Cruise: Part VII

I'm impressed that many friends, family, and coworkers have been reading my vacation adventures. It was nice to see such a huge jump in blog readership since writing about the cruise. Not sure where you all are coming from, but thanks!

Entry Date, Friday 11/23. Day VI 12:30am.

(NOTE: I probably should have included this entry with yesterdays since I wrote it at 12:30 in the morning. Last night. This morning. Same difference.)

When I started writing about the trip, I had designated about a third of this notebook to the trip, thinking I wouldn't take up that much space. I ran out of the third and had to designate another portion. I have a writing problem...

I'm now sitting in the Blue Lagoon restaurant, which is the only place to get food at 12:30 in the morning. The woman The freaking adorable woman who seated me is the same freaking adorable woman who has seated me here for dinners and lunches before. I think she works 24 hours a day... or she's a clone...

I was just served a large plate of french fries. I doused them in salt and yellow mustard and am shoveling them into my face (probably because Thanksgiving dinner was so measly). What a perfect food to throw on top of all that rum I drank tonight!

I just leaned to the side to put my wallet away when the boat rocked hardcore... the result was me tipping over and almost face planting into the booth in which I sit... haha

One "thing" about this ship is anti-bacterial hand wash. There are stations, literally, everywhere and the crew near them keep saying "Washy Washy! Happy Happy!" They even have a song to the music of London Bridges about "Washy Washy." It's cute... and obnoxious.

Anyways, after I last wrote, I walked to NaNa's room and left a note on her door asking her to join me at Spinnaker if she wanted to. I kept an eye out for her, but I didn't see her. I did, however, run into various friends from hot tub-a-thons. Ricardo, the cool drink server, saw me. We chatted for a bit. He mentioned that I always appear "classy." I thanked him and mused that I only wished I could have brought more hats on the ship.

Next Stage played a set of surprisingly good songs. It wasn't the usual party hits (although, some were mixed in). They played a lot of 90's alt rock acoustically -- so, I was in heaven. They ended the set with a bunch of 80's tunes (Pat Bennatar, included) and had the entire lounge singing along to "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Bohemian Rhapsody." Both songs were lacking as acoustic numbers, but were cool as sing alongs.

After Next Stage left the stage... (were they going to another one? HA! I slay me...)... a DJ took over. I left.

I wandered outside to see how the night was. Windy... I was almost lifted off my feet from one gust. I had a fleeting image of myself being blown overboard. I looked around and saw no one. I'm pretty sure had I actually been blown overboard, no one would have believed it... no one would have found me either...

I may have been a little buzzed when I returned to my room...

Ahhhh! Put my head back on! Put my head back on!!

Addendum: I returned to my stateroom a moment ago. As I was leaving the Blue Lagoon, the freaking adorable woman who seated me struck up a conversation with me. She said she works from 11am to 1am and sleeps in between. Wow, I said. That's not a lot of time off. We talked about that, life on the ship, and seafood. She said that part of her shift is at the French Seafood restaurant. She invited me to try it. I explained that I'm allergic to shellfish. She said she is allergic to shrimp and lobster but not crab. She asked me my name and my cheeks grew warm. However, she repeated my name back to me with the word "Sir" in front, as all of the staff on the ship do. I asked her for her name. Abbey. I reached out and took her hand and joked with her that I had done Washy Washy, so it was okay to shake my hand. She said, "See you tomorrow, Sir James." I wished her a good night's sleep.

Entry Date, Friday 11/23. Day VI 11:00am.

For a rather stupid reason, I am sitting inside on a warm sunny day. I had received a bingo card in my stateroom last night, which entitled me to a free game. Not wanting pass up an opportunity to win 5,000 dollars (which would essentially offset my bar bill), I went to bingo. I'm here after having a wonderful breakfast on the Aft Deck, which came after sleeping in.

The ship is rocking in the worst way. Walking from the Aft Deck to the Forward part of the ship was like walking up a hill for two steps and then suddenly running downhill for five. Two slow steps up and five quick ones down.

I'm sitting down and looking straight out the front window of the ship. The horizon disappears below the stretch of the window when the front of the ship rocks up. Then, the horizon comes into sight and climbs nearly to the top of the window when the ship rocks back down. The window is like six feet tall... I am not feeling nausea. But I did take extra doses of Nux Vomica just to be safe.

Ugh. It took half an hour for the "Bingo Momma" to explain the rules of BINGO of all things... Ridiculous rules. She's not the Bingo Momma; she's the bingo Nazi! Way to take something simple: BINGO, and turn it into a fiasco. We're on vacation here. We don't want all these stinking rules.

Entry Date, Friday 11/23. Day VI 4:00pm.

After Bingo lameness (I left after my card didn't win), I made my way to the sun deck. I was surprised at how few loungers were unstacked. It was a sunny and warm day. I looked down to the pool area and it was packed. The pools, however, were closed, due to the rocking ship. The waves in the pools were intense!

I found a sunny spot on a stretch of a two foot wall that went around the outside of one of the pools, near the slide. I laid out there, listening to my iPod for a while. Then it started to get chilly, so I went in the hot tub.

I met a bunch of people in the hot tub and invited them all to the "White Hot Party" that is tonight in the Spinnaker Lounge. Some people purposely brought white clothing to wear to the party. I did not. I expressed this to many people that I met and received some suggestions. I liked one of the suggestions...

The pools opened, but the waves were still pretty wicked. I saw people get in one side of the pool and end up twenty feet at the other end because of the waves and the rocking.

I decided to get in for a bit.

I was in the pool for about 15 minutes, fighting the waves, when crew came up and told everyone to get out because they were closing it again.

Entry Date, Friday 11/23. Day VI 5:30.

I just watched the most amazing sunset EVER!

I noticed one wisp of cloud that looked like a cruise ship.

Entry Date, Friday 11/23. Day VI 9:30.

Captain Lars just made an announcement: "There is no more rum on board the ship. One of you drank it all."

Sorry. I discovered Bacardi Oakheart and Ginger ale... with lime, it's pretty stupendous.

After the sunset, I went back to my room, shaved, showered, dressed, and then headed out to search for food. Nothing looked good in the main dining rooms, so I kept looking. I ended up back at Blue Lagoon and one of the tastiest meals of the cruise:

No lie. The hot dog was so incredibly flavorful... it was burned a little -- just how I like it.

The chicken and steak dinners that I have had on previous nights just didn't have any flavor... And the cheesecake was so incredibly lacking in taste, that it was completely pointless to consume.

After dinner, I wandered around the ship. It was still warmish outside. We are currently right about level with South Carolina, according to the stateroom TV.

I ended up back in Bar City, listening to Randon again. It's such a chill environment. I wish there was a place back home where I could enjoy a cocktail and acoustic music like this.

While on my way to Bar City, I passed by or ran into three separate groups of people that recognized me from hot tubbing. One said, "Hey! It's Hot Tub Guy!" Haha. It's cool to be known as such and such guy.

I swung by the Crystal Attrium where Next Stage was doing a Beatles tribute. It was cute. They were all wearing black suits with white shirts. The guitarist was leading the band and the love-of-my-life lead singer was off to back singing back up vocals.

Since I'm not a big Beatles fan, and it was really crowded, I moved on.

I'm now back at my state room and I'm about to get ready for the "White Hot Party." Wooo!