Our third morning dawned much like the first two. We are finally getting to know the ways of this floating city. One floor down leads to the Promenade deck, sushi and coffee. Two floors up leads to Cezanne restaurant, the immense buffet where those too informal or impatient for sit-down meals can que up and load up. For us this morning, however, it was coffee and fruit early, followed by a real sit-down breakfast at the Monet restaurant.
We were seated with three other couples. One were 30 somethings from California who had resettled in the Dallas area, apparently so the husband could attend school to be a Chiropractor. She had broken her leg a few weeks before the trip and was in a wheelchair, but this had not seemed to dampen their spirits. Next to them was a most interesting young black couple. Her name was Saudi, and she had shaved her head almost bald. She hailed from New York city, and her favorite recreational activity was shopping, primarily for shoes. He was an installer of TV network systems for hospitals, a hunky fitness-oriented jocky type who had hunted for squirrels and rabbits in the forests of East Texas as a boy, but had somehow ended up with a high maintenance city woman. Down from them on the end were a very chatty and friendly woman from rural New York and her balding husband from France, who sat quietly and could rarely be drawn into conversation throughout the morning while his wife hailed forth in the nonstop stream common to women who have hit their stride. At one point, Tom the ex-reporter could not help probing to try to understand the psyche of Saudi the recreational shoe shopper. “Where should I go if I’m in New York city?” She politely tried to think of places where a nature boy could venture in the city that never sleeps—Central Park, maybe? Further probing about her favorite place revealed that the must-see spot in the city involved shops along Canal Street. Why was it called Canal Street, is there a canal nearby? I don’t know, never thought about that, it’s all about the shops don’t you see? Tom—the kind of shopping I prefer involves locally crafted artisan goods, preferably done by indigenous tribes in remote areas. Saudi—well, they do have quite a few ethnic artists, including some wonderful street painters who can sketch a remarkable likeness of you in minutes. And so it went…
That afternoon, time finally slowed to a lazy, limitless crawl, defined solely by movement from the Sky Deck’s cool water pool (adult’s only, rules say no diapers) to the adjacent hot tubs, and back again. Some reading in deck chairs to break up the routine. Some chevre and garlic pizza from the Sky Deck pizzeria (staffed by the omnipresent Asians, who were unfailingly smiling and friendly all over the boat) and red wine from the stateroom bottle (one of two that came aboard in Tom’s bag). Slide into the cool pool again. Marinate in the hot tub some more. You get the idea. I could get used to this. Boy, the kids would love it. They’d go ape ___ all over this big boat. Wonder if we should see about a multi-family spring break on one of these ships? Who would come?
(Fast forward to 7:40 a.m., Aug. 28 - As I type this, recalling the events of two days ago, the island of Cozumel has just come into view. I looked up from the keyboard, while sitting on our stateroom balcony, and there it was…a line of land on the horizon, strip of white sand beach along the near edge with green vegetation spreading behind it, what appears to be a tall red and white lighthouse. Miraculously, marvelously, no visible development marks this island. No buildings, no roads, no people. Wait a minute. This may not be Cozumel, not enough tourism development. That must be Cozumel away over there to the right, with the tall white oblongs of buildings clustered off on the farther horizon. As I type, a little white fishing boat emerges in view, not 500 yards from the massive Conquest, between us and the beautiful island. Except for the lighthouse, this could be what Spanish explorers saw when they first arrived—land at last, a pristine island of white sand and green trees, and one of the natives has ventured out in his little boat to say hello. Maybe you who read these words will see the photo I just took of the little boat and the island. I will certainly see that photo again some day, and read these words, and remember arriving at Cozumel on my first cruise.)
Back to Aug. 26…
After dinner this night, while finishing what had become our standard desert, the chocolate melting cake, we pondered the evening’s options. The cruise director and staff had planned a mondo party for our last night at sea before three days in port began. Tom was feeling pooped, but decided to gamely at least explore what this mega-party was supposed to be.
We arrived at Henri’s disco to find the man in charge was Chicken Little, the 21-year-old assistant cruise director with the hoarse English accent, hoarse as all cruise directors seemed destined to be from their continual exhortations for cruisers to have fun, fun, fun. Chicken had a cute English assistant who proceeded to swipe half inch bands of white “war paint” along the cheeks of anyone foolhardy enough to enter the dance floor. Chicken explained that we were the White Team, and we had to achieve certain ends to defeat the Blue Team and the Red Team. He taught us our team cheer, “Go White Team, Go White Team, Go!” We all then taught us what seemed to Tom like a complicated line dance involving a lot of right foot here and left foot there and a lot of jumping and turning. Then, when the crowd had its blood pumping, we chanted our way out the door and down the promenade, hooting our team cheer as loud as we could right past the equally deafening Red Team, holding our fingers up to form little W’s for white.
We ended up in the Tahiti casino, where cruise director Jen herself hailed forth in an excitable hoarse English shout that made Chicken Little seem shrimpy. She started up deafening dance tunes and pounded us through a series of group line dances, starting with the Macarena, then the chicken dance, then something British called the Piano Man that in one section involved some fun hopping like you’re playing the bagpipes. Just when we began to feel like flagging athletes in some kind of bizarre cruiser Olympics, we chanted out of the casino and over to the Degas lounge, scene of Tom’s failed but fun James Brown attempt. Here a mad American gal in cowgirl getup led White Team through a last series of outrageously fun stunts, including one involving three couples where the women rode the men like bulls in a rodeo.
Finally, as the midnight hour rounded, we toddled off to bed. One last treat awaited us in the stateroom this night. Lauren, observing with amusement the steward’s habit of leaving cleverly constructed little animals made of white bath towels, had decided to leave the cleaning crew a little surprise of our own. She created a very passable sea turtle, complete with little dark flecks of fabric for eyes, and had left it lying on the bed where we normally found the nightly towel critters. When we returned, exhausted from our high energy cruise night of deafening dancing, we found, there on the bed where Lauren had left her turtle, a replacement. The crew had responded to Lauren’s little joke with a tour de force towel swan.
Whew… We came, we saw, we partied like cruiser cattle. Tomorrow, Grand Cayman, snorkeling coral reefs and swimming with stingrays.
We were seated with three other couples. One were 30 somethings from California who had resettled in the Dallas area, apparently so the husband could attend school to be a Chiropractor. She had broken her leg a few weeks before the trip and was in a wheelchair, but this had not seemed to dampen their spirits. Next to them was a most interesting young black couple. Her name was Saudi, and she had shaved her head almost bald. She hailed from New York city, and her favorite recreational activity was shopping, primarily for shoes. He was an installer of TV network systems for hospitals, a hunky fitness-oriented jocky type who had hunted for squirrels and rabbits in the forests of East Texas as a boy, but had somehow ended up with a high maintenance city woman. Down from them on the end were a very chatty and friendly woman from rural New York and her balding husband from France, who sat quietly and could rarely be drawn into conversation throughout the morning while his wife hailed forth in the nonstop stream common to women who have hit their stride. At one point, Tom the ex-reporter could not help probing to try to understand the psyche of Saudi the recreational shoe shopper. “Where should I go if I’m in New York city?” She politely tried to think of places where a nature boy could venture in the city that never sleeps—Central Park, maybe? Further probing about her favorite place revealed that the must-see spot in the city involved shops along Canal Street. Why was it called Canal Street, is there a canal nearby? I don’t know, never thought about that, it’s all about the shops don’t you see? Tom—the kind of shopping I prefer involves locally crafted artisan goods, preferably done by indigenous tribes in remote areas. Saudi—well, they do have quite a few ethnic artists, including some wonderful street painters who can sketch a remarkable likeness of you in minutes. And so it went…
That afternoon, time finally slowed to a lazy, limitless crawl, defined solely by movement from the Sky Deck’s cool water pool (adult’s only, rules say no diapers) to the adjacent hot tubs, and back again. Some reading in deck chairs to break up the routine. Some chevre and garlic pizza from the Sky Deck pizzeria (staffed by the omnipresent Asians, who were unfailingly smiling and friendly all over the boat) and red wine from the stateroom bottle (one of two that came aboard in Tom’s bag). Slide into the cool pool again. Marinate in the hot tub some more. You get the idea. I could get used to this. Boy, the kids would love it. They’d go ape ___ all over this big boat. Wonder if we should see about a multi-family spring break on one of these ships? Who would come?
(Fast forward to 7:40 a.m., Aug. 28 - As I type this, recalling the events of two days ago, the island of Cozumel has just come into view. I looked up from the keyboard, while sitting on our stateroom balcony, and there it was…a line of land on the horizon, strip of white sand beach along the near edge with green vegetation spreading behind it, what appears to be a tall red and white lighthouse. Miraculously, marvelously, no visible development marks this island. No buildings, no roads, no people. Wait a minute. This may not be Cozumel, not enough tourism development. That must be Cozumel away over there to the right, with the tall white oblongs of buildings clustered off on the farther horizon. As I type, a little white fishing boat emerges in view, not 500 yards from the massive Conquest, between us and the beautiful island. Except for the lighthouse, this could be what Spanish explorers saw when they first arrived—land at last, a pristine island of white sand and green trees, and one of the natives has ventured out in his little boat to say hello. Maybe you who read these words will see the photo I just took of the little boat and the island. I will certainly see that photo again some day, and read these words, and remember arriving at Cozumel on my first cruise.)
Back to Aug. 26…
After dinner this night, while finishing what had become our standard desert, the chocolate melting cake, we pondered the evening’s options. The cruise director and staff had planned a mondo party for our last night at sea before three days in port began. Tom was feeling pooped, but decided to gamely at least explore what this mega-party was supposed to be.
We arrived at Henri’s disco to find the man in charge was Chicken Little, the 21-year-old assistant cruise director with the hoarse English accent, hoarse as all cruise directors seemed destined to be from their continual exhortations for cruisers to have fun, fun, fun. Chicken had a cute English assistant who proceeded to swipe half inch bands of white “war paint” along the cheeks of anyone foolhardy enough to enter the dance floor. Chicken explained that we were the White Team, and we had to achieve certain ends to defeat the Blue Team and the Red Team. He taught us our team cheer, “Go White Team, Go White Team, Go!” We all then taught us what seemed to Tom like a complicated line dance involving a lot of right foot here and left foot there and a lot of jumping and turning. Then, when the crowd had its blood pumping, we chanted our way out the door and down the promenade, hooting our team cheer as loud as we could right past the equally deafening Red Team, holding our fingers up to form little W’s for white.
We ended up in the Tahiti casino, where cruise director Jen herself hailed forth in an excitable hoarse English shout that made Chicken Little seem shrimpy. She started up deafening dance tunes and pounded us through a series of group line dances, starting with the Macarena, then the chicken dance, then something British called the Piano Man that in one section involved some fun hopping like you’re playing the bagpipes. Just when we began to feel like flagging athletes in some kind of bizarre cruiser Olympics, we chanted out of the casino and over to the Degas lounge, scene of Tom’s failed but fun James Brown attempt. Here a mad American gal in cowgirl getup led White Team through a last series of outrageously fun stunts, including one involving three couples where the women rode the men like bulls in a rodeo.
Finally, as the midnight hour rounded, we toddled off to bed. One last treat awaited us in the stateroom this night. Lauren, observing with amusement the steward’s habit of leaving cleverly constructed little animals made of white bath towels, had decided to leave the cleaning crew a little surprise of our own. She created a very passable sea turtle, complete with little dark flecks of fabric for eyes, and had left it lying on the bed where we normally found the nightly towel critters. When we returned, exhausted from our high energy cruise night of deafening dancing, we found, there on the bed where Lauren had left her turtle, a replacement. The crew had responded to Lauren’s little joke with a tour de force towel swan.
Whew… We came, we saw, we partied like cruiser cattle. Tomorrow, Grand Cayman, snorkeling coral reefs and swimming with stingrays.
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