2004-08-04 - 2:56 a.m.
I had been wanting to go on a cruise ever since I was seven years old. That�s how old I was when my grandparents got back from one of their around-the-world cruises. I remember sometime after they had gotten back from the trip, they had a big party for many of their friends and we were invited, too. Later that evening, my grandmother presented a slide show of photos she had taken on the trip. I was completely fascinated by everything she showed and vowed that someday I, too, would go to all of those exotic places. Apparently not everybody else was as fascinated as I was�somewhere around 1:00 in the morning, I suddenly became aware that the room was vibrating with the sound of snoring. I looked around and saw to my surprise that everyone was completely zonked out, slumped down in their easy chairs, fast asleep, including my parents (that�s probably why I was allowed to still be up). The only ones awake were my grandmother and me! She gave me a wink and kept on showing her slides, just for me. She and I always had a special bond concerning travel. No one else in our family cared that much about it.
I am now middle aged and never was able to take a cruise of the sort that my grandparents went on, but then again, they weren�t able to take a cruise of the sort that their parents had gone on, which was the kind in which ones car was part of their luggage and would be craned off the ship at certain ports to give access to the interior. My grandmother had lots of photos of her family when she was a little girl, riding in a chauffeur-driven fire-engine-red-with-shiny-brass-fixtures Pierce Arrow across India or the African Veldt. Those days are long gone, now, except perhaps for people like Malcolm Forbes (who carried a helicopter on his yacht, Highlander IV) or Aristotle Onassis (who had a seaplane along with his ship, The Christina), both of whom are now dead, also. Ship travel the way it used to be was pretty much killed by the advent of the jet airplane. Why take weeks to cross the Atlantic, say, from New York to Southampton when now you could fly it in a few hours? And also, how many people had the leisure to take a major portion of a year off to explore mysterious destinations�are there any mysterious destinations when now India isn�t an exotic territory, but some place you can talk to on the phone whenever your computer breaks down? My grandmother would return from her trips loaded down with treasures one could hardly imagine, woolen caps woven by Mongolian yak herders, golden Balinese dancers� costumes and headdresses, elaborately carved hashish hookahs, all things Asian�newspapers written in Chinese characters, straw and velvet thongs with the feet propped up above the mud puddles on wooden blocks (�Oriental galoshes,� my grandmother called them), chopsticks, and lacquer puzzle-boxes. Most of that stuff can be purchased in junk stores or curio shops, these days, but I definitely do remember the days when jet airplane travel was a marvelous new wonder and chopsticks were something a boy could hardly believe��you mean, people actually eat with these sticks?� Norwegian Cruise Lines (which happens to be the very line I sailed on) revitalized cruising when it came up with the idea of the Caribbean party cruise, quick seven-day jaunts from Miami to the Bahamas and the like, just for fun. This kind of quick and easy travel altered ship architecture, too. No longer was it necessary to design fast-moving, powerful ships with razor-sharp hulls that could slice across variably rough and icy Atlantic waters; the new designs were elongated, squared-off wedding cakes with building block cabins and decks piled on like cargo ship containers in a sort of Las Vegas theme resort hotel mode�the ship, itself, became the destination and each newer one competed with those previous to outdo them with their atriums, number and variety of eating and drinking establishments, and sports facilities. Essentially, in the Las Vegasing of ship travel, cruise passengers almost lost the feeling that they were sailing at all, but were, instead, ensconced in roaming Caesar�s Palaces, Circus Circuses, MGM Grands, New York New Yorks, Parises, and Bellagios as they gambled and show lounged their way from tourist harbor to private white-sand-beached islands. But make no mistake�it was this Las Vegasing of cruise travel that made it so that everyman could go. And that included me. You no longer had to be a millionaire or save a lifetime for a cruise. So I�m not complaining, and am just thankful that it was so easy to finally go. For the past couple of years I had been reading several books about cruises and subscribed to various reporting services on the Internet. Whenever I received notice of one whose price seemed right, I�d check it out. Finally, just at the start of this summer, I heard of a cruise whose price was not only right (the whole cruise cost little more than round trip air travel to Europe), but also the destinations stood out as places I wanted to go�Yucatan (in the form of Cozumel and Cancun; I had never managed to get that far south in my Mexican trips), Belize, and Honduras. Prior to that, I had been loosely thinking I�d sail out of Los Angeles; after all, that is where I live, but it seems all the cruises from L.A. are either three or four day �Mexican Riviera� cruises (Ensenada, Mazatlan, maybe Acapulco), or else Alaska cruises, and neither one appealed to me. I�ve already seen more than enough of Pacific Mexico from land and I sure didn�t want to go to someplace cold in the summer. It seemed that being in L.A. meant that I was trapped along a great long wall that was the Pacific Coast and unless I could afford a 14-day Panama Canal cruise, I was stuck with no particularly appealing cruise destination. Fortunately, this cruise that interested me left from Houston, which, if you look at the map, is the next American port city over from California and it opens up the whole of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and all points beyond. Now, that was the ticket! So I checked the ship and the cruise out on The Internet, liked what I saw, and booked an air/sea package. I read 125 reviews of this cruise and thought it was interesting that people rated it anywhere from �5 stars, the best time we ever had, it was perfect in every way, we would do it again in a minute,� to �1 star, if that, the trip was terrible, we hated the ship, we will never travel Norwegian Cruise Lines again,� and all points in-between. I also noticed that same kind of situation prevailed in the reviews of other cruises, too, whether it was in the reviews of the ever-popular Carnival cruises on huge giga-ships, or the super-luxurious (and expensive) pampered Seabourn cruises on elegant boutique ships. I realized that the difference was simply all in the attitude. So, in reading the reviews, I made note of what the trouble spots seemed to be so that I would be forewarned to not let those things bother me. People seemed to routinely complain about the size of the staterooms, saying that they were way too small, and people also complained about the age of the ship. In today�s �it�s got to be the latest thing� world, a ship built in 1988 is considered way too old, although the shipping line has already refurbished the entire ship at least twice since it was built, maybe even three times. From extensive photos on the Internet, the ship sure didn�t look bad to me and now having been on it for eight days, I truly can�t imagine what the people were complaining about, I thought the ship was truly elegant and beautiful with all its marble, granite, brass, and white. Okay, so it didn�t have a nine-deck atrium (it was, instead, a two-story crystal sculpture and dripping water fountain). Who cruises sitting in an atrium? That�s just a momentary �wow� factor that soon fades away. And as far as the size of the stateroom, before I even saw it, I was prepared to like it, feeling that it would definitely be larger than a compartment on a train (at least!) and I had certainly loved train travel! In fact, I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw my cabin; I loved the green, blue, and orange Caribbean decorating theme and the whole thing was so cleverly designed for efficient use of space that I, who when I travel, usually just keep everything in my suitcase, this time unpacked everything so that I could use all the hangers and drawers and shelves and cubby holes that had been thoughtfully provided. It was perfectly quiet and comfortable with its two �couches� that could then be pulled out by the cabin steward and made into a double bed. It had a phone, a TV, a bar shelf (with cut-out compartments for glasses and bottles in case the sea ever got rough, which it never did), and, most importantly, a good-sized window that looked right out over the cobalt blue sea. The bathroom was large enough with a convenient shelf under the sink for all the grooming supplies (better than I have at home), a huge full-wall mirror, a powerful vacuum-flush toilet, and a hair dryer, and while the shower itself was small (the ship�s comedian joked that all you had to do to get clean was to spread soap on the walls and then spin your body around), it smelled so nice and clean in there (they provided you with shampoo and shower gel from a built-in dispenser) that I simply enjoyed the pleasure of getting into it and I was certainly able to get clean without any trouble and it always felt good to get the salt off my body from swimming in the warm Caribbean or the ship�s salt water pools and hot tubs. Cabin 4225 on the Main deck just down the hall from the Excursion Desk became a sweet, cute home that I truly felt grief over having to leave on the eighth day; it was as if I had actually lived there in a home that I had loved and I was so sad to have to move away. People do say that you don�t really spend very much time in your cabin anyway, but I didn�t find that to be true. I liked spending time in my cabin despite all the appealing amenities of the ship and the times I spent there were some of my favorite times on the cruise. I�d go there to take a nap or to just find some quiet from the external party atmosphere. It was so pleasant to read, or to sit and watch the water outside my window, which I could even see at night when the light-blocking curtains were open, because the ship had lights that shone down on the water at the hull�s edge, illuminating the lovely white caps churned up by the ship�s forward movement. Although I didn�t expect to, I even watched the television sometimes. One channel was a handy place to learn about the upcoming ports of call and the various shore excursion offerings. Even though there were port lectures in one of the show lounges, these were run continuously on the TV. Another channel was the ship�s �webcam� that was on the bow and that channel was also a place for music and to hear the ship�s announcements. There were regular TV channels (satellite TV), which I didn�t watch, CNN (which I also didn�t watch), and a movie channel, on which I did end up watching a couple of movies. There really were quiet times in the day or evening when none of the ship�s offered activities appealed to me and I just wanted to be alone. So, in short, I did �bond� with my cabin. Two other stand-outs from the reviews: even if people didn�t like the ship or the cruise, they nevertheless did seem to really give a thumb�s up to the ship�s shows, and everybody raved about the ship�s crew. I read reviews of other Norwegian Cruise Line ships and reviews of the newest, latest, biggest ships of other cruise lines, and read reviews of the top-drawer ships and cruise lines like the Crystal, Radisson, or Seabourn cruises where almost the whole point of the cruise is to be pampered by the crew, and yet no others seemed to talk so much about how great the crew was as did the people who traveled on this exact cruise on this exact ship. I wondered why that was? Did the people on this cruise expect less than did the people on the Seabourn cruises and therefore were pleasantly surprised? Were the huge giga-size ships of over 140,000 tonnage (as opposed to my mega-ship that was 42,000 tonnage) just big, impersonal factories, unpleasant to work in, whereas my ship was friendly, intimate, and efficient? Was it due to a special attitude of the ship�s Captain, or did Norwegian Cruise Lines make a special effort to insist on a higher level of quality from this particular crew by way of compensating for the ship�s perceived shortcomings? I made a point to observe the phenomenon while I was on my cruise to see if I could obtain an answer to this question. While I was preparing myself to fight against succumbing to negativity about anything I might view as imperfections or disappointments with the cruise (after all, I was in many ways attempting to now fulfill a desire that I had held onto for 49 years), I was also preparing myself to be emotionally protected from an onslaught from well-meaning-sounding people who were nevertheless subtly sabotaging my enjoyment of this trip, either affectively though unintentionally, or else purposely, as people sometimes will do. And that onslaught did come, usually in the form of proffering unwanted advice. For example, two potentials that characterized this trip for me were interacting with dolphins and studying Maya ruins. Regarding the dolphins, the sabotage came in the form of a woman who has annually swum with dolphins herself, but she informed me that I had to distinguish between swimming with wild dolphins in the sea versus dolphins held in captivity. To hear her talk about it, only the free dolphins were worthwhile and to interact with dolphins held captive in a water park for tourists was tantamount to supporting a slave trade (because she and I both believe that dolphins are like �people� of the oceans). Her argument was convincing and since I discovered that all the dolphin interactions offered in the various ports the ship would visit were dolphins in captivity, I did not go swim with any of them, a decision I now regret (although I will say that all of those dolphin encounter excursions were, to my estimation, outrageously expensive and I do not regret not spending the money). My not going to a water park had no positive effect on freeing Willy (or, in this case, Flipper), and I missed out on an opportunity that might have been both positive for me and for the dolphin despite its being held a prisoner in a Cozumel or Cancun water park. The sabotage of the pyramids came from a man who convinced me to not visit Tulum (something I�ve long wanted to see) due to its being �crappy� in comparison to Chichen Itza, and when I investigated it, I discovered that Tulum really wasn�t fully Maya at all, but more Toltec in influence, so I decided to skip it. Unfortunately, it proved impossible to visit Chichen Itza on this cruise, as the ship wasn�t going to be in port long enough for a bus excursion out to Chichen Itza, and flying there in a small plane was prohibitively expensive. So as it was, I didn�t see any pyramid in Yucatan (although I did see one in Belize) and, in retrospect, it wouldn�t have mattered to me whether Tulum was Maya or even Hottentot, the beauty of the site alone would have made the trip worthwhile. Not listening to people but following your own heart is usually the better course. It was fascinating for me to observe another man who is a close friend of mine constantly attempt to control this trip with all his advice based on having once �been in the travel business.� When I spoke about shipboard discos, he�s pooh-pooh that and all other late-night activity and recommend lying on a deck chair at night to watch the brilliant stars. The trouble was, when I was on the ship�s sundeck at night, the various lights of the ship illuminated the sky so I could see no stars at all, so he didn�t know what he was talking about. When I talked about my being okay with my traveling alone and not necessarily having any expectations of meeting someone, he�d rave about sexual orgies he�d have with the crew: �Get yourself down to the crew decks like I did, that�s what you�ve got to do.� I knew I wouldn�t be doing that (not unless I were thirty years younger), but anyway, after actually being on the ship I could see that even finding the entrances to the off-limits crew quarters was all but impossible, and besides, this crew was so professional and seemed to appreciate their jobs so much that I couldn�t imagine what would induce them to risk all over a possible sexual fraternization with a passenger. So the idea of it was just more bullshit. And when I got home, instead of being pleased over how MUCH I had enjoyed this cruise, he wanted me to understand that I had gone on what he considered a beginner�s cruise on an inferior ship with a plebian cruise line, but now that I�ve gotten my feet wet, next time he�s gonna get me sailing on a real cruise. (Okay, if he pays for it! But as he�s been unemployed for a year and a half, I doubt that�s gonna happen!) For my air/sea package, NCL booked me on a Continental flight from L.A. to the Houston International Airport named the George Bush airport. I was pleased to find out that the �George Bush� the airport is named for is the father, not the son, so that�s better. I hadn�t flown Continental since 1988, yet their reservations computer gave me 1,379 miles (times 2) on my frequent flyer One Pass account. I was impressed by that! (I�ve since checked my balance from before, which is still current, and I have close to enough for a free airline ticket.) I asked to change my automatically assigned window seat to an aisle seat and they placed me in the exit row, which is now my secret friend�it�s like sitting in a limousine, the leg room is so great. I didn�t even have to get up out of my seat in order for the people sitting next to me to go the bathroom! Since I was on my way to a cruise, occasionally my thoughts would be on my grandmother. Whenever she came back from any trip, there�d be a party of black people waiting for her at the airport: three servants (one of whom chauffeured her car) and their respective spouses and relatives. It was great, exciting fun for them, as my grandmother said, because none of them would ever have the opportunity to fly in an airplane, so seeing planes take off and land from the ground was the next best thing. My how times have changed, thankfully. And yet, almost in the spirit of those never-to-be-flyers who would greet my grandmother, sitting next to me on this plane were a black woman and her elderly father. The father was all excited because this was the first time he had ever been on a plane. I told him that I hoped he�d enjoy it, which he did�he mostly enjoyed there being a movie on board. I noticed that he innocently held onto his boarding pass stub the whole time, much in the way I kept checking every five minutes to see that I had all my cruise ship travel documents. Houston was beautiful from the air�I had no idea it was that green and forested. I had always just thought of it as a downtown and then oil refineries, not deep piney woods. I had been to Houston only once before, in 1970, and hardly even then, because all I did was drive through on a freeway, at night, on a trip across country. Well, this time was hardly much better, as all I did was arrive at the airport and then was whisked away to the Port of Houston on a Greyhound bus. I will say it was very exciting to be greeted at the baggage claim by guys holding yellow and blue �NCL� signs�those were the ones who would take us to the bus that would transport us down to the ship. But I loved it, I loved its heat and humidity and sweet, exciting fragrance of mildew, mold, and rotting vegetable matter (a statement that makes everybody laugh because they know I�m serious!), just as I loved it in Miami last year and I have loved it all my life from having lived my formative years in the south. It feels like I am reconnecting with my roots and my sense of touch, which otherwise feels blind in a dry climate, joyfully soaks up the sensory input. Of course, I like it when I am on vacation; I can�t see how I�d like it if I had to put on a suit and tie and go to work. I am honest when I admit I love to sit out on a porch during a hot, sticky summer evening, but only so long as I can soon escape back into an air conditioned room or jump into a swimming pool or slip into the embrace of the warm, sweet ocean. That�s my idea of a summer vacation�basking in the humidity like the locals, and then quickly escape from it when it gets to be too much. I just DRIP (or, more likely, POUR), and it just smells and feels so right. The bus ride to the port was fun for me, a guy whose eyes love to catch all the little southernisms, such as seeing the Waffle Houses or the steel warehouses or the car lots with all the grass everywhere. Houston had an additional sight, oil refineries, and I mean, oil refineries! Well, our civilization does run on oil, like it or not (it�s either that or strip naked and go run out to live with the aborigines) and I do love to see the signs of industrialism and commerce, and the Port of Houston was a good example of that. I also enjoyed the music the bus driver played on the way down there (much better than the country and western music played by the driver who brought us back at the end of the trip), 70s rhythm and blues and 80s �urban contemporary� music. Why all that beauty gave way to the ugly noise of hip-hop, I�ll never understand. Apparently the Port of Houston was mostly for oil tankers and container ships�the dock for the cruise ship was an after thought and simply getting there required of the bus driver an intimate knowledge of a maze of country back roads and the occasional small, roughly stenciled sign. But he did get us there and it was a thrill when the bus turned a corner and we all suddenly got our first view of our marvelous ship. It looked huge, wondrous, and beautiful sitting there with graceful lines and long pointed bow, sharp like the tip of a fountain pen. As we arrived we were met by a dusky crew of sweating, dripping porters who grabbed our bags out from underneath the bus and made sure our suitcases were tagged with our deck and stateroom numbers, as the bags would be delivered to our staterooms for us. The interior of the terminal building was decorated in accordance with the theme of the cruise, porpoises and pi�atas, and the NCL employees wore sheriff-star emblazoned cowboy hats and cowboy vests over comfortable Caribbean shirts�this was their �Texaribbean� cruise after all. Fortunately there wasn�t much of a crowd in that building beribboned with people-control mazes. The bulk of the crowd had arrived hours before, as the ship had been in the process of being boarded ever since 11:00 that afternoon, and we were now there at 3:30�indeed, the last batch to make it on in time for a planned 4:00 embarkation. I presented by ticket book, passport, and credit card, and the woman took my picture which was electronically encoded on the magnetic strip on the back of my newly-made credit keycard which would open the door of my stateroom, serve as the card for charging drinks and on-board purchases, and would be my ticket on and off the ship. I then made my way behind the line of people walking up the long covered gangplank that circled around and up to the fourth deck entryway. All of us were by now soaking wet from the heat and humidity and were looking forward to the cool air-conditioned interior of the inviting ship. But then a surprising rumor made its way down the line�the ship had had a power failure and currently there was no air conditioning running, nor much of anything except auxiliary generators that powered some essential lights and ensured that the refrigerators and freezers and iced makers kept working so that none of the food would be spoiled. To my great credit, I was so high from my prepared �great attitude� that this news did not faze me, nor did anything ever upset me. Whatever happened on this trip, which virtually all of was good anyway, nothing was going to dim my great enjoyment of this cruise. And even though I had expected a glorious entrance into the ship�s central Crystal Court instead of stepping into a nearly dark room, it was all just part of the adventure. I passed through security (yeah, on the ship, just like at the airport) and my swiped keycard introduced me to the official at the entrance and I was in! I first went to my stateroom, just down the hall, and gave it a quick look-around. I loved it. It was kind of funny�one of the books on cruising that I read warned that you should never let the ship leave the port until you have ensured that all your cabin lights worked, the hot and cold faucets worked in both the bathroom basin and in the shower, the air conditioner worked, and the toilet flushed. Of course, due to the power failure, NONE of these things worked! So much for explicit warnings from those �in the know.� Interestingly, despite the power being out, my room was still cool. I think it was because the ship was so well insulated that each cabin retained much of the cool air that had been pumped into it earlier that day. There was an announcement over the P.A. that in fifteen minutes we were going to have a mandatory lifeboat drill and we were to look on the emergency cards posted in our cabin to learn where our lifeboat station was and when the alarm sounded, we were to grab a lifejacket and immediately head to that station. I was to be at lifeboat station number 11 on the starboard side of the ship (the same side as my cabin) on the Promenade deck, deck 6, two decks up. The alarm sounded and I joined the crowd headed upstairs. Lifeboat station 11 was the first station to the left as we went out the glass doors onto the Promenade deck. Some people complained bitterly about having to stand out in the hot sun and put on a heavy lifejacket to boot, but in my spirit of avoiding people with bad attitudes, I moved away from them and helped others figure out how to put on their lifejacket and then squeezed into formation and listened to the crew member call out an attendance roll call of cabin numbers. I was impressed by how large the lifeboats actually were. I forget how many people each one holds�200, maybe? After the drill, I returned my life jacket to my cabin, and saw that my suitcase had been delivered. I got out of my traveling clothes and put on some shorts and then went up to the pool deck to join the embarkation lunch barbecue that was in full swing. This cruise began in Texas, remember, so, uhm yes, barbecue! Throughout the whole cruise, during which there was a barbecue every evening, it was a constant battle for me to overcome the enticing smells of the barbecue in order to enjoy some of the other food locales! But this afternoon, no power failure was going to have any negative effect on charcoal�those ribs and chickens were sizzling just nicely. A waiter greeted me with a tray loaded with tall tropical drinks in pastel Caribbean-colored plastic souvenir glasses�purple, blue, pink, and green. �Welcome to the M/S Norwegian Sea,� he smiled. �Would you like to have a welcoming �Bahama Rama Mama,� only $5.95 for a souvenir glass!� I already knew that this kind of �drink merchandising� would be going on, but I admit to being like a human bower bird, strongly attracted to the pretty colors, so I handed him my keycard and selected a drink in a purple Norwegian Cruise Line logo glass. What can I say, the drink hit the spot! Was I here to party or was I here to count my pennies? Actually, I managed to do both! The tropical drink was good, the barbecue was good, and as I was now going to treat this whole ship like it was a party, anyone there who interested me was fair game for a greeting and conversation. I�ve hardly ever before been in such a thoroughly welcoming and friendly place�I think almost everyone had the exact same idea and very, very few were stand-offish and even with those, I�m guessing it was only because they weren�t comfortable with the English language. But with those who could speak English, I made friends fast and those friendships continued, and grew, throughout the whole cruise. With my plate loaded with food, I sat down next to a middle-aged couple and we hit it off right away. They were from Mississippi and the woman was an elementary school teacher, so we immediately had the school connection in common. It�s funny, those were just the first people out of 1,300 passengers on the ship that I happened to run into, but they also ended up being the last people I spent time with on my last night on the ship, too, simply by accident. I was doing one final walk around the top deck of the ship before going to bed, and they were up there romantically enjoying one last time the moonlight reflecting on the water, but when I walked by, they stopped me and we stayed up there together for over an hour. But anyone you made friends with, you kept running into them everywhere, in the restaurants, on deck, in the bars, in the entertainment lounges, in the store, on the excursions, and even walking down the sidewalk in a port city. You knew you�d probably never have any connection with them after the cruise, but during the cruise, the connection was very heavy and intense. Like living for a time in a temporary world of magic and wonder. The ship was supposed to leave the Port of Houston at 4:00, and one of the things I had been looking forward to was that trip down the Houston ship channel to Galveston and the Gulf of Mexico. They kept making announcements over the P.A. that the engineers were working very hard to get the situation fixed and the ship would be leaving as soon as the repairs were completed, after the engines had gotten restarted again, and all the generators were running at full capacity and so on. I got everybody laughing when I said that �Scotty must be frantically recharging the dilithium crystals,� which got another man doing a really good �Scotty� routine in a heavy Scottish accent, �Captain, Ah�m a workin� her as fast as Ah can!� It was great to joke about a situation that could have gotten everybody upset. Since I didn�t want to miss any of the ship channel once we got going, after I finished my lunch I went upstairs to the front left corner of the ship�s top deck, which I figured would be the best place on the ship to watch our embarkation. It ended up being a perfect, shaded, breezy place to escape the heat. There was already another middle-aged couple there reclining on deck chairs that they had taken from the only pile of chairs that wasn�t tied down. I asked if I could join them and they said �Definitely,� and showed me where I could get a deck chair for myself. We three became magnets that caught everybody who walked by, whom we told how to get a deck chair and then they would join us. Already the party had begun and the ship hadn�t even left port yet! And after a while, we began to wonder if the ship ever would leave port, because they kept making announcements that alternated between encouragement and discouragement (encouragingly presented). Apparently whatever work they were doing down there in the engine room wasn�t going as well as they hoped and they had made an attempt at getting the engines started, but the attempt failed. (A few days later, one of the ship�s comedians joked that he pictured the captain down there struggling with an outboard board motor rope, putputputputttt�.. putputputputtt��) I quickly got very thirsty again and thought now would be a good time to get myself an unlimited soft drink card ($24.00 for a sticker for your keycard that gave you all the soft drinks you could drink on the cruise). I asked my new-found friends to save my deck chair for me while I went down to the nearest drink station to get a Coke. Other than our ever-enlargening group upstairs on the Sun deck, it seemed that most of the action was down on the Pool deck where the barbecue was and people, mostly kids, were splashing around in the pool. Come to think of it, the pool would be a great place to keep cool, except it was salt water and after a while, one simply must have a fresh-water shower or else the skin starts to crawl and the showers weren�t working while the power was out. So what seemed like a good idea could have ultimately been a miserable one! Speaking of the pool, I had been somewhat worried about going on this (or any) cruise due to being overweight. Well, I didn�t let it bother or inhibit me too much (although I certainly didn�t spend any time wandering around with my shirt off)�however, many others very definitely did not have that problem and were, in fact, the kind that should not ever wear a shirt if they can help it. I had seen some like that arriving at the ship�s terminal, long, lean Texas cowboy-types wearing very sexy white cowboy hats that actually look quite hot on a very limited number of people, namely just about only citizens of Texas or Wyoming who look as good as these guys did. Guys like this carry that look well even if the only animal they ever wrangle is their computer mouse. I had been eager to see some of those Texas studs out by the pool and sure enough, there they were, a treat for my eager eyes as I waited with the crowd to obtain our soft drink stickers. Unfortunately, about half of them had defiled their muscular beauty with numerous tattoos, including a ridiculous tattooing of their own names in block letters that circled their navels and nearly obliterated the clear view of their well-toned abs. I just don�t get it, I just don�t get it, I just don�t get it. If they�re going to do stuff like that to their torso, they may as well look like me. As I stood there disgusted over the abundance of tattoos where there ought not to be any, a vision of pure, undefiled beauty came up behind me. Now this guy did not have his shirt off, but in pretentious disregard of ever having to hide an inch of his nakedness, he had casually draped the white, almost transparent linen loosely on his shoulders and had buttoned it in the front with just one button about two buttons down from the top in a coy, even more sexually revealing way as if he were a painter�s model artistically draped in preparation for a Botticelli portrait. While definitely male, his longish thick hair, smooth, soft, even-colored skin, and graceful demeanor made him almost feminine, the effect of which was to take a man in his twenties and make him seem younger and boyish, like a Death In Venice Tadzio, and I, in my self-conscious overweightness was thrown into feeling like an Aschenbach who desired to look and admire and be rejuvenated, but didn�t dare speak. I surreptitiously enjoyed for a moment the half a square foot of tanned chest he revealed in a wide triangle above the shirt button, and then quickly shook him out of my consciousness, obtained my sticker and Coke, and quickly made my way back up to my safer, non-nearly-jail-bait friends. The middle-aged couple I was sitting with (those who had first found this perfect spot on the deck) was from Texas and had simply driven to the port. The man was a military man who worked on an aircraft carrier and his wife was a nutritionist. People who know me and are reading this may wonder how it was that I put myself in such company for a cruise. They may think it was odd that I didn�t choose a gay cruise, for example, or one that shipped out of L.A., how was it that I chose one that required me to arrive at an airport called �George Bush�, and sail with people from a state whose Republican party platform wishes that a person like me would have absolutely no rights at all, that it would be perfectly legal for a pack of thugs to beat me to death with baseball bats and they would be charged with no crime because I don�t even have a moral right to exist as a human being? I chose the cruise for reasons that had nothing whatever to do with who else might or might not be on board with me. I can and do get along with anybody and this cruise was a great example of that. It was, in fact, a wonderful vacation to escape for a time from worries about politics or human rights or war in Iraq, to simply enjoy ship, sea, sun, and sand, and let people be whatever they are without judgment or revulsion. Interestingly, the only person on the entire cruise to even mention politics (and remember, the Democratic National Convention was going on while I was on this cruise) was a ship�s cook from Jamaica who came out of the kitchen for a time to watch a little bit of the convention that was on TV in the Big Apple Caf� where I was having a casual meal. He told me he was interested in American politics because the way America goes affects the whole world, but even he didn�t mention a leaning towards any particular candidate, just a fascination with the process in general. The military man from Texas I was reclining next to on deck was a truly nice guy and I liked him a whole lot. While he seemed gentle and even shared with me a concern over what would happen to his weight while on board�his wife, the nutritionist, had managed to get him to lose 40 pounds prior to this trip�his hobby, though, was a tough and somewhat macho one of shark fishing, at which he is a champion. I asked him how on earth one fishes for a shark, and the gist of it is that you use airplane cable in the last six feet (so the shark can�t bite through the line) and you use very bloody bits of fish as bait. What I thought was interesting was that he does this from shore, not from a boat which I would have expected, and for some reason he has to wade out into the surf with the bloody fish bait in order to get it placed properly. �That part is dangerous,� he says, �because a shark might already be there and the bait itself could drive him into a frenzy with me out there in the water.� And if that wasn�t dangerous enough in and of itself, he says that now he wants to start a catch and release program. �I normally would bring in the shark, kill it, and take it home and eat it, but sometimes I catch them when they are too young and I want to send them back out into the ocean so they can get a little bigger. In order to do that, you have to take them back out into the water, keep moving them forward, or else they will die.� �But they wouldn�t understand that you had just spared their life,� I observed, �They would only know that they had been hurt previously and they would still be mad and might turn on you the minute they are freed.� �That�s the danger of it,� he said soberly. A mother and daughter walked by and then stopped to join us, also from Texas (near Dallas), also military. The mother was a career Army woman and now her daughter had joined up. That�s why they were on the cruise, a kind of last hurrah before the daughter ships out to boot camp, which she happens to begin tomorrow even as I write this. (Today is Tuesday and she begins basic training on Wednesday, just four days after she got back from the cruise.) �I�d always wanted to be in the Army,� she said, �and I want to be a nurse. I figure the Army can train me to be a nurse, which is something I wouldn�t be able to afford to do on my own, and meanwhile, I can do something for my country.� �Well, the country needs people like you,� I said. �And even though I�ll probably be sent to Iraq,� she continued, �I�m not afraid to die. I mean, you can die anywhere, any time. Why, just as we were driving down here this morning, we saw a huge big ol� accident on the freeway. It can happen at any time. I�d rather die fighting for my country than die just driving on the freeway.� I have to admit, she has a point. She�s got an ambition and a plan to carry it out�people like that don�t waste a lot of time worrying over hypotheticals, they simply go ahead and do it and I think that attitude serves as a good example. Anyway, I liked them both and they liked me. More and more people kept coming by and joining us. One man stopped, looked over the deck railing at the container cranes and said, �It�s getting near seven o�clock and we�re still here in the Port of Houston--isn�t anybody getting upset?� I stretched, smiled, and said, �I�m lyin� here on a deck chair on a ship with a drink in my hand and this is where I�d be whether we�re moving or not, what have I got to complain about?� Everybody else laughed and agreed with me. I felt so lazy I could hardly contemplate moving. The shark-catching military man started talking about his son who was also on the cruise with them. �I think he�s a little upset over the power failure,� the man said. �He thinks we ought to get a rebate on our cruise fare for this day, which he thinks was wasted, we didn�t get our money�s worth. We brought him and his best friend along on this cruise because it�s our final time together. He�s starting music school in a few weeks�he�s going to the Berkeley School of Music, he�s a wonderful singer with a beautiful voice.� �Oh yeah, I know that school,� I said. �I went to U.C. Berkeley, so I was in the same town and knew that it was a good music school.� �Of course, I wish he�d be a salesman, he could sell anybody anything, but I�ve got to admit, he�s got singing talent.� It seems that there were lots of people celebrating their final time before their kids left for college, the Army, or whatever. I said, �What�s your son doing right now?� �Last I saw, he was down by the pool, trying to keep cool.� �Well, maybe he got your money�s worth that way, in the pool, I mean. The power failure didn�t affect that.� �No, it sure didn�t,� responded the man. �We�re lucky, because he can sure raise a stink when he wants to.� �Well, I just hope he doesn�t want to,� is what I said. A little while later, who should come to join us but the son and his friend, and guess who the son was, but the Tadzio with the draped linen shirt! And he was pissed, which helped to make him a little less mysteriously beautiful. He was still talking about wanting NCL to return 1/8th of the cruise fare. �That�s how much they didn�t deliver,� he said. �I just hope they don�t cancel the whole cruise,� I said, trying not to stare at the boy too much. �Nah, they won�t do that,� said the military man. A little while later, some of the people standing by the railing began to cheer. I looked at one of them quizzically and asked, �What happened?� I sure didn�t feel or hear anything. �Smokestack,� said the man, and pointed. I stood up from my deck chair and saw huge clouds of foul black smoke pouring out of the smokestack. �They�ve got the engine started,� he explained. �It looks like that?� I said, thinking that one smokestack was putting out more pollution than the whole City of Los Angeles generates in a day. �Not once we get going,� explained the nutritionist. Then they made the announcement that they had finally successfully gotten the engine started and within the hour we would be under way. They couldn�t leave immediately, because the engines had to have a head of cooling generated first, or something like that. Anyway, it was clear to me that it would be dark by the time we left port, so I wouldn�t be able to watch the voyage down the Houston shipping channel. Besides, I was getting hungry again, so decided to leave the group that was on the Sun deck and check out my cabin to see if the things there were working yet. If so, I needed to change my clothes to long pants so that I could go the main dining room for dinner. The dress code disallowed shorts, jeans, and t-shirts in the Seven Seas and in the Four Seasons dining rooms. Everything was now working in my room, so I took a shower and then got dressed for dinner. I decided to eat in the big room, the Seven Seas, which is a large marble and mirror decorated circular-shaped room at the rear of the ship with large picture windows overlooking the ocean on three sides. I told the maitre d� that I wanted to sit at a table where the people wanted to share, so I was sat at a table that had a couple slightly older than middle aged. They were from Kansas. I talked with them as if I had known them all my life and we had a good time at dinner. The menu choices were thrilling, but I was a little insecure over the idea that I could have as much of anything I wanted from any, or all, categories (I soon enough learned, though!). I modestly ordered soup, an entr�e, and vegetables, whereas my fellow diners had an appetizer, a salad, soup, an entr�e, and vegetables. The food itself was excellent. Meanwhile, the ship had gotten started and was now running at full speed�the dining room was buzzing and vibrating quite loudly and we all figured it was because the captain was trying to make up for lost time, as we had left port five hours late. It ended up that that was true, the ship was traveling at top speed to catch up and once we arrived in Cozumel (not the next day, but the day after that), we had no more vibrating dining room. The meal was delicious, but best of all was the waiter, named �Junior�, who was from Jamaica and he talked with that kind of singing lilt that we all three enjoyed. He was also as funny as a comedian, pretending to abuse us while actually providing extremely good service. A silly example: under desserts, I saw that they had various cakes and pies and things, but they also had various flavors of ice cream. I wasn�t secure yet with the idea that you could have anything you wanted, they are there to serve, but I don�t like a cake-type dessert without ice cream, so I gingerly asked Junior if it were alright if I could have the cake, and then could I also have the ice cream? I was, basically, asking for two desserts. Of course, Junior, who must have by now waited on at least ten thousand cruise passengers, fully understood my unsureness, that is to say, my not cannonballing right into the spirit of cruise dining but was, instead, dipping in my big toe, so he stopped and looked at me like I was truly asking for the moon, and repeated, �You want the cake,� and then with heavy emphasis, �and you also want the ice cream, am I right�� �Yes, yes, if I may�.� �And what flavor, may I ask�.� (as if all my asking was just too much) �Vanilla, please.� Junior hesitated, acted like he was thinking for a moment, and then assented, �Yes, I can do that.� I breathed a sigh of relief. And then when he brought the dessert, first he laid down the cake, �Here, sir, is your cake�� and then he circled around the table and then came back to my place and put down the bowl of ice cream, �and the ice cream that you had to have�� and then he circled around the table once again and came back to my place and stood there for a moment and then said, �perhaps you might also like a spoon,� which he produced from where we had hidden it behind himself and placed it down next to my plate with a flourish, �because I notice that you are asking for everything,� he said with an exaggerated sigh. My dining companions were nearly busting out laughing and finally I got it�Junior was teasing me with the lesson of �you can have every single thing on this menu ten times over if you want and I will do nothing but bring it to you and then after you finish eating here, you can go over to the Four Seasons or up to the Big Apple Caf� or wherever else you want and do the whole thing all over again, it�s all here for you to enjoy however and whatever you like.� I did that every meal, by the way, order a dessert and also ice cream. That�s how I like it, so that�s how I did it. I also learned to have a cappuccino after the ice cream. All these are things that in real life cost extra and extra and extra, so I don�t have them, but on a cruise ship, they are there for the taking. After my delicious dinner, I made the decision to skip the entertainment in the show lounge that night and explore the ship, instead, which I wanted to do more. Ultimately, I ended up on the top deck with hopes of seeing a blackened sky filled with a myriad bright stars, but as I wrote earlier, that suggestion was an illusion, the brightness of the ship�s lights made it impossible to see any stars at all. Besides, workers from the crew had stacked and tied down all the deck chairs, so instead I simply went back down to my stateroom, where I saw that the cabin steward had configured the beds, turned down the crisp white sheets, dimmed the lights, and left a chocolate on each stack of the two stacks of pillows. I really was truly tired after a very long and eventful day and decided to go to bed. I wanted to wake up early tomorrow so that I could enjoy a full day of the ship at sea. I moved one of the beds over against the other one, climbed in, turned out the lights and went right to sleep. END OF DAY ONE.�
 |
 |
�
