Wednesday, November 17, 2004

A post a week?

Wow, so its been a few weeks since my last update. I can't believe how hard it is to write something every week. I never thought it would be, reading other blogs, it just seemed so easy. I guess its hard unless you don't want to keep anything private.

Anyway, I do have a pretty good reason for the lack of posts. One of those weeks I spent on a cruise ship in the Western Caribbean. Departed from NuOlens, made a stop in Cosumel and Costa Maya Mexico, and also in Belize City Belize. Overall it was a great experience. I think everyone must try it once. Luckily the weather was nice everyday except one afternoon it rained. And one other day it was real windy, as the ship was heading straight into the wind, traveling at 19 knots into a 14 Knott wind, it wasn't the best day to lay in the sun on the upper deck. Don't ask me what a Knott is though. We traveled over 1800 nautical miles, not sure what that means either.

The food was pretty good, the service was amazing. It seemed like everyone working on the ship was very friendly, always smiling, making you feel welcome. They did a very good job being sincere. I don't think I could handle being on a ship and keeping in good spirits as they did. Most of the people we talked to were married and away from their spouses for 6-8 months. That is something that I definitely know I couldn't handle. Our dinner table was a 6 top, so were were with 2 other couples. Once couple was from Missouri, the other from New York. Both were very friendly, the first night was a little awkward, but by the second night we were all having good conversation.

I couldn't believe the size of the ship. Inside there was a Theater, Casino, 2 level dining room, Cafe, Pool Deck, Piano Bar, Nite Club, Champagne Bar, Library, Card and Game room, Spa, Heath Club and Lounge area. On top of that, enough rooms for over 2100 guest and 750 employees. And this isn't even the largest line of ships! This is almost as many people in one cruise ship that populated the entire town I grew up in (3600). Amazing. Until you open the door to your stateroom. Then you open the door to the bathroom. Amazing. You really don't spend much time in your room, good thing.

The entertainment was pretty good overall. The Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers did a good job doing the broadway shows. The Comedian was OK, the first night he stuttered a few times, we saw him on a later "adult" show and he seemed more relaxed, maybe because he didn't have to edit himself. The magician was OK, there is only so much magic you can see, and after the guy gave away all the secrets on TV, its kinda hard to believe any of it. The juggler was really good, a nerdy guy that tried to be funny, but the amazing thing was that he was juggling on a cruise ship and believe me, you can feel the movement pretty much the whole time. We missed out on John Davidson, the host of Hollywood Squares. I think his show was geared toward the older crowd anyway, but we didn't really care to see him.

And now for the most important part - the bars! The piano bar was my favorite. The piano man was better than average, he knew a lot of songs, but the 3 nights we saw him, I heard a lot of repeats. I think he was really playing the crowd, doing all the popular songs. He did play "In Your Eyes" a Peter Gabriel song that I don't really like, but when he played it, he did it well. A friend of our's plays the song on the acoustic guitar and I really like it. He didn't play The Clash for me, but Green Day, not really the same, but good enough. The bartender was a guy from India. We sat at the bar, ordered a couple margarita's and just talked for a little while. He was really nice, the bar was slow, so he just talked to us for a while. Pretty soon he's pouring us shots and we are getting liquored up. This was before dinner, so we really didn't want too much. Basically everytime we want to chill out and drink, we went to the piano bar. He only charged us for one or two drinks, but we would be drinking premium calls all night, we even taught him the "Irish Car Bomb", my personal favorite. Needless to say, he treated us very well. We really didn't go to any of the other bars the rest of the trip, unless there was entertainment going on. We went to 80's night in the Nite Club, but that only lasted an hour. Also Disco night, but we didn't stay long for that. Basically it was the Piano bar, until 2AM. yeah.

Well, that about sums it up. There is actually a lot more to the trip, but I'm sure if you made it this far, you have had enough. And if you read this, you probably know me, so I'll have told you this entire story already.

END IF

WAJ