Question of the Day: Take a Cruise Day

[the_siobhan]

30 – Bubble Wrap Day: Does bubble wrap deserve its own day? Why or why not?
31 – Backward Day: National Backward Day is a fun day that encourages us to do things in an order that we would not usually do them in! Have you ever taken part in a backward day? How did it go?

February
1 – Serpent Day: How do you feel about snakes? Would you ever keep a snake as a pet?
2 – Optimist Day: Do you consider yourself to be an optimist or a pessimist?

I have no opinions on bubblewrap. I rely on routines to get me through the day, so backwards day sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. I love snakes and have owned several. I used to be an optimist, I would say that is definitely no longer the case.

3 – Take a Cruise Day: Have you ever been on a cruise? If not, would you want to? Cruise ships cause major environmental damage: a large cruise ship can have a carbon footprint greater than 12,000 cars, while passengers on an Antarctic cruise can produce as much CO2 emissions on a seven-day voyage as the average European in an entire year. The industry is a major producer of waste, with the total amount of rubbish produced by a large cruise ship exceeding a ton per day. And let us not forget that they are also essentially floating germ/virus labs (even before Covid). So do you still want to take a cruise?

I went on a cruise exactly once. My sister got married when I was in University and she and her husband went on a cruise for their honeymoon and decided to invite a bunch of friends along. It was some bargain cruise-line (now defunct) so not much money at all even by the standards of the time, nonetheless it was not a sound financial decision for a student to make. But I wanted to go so I managed to scrape together the funds. It was two weeks in the Caribbean, with a stop at a different island every day.

Jesus, this was almost 40 years ago. Things I remember from the experience:
A kid on St Thomas running up to me on the street and yelling "OH MY GOD do you have any punk music with you, all I can get here is reggae and soca!" He told me about a tiny punk club somebody was running on one of the islands just for the local kids who were into it to share their music, and offered to take me there. The people I was with dragged me away before I was done talking to him and to this day I regret not getting his address so I could mail him some tapes.

My sister and I almost missing the boat on one of the islands because after 10 days in a row of incredibly rich food three times a day we went "Fuck it, we're finding a McDonald's." We ran up to the boat just as they were starting to draw up the gangplank.

The boat had several decks for the passengers and a small one on a lower level for the crew. We were on the boat over New Year's Eve and me and some guy I had made friends with went exploring and ended up on the crew deck. The boat was out of Greece so the entire crew was Greek, they fed us ouzo and this really bitter tasting homegrown weed and taught us how to do that dance where you dance in a circle and hold onto each others' shoulders.

Getting sunstroke in St Lucia. Do Not Recommend.

Everything in St Lucia smells like bananas. They have a brewery on the island and their beer smells like bananas. There was a pizza restaurant that put bananas on their pizza.

There was some kind of local festival going on on one of the Islands on the day we were there, something that had nothing to do with the tourists. We went off the tourist track kind of by accident and found ourselves on a street where people were walking around and grilling food over open fires. There were people in costumes and lots of dancing. Our companions freaked out and dragged us back to the boat, convinced we were about to get mugged or something. I'm still mad about it.

Dolphins following the boat.

The difference between the different islands was fascinating. The Dutch islands were immaculately clean and (from an outsider view) relatively prosperous. The French islands were horrendously poor, with open gutters and diseased looking dogs in the streets. The Spanish islands were somewhere in the middle. We took a taxi from Sint Maarten to Saint-Martin and we could tell the second we hit the border because the road went to shit.

Trying to exchange traveller's cheques in Caracas. The normal tourist port was closed for dredging so the boat docked at a shipping port and nobody there spoke any English. The locals bent over backwards to help us out, taking time out of what for them was a normal working day to draw us maps and point the way to el banco.

I ran out of spending money a week in and my travelling companions generously started covering my drinks. There was a tiny casino on the boat with a couple of slot machines and a poker table. I had about four dollars worth of quarters sitting on my dresser so I decided to throw them into the slot machines. Well on the second last quarter the thing went off - lights flashing and loud bells. My immediate reflex reaction was "Oh shit, I broke it." I had actually won the top prize, which on a quarter machine was $500. So the drinks were on me that night.

Overall I decided it was worth trying out once, but I didn't like it enough to repeat the experience. I encountered some neat things but I hated that I never really got the time to properly explore before we were leaving. Also I find sitting on deck chairs in the sun incredibly boring and I will get myself into trouble.

***

I am chasing one of those bugs at work that only happens when nobody is looking at it. Our system keeps showing people as logged out - and therefore absent - even though they are still working. I've been trying to catch it actively happening for two weeks, and somehow it only happens with the team I'm not watching. It's driving me spare.
 

***
 

Everything that is not work is starting to feel slightly more normal. The Old Man is still a little loopy after his time in the hospital - it seems to take him longer to recombobulate every time it happens. I'm going to visit him tomorrow so hopefully that will help.

***

House stuff got stalled because apparently steel is hard to get. They are back today though - I don't envy them, because it is bucketing down rain today. There is a lot of swearing going on my backyard, so I know progress is happening again.

 

 

Comments

[houseof9cats]

That's an interesting story! ITA with the OP about cruises.

[chasing_silver]

I'm actually doing a similar cruise (on Celebrity) over spring break with my wife! I can't wait, haha.

[warriorsavant]

To the Optimist, the glass is half full. To the Pessimist, the glass is half empty. To Excel, the glass is January 2nd.

People try to sell me on cruises. Often they think my reluctance is fear of being seasick. It isn't. It's fear of boredom, overeating, and overshopping. Ignoring that, they persist with "but cruise ships are really big, so they don't rock that much. You might like being on a big ship. I was in the Navy. I've been on ships much bigger, some of which launched airplanes off the front.

Imagine an International Bubble Wrap day, during which the entire world popped the bubble simultaneously. Would the planet exploid?

[the_siobhan]

Fear of boredom is a legitimate concern on a cruise ship. Also alcohol poisoning. And sunstroke.

[greylock]

I don't want to call you a liar, but surely you do have opinions on bubblewrap? To pop, or not to pop?

Jesus, this was almost 40 years ago

Hey, you can't DO THAT to me. I worked out when that was ('92/92) and now I am feeling old.

l I can get here is reggae and soca!
Because my eyes are bad I read that as "SoCal", which I assumed was a kind of surf punk. I had never heard of Soca before.

That poor kid. I vibed with him.

I have missed Siobhan's Travel Tales.

House stuff got stalled because apparently steel is hard to get.

Hrm. Are you also in a construction boom?

[the_siobhan]

I had never heard of Soca before.

Soca is another kind of Caribbean party music, but I think more specifically targeted at tourists. Every single band on the ship did a cover of Hot Hot Hot.

I have missed Siobhan's Travel Tales.

I have missed being able to write Siobhan's travel tales.

Hrm. Are you also in a construction boom?

Yep. Toronto is in a massive investor-driven condo blast, and has been for the last couple of decades. And people who actually live in their homes are always renovating to make more bedrooms and offices because nobody can afford to move.

[(Anonymous)]

Every single band on the ship did a cover of Hot Hot Hot.

It was a recent hit! I am sure a few years later those same bands worked "The Impression that I Get" into their sets!

And people who actually live in their homes are always renovating to make more bedrooms and offices because nobody can afford to move.

I suspect something similar is happening here.
Hell, since I moved back to the city I am sure roadworks on one of the main street has only just finished for the first time.

[greylock]

*sigh*
That was me.

[beaq]

I'm sorry you never got that kid's #, too.

[elusis]

I also cruised through the Caribbean in the early 90s, and found exactly the same dynamic on the Martins, comma, Saints. I much preferred the French side because the Dutch side was all tourist-trap retail, while on the French side, I was able to sit on a quiet beach (I was in my very brief period of acceptable-if-not-thin and blonde, so swimsuit-oriented activities in the big blue room with the killer star seemed more enjoyable, I wonder why), buy some grilled seafood and beer that didn't seem to be mediated by the Cruise-Industrial Complex, and alternately swim/read my book. I wasn't yet savvy enough about colonialism to figure out how to interact with local folks via means other than capitalism, but willingly paid the asked price for a sarong and some ornaments braided into my hair, glad to be handing cash directly to people rather than giving Visa and Norwegian Cruise Lines their chance to take cuts first.

Your cruise sounds like mostly a great time, because you're a great person to get up to things with.

I still have positive feelings about cruises because I love being able to unpack only once and yet go many, many places while being able to count on a habitable bed at night. F and I would be taking Mom up on her offer to take any river cruse from the Viking catalog if only we'd get married, except that COVID has made that whole thing seem even more dubious than the idea of international travel generally. Floating petri dishes.