The Cruise
Preface
It all started innocently enough. The wife decided that our "just the two of us" vacation this year should be a cruise. I've never been on one before, so I said "why not?" She handled most of the details, since saving money is a serious business for her, and I just can't put in the same effort. We got a good deal on Royal Caribbean, and thought we were all set. However, trouble had already begun.
Royal Caribbean decided to charter the entire ship, and kicked us off. No one told us though. Our deposit was returned to our credit card, but no mail or notice was sent to us by Royal Caribbean or our travel agent. In fact our travel agent did not know herself, much to our irritation.
The time came to get our tickets for the flight to Fort Lauderdale, and our travel agent worked with my wife to get a decent deal on the flight. I can't say it was our best deal ever, but it wasn't too bad. Later that day, our travel agent actually checked the status of our cruise, and found out we were off. Much panic ensues. The airline tickets are non-refundable, and so we've got to make another plan. We debated between going on a different cruise or going to Las Vegas. Our travel agent finally talked my wife into essentially the same cruise on Carnival. The only change was that we were leaving from Miami instead of Fort Lauderdale. We got the airline tickets changed to Miami, and we were all set.
Day One: Thursday - Debarkation
We had hectic morning. The flight out was at 8:00 A.M. We had to get up at five, and get ready and down to the airport by six-thirty. We got there in time, but neither of us had flown since before 9/11. I didn't know you had to have a boarding pass to get through security. We got to the front of the line, and had to rush to AirTran's counter to pick up a boarding pass. Despite this setback, we made it to the gate with some time to spare.
The flight was only ninety minutes, and we were sitting in Miami around 10:40 or so. We had eaten nothing, so we were eager to get to the ship for Lunch. We took the Carnival provided bus to the Port, went through another screening process, and wound up sitting in a lounge just outside the ship. We were not able to board the ship until around 1:00 P.M. due to some mysterious delay. Finally, we boarded and could eat.
After getting into our room and getting unpacked, we explored the ship. If you've never been on a cruise before, then you'll be amazed at the scale. The ship can hold around 3000 passengers and maybe 900 crew, and I was told that this was a small ship. The four lowest decks were for passengers(there were actually decks below these for the crew, but you were not allowed to go down there), and the higher decks contained dining rooms, a Showroom/Lounge, four swimming pools(none very large), a workout room, a sauna, a casino, innumerable bars, hundreds of deck chairs, a jogging track(11 laps for a mile). Lots of stairs to climb.
We watched the ship pull away from Miami, and then we decided to get ready for dinner. This is the only thing that bugged me about the ship. The dining room is semi-formal(corporate casual) and I had to wear the same damn pair of pants for four nights. They weren't the loose ones either.
Day Two: Friday - Key West
Good Morning, we are at Key West. Or, more precisely, we are anchored about a mile off of Key west, because the port authority will not let us dock. So, we are going to have to take boats the ferry us to the shore. These boats are usually used for charter fishing, so they are great for holding passengers. Also, you're going to have to sit on the boat for twenty minutes in the hot sun while we squeeze the maximum number of humans we possibly can onto it.
As we made our way to shore, I notice that there is, in fact, another cruise ship here that is docked on the pier. "What ship is that?", you may ask. Why it's the "Enchantment of the Sea", which is owned by Royal Caribbean, and is in fact the very ship we were originally slated to take until it was chartered. So not only did they screw up our original plans, but now they're taking the only available slot on the pier. Perhaps you'll forgive me for saying F*ck You Royal Caribbean.
Finally, we arrive at Key West. I've never been there before, but it's a very cool place. It kind of had a similar atmosphere to "Bourbon Street" in New Orleans. Lots of tourists walking around in the middle of the road and plenty o' bars. We did in fact find "Sloppy Joes" which was supposed to be Hemingway's favorite bar. Well he must of liked it so much that he asked them to lay his corpse in there, because it reeked to high heaven.
We walked around some more, and found a park. Inside we found the "little white house" where some presidents in years past had had summits, etc. Also, we saw a fellow who had painted his clothes and all of his exposed skin silver. He was posing like a statue, and spooking people who didn't realize what he was by hollering "boo" when they got close.
After around two hours we returned to the ship.
The rest of the day involved various shows and attractions which are too tedious to describe in detail. We watched people do some form of hip-hop line dance thing. We worked out in the gymnasium and I jogged on the track. We ate in the dining room again, etc.
Finally, it was time for the "Las Vegas" show. I forget the exact title, but it was apparently a celebration of America. The qualities it celebrated mostly were the fact that America(or the U.S.) is divided into Geographic units called "Cities" and "States". Basically every song was one you've already heard. "Georgia", "Chicago", "New York, New York", etc. Kind of cheesy, but the female dancers were quite attractive(and barely dressed), so I have to say I was entertained.
Day Three: Saturday - Cozumel
The highlight of the cruise, and my first time in Mexico. Watching the island approach was cool, especially from the bow where I saw some flying fish gliding over the water. We were enjoying the breeze when I looked down, and was amazed to see a fish jump out of the water, glide about 30 yards or so, and plop back in. I must have seen fifteen or twenty of them. The coolest part was that they used their tails after they were out of the water for propulsion. You could watch them create little swishing wiggles in the water as they drove themselves faster and faster, and then they would glide for the remainder of the distance.
In Cozumel we had a wide variety of excursions to take, and we settled on the basic "bus tour". It was the simplest and gave an overview of the Island. Cozumel is an island that sits just off of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.
The tour took us to three places. The first was a small shopping area that also had a Mayan ruin and old catholic church next to it. The "Mayan ruin" looked like the little caveman jail in that old Tex Avery cartoon about "The First Bad Man". I half expected a guy in a leopard skin to come up and say, "when ya'll gonna let me outta here man?" The church was colorful, and I took a couple of pictures.
The second location, was the beach. Cozumel is mostly coral rock and limestone, and in this case the beach was mostly broken up limestone. There was no sand. There were several beautiful coral formation arching out from the shore and plunging into the sea, and I took several pictures here. I hope they turn out. If they do, I'll post them here.
The final location was downtown San Miguel, which is the only real city on the island. It was kind of run down, but main street was nice enough. Lots of shops(seemingly owned by the same two or three companies), mostly selling jewelry. We walked around and looked a prices, and after much haggling my wife bought a small necklace.
We ended the day walking around the pier, which had a tremendous duty free store as well as more jewelry and knick-knack shops. We finally bought some T-shirts for the nieces and my son.
Day Four: Sunday - Fun Day at Sea!
Basically just cruising back the way we came. We took tours of the kitchen, watched a guy do an ice-carving, and took in a "Men's Hairy chest competition." Actually, just the wife watched that one. I sat far away tried to ignore it. From the few views of it I did take, I can offer the following comment. It could have doubled as a "Mens Flabby chest competition."
We also attended a "Debarkation briefing" where we were told everything that we had to have ready to leave the ship early, and everything that had to happen right in order for this to go off smoothly. This is called "foreshadowing".
We ate in the dining room one last time, and then we took in the second "Las Vegas" show. This one was a celebration of American "Rock-n-roll." We were right up front, so I got a great view of the ladies.
Day Five: Monday - Debarkation and coming home!
Not bad, don't you think. A couple of problems, but so far we've seen everything we wanted, and in general had a good time. Here is how it all fell apart.
The first thing I should tell you is that the ship was supposed to arrive around 7:00 A.M. We had booked a 6:00 P.M. flight on AirTran. They had an earlier flight at 10:30 A.M., but we felt it was safer to book a later flight and try to get on standby for the first one, than to have to deal with getting on the second after we missed an early flight. It was a good instinct.
We got up early, around 6:00 A.M. We had packed the night before, and we got cleaned up quickly and went to breakfast. We ate lightly, figuring that we didn't want to have too much on our stomachs so we could move quickly. The sun was coming up in the east behind some clouds and it was quite beautiful. I took several pictures, which I will post ASAP.
We get our luggage, and go wait in the "Express debarkation location." And we wait. Here we find out that the ship had engine trouble in the night, and the ship will dock an hour late. Then, after we dock, we wait some more. People who are supposed to be paying their taxes on their liquor are not showing up at the customs station, and some people who are not U.S. citizens don't check in with immigration. We wait longer, and still they are calling people to Customs and Immigration. Finally, and around 10:20, we step off of the ship. As we were going through customs, I successfully resisted the urge to scream, "I'm a coke Mule!"
With no chance of making the 10:30 flight, we take a cab to Miami airport, hoping that we can work out a way to get home earlier. No Luck, and this part was our fault. We knew that we might miss the early flight, but we didn't really consider just how long it is between 10:30 A.M. and 6:00 P.M. It's a very long time.
However, after being bummed for about twenty minutes we picked up our stuff and decided to explore the Airport. It's very small compared to Hartsfield, in fact I don't think it's as big as one of the Atlanta Concourses. It had the usual assortment of fast-food places, shops, and restaurants. We managed to while away the time, and it passed more quickly than I expected. Finally, around 5:00, we headed for the gate.
At the gate we discover that the flight has been delayed due to the rain in Atlanta. It is now supposed to leave at 7:00. Much consternation. We settle in and wait. Our actual time boarding was something like 7:20. Time of Take-off was 7:45. Time landing was 9:45. We were stuck in a holding pattern for around 30 minutes.
We are standing in the aisle, waiting to get off the plane. We have all of our luggage ready. The people in the seats in front of us are also standing up, and the people across the aisle from them are waiting in their seats(no room to stand up). I stood up and let my wife out in front of me. When the people in front of us finally get to move, my wife follows them instead of letting the folks across the aisle out first. I hadn't expected her to do it, but once she started moving there was no point in me calling her back. She was already past, and since I didn't want to get separated from her, I went ahead and followed. This all took about 4 seconds. The man stood up after I passed, and said, "nice of people to wait their turn." Now, I agree we should have waited, but it wasn't as if he were severely inconvenienced. I didn't say anything to him, but simply left the plane. I would, however, have happily killed him in that moment.
Time we arrived at home: 11:00 P.M. I could have driven home from Miami in less time than this took.
Overall, I liked cruising. Most of the problems I just described could have been avoided if we had used a different carrier for the return trip and selected a more reasonable departure time. But yesterday was enough to make me reconsider going to England next year.
It all started innocently enough. The wife decided that our "just the two of us" vacation this year should be a cruise. I've never been on one before, so I said "why not?" She handled most of the details, since saving money is a serious business for her, and I just can't put in the same effort. We got a good deal on Royal Caribbean, and thought we were all set. However, trouble had already begun.
Royal Caribbean decided to charter the entire ship, and kicked us off. No one told us though. Our deposit was returned to our credit card, but no mail or notice was sent to us by Royal Caribbean or our travel agent. In fact our travel agent did not know herself, much to our irritation.
The time came to get our tickets for the flight to Fort Lauderdale, and our travel agent worked with my wife to get a decent deal on the flight. I can't say it was our best deal ever, but it wasn't too bad. Later that day, our travel agent actually checked the status of our cruise, and found out we were off. Much panic ensues. The airline tickets are non-refundable, and so we've got to make another plan. We debated between going on a different cruise or going to Las Vegas. Our travel agent finally talked my wife into essentially the same cruise on Carnival. The only change was that we were leaving from Miami instead of Fort Lauderdale. We got the airline tickets changed to Miami, and we were all set.
Day One: Thursday - Debarkation
We had hectic morning. The flight out was at 8:00 A.M. We had to get up at five, and get ready and down to the airport by six-thirty. We got there in time, but neither of us had flown since before 9/11. I didn't know you had to have a boarding pass to get through security. We got to the front of the line, and had to rush to AirTran's counter to pick up a boarding pass. Despite this setback, we made it to the gate with some time to spare.
The flight was only ninety minutes, and we were sitting in Miami around 10:40 or so. We had eaten nothing, so we were eager to get to the ship for Lunch. We took the Carnival provided bus to the Port, went through another screening process, and wound up sitting in a lounge just outside the ship. We were not able to board the ship until around 1:00 P.M. due to some mysterious delay. Finally, we boarded and could eat.
After getting into our room and getting unpacked, we explored the ship. If you've never been on a cruise before, then you'll be amazed at the scale. The ship can hold around 3000 passengers and maybe 900 crew, and I was told that this was a small ship. The four lowest decks were for passengers(there were actually decks below these for the crew, but you were not allowed to go down there), and the higher decks contained dining rooms, a Showroom/Lounge, four swimming pools(none very large), a workout room, a sauna, a casino, innumerable bars, hundreds of deck chairs, a jogging track(11 laps for a mile). Lots of stairs to climb.
We watched the ship pull away from Miami, and then we decided to get ready for dinner. This is the only thing that bugged me about the ship. The dining room is semi-formal(corporate casual) and I had to wear the same damn pair of pants for four nights. They weren't the loose ones either.
Day Two: Friday - Key West
Good Morning, we are at Key West. Or, more precisely, we are anchored about a mile off of Key west, because the port authority will not let us dock. So, we are going to have to take boats the ferry us to the shore. These boats are usually used for charter fishing, so they are great for holding passengers. Also, you're going to have to sit on the boat for twenty minutes in the hot sun while we squeeze the maximum number of humans we possibly can onto it.
As we made our way to shore, I notice that there is, in fact, another cruise ship here that is docked on the pier. "What ship is that?", you may ask. Why it's the "Enchantment of the Sea", which is owned by Royal Caribbean, and is in fact the very ship we were originally slated to take until it was chartered. So not only did they screw up our original plans, but now they're taking the only available slot on the pier. Perhaps you'll forgive me for saying F*ck You Royal Caribbean.
Finally, we arrive at Key West. I've never been there before, but it's a very cool place. It kind of had a similar atmosphere to "Bourbon Street" in New Orleans. Lots of tourists walking around in the middle of the road and plenty o' bars. We did in fact find "Sloppy Joes" which was supposed to be Hemingway's favorite bar. Well he must of liked it so much that he asked them to lay his corpse in there, because it reeked to high heaven.
We walked around some more, and found a park. Inside we found the "little white house" where some presidents in years past had had summits, etc. Also, we saw a fellow who had painted his clothes and all of his exposed skin silver. He was posing like a statue, and spooking people who didn't realize what he was by hollering "boo" when they got close.
After around two hours we returned to the ship.
The rest of the day involved various shows and attractions which are too tedious to describe in detail. We watched people do some form of hip-hop line dance thing. We worked out in the gymnasium and I jogged on the track. We ate in the dining room again, etc.
Finally, it was time for the "Las Vegas" show. I forget the exact title, but it was apparently a celebration of America. The qualities it celebrated mostly were the fact that America(or the U.S.) is divided into Geographic units called "Cities" and "States". Basically every song was one you've already heard. "Georgia", "Chicago", "New York, New York", etc. Kind of cheesy, but the female dancers were quite attractive(and barely dressed), so I have to say I was entertained.
Day Three: Saturday - Cozumel
The highlight of the cruise, and my first time in Mexico. Watching the island approach was cool, especially from the bow where I saw some flying fish gliding over the water. We were enjoying the breeze when I looked down, and was amazed to see a fish jump out of the water, glide about 30 yards or so, and plop back in. I must have seen fifteen or twenty of them. The coolest part was that they used their tails after they were out of the water for propulsion. You could watch them create little swishing wiggles in the water as they drove themselves faster and faster, and then they would glide for the remainder of the distance.
In Cozumel we had a wide variety of excursions to take, and we settled on the basic "bus tour". It was the simplest and gave an overview of the Island. Cozumel is an island that sits just off of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.
The tour took us to three places. The first was a small shopping area that also had a Mayan ruin and old catholic church next to it. The "Mayan ruin" looked like the little caveman jail in that old Tex Avery cartoon about "The First Bad Man". I half expected a guy in a leopard skin to come up and say, "when ya'll gonna let me outta here man?" The church was colorful, and I took a couple of pictures.
The second location, was the beach. Cozumel is mostly coral rock and limestone, and in this case the beach was mostly broken up limestone. There was no sand. There were several beautiful coral formation arching out from the shore and plunging into the sea, and I took several pictures here. I hope they turn out. If they do, I'll post them here.
The final location was downtown San Miguel, which is the only real city on the island. It was kind of run down, but main street was nice enough. Lots of shops(seemingly owned by the same two or three companies), mostly selling jewelry. We walked around and looked a prices, and after much haggling my wife bought a small necklace.
We ended the day walking around the pier, which had a tremendous duty free store as well as more jewelry and knick-knack shops. We finally bought some T-shirts for the nieces and my son.
Day Four: Sunday - Fun Day at Sea!
Basically just cruising back the way we came. We took tours of the kitchen, watched a guy do an ice-carving, and took in a "Men's Hairy chest competition." Actually, just the wife watched that one. I sat far away tried to ignore it. From the few views of it I did take, I can offer the following comment. It could have doubled as a "Mens Flabby chest competition."
We also attended a "Debarkation briefing" where we were told everything that we had to have ready to leave the ship early, and everything that had to happen right in order for this to go off smoothly. This is called "foreshadowing".
We ate in the dining room one last time, and then we took in the second "Las Vegas" show. This one was a celebration of American "Rock-n-roll." We were right up front, so I got a great view of the ladies.
Day Five: Monday - Debarkation and coming home!
Not bad, don't you think. A couple of problems, but so far we've seen everything we wanted, and in general had a good time. Here is how it all fell apart.
The first thing I should tell you is that the ship was supposed to arrive around 7:00 A.M. We had booked a 6:00 P.M. flight on AirTran. They had an earlier flight at 10:30 A.M., but we felt it was safer to book a later flight and try to get on standby for the first one, than to have to deal with getting on the second after we missed an early flight. It was a good instinct.
We got up early, around 6:00 A.M. We had packed the night before, and we got cleaned up quickly and went to breakfast. We ate lightly, figuring that we didn't want to have too much on our stomachs so we could move quickly. The sun was coming up in the east behind some clouds and it was quite beautiful. I took several pictures, which I will post ASAP.
We get our luggage, and go wait in the "Express debarkation location." And we wait. Here we find out that the ship had engine trouble in the night, and the ship will dock an hour late. Then, after we dock, we wait some more. People who are supposed to be paying their taxes on their liquor are not showing up at the customs station, and some people who are not U.S. citizens don't check in with immigration. We wait longer, and still they are calling people to Customs and Immigration. Finally, and around 10:20, we step off of the ship. As we were going through customs, I successfully resisted the urge to scream, "I'm a coke Mule!"
With no chance of making the 10:30 flight, we take a cab to Miami airport, hoping that we can work out a way to get home earlier. No Luck, and this part was our fault. We knew that we might miss the early flight, but we didn't really consider just how long it is between 10:30 A.M. and 6:00 P.M. It's a very long time.
However, after being bummed for about twenty minutes we picked up our stuff and decided to explore the Airport. It's very small compared to Hartsfield, in fact I don't think it's as big as one of the Atlanta Concourses. It had the usual assortment of fast-food places, shops, and restaurants. We managed to while away the time, and it passed more quickly than I expected. Finally, around 5:00, we headed for the gate.
At the gate we discover that the flight has been delayed due to the rain in Atlanta. It is now supposed to leave at 7:00. Much consternation. We settle in and wait. Our actual time boarding was something like 7:20. Time of Take-off was 7:45. Time landing was 9:45. We were stuck in a holding pattern for around 30 minutes.
We are standing in the aisle, waiting to get off the plane. We have all of our luggage ready. The people in the seats in front of us are also standing up, and the people across the aisle from them are waiting in their seats(no room to stand up). I stood up and let my wife out in front of me. When the people in front of us finally get to move, my wife follows them instead of letting the folks across the aisle out first. I hadn't expected her to do it, but once she started moving there was no point in me calling her back. She was already past, and since I didn't want to get separated from her, I went ahead and followed. This all took about 4 seconds. The man stood up after I passed, and said, "nice of people to wait their turn." Now, I agree we should have waited, but it wasn't as if he were severely inconvenienced. I didn't say anything to him, but simply left the plane. I would, however, have happily killed him in that moment.
Time we arrived at home: 11:00 P.M. I could have driven home from Miami in less time than this took.
Overall, I liked cruising. Most of the problems I just described could have been avoided if we had used a different carrier for the return trip and selected a more reasonable departure time. But yesterday was enough to make me reconsider going to England next year.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home