Hi everyone!
It’s that time of year - time for a relaxing vacation with the family. Well, that’s what I thought anyway. I’m currently on a cruise, but this is not the normal cruise experience. So, I thought I’d write some of this down before I forget about it.
There are several problems with the cruise line I’m on (which shall remain nameless) - to say the least (ha, ha). At this point, my wife and I are viewing this as a new form of comedy and so now when we get treated badly, we just laugh about it. We are having a very good time. It’s all a matter of attitude.
First - the crew of the ship. These people are the rejects from the Flying Dutchman. Nobody smiles, nobody talks, and nobody says “thanks.” They are all just serving out their sentences hoping that one day Captain Blackbeard will release them from their debts.
A typical example: We went to the casino, sat down at a table and the dealer rolled her eyes and muttered complaints about us being there (ha ha). Just this morning our server treated us as if we had the plague. Nobody can understand why we’re laughing when we’re treated badly and I think this drives the crew into an even greater state of depression about being sentenced to serve time aboard “The Dutchman.”
Second- the ship itself. Periodically and for lengths of time between 15 and 30 minutes, the ship makes the loudest most gut-wrenching sounds of metal scraping against metal. It is enough to wake us all up when it happens at night. I still have no idea what it is but it’s coming from deep in the bowels of the ship. The crew seems unconcerned - maybe because they are also sentenced to this ship in the afterlife. I’m certain the sounds are from the anchor chain or something like that. Seriously, it’s nothing to worry about because we’d all be dead already but I’ve never in my life been on a ship that makes such noises.
Third - the actual cruise planning. This is the height of comedy because there isn’t any - really. For example, our first stop was Nassau Paradise Island. Now, I’ve been there before or I’d be really upset (as many other prisoners aboard the Dutchman were). We arrived about 2pm - everything closes at 5pm on the island and then we leave (ha ha ha!). There was just enough time for some people to leave the ship, get to the places they wanted to go, find them closed or about to close, and then get back to the ship. ROFL!! This is a joke compared to the other cruises I’ve been on which planned an entire day there with guides to a private beach on the island, time inside the Atlantis casino, for example, with time for the excellent aquarium they have at Atlantis, etc. Next we went to a “private island” apparently leased to the “nameless cruise line” from the Bahamians. We were graciously permitted a “shore-leave” of 5 hours on the world’s smallest beach. This really had my wife and me laughing. There were 2,000 people trying to find a space on 2 square feet of sand (ha ha). This is in stark contrast to a previous cruise that we took where we went to a real private island that had a real beach and more than enough room for everybody (ha ha).
Fourth - ship operations. They refuse to use the tenders on the boat. Instead they have contracted with shore personal to send out 2 very large 700 person barges. They use these to embark/disembark the passengers for “short leave” rather than the 40 - 60 man tenders that I see hanging on the sides of the ship. This means that the line to leave the ship and the line to get back on is 700 - 1,000 people long and if you miss the first one you have to wait for 700 people at a time to travel from shore to the boat and get processed one at a time through the metal detectors, etc. Most of the time spent off the ship so far is spent in this process. ROFL!! Real cruises will run 10 or more tenders in a continuous operation shuttling people on/off the boat so that nobody has to wait in any lines and so that no time is wasted in “processing.” They are doing this, I assume, to save money.
Fifth - the food situation. As for quality, it’s suitable and appropriately terrible as befitting the Flying Dutchman. One of the things that make a cruise special is getting assigned your own wait staff who follows you from restaurant to restaurant each evening, taking care of all the particulars for you. You feel special when they treat you special. They have dispensed with that here. The ship has hot-dogs and cheese-burgers. Anything else requires a reservation at one of the independently operated restaurants on the ship, which can be quite expensive. In fairness, we’ve been visiting these restaurants and the food is excellent. But, for the most part, it’s hot-dogs.
Now let’s talk about the room service. Here I don’t even know how to begin to describe how funny this is. For starters, you can not understand the English of anybody working at the other end of the telephone here. It’s truly comical. I have a new game that I play now with room service: every night before bed, I order something just to see if they get it right. It took four calls over two days to get “nachos” right. They think it’s just chips and salsa. However, there is still a disconnect. When I explained that nachos are just chips with cheese on them, I thought they finally understood until they asked me later, “so you want ‘nachos’ and cheese too?” I said, “no, that’s what nachos are - oh forget it!” Tonight I’m going to try soft-tacos and see what happens.
Oh God, they tell me we’re headed into the Bermuda Triangle now. Hope to see you all again.
Yours,
The Prisoner of Captain Blackbeard
