CARIBBEAN CRUISE
Days 67-73
The boat was lovely. Massive, 18 floors for the guests, 60% full with 3,500 passengers. Our cabin was great, nice and roomy and picked by 'Hotels Henslow' for its extra big balcony. Seven days on this cruise visiting the Dominican Republic, St Thomas in the American Virgin Islands, Tortola in the British version, Great Stirrup Key in the Bahamas and back home to Miami.
Now a full blown cruise was not really in the original budget but hey! We paid a very reasonable 'come-back-to-cruising' rate of £850 each for a fully inclusive deal with unlimited free booze plus unlimited free food and two free visits to the 'speciality restaurants' on board. Now as a basic brace of beers and a bog standard burger in a bar on the American mainland was coming out at about £25 (including the ubiquitous 20% tip) then being served my five (or six) square meals a day (the food was EXCELLENT and I ate like an American!!!) at least 10 large wines, plus entertainment, not to mention the nice cabin and balcony, I thought paying bit over a hundred quid a day was bloody good value.
The aforementioned entertainment included the usual list of on-board attractions such as a full Virtual Reality games suite, beer tastings, go-karts, laser quest, a Cavern Club with the actual Beatles (I had been caning it you realise, they certainly looked and sounded real), a decent pub and lots more. On this cruise that 'lots more' included two West End shows, 'The Choir of Man' and 'Kinky Boots'. both excellent and performed by 100% British and Irish actors. After goodness knows how many weeks hearing the more rather high pitched nasal tones of our American cousins it was delightful to hear the Irish brogue and the soft regional accents of the motherland. Except the scousers, obviously.
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We settled into a relaxing routine of me eating a massive full English, pausing a couple of hours, then getting stuck into lunch, before taking a short break until afternoon tea, you get the picture. I was even able to walk into the pub and over the heads of the patiently queuing punters and to the manner born, acknowledge the head barmen asking me "your usual Brian?". I've been going to my local pub for 20 years and they still don't do that. Mind you by day four I had chubbed up some much I was walking into the pub sideways to get through the door and so he probably felt sorry for me, or was worried I might fall on someone.
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We did just miss a big drama by one day. An alternative cruise that popped up on Sara’s planning left the day before ours and on their second day their leviathan ran aground! Easing out of the first port it lodged on a sandbank. Was stuck for 24 hours, sustained damage, 4,000 passengers to offload, fly back the USA, repatriate, compensate with a full refund and a whole extract cruise for free……… I think that is one Captain who will painting the hull white from now on. At a rough calculation that little error cost £30,000,000.
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One thing that the cruise did remind me of was THAT I HATE THE SEA! I don't see the point of it. What is there to like? It has three states. State One is flat calm, useless, no wind, just a big blue 360 degree view (and I complained Florida was flat). State Two is choppy, no problem, a bit of wind to blow on your sails, still no flipping view, still no pubs, still no people. State Three is trying to kill you, storms, massive waves, a view restricted to the next ten story wall of water coming your way. I really don't get the attraction it has for some folk. Lucky I that joined the Army and missed being shanghaied into the Navy is all I can say. That and the fact I am allergic to rum, bum and baccy, mostly the bum to be honest. I don't mind rum and I smoked 30 Rothmans a day until I was 30.
I'd love my sailing friends to enlighten me on the attraction of miles and miles of briny - but I think most landlubbers would agree which of the above images indicates potential enjoyment and which contains pain..
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And on the subject of pain, Sara and I competed for ages on the state of the art VR (Virtual Reality) machines on board and it pains me to say that we were pretty equal on driving but Sara walked out on the beam a 1,000 feet above New York, rescued a kitten, and brought it safely home to the lift down. I fell off the beam. My kitten died.
But, as always, all good things come to an end. Like a condemned man I enjoyed my last (free) meal of a pound of crispy bacon, two eggs, a mound of hot buttered toast, cereal, berries, coffee, orange juice plus a few bits and bobs I forget, until Sara came to drag me away to our final Covid test (good old Boris dropping the bloody things just in time for us to return home with our nasal cavities un-probed), and our penultimate airport and queue for security as we flew to Nassau in the Bahamas for the final leg of our trip.