The Cruise Day 2: Bon Voyage

Royal Caribbean is a fine cruise line, not that I have any idea what I am talking about. I have never sailed on another line and the last time I was on this one was 17 years ago. They tell you not to arrive before 1:30 but we woke up bored and tired and after running to Marshalls to get some golf shirts for Pat (who seemed to pack not realizing he might need shirts...WITH COLLARS!)we left the downtown Courtyard Marriott and headed over. The cruise lines all leave from one big terminal in Miami and it is something to see several boats all tied up there in the water. i was relieved in my way of overcompensating that our boat, "The Liberty of The Seas" was the biggest. my children informed me that it currently is the 3rd largest cdruise ship around. My children are of course my children which makes them hopeless liars and over dramatizers of the "facts" in our life. I could get on Wikipedia and check their facts but lets say it was a big ass boat and leave it at that.

Arriving at the terminal we got to wait in our first line for security and then to get the passes which would allow us to charge things while on the boat. You might find it curious to charge things on the boat. Isn't everything paid for? Well, that is how they get you. Your food and lodging is all paid for but... you want a soda, you pay for it. Any kind of alcohol...pay for it. A can of Pringles..."cha ching!". Merchandise of all kinds, extra amenities and shore excursions, a massage, a shave with a straight razor, a picture of the family, an upgrade on your wine, a lost towel, pictures which are constantly being snapped by their on board phtogs... it goes on and on and you get the picture. So you wait in line and you get your card. For four of us our card was pristine. Pat's card had one punch because he was only 20 and poor Laura at 17 had the dreaded two hole punched card. Pat could gamble, but not drink. laura could do neither. Oh the humanity.

We finally got through the check in and got to our rooms. The kids were on the interior but Sandy had bucked up for a room with balcony on it for us and it was delightful. Other then the bathroom it was as large a room as a typical Holiday Inn. Very comfortable with all the amenities including mini-bar (Cha CHING again). We set off to explore the boat walking around the upper decks and seeing the pools, hot tubs, running track, health center and "Flow Rider". The Flow Rider was a 20 foot padded slope with water shooting up it allowing you to boogy board or surf if you could get the hang of it. My wife quickly discerned that we could rent exclusive use of it some time for an hour (CHA CHING and a half) and so we reserved some time for later in the week. Wednesday.

We got some lunch at the Windjammer Buffet and I found it very...food like. My kids all got hot dogs and pronounced them great and the fries...greater. I thought the food was exactly as expected, a high quantity of average food with a reasonable amount of diversity. The iced tea was instant. The pizza had that troubling too much humidity texture. Everything was buffet and at the entrance their were 4 hand santizers and everyone was admonished to use them. I am NOT a germaphobe and think this a creepy habit we have gotten our civilization into but my wife explained how paranoid ships had become about germs AND that in a buffet we all used the same serving utensils. This provided some amusement as you watch the people get the alcoholic stuff on their hands and then rub them and wave them (waving is the key) to make the stuff go away. It was a weird little dance.

I then sat in the room on my balcony and waited for us to pull out. I love the ocean and being on the 10th floor of a floating sky scraper is very, VERY cool for me. As you pull out of the Port of Miami you pass their container storage and it is kind of...wow. A lot of stuff comes in here... and goes out. You also cruise by Key Biscayne and a few other private islands. I do not live on a private island...yet. Unfortunatley next to us, divided only by a plastic divider was a crew cutted, big gunned, heavy tatted 30 something and his two kids. I am sure there was a wife in there somewhere but I never heard from her. Men who look like this... for some reason...bother me. They look like they have so much to prove. This guy looked like the asshole older brother Chet in "Weird Science" and he had a camera with one of those 10k bazooka lenses and was taking pictures and ignoring his children who were screaming constantly...DADDY...DADDY...look at this!...or THAT!...in loud..surprisingly childlike voices. If that was not annoying enough for this old man he also had an iPod player and rather then burden himself with head phones he blared bad music from the 80's and 90's. Lots of bad metal but then even more annoyingly he had the complete Sheryll Crow collection on the mix. I had to go in and close the door... sobbing quietly to myself.

We hit dinner in the main dining room. Oddly enough the captain had not seen fit to invite us to his table (an oversight I am certain). We had two waiters, one from India and one from Turkey. It was here where I started to notice that none of the cruise employees are American. They were hard to understand foreigners of all stripes. Still they were nioce although the Turk had a VERY irregularly shaped head. The food is always good on cruises but never great. It is like going to pretty good wedding reception every night. We had ordered a "wine package" which meant I got to chose from a wine list of about 20 wines every night and that was a nice upgrade. At the end of dinner we were introduced to Dexter, the shot guy. They sell a specialty shot every evening (cha ching) in a special shot glass, you get to keep. A different color every night. BRILLIANT CHA CHING!

We sent the kids on their way and Sandy and I had a night cap at "Olive Or Twists". They had a nice little combo and lounge singer. We went to bed. The ship had pulled out and the Florida Keys had trailed into the sunset before darkness gobbled the sky on our first day at sea.