Reflections #3: Junk Food and Jammies

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Embarkation day for passengers: as exciting and fun as debarkation day is not. Getting on the ship for the first time, checking everything out, unpacking, lifeboat drill, maybe a cocktail or two before dinner. And then your first big meal on board and meeting your new dinner mates. Fingers crossed you're all compatible and there's not a lot of long, awkward pauses. After dinner maybe a nightcap or two, try your luck in the casino or a walk on deck, before collapsing in bed tired after your first big day on board.

Embarkation day for crew: exhausting. Everyone has been up bright and early getting the ship cleared, trying to get passengers off quickly, cabins cleaned and set up for the next round of passengers, sorting out and delivering luggage, getting stores on and sorted. On top of the work hard there is often the play hard the night before. Crew members are also often debarking that morning, going on leave. This can mean big send-off parties the night before that usually go on very, very late. Add it all up and crew are exhausted by the end of embarkation day.

On days like this my cabin mate and I, in the scant time we had between passengers getting on and off, would run over to the closest Winn-Dixie. We'd quickly run down the aisles and load up on the worst kind of junk food we could find along with some gossipy tabloids. Our favourite was the Weekly World News.

When the day was finally over - and we always worked longer than usual because embarkation day never went smoothly – we would pick up some beer or a cocktail from the crew bar and head back to our cabins. There we'd get in our sweats or jammies, prop ourselves up on pillows, open a beer, eat our way through our junk food and read the Weekly World News out loud, both of us trying to top the other with the most outrageous, ridiculous story we could find.

The long day, lack of sleep and the paper's utter nonsense and out and out fabrications would lead to hysterical fits of laughter, tears running down our face. That and a few beers later, the day's stress would melt away and we would finally crash, sleep well and be ready to start all over again the next day with a new voyage and new round of passengers. Hopefully rested enough to take on the next evening's formal night, always a big night.

Sea Days or Port Days?

If my husband had his way cruises would have no sea days - just one port after another. Me, I like a nice mixture of the two.

We have been on a couple of 14-day Southern Caribbean cruises where just about every single day was in port. Halfway through I was exhausted, wanting nothing better than to sleep in till, oh, I don't know, maybe nine. Instead, I found myself staggering out of bed early each morning, awakened by - horrors! - an alarm of all things. (Isn’t that what you take a cruise to escape from?) Barely enough time to prop myself up in the shower, quickly down a cup of faux coffee, rush out the door, down to the gangway only to realize that as usual,I’d forgotten my ID in the mad panic out the door. Once ashore - and awake - I was always glad to have started so early, the entire day stretched out to explore, snorkel, shop, relax in the sun and have some umbrella drinks or ice cold beer at the beach. One more beautiful port to take in.

The downside to all the port days, though, is the price factor not even counting the most obvious one - shore excursions. If you’re not close to the ship, there’s lunch. There's drinks ashore, chairs and umbrellas at the beach, transportation, shopping, tour guide tips, ka-ching! It can really add up and in the back of my head I’m wondering to myself if I’ll ever get a chance to see what lunch is like on the ship, something I've paid for and am barely using.

How much you enjoy or don’t enjoy port days can be dependent on such things as shipboard activities or lack thereof, the weather, or how easy it is to get a chair poolside or anywhere remotely near the sun for that matter. This, of course, being dependent upon the number of chair hogs on your voyage - a topic all to itself. There are those who are content to simply like back, relax, read, whatever and never get off the ship. For them, the ship is the destination.

I don’t mind a couple of port days in a row. You can sleep in knowing you don’t have to be anywhere at a particular time. You can check out activities, or not. You can eat whenever you want and don’t have to pay for it. Port days are definitely cheaper. Well, except for those poolside buckets of beer. Or the drink-of-the-day specials. Or the shops being open. Or the casinos being open which, on the other hand, if fortune shines on you, they can be a lot cheaper!

Cruise ship detained in New York City due to hull damage - or can you pronounce "Reykjavik"

The Associated Press

NEW YORK - A cruise ship carrying 848 passengers from Iceland is being detained in New York Harbor after a routine safety inspection detected a small hole in its hull.

A U.S. Coast Guard team discovered the damage , plus 16 other minor deficiencies , on the cruise ship Oceanic on Thursday. It found that about a gallon of water per hour was leaking into the vessel.

Chief Petty Officer Russ Tippets said Friday that's "a very small amount."

The Coast Guard determined the damage occurred after the ship left Reykjavik (RAY-kyah-veek), Iceland, on June 19 but before it arrived at its port of call in New York.

Tippets says it's expected the hole can be repaired before noon Saturday. The same passengers are set to depart then for their final destination, Venezuela.

I'm feeling dizzy: must book another cruise...

I used to laugh at my mom who always felt ill at ease unless she had at least three cans of unopened coffee in the house. That was her worse fear: waking up and finding she was out of coffee.

I kind of feel the same way about cruises. If I have no upcoming cruises booked and there are no cruise countdowns on my signature I feel panicky. It's like a low blood sugar moment: a bit dizzy, lightheaded, unable to clearly focus.

One booked cruise is good; two is that much better. I see some people who have up to six upcoming cruises showing on their signatures. You must all sleep very well at night.

Is it just me? I sense it's not judging from what others post. Everyone knows the worst thing about a cruise is when it's over. One minute you're excitedly waiting to board the ship for the first time. Before you know it, you're walking downcast through your front door, hoping everything is in one piece and the cats have been fed.

And then horror of horrors, you're back to reality and work. All sense of relaxation gone, your tan starting to wash down the drain, the midsection bloat mercifully starting to subside.

For me,the only way to combat this feeling is to take things in hand, get proactive and book the next cruise. That is part of the fun of cruising: finding the next perfect itinerary, on the perfect ship, with the best cabin and at the best price possible. When I finally find exactly what I want and make a booking, a sense of calm descends upon me. I am at peace again, a small catastrophe averted. With another cruise on deck, I can get back to the task at hand and make a living to pay for it.

Except now my time is taken up with trying to find every possible picture I can of the ship online, checking out ports and the shore excursions, chatting with others, but that's a post for another day....

Cruise Roll Calls

How many of you sign up for cruise roll calls on Cruise Critic but then never show up for the meet and greets on board? How many of you never even bother to sign up in the first place?

For those who may not know what these are, there are boards or "roll calls" on cruisecritic.com on which the commonality is a future cruise. You pick the line, the ship and then the actual voyage and meet other people who are taking the same cruise. The individual roll calls can range from hundreds of posts to thousands of posts depending on how active they are. Through them, a day and time is arranged as to when to meet or get together on the ship, usually held the first or second day. Depending on the numbers, sometimes a senior officer or two will come to the meeting.

I confess: I used to be a roll call lurker. I'd post a few times, maybe hook up with a few people for a private excursion but never showed up for the get-together on board. However, a recent 14-day Southern Caribbean cruise my husband I took with another couple completely changed my thinking. This was a great cruise with gorgeous ports of call every day but the downside was there was a definite lack of nighttime activity on board except for one very visible group of about 12 people. They were always out together and seemed to be having a great time. You'd see them in the specialty restaurant, around the pool, ashore, and in the public rooms at night laughing away.

Halfway through the cruise we met up with one of the couples from this group and it turned out they had all met through an online roll call. They obviously enjoyed each other's company and on the last couple of nights were already planning another cruise together.

So on a cruise we took in March I decided that this time we would actually show up for the meet and greet. As it turns out, we met two great couples who not only were at the next table to us in the dining room but lived about 10 miles away from us back home. Our group of four doubled to eight and we had a super time throughout the voyage with them. We had lively dinners together and great days ashore. We have since booked a future cruise on which one of these couples will be joining us.

Apart from friends you might meet, these roll calls give you the chance to join in on some great private shore excursions. We took two on our last cruise that were probably the best we've ever experienced and had we tried to arrange either of them on our own, wouldn't have had the wherewithal or numbers to do so.

If you've never signed up for a cruise roll call, consider doing so!