Cruise: Final thoughts

Many people have asked me my thoughts on the cruise, so here's a summary. Before I begin, though, I think I need to qualify this with a reminder that I've basically been on vacation for the last eight months. As such, I think it makes me a rather poorer judge of a vacation than those who spent the seven days at sea away from their desks, cell phones, computers, and Blackberries.

Despite some of the critiques that have appeared in this blog, I actually had a fantastic time (except for the tropical storm day.) It was great to spend so much time with friends, while being able to also enjoy time apart as necessary, thanks to the size of the ship.

The sourest note of the cruise was on the first day, when my camera broke. It really had become something of a travel crutch, as I've taken so many pictures with it since my travels began last June. I felt so helpless every time a photo opportunity was passed by, and that feeling just kept happening as the week progressed.

(photos courtesy of Dayong)

Most people are surprised to hear I was disappointed with the food on the cruise. But mediocre it was, almost universally. The buffet was what you'd probably expect: row upon row of huge, steam-heated stainless steel trays of overcooked fatty, over-salted paste. The restaurants were much better-- in ambiance at least. However, with a few exceptions, the food still had the taste, texture, and appearance of microwaved frozen dinners, on nice big white plates. Of course, it makes perfect sense in hindsight to mass-produce and freeze thousands of portions of boiled sides and over-sauteed entrees, and then forklift crateloads of them into the galley freezers while refueling each Sunday in Miami.

Despite my opinion of the food, the dinners themselves were always great fun, thanks to great companionship.

Drink prices were usurious, but that had the positive effect of limiting the amount we drank.

Would I do it again? I honestly don't know. I didn't think so at first, but while much of the cruise did not meet expectations, it really was a good time. Going with a group of friends made all the difference.

Anyway, I think that's all until the next adventure. Hope everybody had a good holiday! Thanks for reading!

Cruise: Day 7

We spent our final day at Great Stirrup Cay, an island in the Bahamas privately owned by the Norwegian Cruise Line. We found the rest of the gang already there when we arrived, and we joined them for pickup beach volleyball. Eventually the courts filled up with tourists, making for free-for-all jungle volleyball, so we hit the beach for for some snorkeling.

The beach is split into two halves. One is for snorkeling, and the other is for people who want to snorkel but chose to ignore the sign clearly marked "NO SNORKELING THIS SIDE." We opted for the latter side, as it was far less crowded. The water was warm, and the snorkeling was pretty good. We saw a good sized stingray with a friend (a big fish that kept following it around for some reason) and several other big fish.

After snorkeling, Alice and I hiked a trail that took us to the other side of the island. Rumor has it the island was owned by the US Military in the past-- we found an abandoned lighthouse and some other abandoned buildings, as well as a landfill, a mysterious rocky coastal area dotted with concrete boxes with metal pipes jutting from each.

We returned in time for the volleyball tournament! We signed up as a team, with me, Alice, Dayong, John, Nicole, and a guy we met named Johnny. And then (really, to no surprise) we proceeded to utterly destroy the competition to win the tournament. Woo hoo!

Here we are after winning (thanks to Johnny for the pic!):

We swam a little more and just hung out on the beach after the tournament. Someone had smuggled over a bottle of rum which we polished off before going back aboard for our final night on the ship. Yo ho ho.

Back aboard, Dayong, Alice and I celebrated with a bucket of Coronas before heading to the pub for the final night of the ship's Progressive Trivia Game. Each night so far, our team had participated in a 20-question trivia challenge, and our cumulative score was so far ahead of the pack we were a shoe-in. And as anticipated, we won! For our efforts, we received tote bags containing various token gifts such as cards and beach balls. And we also had champagne. Woot!

One last dinner with the gang; an Italian feast at a restaurant whose name I can't recall.

Cruise: Day 6

Here's a pic that Dayong took of The Baths, from Day 4:

Day 6 was a day at sea. John, Dayong, and I got to play some volleyball on the ship, winning each game easily despite some interesting game conditions (net only 6.5 feet high, and a ceiling netting that was probably less than 20 feet high). At one point, we were playing against some really rude girls, and one of them said of Dayong, "Did he just call us bitches?" and I assured her that no, he wouldn't say that, she must have misunderstood him. (Later, he confirmed that he had indeed called them bitches. LOL!)

Spent a lot of time lazing in the sun by the pool with a Corona or two...

Alice and I played in the preliminary round of the blackjack tournament later that day. I did pretty poorly, but Alice was the chip leader at her table until the last hand, when she busted out and the person in second place hit blackjack.

We hit the early show at 7:30. It was a Cirque-de-soleil-esq show called Bollywood, and it was amazing! Incredible gymnastics, acrobatics, music, and dancing. They definitely saved the best for last, as this show was miles above the others. It was the only show to get a standing ovation, and it was well-deserved.

We had a late dinner at Cagney's, the cover-charge steak restaurant. It was certainly the best meal yet, but certainly not the best steak ever. Also the best atmosphere and service.

Cruise: Day 5

It was showering off and on when we got on the bus for our St. Thomas excursion early on Day 5. On arrival at the kayaking site, we needed to wait under a tent for another tour to arrive, and then for the pre-excursion briefing. While waiting, it started pouring. YAY.

But then, a miracle! Right when we headed out, the rain stopped and the sun came out. We kayaked through a mangrove lagoon to Cas Cay, where we stopped for a hermit crab race (mine was pretty feisty, but he kept going the wrong way. Alice's didn't move much at all... I hope he wasn't dead.) Then we hiked a trail to Red Rock Point, pausing along the way to see the various mangrove trees and some termite nests. The Point was an area of colorful volcanic rock that came together to form blowholes, i.e., rock formations that, when hit by waves, make an otherwise peaceful spot dramatically choppy. You can get drenched pretty quickly with little warning, as I did.

Snorkeling around the mangrove roots wasn't that impressive; for one, the fish are inherently smaller (that's why they're there, to hide from the bigger fish), and also, we were with a rather large tour that kicked up plenty of sand. Ah well, at least the water was warm and the weather held up.

That evening, we participated in a murder mystery dinner with Ron and Dayong and two other cruise guests. Alice and I were each either very convincing, or very unconvincing, because most people thought that I (as Leilani, the hula dancer) was guilty while in fact Alice (as Johnny Breakers, the surfer dude) was the murderer all along.

Cruise: Day 4

We finally made landfall! We docked at Tortola, and we all boarded a smaller boat for our excursion to Virgin Gorda. On arrival, we boarded a bus for the Baths National Park. Here's where I really started to miss my camera. The Baths is known for beaches surrounded by giant boulders, some of which come together to form caves that you can wade in and explore.

The weather was beautiful; we spent some quality time on the beach, and got some snorkeling in, but the excursion was rather short. At least, thanks to the previous day's storm, we had extra time in Tortola. Back at the ship, we had a gross lunch at the buffet (where I got to hear another group of obese women complaining that there were not enough cookies). Then Alice and I headed out on our own to find a beach on Tortola. We took a cab to Cane Garden Bay, a beautiful sandy beach loaded with beach chairs and little bars, and spent the afternoon there before heading back to the ship.

Alice and I went to the sushi bar that night for all-you-can-eat sushi. The sushi was ok, but the waitress was inattentive and snippy. We ended up going back to Salsa for dessert. Um, desserts.

Cruise: Day 3

Day 3 began with guys from Security knocking on our door at 7:00 AM so they could close our porthole. Shortly thereafter came the announcement on the ship's intercom that our trip to the Dominican Republic had been canceled due to Tropical Storm Olga, which was what our captain was trying to avoid. We would learn later that the storm was packing 60 MPH winds and creating 20 foot seas.

The storm was tossing this 850 foot, 17,000 ton cruise ship like it was the S.S. Minnow on its three hour tour. I took a seasickness pill and walked around for a bit before giving up and trying to go back to sleep. Alice actually went and got breakfast. She said later that chairs were periodically falling over on their own, and old people needed to be escorted out of the restaurant. She also learned from some of the staff that this was "the second worst storm in the last three years." Apparently in the first worst storm, the waves broke a window on the 7th deck.

Eventually, I got up, took another pill, and made my way to the poolside area of deck 12. I didn't know where any of the gang was, so I checked the buffet and then headed up to the Spinnaker Lounge thinking Alice might be there playing bingo. I found a bunch of them playing Yahtzee on the way and joined them, despite the second pill kicking in and making me extremely tired and irritable.

Had a gross lunch at the buffet. Got to hear a bunch of obese ladies complain that there wasn't enough pizza.

Dinner at Salsa, the ship's Tex Mex restaurant, while still unspectacular, was the best yet. The dessert was amazing, and all it was basically just berries and cream.

Rejoined the gang in the theater for a magic show. The magician claimed to have performed in Las Vegas, but I'm guessing that he hasn't performed there since the late 70s when his act was on the cutting edge.

If you've bothered to read this far, you're probably thinking, "Wow, this cruise sounds really lame." And you're right, up to now, it was pretty disappointing. Fortunately though, things would improve on Day 4...

Cruise: Day 2

Day 2 was a day at sea and started with the Texas Hold'em tournament at 9:30 AM, which actually felt like 8:30 AM because we changed time zones! I am happy to say I finished in 6th place, but less happy to say that only the top three made money. The blinds go up so fast, it really turns into something of a crap shoot, but of course it would have been nice to get paid. I was crippled right before the first break (though I managed to claw my way back later) with the following hand:

Blinds were 200/400, and I had about 5000 chips. I was on the button against 6 opponents. I don't remember the exact action, but there was one limper to me and I looked down at QQ. I raised it to 1600, the small blind folded, the big blind (who also had about 5000, but soon I would learn it was slightly less than whatever I had) called, and the limper folded. Flop was T, J, J (sound familiar?!?). Big blind checks, I quickly move all-in, he thinks for a few minutes and calls, showing 88. Sounds like I'm about a 9-1 favorite, right? But guess what the turn card was! Go on, guess, I'm sure you have no idea. Here's a hint: the river helped neither of us.

We met Dayong and Ron for lunch afterwards at the Venetian. It was pretty gross... hamburgers were barely edible. Dinner at Aqua that night was fun, especially since they kept serving us broiled rock lobster tails, without us even asking for them. I don't think rock lobster tastes quite as good as Maine lobsters, though I actually did prefer the texture of the Caribbean crustaceans over that of their cold-water cousins.

As luck would have it, Alice's camera also broke. So we were now camera-less.

We skipped the show that night, and I went to the casino and played in the Hold'em cash game. The 4th and 5th place finishers from the tournament were also playing there, so we jokingly dubbed it the "Sore Losers Table." All kidding aside, I did find out pretty quick that it was going to be extremely difficult to win anything here-- the rake was INSANE. I have played some places where the rake was 10% of the pot, with a max of $5, and that's considered very high. On this ship, the rake was 10% with a max of $50! Despite the long odds, I played into the wee hours of the night. Once or twice, we felt the whole table lurch as if a tropical storm were brewing outside, but we all just looked at each other nervously and attributed it to the one or two alcoholic beverages consumed earlier in the evening...

Cruise: Day 1

First, I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to Juan's parents in Miami, for putting us up for two nights, letting me leave my car at their place for a week, and driving us to the port to start our cruise. As if the warmth of Miami weren't welcoming enough, they made it that much more so. And also, thanks to Juan and Kathy for picking us up at the airport and keeping us entertained with their adorable twins.

The bad news is that this pic, courtesy of my MacBook's built-in iSight camera, will be the last one I'll be posting for a while, since my camera broke on the first day of the cruise.

The other bad news is that, since I don't have pics to jog my memory, the following narrative is shaping up to be a stream-of-consciousness account of what may or may not have happened.

We got to the port at around 1:00, and snaked our way through the miles of check-in lines to finally board the ship at about 2:00. The first thing we did was reserve our shore excursions: a beach day at Samana, Dominican Republic, a boat ride to Virgin Gorda via Tortola (British Virgin Islands), and a Kayak/Hike/Snorkel trip on St. Thomas. We started poking around the ship after that, including making our first (of many) trips to the buffet, but it wasn't long before the announcement was made that the staterooms were ready, so we headed to check out our room. We were on Deck 4, the lowest passenger deck. As expected, the room was small, and we had a porthole rather than a window, but the view was still fine, and in fact, better than what one might expect from a porthole.

After attending the mandatory safety briefing (of which I can't remember any details... good thing we didn't sink), we went up to the pool area for the cast-off celebration. We met the entire gang there (Dayong, Ron, John, Terri, and Nicole) for some food and drinks while watching the ship leave port. Had dinner with the gang later at the Venetian-- I didn't find it to be all that spectacular, but everyone else seemed pretty happy with it. We went to the theater afterwards for the first show of the trip: a juggler/comedian. He was ok-- but the trick that would have been the most impressive I would actually consider fraudulent-- he played songs on a flat, electronic piano pad by bouncing balls on the keys. However, it was pretty clear that he wasn't actually playing the notes, but that the entire pad was a trigger for a pre-sequenced song, so that no matter where the balls landed, they played the correct notes.

Cruisin'

Cruising the Caribbean... not going to pay $0.40/min to update the blog... be back in a week!

Hard Rock Casino, Tampa FL

Pop quiz for all you poker hotshots out there.

1. What happens in a no-limit cash game when you hold pocket queens, your opponent holds pocket tens, and the flop is ten, ten, queen?

2. What happens when the exact same thing happens 10 minutes later?

That is all.