Poor Emma woke up this morning feeling sea sick and we had to take her to the ship's infirmary for some medicine. She slept for an hour by the side of the pool and seemed much brighter when she awoke.
Dinner tonight is formal and during the early evening it's The Captain's Cocktail Party. Looking forward to swapping a few nautical niceties with the Captain, we'll have a lot in common I can tell.
Now I know where all those hugely fat people in the Disney parks come from. They all come on this cruise first. The amount of food cooked and consumed each day is incredible. Not only are there thirteen separate meal times between 6.30 am and 1 am the following morning, there's also a continuous twenty four hour salad and pizza bar serving pizzas and steaks, french fries and all the trimmings. You can eat all day and all night here if you want to and some of these fat bastards on board obviously do.
The evening meal is a five course dinner and the Americans on our table don't seem to think that's enough. Last night, two of them ordered their starter three at a time. It was the US version of a shrimp cocktail but each shrimp was just a fraction smaller than a lobster. As they ordered through the menu they started with, "Ah'll have the shrimp cocktail, but gimme three o' those babies will ya?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing and later in the week it got worse. You will be amazed.....
I have a list here of questions that some of the passengers have asked, they're supposed to be true, you can use your own judgment. Personally, after spending 2 weeks amongst the Americans, I believe them.
Does this water go all around the island?
Does this elevator go to the front of the ship?
Do these stairs go up or down?
I'm one bottle of duty free over my limit but I've drunk it. Do I still have to pay duty?
If I go snorkelling, will I get wet?
(Before the ship sailed) I booked a cabin with a sea view, all I can see is the parking lot.
(When getting off the ship at New Orleans) Say, what altitude are we here?
(Looking at a display of ship's passenger photos) How will I know which photos are mine?
One of the big things on board is cocktails. Nobody seems to drink anything ordinary, the whole drink ethic is cocktails. The choice is bewildering and they're served in totally over the top shaped glasses with combinations of fruit, umbrellas and straws. Everybody you see, no matter what time of day or night, is walking around holding one of these ridiculously large glasses full of what looks like household effects and room furniture. Either that or
they're eating........or both.
There are very few English people on board, the majority of the passengers are Americans.
This does not bode well for the rest of the week.
Still, mustn't let that spoil the holiday eh? It was the Captain's Cocktail Party at 7 p.m. so off we went. An intimate, friendly gathering this, we had our personal invitation .......along with 300 or so other people. As we entered we were greeted at the door by the Entertainments Manager who introduced us to the Captain standing on his left. I was just about to complain about the Godawful show the previous night when the Captain grasped my hand and said, "Good evening Sir".
I thought the best approach here would be to try and relax the Captain and try to make his job easier by talking to him on his own terms. If I say so myself, my command of nautical technicalities is second to none and this was an ideal opportunity to discuss them with someone on a similar intellectual level.
I jumped at the chance. Maybe I could help him out with some advice on steering the boat, who knows?
The conversation went something like this:
Captain: Good evening Sir.
Me: Aaaargh and a good evenin' to you too me 'eartie. 'Ow be the crew shapin' up on this voyage Cap'n? They be a bit slow in slippin' the anchor methinks matey, 'ow do ee keep 'em under control? Thirty lashes o' the cat be it?
Captain: Nice to meet you Sir. Please go and help yourself to a cocktail.
Me: Belay there Cap'n. Thank 'ee kindly. A large tot o' rum be slippin' down me gullet very nicely an' be as welcome as a cabin boy's buttocks on a cold night. Aaargh, show me to the grog.
Captain: Very nice Sir.
Me: It be a long voyage ahead o' us Cap'n. I 'opes them ship's biscuits don' be 'avin' too many weevils in 'em. We don' want no ship's mut'ny on our 'ands do we Cap'n?
And with that I playfully punched the Captain on the shoulder, pulled his cap down over his eyes and hopped away on one leg shouting, "Where's me parrot? Where's me parrot?"
As I looked back over my shoulder at the Captain, apart from bumping into a waiter and knocking over his tray of cocktails, I could see that the Captain had obviously met in me, a seafaring soul mate, the equal of himself in all respects. This much was obvious from the way he was huddled in a corner surrounded by crew and staff pointing at me. He seemed to be on his knees in a prayer position and I could only assume that he was begging the crew to
make just one more place available for me at his table for dinner. The trouble was I didn't see him again apart from one occasion when I shouted across the crowded room at him and did my Long John Silver impersonation again. I saw him duck down out of sight and I waited for him to fight his way through the throng to me but he never arrived and I never saw him again.
Funny that.
During the course of the party the Entertainments Manager clambered on stage and introduced the various heads of staff on board ship, Catering Manager, Chief Engineer, Communications Officer etc., culminating in the Captain himself.
When I saw the Captain being wheeled on stage in a wheelchair, wide eyed and twitching, looking a shadow of his former self when we were chatting and having a good time, it was obvious he'd had an overdose of talking to non seafaring Americans and couldn't cope anymore. If only everyone could have communicated with him on his own level like I did this would never have happened to him would it?
Still, he is the Captain after all and you don't expect him to crack up at his own cocktail party do you? Gave me an uneasy feeling for the rest of the voyage I can tell you. Hope he recovers and stays well enough to drive the boat for the next six days.
He'd chewed the braid off his cap too for some reason.
The whole event took place in The Astoria Lounge, a huge auditorium with a stage and numerous lounge seats and tables. Everybody was sitting at tables and it was like some huge nightclub. Waiters were constantly patrolling with trays of free drinks. We'd arrived at 7.30 p.m. and dinner was at 8.15 p.m. so I only managed to drink five vodka martinis before we had to leave. I was all for missing dinner and staying.
"Lesh dinn misser tonight an'.......avanotherdrink", I said to Pauline.
"Don't be stupid", Pauline said.
At dinner our American friends once again ordered more than one portion of some of their courses, a display of greediness which was quite hard to take especially as sometimes they would find that they couldn't actually manage to eat the third plateful of food and leave the whole plate untouched. Because they order everything at the start of the meal and not as they go, all their plates for each course are served up at once so if, as they regularly did, they order three or four of each course the table is littered with plates of food waiting to be eaten.
Pauline and I found one plate of each of the five courses was quite adequate but then we don't need two chairs to sit on one for each buttock. I'm glad the woman opposite me had her ears pierced it was the only way I could see the waiter coming.
We were actually asked at dinner if there were any new houses in England ......Jesus, what sort of people are they?
Americans seem to have no guilt about wasting resources. Since everything is much cheaper houses, electricity, petrol, food, drink, women etc. etc. and because they've never experienced a shortage of anything, not even during the war (and who won the war ? We did, not John bloody Wayne), they don't seem to think twice about ordering inordinate amounts of food and drink and then just leaving it to be thrown away. I kept going up to them and saying, "There are starving children in Bosnia who would be glad of that", but I kept being escorted to my cabin by security for being a public nuisance so after a while I gave up.
It reminds me of the time we were in a restaurant in Orlando, it was lunch time and at the next table was a family of seven, mum, dad, gran, grandad and three kids. They were ordering their meals, main course, side dishes of this and that, drinks beer for dad and grandad (the Lake Michigan measure), fizzy stuff for the kids, water and fruit juices for mum and gran, it went on and on. Halfway through our meal I glanced over to their table and they were gone! Half eaten plates of food littered the table, glasses of beer with only the first half inch of liquid gone, untouched glasses of other drinks, untouched dishes of food. They couldn't have eaten and drank much more than 25% of their total order. It was absolutely unbelievable.
I also remember another time we were in the equivalent of a Beefeater Inn or whatever they're called now and were having an evening meal. While waiting for our main course there was an almighty crash from the serving area and our waitress, who'd already introduced herself to us when we sat down
(Hiah'mSusieandah'llhayvethepleasureofbein'yourwaitresstonightcanIgetyawlany
bevaragesyetorareyouOK?)
came over to me and said, "Guess what? That was your steak that just ended up on the floor but don't worry we'll cook you another one and you can all choose a dessert on the house". This was, I thought, good customer relations, after all how would I have known it was my steak if she hadn't told me and what difference did it really make to me if they had to cook another one? Maybe a little longer to wait but that's all. Needless to say we all chose the most expensive dessert on the menu and I like to think they were really glad that we did it made them feel much better about the whole thing I'm sure. Oh by the way, the waitress got a generous tip from me as a result of all this so it wasn't such a free dessert after all was it? She probably drops plates all the time just to boost her income and it works!
The on board itinery is published every day in a newsletter.
Things I Could Have Done Today ........ But Was Too Busy Watching Paint Dry
07.00 Gymnasium opens.
08.30 Friends of Bill W, Get Together
09.00 Cruisercise Class
09.30 Cellulite Sanctuary
10.00 Country Line Dancing
10.30 Bingo
13.00 Talent Show sign up and rehearsal
14.00 Pool games and Scavenger Hunt
14.30 Golf Putting
15.00 Backgammon Tournament
17.30 Karaoke Party
21.30 Cigars Under The Stars
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