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Day 2

June 12, 2009

Location: Somewhere in the North Atlantic

What started off as less than stellar weather in New York grew worse through the night. We awoke and opened the curtain to, well, not much of a view at all. Apparently our voyage was destined to sail on an endless ocean of fog. Several times during the cruise I felt that it was both cool to be literally in the middle of the ocean, away from everything and disconcerting that there was essentially no world around us.

So after finally getting up, moving, and acknowledging the lack of sights to see, I started my day with a shower. It was bigger than some stateroom showers, but if you double the size of a postage stamp, it’s still pretty small. I did wonder about something while I was taking a shower; if a ship has over 1 million gallons of freshwater storage (I learned that later from watching an educational movie about the ship), then why is the water pressure crappy and the temperature varies so much over the course of one shower?

It was then time for the most important meal of the day, lunch. The food was good, just a little confusing at times though. They had, all on the same deck: a buffet, another buffet, a pizza place, a grill, a deli, a noodle line and a daily buffet highlighting the cuisine of one nation. So after we figured out where to find food and consuming said food, we looked at all of the things going on around the pool deck. We looked at the water slide, which is 2 decks high and someone fell out of when they got out. We saw the miniature golf course, all 9 holes of synthetic turf-y goodness. The Fun Patrol announced that at that time there would be an ice carving demonstration going on shortly, so we made sure to stay for that. We watched in amazement as one of the ship’s ice carvers, who was also the ship’s dentist carved a sculpture before our very eyes. In mere minutes, he took a large block of ice and shaped it into 2 lovebirds sitting on a heart. Then we took a picture with it as they scooped up extra ice, and then they told the leftover ice was going to be put in drinks.

We took some time to do a bit of shopping, get some of the required souvenirs, see what we may want later. We then went to the casino to sample some of their gambling apparatii. At least they had video slots, various denominations and many table games. So we spent some money and then took some time to plan our evening before dinner.

We didn’t pack enough for “Elegant Night” so we decided to sit dinner in the dining room out. A trip up to the buffet brought with it more food, and after we visited the dining room to find that, except for the lobster, all of the same things were served at the buffet as they were in the dining room (Good news to people who hate their table partners).

The next part of our evening was packed with stuff to do. First up was Showtime, with that night’s award-winning show “Wonderul World”. A musical revue around the world with such hits as “Up, Up and Away”, “One Night in Bangkok”, “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, “Con te Partiro” and a song that sounds very similar to “Step in Time”. It was a toe-tapping good time for the whole family with high production values.

We then headed up to the pool deck to where the Seaside Theatre was showing WALL-E. We got the good seats because nobody was there; apparently nobody wanted to be on deck when it was ~55 degrees, with 22 kt winds and traveling at about 15 kts. And after about half an hour, neither did we. So we headed inside and made our way down to Club Rio for the “Adults Only” comedy show. We got there a little before that was going to start, so we caught the end of karaoke. We only saw a few songs but they were notable ones at least, like “Part of Your World”, “I Will Survive” and a vcry special rendition of “Strokin’” (that song only gets better when the guy singing it has a Carribbean accent). When that finished up, we settled in for a second dose of hilarity from Marvin Bell. His set contained, among other things: dumb people on cruises, parents who can’t raise their own kids, and why he knew not to mess up as a kid, because he would get beat. Other gems were:

• Who’s excited to be going to Canada? [the itinerary does seem a little underwhelming when you think of it]
• This isn’t the fun ship, this is the fog ship. [it was ridiculously foggy]
• They aren’t there for you. They aren’t there for me. They’re there for stupid people.

Having laughed until we cried, the show was over and we had to decide what to do next. I was expecting it to be bedtime, since my gf usually likes to call it an early night and she was exhausted earlier, but I was wrong. We were both hungry, so we took advantage of one of the things unique to a cruise ship: food, late at night, for free! We went, we ate, we digested. Then it was time to cruise off to dreamland.

Tune in next time for the 4th exciting installment!