor for Advil or an anti-diarrheal, which was $80 plus cost for medicine AND you got quarantined 24 hours in your ship cabin. The Doctor remarked that every time they docked at Acapulco, 15 to 30 cases of Montezuma's Revenge were guaranteed but out of Florida, nothing.
We had two serious storms while at sea, one of which had 70 knot winds and we later found was a category 11 gale, so two ports wouldn't even let us dock! At one point, Daya and I sat on two lounge chairs, just inside of some serious ocean spray and everyone who stepped outside for air smiled at us and understood our sea discomfort. One chatty man filled us in on his life as an engineer in South Dakota, Minnesota and Michigan backwaters - he only left when we decided we could stand no more, nice and deathly boring as he was.
The seriously polluted port at Guatemala created a fiery red sunset, but our excursion there was canceled due to "lack of interest"; The Scarlet Macaw sanctuary in Costa Rica was spectacular, both its people and entertainment; Panama Canal was interesting (although the best thing about the port of call was the cheap beer and sunset:>) but we hit the jackpot with Jamaica, which had just finished a run of 12 days straight with rain. We rode the Jamaican bobsled three times and had our breath taken away by the canopy ski lift! Daya and I were really giggly there, more than anywhere else, and Harv & Carole were all smiles. We managed to get to the Disney park in time to do Animal Kingdom and then woke up to do the Hollywood studios the next day so. We all did the Expedition Everest roly coaster (poor Harv at 72yrs gritting his teeth), the safari ride, Tower of Terror (Daya screamed, I held my breath), Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster (a quick spaghetti bowl dark ride), Toy Story game in 3D (SO much fun with Daya being high score and me most accurate), the American Idol experience and a few others before we drove to Tampa to visit Harvey's Sister(Daya's Aunt), Pat, and her wily husband CJ. Their kids came and went in a blur and Pat cooked up two dinner meals, each featuring meat and dairy (sigh). We visited the Keel & Curley winery (blueberry and strawberry wines are their specialty and I ordered a mixed case!) & continued our pattern of binge drinking. Evidently the Key lime wine, freeze mix and a little tequila will create something special!! I admire Joe Keel for the hard work it takes to create and run something like that.
I was able to sneak off and visit a few nearby antique stores on my own and that was nice. Picked up 4 different sized purple amethyst glass bottles for Daya, a few 45s to slake my thirst, two Comics Illustrated with suggestive covers and a handsome Italian desk set, all shipped home in its own box with some spare shoes - that helped the luggage stay under airline weight restrictions. Finally, we got everyone dropped off at the airport and in our planes for the bumpy ride home. Except it wasn't - a few bumps in and out of Houston but with all of the nationwide storms, we were amazingly lucky. Continental had satellite TV on the back of every headrest so we paid up and watched two movies (Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs and All About Steve), half a Biography and were home! Did some food shopping that night and fell into our apartment with sighs of relief:>
Did four giant loads of laundry & all of the shopping on Saturday - caught up on backlogged TiVo shows and saw Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus Sunday. Two weeks later, we're back at work. I think it's nice that it's stormy here - kind of completes the changes that we were looking forward to:>
I think it was put together well as a whole - we had trouble navigating the Mexico City airport, touched in Acapulco, endured rough seas and cruise ship woes that we either got used to or the trip got better the more we could get off the damn boat, then hit pay-dirt with Jamaica, enjoyed Disney and a van ride to Tampa, really enjoyed the winery and wound up happy to hit Terra firma.
Mark you are such a good writer! I was so impressed with the feeling I was there myself!
ReplyDeleteI have sworn never to cruise again, unless someone else was paying, the room had a window, and it was in Europe! And it was with a group of people I knew and loved.
love, Billie