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Still day 1

Still June 11, 2009

Location: New York City

Off the gangway and onto the boat.  It was at this moment we realized exactly how ridiculously far the walk was from one end of the ship to the other, which only really seems long when you are in a stateroom corridor, but still. We arrive in our room to find it is actually huge compared to the average interior stateroom. [Note to reader: always opt for oceanview or better, it’s worth it] Along with all of the expected amenities, we had:

• A TV. But it was a CRT, boo. (If RC can put flat panels in every room of their oldest ship, couldn’t Carnival do the same in a much newer one.)
• A built in radio with SIX channels. Three of them even worked! Plus, one was for ship intercom use.
• Indirect lighting, controlled from several convenient switches around the room.
• And a bathroom with body wash AND shampoo dispensers!

As indicated in our daily Caper (Carnival Paper), we had a muster drill coming up soon, so we had some fun with the lifejackets. The drill was pretty standard, and as we stood there, the ship began to pull out of port. And as soon as everyone realized we were moving, someone decided to faint; maybe a cruise is not the trip for them. With the legal stuff out of the way, we made our way back to our room and then dinner. It would soon become apparent to us that there was a design problem on moving around the ship, but I will explain more on that later. Dinner was great. Excellent service, and more food than you can shake a stick at. Also, we met our table-mates, and we enjoyed their company. The food was good, even though they missed an important step on the creme brulee. If you want to be fancy, invest in a blowtorch.

After dinner we explored some of the ship and visited the shops, at what may have been a bad time. We went in the gift shop, to see what they offered, it was swamped. We stepped in at the same time they were offering a free liquor tasting. We had a break until our next activity, so we went back to the room. Our nightly turndown brought with it: chocolate, the next day’s itinerary, and a towel animal. Our towel animal was… and animal (we still don’t know what it is). We took the time to relax, unpack, explore the TV channels and wait for our next adventure.

We once again set out to navigate the ship and find our way to the lounge where they were having Game Show Mania. Just like a game show on TV, except YOU are the Contestants [sic]. I am not aware of any game show on TV like this one though. The hostess, Sophia, a.k.a. Kiwi (she’s from New Zealand), asked a question and then played a song clip that the question pertains to. The contestants were not very good at it, and still had trouble even when given hints. But eventually it was over and three people walked away with 24K gold (plastic) piece of ship on a stick.

When that was over, we went to explore more. A trademark of the Carnival “Fun Ship” fleet is the large outdoor movie screen on the pool deck, the “Carnival Sea Side Theatre”. As we were about to step out on to the pool deck, a photographer, like you would find on any cruise ship, stopped us. He happened to bring friends, a Mountie and a guy in a kilt, so we took a picture with them. We then had to make our way back to the lounge for the welcome show.

We made it back to the lounge and found seats before the show started. The house lights going out, music, dancers, and various lighting cues all heralded the start of the Welcome Aboard show. After the cheesy, but very entertaining, song and dance number, we were introduced to our cruise director, Jorge. He came out and quickly answered the question on everyone’s mind, “Why does he have a Latino accent if his name is Jorge (pronounced George)?” He explained that he is [George] until 5 o’clock when he becomes Jorge! He then took the time to welcome us and asked if we were all excited to be on vacation. He was disappointed by the mediocre reply, so he reminded everyone they didn’t need to cook, clean or go to work for the next 4 days. All we needed to do was “eat and poop.” While he was welcoming us aboard, he took the time to talk to some audience members, get to know them, give them a little good-natured ribbing. And one guy even got in trouble for forgetting how long he was married (Chris, if you’re reading this, which I doubt, we all still luv you). Having thoroughly made us all feel very welcome, he introduced the evening’s entertainment, the comedy of Marvin Bell. His set provided us with many family-friendly jokes and anecdotes including many that pertain to being on a cruise ship, such as room size and the people who ask about the pats of butter on their pillow (I got news, it’s chocolate).

After a long day of traveling, eating, exploring, feeling welcome and damn near laughing our asses off, we were very tired and took the opportunity to get some rest before the next day of our cruise. I’m sure you will be right here tomorrow, same blog time, same blog channel to read the next installment of my 2009 vacation journal.