Carinval Glory - NYC to New England... A Memoir

[ShakyBeef]

Delta and Shaky,

 

Ok.. here I am on a Saturday afternoon. I told my own DH that we needed to go to Kohl's over an hour ago.

He is watching the British Open on TV, although I can hear nothing but his loud snores every 30 seconds or so.

 

And.. I find myself engrossed in your review/memoir/diary/lovefestforallthings... truly enjoyable!

 

I wanted to make time this weekend to sit out on my deck and read a novel, but this is an awesome alternative!

 

We did this same cruise last year, and we have 31 days until our next. You are reliving one cruise on one hand, and getting me excited for our next!

 

Thank you for the laughs!

Catrin

 

 

Catrin,

 

Thank you, that is so sweet. We're both glad that so many people seem to be enjoying it.

 

And, BTW, thanks for calling me Shaky and not BEEF. I really do dislike being called BEEF (or Mrs. Beef).

[Kerryman50]

Catrin,

 

 

And, BTW, thanks for calling me Shaky and not BEEF. I really do dislike being called BEEF (or Mrs. Beef).

 

Hi Shaky, I thought you might like this.:p;)

 

[Delta Hotel]

After typing 50+ pages in MS Word, and spending all day and night writing this memoir – I JUST realized that I misspelled the word “Carnival” in the THREAD TITLE!!! Crap, man… that’s a real bummer. See what happens when an author wanders too far away from their editor? Sorry folks. If I could rename it, I would. Just consider that a little tid-bit of my brain.

Edited July 16, 2011 by Delta Hotel

[ShakyBeef]

We'll give The Editor a MULLIGAN this time.:p:)

 

 

I just had to look that term up.:o (You know I'm not a sports fan). I was afraid Mulligan might = atomic wedgie or something. So relieved to find out it means a second chance.

 

 

BTW - I was not proofreading for him when he launched this thread (hence his spelling of Carinval in the thread title:rolleyes:). We both just noticed that.

[Catrin]

After typing 50+ pages in MS Word, and spending all day and night writing this memoir – I JUST realized that I misspelled the word “Carnival” in the THREAD TITLE!!! Crap, man… that’s a real bummer. See what happens when an author wanders too far away from their editor? Sorry folks. If I could rename it, I would. Just consider that a little tid-bit of my brain.

 

That is TOO funny... YOU can read something a MILLION times that way and NEVER notice!

 

Dotn Wory Abuot It!

[Delta Hotel]

For dessert, I order my usual cappuccino and add my standard two packets of natural sugar. I noticed last night, today, and this evening that every natural sugar packet I open seems to have gotten wet and then dried into a hard, crusty rock. I’m aware of the ocean humidity getting to the paper packets, but these are so much harder than normal.

 

When I was a teenager, I used to work construction after school and on weekends to earn under-the-table cash. Occasionally, we’d be working on a jobsite with concrete bags. If you’re not familiar with these, they’re normally either 40 or 60 pounds of concrete mix in brown paper bags. We tried to cover them up at the end of the day, but sometimes it would rain all night, we’d come back to the job site, and one or more of the bags at the bottom would’ve gotten wet through the brown paper, and hardened. Well, these were useless, but I enjoyed breaking them up with my hammer. Then I would hear my foreman shout, “Hey kid! What are you doing over there? I don’t pay you to break rocks up. Get your butt over here and break up these rocks.” These natural sugar packets reminded me of these concrete bags.

 

If you’re going on this cruise anytime soon, and use natural sugar, you may want to be prepared for the unusually-difficult-to-get-out-of-the-brown-packet sugar. If you ARE going on this cruise soon, but you DON’T use natural sugar, open one or two of them for me and tell me if they’re still rock-hard. I’m just saying… if you remember to.

 

Wifey often, but not always, gets the warm chocolate melting cake. I’m not much of a dessert person. I like some sweets, and I definitely like chocolate, but I can’t eat the volumes of dessert that most people seem to like. If I have birthday cake, I like a small piece. I realize from years of birthday parties that “small piece” means entirely different things to different people. Wifey’s family doesn’t even allow me to cut and serve the birthday cake anymore.

 

When I’m standing there with the knife and cake – I’d bet you $10 that everyone says “I just want a small piece”. When I cut into the cake and start dishing out “small pieces”, almost everyone stares and says “uh… a little bigger than that [i start moving the knife across the surface of the cake waiting for them to say stop]… bigger… a little bigger”. A small piece to me is approximately 2 inches square – not to be confused with 2 square inches. This assumes that the cake is about 3 inches deep, and rectangular. If it’s a round and tall cake, like a layer cake, it might be 4-6 inches tall. In this case, I prefer a wedge of about 1 inch out of the total circumference.

 

I also don’t like the overpowering sweetness of the frosting/icing. I’ll normally be handed a small plate, with a cube of cake. If it’s an inside piece with no frosting on the sides, but just on the top – I knock the piece on its side. I only have to do this about half of the time, because about half of the cake chunks I’m given are already on their sides. I then proceed to eat from the “bottom of the cake” toward the top, and leave the frosting on the plate when I’m done.

 

If I’m handed a plate with a side piece (frosting on the top and one side), I flip it on the side like before, and eat from the least frosting corner and leave the two walls of frosting standing on the plate. Well, they don’t really stand, they kind of fall inward, but you get the idea. If I’m handed a corner piece, I try to hand it back as soon as possible. That’s three sides of frosting! Considering each normal square or rectangular cake only has a potential for four of these pieces regardless of the surface area of the cake, these pieces are in high demand. I’ve been at birthday parties and received evil stares from people when they’ve seen me take a corner piece and leave ALL of the frosting on the plate. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life – dealing with myself is hard enough, I don’t need to get into a fist-fight with some soccer-mom at a birthday party over a corner piece.

[Delta Hotel]

It’s nearing the end of dinner, and Wifey and I both have wine. Dad can feel his Father’s day getting shorter, and decides to order a double-Bailey’s at dinner to make sure he gets my money’s worth. As we finish dinner, the lights in the MDR start flashing and changing colors. Glory has something that I haven’t seen in other dining rooms. All throughout the ceiling are lights – that’s normal. In the Glory’s Golden Restaurant, there are color-changing lights through the ceiling, as well. Occasionally throughout dinner, these lights would slowly change from color to color, like a disco that’s smoked too much pot. I don’t know if this occurs in the Platinum Restaurant, or not, but it does in the Golden Restaurant.

 

At one point during dinner, Daughter #1 ponders the fact that this ship has two MDR’s. Can you even HAVE two MDR’s? Doesn’t that create some kind of black-hole of word-logic? Anyway, she remembers that we eat in the Golden dining room, and other people on the ship eat in the Platinum dining room. She looks at Wifey and says “Mommy, where do the people who aren’t Gold or Platinum eat?”

 

The lights in the MDR begin to flash quickly, like a dance club, changing colors every half second or so. Everyone looks up to see what’s happening, and the Maître D comes to the top of the stairs and begins to announce that they’re going to sing and dance. The waiters through the dining room begin to move toward the stairs at one end of the room. Our waiter, Nenand, walks by and says to us “you watch, I going to sing for you!” and heads over to the stairs. Our view is mostly blocked by the tables and people seated on the rail side of the upper level. The music starts and they begin their coordinated dance effort, but the music is slow.

 

Nenand is standing at the top of the stairs and begins to sing. He sing “O sole mio”, and does an excellent job. Some people on the upper level stand up to see over the rail, so they’re standing in the walkway between the tables. Wifey’s Mom gets up and takes a few steps toward the rail, careful not to intrude upon the personal space of the people seated between her and the rail. She stands there and watches Nenand sing with a smile on her face, slightly leaning on one foot toward the rail and on the other foot, just her toes on the ground.

 

I see an opportunity – I quickly get up, place my napkin on the back of my seat and take two steps toward her. When she notices me, she turns to see what I’m doing and I quickly grab one of her hands and bump my hand around her waist and begin dancing with her in the walkway. She’s embarrassed (as I knew she would be) and tries to let go of my hand and slip around me to get to her seat. I take her movement and spin her around as if she were actually dancing with me… and I don’t let go of her hand, either. People nearby are watching us, and I know her face must be beet-red with embarrassment, but the lights in the MDR were red, so no one could really tell. I continue to dance with her as Nenand sings, but she successfully gets away from me and runs back to her seat. She was still laughing and smiling, so no real harm done. I’ll have to try harder next time.

 

That just leaves me standing the aisle with no one to dance with. I look at Wifey with my eyebrows up in that “you wanna?” kind of look. She looks over to Daughter #1 and #2. Daughter #1 is shaking her head. Daughter #2 has a confused expression, so I walk to her seat and pick her up. When she realized what was happening, she lightly protested, but laughing and smiling the whole time. I held her up and danced with her for the next 10-15 seconds until the song ended.

[cv322]

I can picture him now... with his dead, useless arms hanging limply at his sides, he pounds away at the keyboard with his face. In between the smacking of his face against the keys, you can hear him moan, "Must (SMACK) finish (SMACK) memoir. (SMACK) People want to (SMACK) know what (SMACK)colour socks I wore in Halifax." (SMACK):eek::p

 

And what color in St.John? ;). I'm enjoying this immensely, thank you for the time & effort...sincerely.

[Delta Hotel]

Please hold... I made a mistake and just remembered something...

 

<hold music>

Edited July 16, 2011 by Delta Hotel

[Kerryman50]

Please hold... I made a mistake and just remembered something...

 

<hold music>

What the heck happened Delta!!!:confused: Did your EDITOR pull your last post?;)

[Delta Hotel]

What the heck happened Delta!!!:confused: Did your EDITOR pull your last post?;)

 

I had posted the end of Day 2, but forgot a very important part of the night. I pulled it so I could add a little bit. Your regularly scheduled programming will continue in 3....2....

[ShakyBeef]

[Kerryman50]

I had posted the end of Day 2, but forgot a very important part of the night. I pulled it so I could add a little bit. Your regularly scheduled programming will continue in 3....2....

Alright but I would bet that it had something to do with SUSHI or Ahi Tuna. :D

[ShakyBeef]

Alright but I would bet that it had something to do with SUSHI or Ahi Tuna. :D

 

NOPE!:cool::D

[Kerryman50]

 

Shaky thank you so much for that. I've been to Rio so many times and this brings back some great memories, so much so that I've saved this link in my favorites.:D

[Delta Hotel]

Daughter #2 orders her favorite Banana Split for dessert. She eats about 1/3rd of it or less before it’s time to leave the MDR. We tell both girls that we’re leaving, and we’re not going to sit around and wait for them to eat sugar. As parents, we’re pretty strict about sugar consumption in general. Just getting any kind of dessert is a treat for them. They don’t get sodas at home, and if they get juice it’s cut in half with water. However, when we cruise, they’re allowed to have dessert every night.

 

On this cruise, I implemented a new dessert stipulation. The new rule is that they may have dessert, as long as they try something new at dinner. They don’t have to order a whole new entrée or appetizer. They’re allowed to get their disgusting pizza, but they have to take at least one bite of something they’ve never had before. This can be off of any family member’s plate. The girls did a good job with this, and it’s helping them to be a little less picky with food.

 

We get up from the table to leave the MDR, and we all place our napkins down and push in our seats. The 5-year-old is still sitting in her seat, trying to shovel a few bites of ice cream into her mouth before I make her leave her mostly-full bowl. The 9-year-old is standing at the end of the table next to the 5-year-old. As soon as the 5-year-old puts down her spoon, picks up her napkin to wipe her mouth, the almost-9-year-old quickly turns, picks up the spoon, leans over the bowl and begins to take quick bites of ice-cream before someone can stop her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the last family cruise, I would make little deals with Daughter #1 to get her to try things from my plate. A few of those items have become something for her to look forward to on the next cruise. Years ago, we went on a cruise and she got to have Baked Alaska. For a couple years now, she sometimes asks “do they have Baked Alaska there?” when we go to new restaurants, hotels, theme parks, museums, and friends’ houses. She used to draw pictures of Baked Alaska, and play “restaurant” with her little sister just to put Baked Alaska on the menu.

 

She doesn’t remember it, but one of her favorite dishes on the Carnival ships is the Penne Mariscos. She doesn’t like the calamari, but she loves the pasta and sauce. On “Penne Mariscos night” in the MDR, I always order the same dish so that if she finishes hers and still wants some, she can have mine as well. I just make sure I order two entrees on this night.

 

We head out of the MDR, and the photographers are still out in full force. There are less people waiting to have pictures taken, but it’s still a formidable obstacle course to get through the hallways. It has the feeling of people standing near the photographers *thinking* about getting their pictures taken, but they don’t want it known that they’re considering this… so they just stand nearby talking about nothing. The moment that they actually decide to have their photos taken, they can just take 1 large step and be on the backdrop. Until this time, they’ll just stand in the middle of the hallway.

 

One of the photographers was a smaller Indonesian man. I don’t remember his name, but I remember his face, and the fact that he used the word “yoo-hoo” every few seconds. It was said in a higher-pitched voice than normal, and stretched out… imagine a young man, dressed up as a woman, pretending to get the attention of another man walking by, so that his buddies hiding behind the van can mug him. That’s the “yoo-hoo” that he would use to get peoples’ attention. I heard other photographers call him “Yoo-hoo” as his name, so I guess that’s what we’ll call him, too.

 

He would use the “yoo-hoo” call to get your attention to ask you if you wanted your picture taken. He would use it to get your attention so he could take a picture. He would use it as a period to a sentence, or sometimes just in the middle of a sentence for no apparent reason. On several occasions, I noticed him saying it quietly to himself with no one around while he was moving equipment or changing something on his camera – it seemed a little like a very controlled and focused case of Tourette’s Syndrome (I just had to look up how to spell that).

 

We stopped on the way out of dinner and let him take some pictures of the girls. We don’t buy the pictures, but we like having them take the pictures so that we can look at them in the gallery. We’ve bought some in the past, but none recently.

 

After dinner and pictures, we head back to Mom and Dad’s cabin. I’m not sure why, but we do. There are so many times on a cruise that we seem to expend the energy to go somewhere, with absolutely no idea of what we’ll do when we get there… and that’s if you’ve got any clue as to where “there” is. It’s often just aimless wandering. For the sake of efficiency, I’d rather sit in one place until I have a reason to go elsewhere. The reason doesn’t have to be good, but there should be something that sounds like a reason. Something better than “I’ve got feet and they still work, so I’m going to use them now.”

 

While we’re walking through the hallways, my 5-year-old lets out a big sigh, looks up and says:

 

Daughter #2: [tired sleepy kid] “I’m tired. May we please go home now?”

 

Wifey: [surprised and disappointed] “You want to go home already? Our cruise just started. Aren’t you having a good time?”

 

Daughter #2: “No, I don’t mean our home-home. I mean our cabin-home… on the boat. I’m just tired of walking.”

 

 

For the rest of the cruise, going back to our cabin was called, “going home”.

 

We arrive at Mom and Dad’s cabin. We go in, and they (parents) begin to settle in, change out of dinner clothes, get comfortable, and so on. The girls immediately start playing with something or invent some game for the few minutes that we’re there. Wifey and I stand there in the middle of the cabin with nothing to do. We can’t change, because our stuff isn’t here. There’s no point in taking off our shoes because there’s no reason to stay here. Even if we stayed here, there’s nowhere to sit without being without touching distance of one of her parents. Dad’s pretty laid back, and I like him OK, but I don’t want to touch him if it’s not necessary. I’m pretty sure he feels the same way… he did when I touched him 15 years ago.

 

I’ve grown to love Wifey’s Mom, but I’d still rather not touch her. I will, however, seize the opportunity to touch her if I’m relatively sure that it will make her feel uncomfortable. It’s a delicate balance – I have to touch her so rarely that it’s clearly an awkward situation. A few times a year is normally enough. When I DO make contact with her – it must be very intentional, obvious, and the contact MUST make her feel uncomfortable… thereby reminding her that she really doesn’t WANT to be touched by me.

 

I go to the restroom in their cabin (since we’re there already), and wash my hands. Squeak squeak. I check my socks to ensure that my dark night-time socks haven’t slipped below my calves, and then come out into the cabin to see if Wifey’s made some excuse for us to leave.

 

I don’t remember what was said, but a few minutes later, we leave with the girls and head back home… boat-home, not home-home. Daughter #1 and #2 argue over who gets to open the cabin door this time. They decide to share the duties. Younger gets to insert and remove the card. When the little light flashes green, Older gets to turn the handle and open the door. I don’t think the 5-year-old could open the door anyway; it’s pretty heavy for a kid. As it is, the Older girl has to put her shoulder into it just to get it open.

 

Inside our cabin on the foot of our bed is our second towel animal. The room steward found my daughter’s swim goggles and placed them on the animal. I’m not 100% sure, but I think this is a baby elephant with some kind of degenerative disc problem.

 

 

 

 

 

We return to our cabin and probably watch more “Tangled”, play Barbies, back up pictures from the day onto my secondary laptop, and change into jammies.

 

It’s quiet in our cabin for a while, and things are going well. Wifey’s planning the next day’s events (which we hardly ever get to) and the girls are up on the top bed together arguing over which stickers belong to whom, and which Barbie is the prettier one… or something like that, it all runs together.

 

Around 9:30 – 10PM, the neighbors come into their cabin, very noisily, I might add. They were yelling, laughing loudly, the little boy was crying about something, and they started slamming drawers and cabinets. It seemed that this family was incapable of doing anything quietly. We put up with it for a while, and thought that they might calm down after a few minutes. They had JUST come into their cabin from a very exciting ship (I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt).

 

By 10:30 or 11, it was really getting to me. Wifey was in the bathroom taking her hair down, and my patience ran out. They had been banging on things, yelling, throwing dead bodies against the wall, and the little boy was crying about something every 5-10 minutes. By the way, this little boy wasn’t a baby. We’ve had babies that cried at inconvenient times, but this boy was old enough to back-talk his mother.

 

When the boy had cried and screamed long enough, and the mother or father had finally gotten tired of his tantrum, they’d come over to him [stomping feet across cabin] and whack him a few good times – I’m assuming on the bottom. I could hear the whacks through the wall. It sounded like she had to get through a thick pair of jeans and maybe a T-shirt, too. I’m just basing that on the type of muffled whack, I could be wrong. Those whacks would normally quiet him down for a few minutes, then he’d find something else to scream about. Meanwhile, the Dad is playing rough with the older brother. It really sounded at one point like the Dad picked up the kid, and threw him against the wall. It shook our wall so hard that I thought it might knock things off of our wall.

 

The girls had stopped playing to listen to the noise next door. They’ve never heard such behavior before, and they were half intrigued, and half concerned that the kid next door was going to get killed, and they would have to hear it.

 

I get off the bed, and calmly walk to the phone. I stand there over the phone with one hand hovering over the receiver. In the mirror, I can see both girls watching me at the edge of their aerial bed. I pause, reach down and pick up the phone.

 

With a few swift taps of the number “7” on the keypad, I dial Guest Services. They answer, and I inform them of my cabin number, which it then immediately occurs to me that they already know this – it’s their phone system. I continue to tell them about our neighbors, the screaming, the crying, the yelling, the throwing things, and the wall-banging. The nice lady with an unknown, but pleasant accent tells me that she’ll call Security and to call back if “the disturbance does not stop shortly”.

 

While I’m on the phone, Wifey comes out of the bathroom and instantly knows who I’m talking to, and why. She’s surprised that I called, because I’m not the type to call. I’m the classic passive-aggressive. Calling Guest Services really isn’t my style.

 

I hung up the phone and stared at the wall, listening. Nothing. It figures that they’d settle down and get quiet right when I call to report the noise. Now, when the Security guy gets there, he’ll hear nothing and I’ll be “the overly sensitive jerk next door”. It stayed quiet until I fell asleep, which is all that mattered to me.

 

So, this ends Day -2.

Edited July 16, 2011 by Delta Hotel

[Kerryman50]

Back to our regularly scheduled programming. Thank you Delta & Shaky. :rolleyes:

[Delta Hotel]

Day 3 – Halifax, Nova Scotia

 

 

[Throw back blanket. Verify that feet have socks on. Put feet on floor. Stumble to desk. Pick up hairbrush. Put down hairbrush. Pick up phone receiver.]

 

Me: “Hmm… [clear throat] Hello.“

Dad: “You guys had breakfast yet?”

Me: “No. What time is it?”

Dad: “Uh… about oh-six-thirty. You guys should get up and get ready.”

Me: [looking out the window between the mostly drawn curtains] “Are we still moving?”

Dad: “Yeah, we’re not docked yet, but we will be soon.”

Me: “Where are you?”

Dad: “In our cabin. Call us when you’re ready for breakfast. We already ate but we’ll meet you up there.”

Me: “K.”

 

[Hang up the phone]

 

I walk back to the bed, flop down on my back, with one foot still on the floor. Wifey asks, “What did he say?” I replied and said something like, “They’ll meet us at breakfast.”

 

So, we get the girls up, get them into the bathroom one at a time, and Wifey informs me that Pugwash is outside. I ask her what Bugwash is. She tells me that Pugwash is a tugboat, and the girls have a book about him. He’s a tugboat, but he’s got a face, and red baseball cap on top of his stack. The girls overhear us talking about Pugwash and get a little excited. I go to the window to see what Bugwash looks like. Sure enough, there’s a tugboat outside of our window with a face and a red hat. If you would have bet me $5 that there was a tugboat outside our window with a face and ballcap, I would’ve lost $5, just like that.

 

 

 

Wifey notices that I’m saying “Bugwash” with a “B”, and corrects me and tells me that it’s “Pugwash” with a “P”. I think about this for a few seconds, and decided that I liked “Bugwash” better. But at least I now know the real name. Squeak squeak.

 

We find out later that this boat’s name isn’t Pugwash OR Bugwash, his name was Theodore Too. Pugwash is a mini-submarine and Theodore’s friend. We also found out that you can buy rides on Theodore Too in the Halifax port. This tugboat just seems to go up and down the harbor all day giving rides. I never saw him “tugging” anything, but he was going up and down the channel all day long.

 

We were moving slowly in a harbor with very calm water. I could see a small island coming up on our starboard side with a lighthouse and a few small structures. I leaned forward into the window cavity, and got my face as close to the glass as I could without touching it. I looked around to see what Halifax looked like. It was beautiful. Not tropical beautiful, not Alaska beautiful, but a different kind of beautiful. It was calm, clean, and very “northern Atlantic” looking, almost like Halifax really belonged here.

 

We all get up, get dressed, and rush off to breakfast by about 7:15am. Daughter #1 dresses herself in a chartreuse shirt and jeans. Daughter #2 was put into jeans and a little flower-covered shirt. Daughter #2 decided that she wanted to wear her Little-Red-Riding-Hood cloak that her aunt knitted for her last Christmas. Perhaps it looks a little odd walking around the ship and Halifax in a red, knit, hooded cloak, but hey… she’s five.

 

We go to breakfast, have some quick negotiations about the relative sugar content of various cereals on the buffet, what protein they’re going to complain the least about, and whether they want chocolate or white milk. We get a window seat in the buffet area. One of the things about cruising that I dread the most (and it appears that I’m not alone) is the searching for a table or seat in the buffet at peak meal hours. This itinerary didn’t seem so bad.

 

For seating purposes, our Alaska cruise was by far the worst. People on the Alaska cruise would get up at unspeakable hours of the morning to claim a window seat in the buffet. We would get there in the morning for breakfast and the place was packed – not an empty table in the whole place. I specifically say “not an empty table” because there were plenty of empty chairs. Many of these tables had one person, a book, a cup, and a pair of binoculars… nothing else. It was pretty obvious that they weren’t eating – but rather just sitting there enjoying the view with a book and whale-watching.

 

I’m not just talking about one or two people here and there, the place was packed with window-sitters. We would walk up and down the aisles of the buffet looking for a table, and sometimes ask someone if we could sit with them, just for a few minutes. Most of these people would just avoid eye contact, like we weren’t even there. A few times, a nice couple at a 4-seat table or booth would invite us to sit with them. If we got a booth or table with extra seats, we would do the same. On several occasions, my wife and I would sit in the back corner of the Lido Deck on the “kiddie chairs” and use a third little chair as a table for our drinks while eating with our plates on our laps.

[SnowWhiteNYC]

more please!

[VickiD59]

Kick off your sleep socks.. put on your green socks and get crackin Mister!

You havent even reached port yet.. you can't stop now!! I mean you can and you even may but we'll all be really <sniff> really <sniff sniff> sad :(

[SnowWhiteNYC]

Kick off your sleep socks.. put on your green socks and get crackin Mister!

You havent even reached port yet.. you can't stop now!! I mean you can and you even may but we'll all be really <sniff> really <sniff sniff> sad :(

 

my <sniff sniff> sentiments exactly

lol

[Delta Hotel]

my <sniff sniff> sentiments exactly

lol

 

I just woke up, went to the bathroom, let the dogs outside, fed them, and plopped down at the kitchen table, which by the way is not a regular table, but rather a Little Tikes 24" square table with plastic chairs, and checked my email for work. Then I see a little pop-up in the corner that someone has posted on this thread. I read it, with one eye still twitching with sleepiness, and begin to laugh. Thanks SnowWhite and Vicki.

 

This isn't a part of the memoir, but since you brought it up, at home on weekends, I don't change out of my sleep-socks when I get up. I wear them until I take a shower, change any other article of clothing, or have to leave the house. I'll be starting my memoir this morning WITH my sleep-socks...

 

Sincerely,

Anita Shreve

Edited July 17, 2011 by Delta Hotel

[Delta Hotel]

I just noticed that this thread is up to almost 4700 views in 4 days! I'm amazed! That's incredible! I figure, there's about 6 of you actually reading it, and 500 people that clicked on it and decided not to read it because of how long it was. That means that the remaining 4200 views [quick math in head] among the 6 of you, would be 700 views each. That's kind of insane, don't you think? I love reading too (not really), but 700 views per person?

 

Well, anyway, I'm really flattered by the 6 of you that are actually reading this. Ok, I'll go upstairs and start writing again, right after I squeak-squeak my hands and get some breakfast.

 

< more "the girl from Ipanema" hold music >

[Pee-ah]

I just noticed that this thread is up to almost 4700 views in 4 days! I'm amazed! That's incredible! I figure, there's about 6 of you actually reading it, and 500 people that clicked on it and decided not to read it because of how long it was. That means that the remaining 4200 views [quick math in head] among the 6 of you, would be 700 views each. That's kind of insane, don't you think? I love reading too (not really), but 700 views per person?

 

Well, anyway, I'm really flattered by the 6 of you that are actually reading this. Ok, I'll go upstairs and start writing again, right after I squeak-squeak my hands and get some breakfast.

 

< more "the girl from Ipanema" hold music >

 

make that 7 :D

[Delta Hotel]

On this Glory cruise, seating wasn’t too bad in the buffet. We found seats relatively quickly, and the Lido staff was pretty quick to clear a table after the guests had left. We sat down at a still-partially-wet table that had just been wiped by some very quiet and tall man – didn’t catch his country of origin.

 

I had my normal croissant and sausage, and whatever else I could grab without actually having to participate in a line. I like bacon, but not enough to stand in that morning “gotta have my morning bacon and as much of it as the bacon police will allow me to” line. Since I don’t really care what I eat for breakfast, I look for the food station with the least number of people, go there, and take whatever is available. This style of breakfast-food-scavenging makes my breakfast plate look odd, but at least I don’t have to stand in a line waiting for bacon and eggs.

 

 

 

 

Have you ever noticed that people often don’t realize that the omelette line at the breakfast buffet doesn’t apply to the rest of the buffet? People will line up to get omelettes made, which makes sense. I’ve had an omelette or two on other ships, and if the line’s not too long, it’s worth the wait. But often, I notice that a few people will get in line for an omelette, but then other people that want regular eggs, bacon, and sausage will get behind the omelette-people and just stand there… when they really meant to walk around them and get their bacon from the Bacon Police.

 

Oh, if you’re a new cruiser – word of advice – don’t stand behind the omelette-people in the morning if you don’t want an omelette, just go around them. Also, in case you don’t already know about the Bacon Police, they’re the Lido Deck crew that stands behind the buffet and hands out bacon. I’ve only seen this phenomenon occur with bacon. For some reason, many people (not just a few) will go on a cruise which supplies them with an unprecedented and absurdly gluttonous flow of all-you-can-eat food throughout the entire day for a week – yet they will still flock to the breakfast buffet and attempt to eat every slice of bacon they can fit on their plate. This odd black-hole of food known as “the bacon tray” is the reason for the Bacon Police.

 

Mom and Dad show up as we’re eating breakfast and have a seat with us. We talk about the plans for the day, which turns out to be almost nothing. We didn’t plan any excursions or trips for Halifax. Wifey did a lot of reading on Cruise Critic before the cruise, and knew where everything was, so we agreed that we would just walk around, see what we wanted to see and whatever we happened to come across, and that would be it. We just wanted to get a feeling for Halifax at a leisurely pace, while hitting a couple of specific places during the day.

 

After breakfast, we head up a level to see what Halifax looks like. While up on Deck 10, I take this panoramic of Halifax. The city of Halifax is mostly on the right-hand side of the picture. Most people go to the river-walk/boardwalk portion of Halifax when they get off the ship, which is the area immediately to the left of the cruise ship railing. The entire left side of this photo is parking lot, some factory, and a bunch of stuff that we never cared to see.