Julie MacCoy

It was 1976, and I was young and single.  I read an article in Glamour about Singleworld cruises, and I was intrigued.  Plus I had already read The Love Boats by Jeraldine Saunders.  So I booked a seven-night cruise out of New York City (I lived in New Jersey) to Nassau and Bermuda. I was hooked!  Unfortunately, Singleworld went out of business a few months after I took what wound up being my final cruise with them sometime in the 1990s.  Since then, I've cruised either with a friend or solo, but when I've cruised solo without Singleworld, it just wasn't the same.

I was 25 when I took my first solo cruise.  I was 68 when I took my most recent solo cruise.

Oh my goodness, this is so awful!  I was on the May 26 cruise of the Summit in an odd-numbered cabin on the 9th deck between the midship elevators and the forward elevators, and I wonder if that cabin was one of those that were flooded.  I know that I would have been extremely upset if the flooding had occurred while I was on the ship, especially very soon after the ship was revolutionized, and I feel so bad for the people whose cabins got flooded.  I certainly hope that Celebrity does right by them.

The article said, "Two cruise ship passengers from Freedom of the Seas just missed the ship by moments on Monday in Philipsburg, St. Maarten. The Royal Caribbean ship was just moving away from the pier as the two of them looked annoyed with themselves."

Since the all-aboard time tends to be a half hour before the ship actually sets sail,  I don't think that it's accurate to say that the passengers missed the ship by moments.

It's a tie although I'd probably give the first two the win on volume!

Since you started your answer with the words "it's a tie," I guess that means that if the person eating apologized for sitting in a seat that was reserved and got up and walked around and around, looking for somewhere else to sit, and he/she finally found an empty seat and sat down, only to be told again that his/her seat was being saved for a friend, he/she would have to get up again and look for another empty seat, and upon finding one, sat down, only to be told again that the seat was being saved for a friend,  and finally said, "I don't care - I'm sitting here," you would think that he/she was being rude, although not as rude as the seat-savers.  So what should that person do to avoid being rude?  Keep walking around and around (carrying his/her food)?  How many times would that person have to be shooed away from an empty seat to have the right to say, "I don't care - I'm sitting here" without being rude?

4 minutes ago, GUT2407 said:

Whilst I was bought up that men don’t wear hats indoors: if that’s the rudest thing you have seen you have been pretty lucky.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Who is the rude one in the following situation?  Someone gets food from the buffet, walks around to find a table, and then sits down at an empty table for eight people at which two seats have stuff on them, so that there are now five empty seats, and starts to eat.  Then two people approach and ask that person to leave, saying that all six empty seats are being saved for friends, despite there being nothing on those six seats.  The person who is eating refuses to move.  The buffet is extremely crowded at the time. and the person who is eating doesn't see any empty seats anywhere (other than those at their table).  So who is rude - the person who sat down in an empty seat that was one of six empty seats at a table, or the two people who insisted that the six empty seats were being saved?

I really like the two NCL address books that I won.  That's how I keep track of my usernames and passwords.  I also like my NCL mug.  It's the perfect size.

I believe that if you took a closed-loop Alaskan cruise from Seattle, your niece might not need a passport.  However, there would be some shore excursions that she wouldn't be allowed to take, as they require a passport.  But make sure that the custody agreement does not say that both of your niece's parents have to provide written consent for her to take the cruise.  From what you wrote, it appears that your sister will not be going on the cruise with you and your parents and your niece.

Just make sure that she knows where her passport is (or her birth certificate and marriage license).

As I said, I enjoyed all of the production shows, especially Broadway Cabaret.  You won't be disappointed.  

The Charlie Brown and Snoopy show CBS 1983 to 1985

The Charlie Brown and Snoopy show was called "The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show," not "Charlie Brown."  Since I would not say that there was a TV show called "Mork" or "Will" or "Ned" or "Shirley," I would not say that there was a TV show called "Charlie Brown."

Regarding the salary for an NFL cheerleader, I didn't know that the amount of money they get can even be called a salary.  AFAIK they get a small amount of money for practice sessions and performances at the games.  They can earn more money by making personal appearances, but those are governed by their teams, and all of the teams don't provide the same number of opportunities for them to make personal appearances.  Whatever number was written down was phony-baloney.

I just returned from the May 26 sailing of the Celebrity Summit, and the incorrect answers to trivia questions keep on coming.

I learned that there was a movie called "James Bond."  I have never heard of this movie, and neither has wikipedia, but Bennie, the trivia hostess, insisted that there was such a movie.

Bennie also insisted that there was a TV series called "Charlie Brown."

Bennie also insisted that Madonna, who was born on August 16, 1958, is 59 years old.  If anyone guessed 60 years old, they were told that they were incorrect.

I just got off the Summit.  I saw Life and Soundtrack, but instead of Chandelier, they had Broadway Cabaret.  I enjoyed all of them.

No, the worst that could happen is that you wouldn't be permitted to board the ship.  If you wanted to cruise to Canada, they wouldn't let you board the ship, even if you promised to stay on the ship.  However, I agree with Essiesmom that Mexico doesn't seem to care.

Commodore

I actually remember their line.

I do, too.  I once cruised on the Queen of Bermuda of Bermuda Star Lines, which was merged into Commodore, or taken over by Commodore, or something.  Even if they were still around, I wouldn't sail with them again for anything.  They were cheap.  I had the second sitting, and at dinner, I was always told that they were out of what I wanted to order.  I would make another choice, but they were always out of that, too.  So I would ask, "What DO you have?" and I always found something that I liked.  I figured that people at the first sitting had eaten every single portion of the dishes that appealed to me.  I eventually found out that they were offering completely different dishes than those on the menus, but they were too cheap to print up new menus.  So the waiters were instructed to pass out the old menus and then say that they were all out of whatever was ordered.  

I was on the Silhouette in 2011 and on the Summit in 2012, 2013, and 2015, and I never saw Chandelier.  Maybe I should sit in the last row in case I want to make a speedy exit.

Yes, I would definitely go to the piano bar!

Does the Summit still have a piano bar?

Thank you very much for posting this.

I wonder - do teams "train" before the cruise?  Do teams write down all the questions to compile a master list to study before cruises?   Some seem so serious about the game.  

Whenever I've played trivia, the other people on my team were strangers that I had just met, so there was no training ahead of time.  I always preferred it when we played on our own, not as teams, but that hardly ever happened.  Even though it never occurred to me to train, I guess you could say that I took it seriously, because one time, I got annoyed when I saw that the woman who insisted on filling out our answer sheet for our team wrote the answers on the wrong lines.  And she got annoyed at me when I insisted on correcting it.

What's the big deal about what high school Jerry Seinfeld attended?  Even if Google doesn't know, wikipedia knows.  You can look it up.  BTW I have never heard a question about anyone's high school alma mater being asked at a trivia session, so who cares if someone knows every single high school every single celebrity attended?  Not me.

You complained to the cruise director about being cheated in a trivia game.  Seems like a bit of an over response to me.

No, that's not an over response.  Complaining to the captain - that would be an over response.

The complaint was also that they did not have the common sense to recognize an answer was correct if it was not listed in their book. Really is it so hard to recognize both colts and broncos as "horsey"?

That reminds me of the trivia host who claimed that I was incorrect when I said that the femur is in the thigh, because he claimed that it was in the leg.

"Which country produces the most pineapple?"  We didn't know the answer and argued...guessed it could be Brazil or Mexico...we went with Brazil.  We were wrong.

The trivia host gave the answer: "Hawaii!"  (Huh?)

A few of us yelled and said "Hawaii is not a country!".....she just kept going

That's what I'm talking about!  I doubt if it's written in a book somewhere that Hawaii is a country.

I was just saying that they had a book, might have actually been a binder of printed pages, that they pulled the questions and answers from.

I'm sure you'll agree that there's a big difference between a book and a binder of printed pages.

There may have been some challenges, with the host confirming the challenge and correcting the book.

The poster who said that a trivia host insisted that Donny Osmond was the popular male singer who dangled his child over a balcony said that the host refused to listen to anyone who disagreed with him.  The poster actually said that he wrote to the cruiseline afterwards in protest of the incorrect answer being given out (probably on every single cruise). 

there were people gaming the system (one giant group as a team, for example). Obviously a team of eight people will possess more trivial knowledge than a team of two people.

I've heard of a maximum of six people being allowed to be on a team.  But if you're part of a smaller team and can't find anyone else to join you, them's the breaks.  However, I was annoyed when a few times, it was announced no teams, everyone would take the quiz on their own, only to have a married couple win.  When people protested that the couple was a team of two,  the trivia host said that she was a big fan of marriage, and she wasn't going to penalize them for breaking the rules because they were married. 

Because cruise directors like to hear themselves talk, not other people.

This particular trivia host was not the cruise director.  In fact, he was a DJ who regularly filled in for the activities people.

You didn't say if the questions from the book had crazy answers or factual answers.  So I still don't know who is responsible for crazy answers, and I still don't know why the trivia hosts are so opposed to hearing that the answers they supply are incorrect.  

I mentioned having "learned" that Benjamin Franklin was President of the United States.  The question we were asked was "Which president of the United States is on the $100 bill?"  We were told that the answer was Benjamin Franklin, and upon hearing a chorus of "he was not a president," the trivia host got very angry.  When I told him that in the future, he should just ask "Who is on the $100 bill?", for some reason, that just made him angrier.  I don't know why.

I used to enjoy playing trivia on cruiseships, but I stopped enjoying it when, instead of being "Guess what the correct answer is," it became "Guess what the trivia host thinks the correct answer is."

Did you know that Benjamin Franklin was President of the United States?  I did not know this, but a trivia host insisted that he was.

Did you know that Magellan was the first man to sail around the world?  I did not know this (and wikipedia doesn't know either, since it claims that he died in April of 1521, and some of his men finished the voyage in 1522), but the trivia host insisted that he was.

Do you think that the femur is in the thigh?  Well, that's what I thought, but a trivia host insisted that I was wrong.

Trivia hosts have given incorrect answers to questions about TV shows, when all they had to do was check out what wikipedia said, and they would have known the correct answers.

I once read a post here in which someone said that at trivia, they had to name the popular male singer who dangled his baby over a balcony.  The trivia host insisted that the correct answer was Donny Osmond, and he refused to listen to the people who said that he was wrong.

At one trivia contest, we were asked to name the insect with long legs that can walk on water.  The trivia host said that the answer was the antelope, but she said that she didn't believe it, and she said that we should count as correct any answer we had written down.

I don't know who comes up with crazy answers to questions (and kudos to the trivia host who didn't believe that the antelope is an insect), but I decided I don't like playing the game "Guess what the trivia host thinks the correct answer is."  And the trivia hosts who announce that the incorrect answers provided to them are a bunch of nonsense are few and far between.

Oh, I didn't realize that.  I thought that everyone had to fill them out.  Thank you for the information.

There's an eleven-night cruise on the Norwegian Dawn sailing from New York on August 31 to Canada and New England.