OK, we’re on Day 3 (Saturday) and the ship has just pulled out of Bermuda.
It’s late afternoon. I lounged around. At some point, and I don’t remember when, I went to the casino, pulled $20 off my onboard account, and played poker slots for a while. (I’d found the casino very confusing, had to ask an attendant how it worked, and half the slot machines made no sense, but poker, I understood.) Anyway, goofed around on that for about a half an hour and ended up ahead. (the next day, I went back to the casino, sat down at some slot machine I didn’t fully understand, and after pushing a bunch of buttons, lost my whole bank of $26+ bucks in one go. So that was the end of that. Also, the casino smelled terrible – smoking. They had a side wing for non-smokers, which is where I went.)
Went swimming late afternoon – this time in the mid-ship pool rather than the aft pool. Perfectly pleasant, but it was actually a tad cloudy by this point and not really swimming weather.
Also, somewhere in there, I got reminded that when planning for the cruise, I’d read that the ship had an ‘adults-only’ area of the ship called “Serenity”, and I just hadn’t run across it in my travels. So I did a little research and found out it was on “deck 15”, basically on the very top of the ship, and I hadn’t climbed that particular set of stairs because I thought it just led to the water slides. Turns out if you walk all the way to the forward elevators (which I almost never used), you could just go up to 15 and there it was! It was basically a sundeck, not indoors, and looked pretty nice, but the bar had closed. They had two hot tubs up there, full of people. I made a mental note to try it out on Sunday.
Got cleaned up. My boyfriend Francisco wasn’t playing at the piano bar that night, so I went to the big atrium bar in the lobby.
(not my photo)
Got a lovely cosmo, which then proceeded to drip condensation all over my slacks. Chatted nicely with a couple from Delaware, Amy and Stuart, about that cruise and cruises in general. I’d ‘checked’ into the restaurant for a table in plenty of time, considering the hour-long waits I’d had, but this time I got a table so quickly I had to toss back the last half of the cosmo like a shot (which amused them) and hustle off. Again, so weird about how this ship worked, in that I had to go up to a different deck to go aft, then back down to the first deck to go to the restaurant.
This time I got seated pretty much against the window – well, the table next to the table by the window. That table was populated by three middle-aged men and I was like, “queers, I’ll bet”. So I forced my way into their conversation with my smooth skills, and yep, I was right. They were from Long Island, I think one of them was a couple. They were familiar with Jackson Heights – they’d just been there for Pride, and we discussed the various JH bars. They were perfectly nice, but not enough there to like,, hang out with them for the rest of the cruise. We did see a rainbow out the window, though, blessing us.
What did I have that night? Oh, yes, I had a steak. They offered upcharged steaks from the Steakhouse restaurant, but they also offered kind of a regular steak, and I had that – and it was fine without being special. And I finished off my bottle of wine that I’d been working on for three nights. That might have been the night I had the blueberry panna cotta for dessert, which was really nice.
After dinner, I went to a comedy show that was billed as “18+” for swear words. The comedian was Macio. The queens at dinner had said that they’d been to one of his shows already and that he was funny, but a bit much. “Homophobic?” I asked, but it wasn’t that. (I’ve certainly suffered through enough homophobic comics in my time.) Anyway, Macio’s comedy was clever, adult (but not really in a sex way), biting and pretty funny. He did spend time on stereotyping (Italians, Indians) which was really funny, but also guilt-inducing. The Indian guy I was sitting near, who actually got called on by Macio and there was some interaction, seemed to think it was pretty funny. Anyway, a good time.
Afterward, even though I’d had a perfectly nice dinner, I decided to try the pizza station, outside behind the cafeteria by the aft pool. Big line, but I managed to snab a couple of pepperoni slizes (half of one of the quite-small pizzas they make). That was yummy and I would have gone back for more (shame!) except everyone else on the ship had had the same idea and there was a huge line.
And so to bed.
Day 4, Sunday, I woke up nice and early. They’d moved the clocks back to US time over night, and I wasn’t paying attention to the time. I called room service for coffee and juice and the room service guy said, “right now, I’d have to charge you for the coffee, but in three minutes, it’s free!”. What? Oh, it’s 5:57 am. “Oh, thanks, call you back in five minutes.”, I smiled. And did.
I did a power walk. Went back up to the Serenity and sort of looped my way downward through the public areas of the ship (not the room corridors). Then got cleaned up.
Breakfast was ‘brunch’ and ran from 8:30 to 12:00. And they didn’t allow you to book until the restaurant was open. I booked right away at 8:31 and the app said “10 minute wait”. But I guess everyone, still on Bermuda time, had the same idea and a half hour later, no table yet. I went down to the restaurant and there was a huge crowd of hungry people waiting outside, so I guess we all had the same problem. Fie on you, booking app!
Anyway I finally got seated and got a cappuccino and decided to splurge and get the upcharged lobster Benedict. It was pretty good! although suffered as most of the dishes did in the restaurant in spending too much time between kitchen and table, so not quite as hot as it should have been. They had banana cream pie for dessert, so that was really nice.
Because of the brunch delay, I missed the debarkation talk, which was a shame. They’d left us an information page about it – you had the choice of putting your one checked bag out in the hallway that night to be retrieved off the boat when you get off, or keeping your luggage and schlepping it yourself and maybe getting off earlier. I needed (well, ‘needed’) to get off the boat in time to get home by a 10:00 am meeting, so I signed up for the ‘schlep it yourself’ option. But (as I realized later) I didn’t finish the process and pick a time slot, and the app was wonky for the rest of the day and I never had the opportunity to fix that. This caused a mild problem the next day.
So I blogged in my room, and then had a whole day to kill, pretty much. Anyone who’s cruised knows that a great deal of energy is spent trying to suck more money out of you while you’re on board, and they have fancy shops. I’d already checked out the jewelry store, nothing that I liked in my price range (and there wasn’t a lot of men’s jewelry anyway). But they were having an Invicta watch sale and raffle, and I went to that. I really don’t need more watches, but I did find one I liked it a lot. It was marked at $495, but during the sale, it was 75% off! So I got it for $125, which I thought was about right. But it reminded me that, in general, I don’t really have a good sense of how much things should cost. Was $495 a reasonable price for that watch? Probably not. $125? Maybe? Anyway, I have a new watch now.
(OK, so minor rant. I’d packed two watches – one a fun plastic-banded rainbow-y one for daytime – and a really nice Swarovski watch for evening. Of course, I put the Swarovski watch on the first night and found out the battery was dead. I had another watch with me that I’d bought recently along with the rainbow watch, kind of as a spare – one of a cheap lot. I wore that one one night, then the band broke, because it was cheap crap. So I was hoping this new watch would fill the ‘dressy watch’ slot – but of course, being a new watch, the band is too long and I need to have a link or two removed. So, note for next time, check the watches you bring, and bring more of them.)
Anyway, after the watch buying, they were having a ‘register to win a cruise’ thing which was kind of another sales pitch, but I filled out the form and then went back to the Effy jewelry store. This time I looked at some bracelets that were nice, and the little queeny cutie salesguy worked very very hard to sell me something, but everything was like $400 or up and I just don’t wear jewelry much. (and I have plenty of it from previous trips just like this one.)
I’d vaguely thought for lunch I’d try the La Strada grill, which (unusually) was on the starboard side outside on deck 5. I thought the sandwich options and salads sounded really good, and was walking that way anyway. But (a) it was really too soon to have lunch after that late breakfast, and (b) rather than preparing each meal as you ordered, it was just trays of stuff that you picked from. I did have lunch then, but I found it pretty disappointing. (It’s kind of the same setup for the hamburger bar, but that was actually pretty awesome.)
I spent the afternoon in my room doing projects, and headed out late afternoon for a snack. I got a ‘Miami Vice’ – half strawberry daquiri and half pina colada – and was going to get something from the upcharged seafood shack, but it had just opened and for some reason had a huge line. (I kept getting the same impulses re food as everyone else at the same time I guess.) So… another burger. I probably should have gotten something lighter, considering dinner was in about 3 hours. But… a cruise.
I then got changed to go swimming, and 3 seconds after I left my cabin, the cruise director got on the intercom and announced we were about to go through a passing shower. *sigh* back to the room, out of the bathing suit. Hung around a little more, then changed to nice clothes. Back to the atrium bar for a cocktail. (sometimes the atrium bar had music that was awful and way too loud. This last day, they had a singer/guitarist who was really good.)
Since the restaurant had been kinda not-up-to-par, I’d made a last-night reservation for the fancy (and not-free) Italian restaurant, Il Viaggio. They sat me next to a New Jersey couple who I ended up chatting with all through the meal. Fun points – they were about to get married, but this cruise wasn’t about the wedding. They were not youngsters – second marriage for him. and he’d done a lot of golf caddying, including for Donald Trump – who he clearly didn’t like, but communicated that politely, and we didn’t get into politics. She also had some detail about the ship we were on, which I verified later – the idea of having ‘Italian style’ cruise ships was originally assigned to the Costa cruise line, but COVID-time and some fleet reshuffling meant that Carnival suddenly found itself with two Italian-themed ships and started pushing “Fun Italian Style”. The ship itself is quite new. I actually did some poking around yesterday to find the fate of some of the other ships I’ve been on, and most of them are still named the same and in service. The very first cruise ship we were on, the Carnival Imagination, has been scrapped. And the company we used for the Cuba cruise folded up once Cuba closed again. (Charles was absolutely right to jump on that opportunity while it existed. We were so happy to get to visit Cuba.) And that ship now has a different name and line.
Oh, yes, the meal. I did regret having that burger just a few hours before. This was a four-course meal, and that was really one course too many. Also, I ordered poorly and ended up with, essentially, two salads for the first two courses. The first one was an octopus appetizer which I thought was overcooked. The salad-salad for the 2nd course was fine, not thrilling. But the beef rib pasta dish I had for the third course was lovely. (Since I’d finished my bottle of white the night before, I got a glass of red here, and it was a nice pairing.) And a “torta di nonna” for dessert. So, nice meal, but too much food because I didn’t effing pace myself during the day.
At that point, I was kinda done with the whole thing and went to bed after reading, knowing I needed to get up early.
Get up early, I did… and we were already in port!
All the breakfast options were opening early – they wanted us out of our rooms, if not off the ship, by 8:30. Now that I had phone service as well as wifi, I reloaded the app and realized I had that problem with the debarkation time. Got cleaned up, went down to the guest desk, and found out, ‘oh well, guess you’re in the last group’. Emailed our product manager that I might miss the standup at 10:00, then went to the cafeteria, which was now open for at least continental breakfast. (no room service on the last day) Had coffee and juice, then quickly checked in for a table at the restaurant once that became available.
Got a table quickly for real this time, and ended up chatting with the couple next to me, who were from Richmond, and knew all the East Coast towns I knew. (actually, I chatted with the wife, the husband ignored us both, but not in a rude way). I got a simple breakfast and realized I’d forgotten a rule – don’t order scrambled eggs. They were clearly from a mix or something and were awful. The sausage and cinnamon roll were fine, though.
Afterward, I finished packing and brushed my teeth, then headed out. The logistics were how do I get from aft to fore, and down several decks, with all my luggage when the elevators would be slammed? Turned out, the simple answer was the stairs, and I didn’t have much problem with that. And it also turned out that, by the time I got there, they’d gotten through the nonsense with the time slots and were just letting everyone off.
Didn’t have much of a problem getting off the boat, or going through customs. But once outside the cruise dock, the public transportation options were really weird – you had to cross the street on 12th Avenue to get a cab, it was all very confusing. I ended up schlepping everything over to 11th Ave to get out of the scrum, and summoned an Uber, which came right away. The Uber ride was long, but pleasant (his vehicle had a clear roof, that was interesting, I could look up at the clouds) and I was home about 15 minutes before my meeting.
So… this cruise was an experiment – was a cruise fun even without Mr. C? Answer: yes! I had a great time. Also, could I visit St. George’s, Bermuda in the short time I had there? Answer: also yes! I think I’ve seen Bermuda pretty thoroughly now – next time I go, it will be specifically to lie on the beach or such. It is such a beautiful place.
My travel agent buddy Scott has requested a cruise review, so I will do that a little more thoroughly later. I basically had a good time, but sometimes what was supplied was not up to my standards, and I’ll go into that in details.
Happy summer!
The Toast Point Page 