After the success of last year’s cruise, we decided to do it again.

The cast

I had a discussion with everyone about using aliases. It seems pretty silly but it’s become a tradition. (A trend of 1, now 2). There also was a discussion about which aliases to use that I immediately forgot the details of. Anyway, it’s my blog.

Ron and Rita Romeo
Sam and Sally Sierra
Tim and Tina Tango

Saturday – Advance scouts

The Tangos flew to South Beach a day early for an early celebration of Tina’s birthday. Their luggage arrived around 2:00am on the following day. They had a good day except for running around South Beach in Michigan clothing.

Sunday – Bringing up the rear

The Sierras got up in the middle of the night to catch an early flight. With various surprises, cancellations, and delays, they got to Miami at 4:00pm. the Romeos had a leisurely morning and sauntered over to the airport around noon. They also got to Miami at 4:00pm. The Romeos and Sierras met in the airport on their way to the baggage claim.

The hotel was great but the rooms were tinier that we’re used to. At least we thought that until we got to our rooms on the ship.

The 6 of us walked along the strip for a while. There was some great people-watching. Sam was reminded of a quote from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams:

“Incredible!” breathed Arthur. “The people … The things …!”
“The things,” said Ford Prefect quietly, “are also people.”
“The people …” resumed Arthur, “the … other people …”

After walking along the strip, we stopped at a restaurant and paid far too much for dinner. We were all prepared to bleed money this week so we decided to get used to it.

There was also the ritual of stocking up on booze for the trip since Wal-Mart’s prices are more reasonable than the ship’s.

Monday – We set sail or started the propeller or something

We had all shelled out for the “Faster to the Fun” package. This meant that we got to walk past (most) of the rabble in the interminable lines trying to get on the ship. By the end of the trip, we’d decided that this was a worthwhile expense. We were in swimsuits on the ship’s deck by 1:00pm.

One new thing was that we got to fill out forms swearing that we hadn’t been getting Ebola in our spare time.

Monday was also Tina’s birthday. With the birthday and the start of the cruise there were 3 bottles of champagne being passed around.

On the last cruise, there was a martini bar called Alchemy that the ladies favored. In the corresponding spot on this ship was a wine bar. However, the bartender knew how to make chocolate martinis. The girls had 2 each.

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Tuesday – Sea Day

The ship hosted a “Big Bang Theory” trivia game. Sally and the Romeos weren’t too sure but Sam said that the game probably wouldn’t be too tough. Most of the group scored 12 or 13 out of 20. Sam got his ass handed to him with a measly 8.

There were also more experiments with martinis.

Wednesday – Grand Turk

We went paddle-boarding. A paddle-board is sorta like a surf-board but you use a paddle with a long handle to move yourself and the board across the water. There was a group of about 10 people including us. The instructor had us first paddle from one stretch of beach to another one about 200 yards away. Almost all of us fell off the board during this phase of the lesson. This is where we learned that you should try to fall into the water instead of bouncing off the board. When Sally got back on her board, she found that she kept spinning the board around instead of forward. The instructor met up with Sally and told her to face the front of the paddle-board. Sally had no difficulties after that.

The second phase was to paddle out to the snorkeling site. Everyone was standing on their boards and paddling OK except for Sam who was maintaining his skills at falling off things.

Once we got to the snorkeling site, we spent our time exploring the beauty of the fish and the sea. Sam spent his time trying to figure out how to make his flippers and snorkel work. The instructor spent his time retrieving items that the rest of us had dropped.

Thursday – Half Moon Cay

Tim and Tina rented a cabana for us to use. It was on the beach and made life a lot easier with a fridge, counter, table and chairs.
The beach was great. After a couple of days swimming in the pools on the ship it was nice to have some elbow room.
Sam also got flipper lessons from Ron. By the end of it, Sam was able to move the flippers and go in the direction that he’d intended.
By the end of the day, the Romeos and Tangos were deeper shades of golden brown. The Sierras were varying shades of pink.

Friday – Nassau

Sam and Sally had a 9:30am appointment for parasailing. They were early so they spent some time exploring Nassau. When they got back, they were confronted by an official who wanted to see a photo ID. Sam and Sally were flummoxed. The officials at the other islands were barely interested in any ID much less a photo ID. This official didn’t care about other islands but let them in with a warning to bring a photo ID next time.

This left Sam with 10 minutes to go up 7 decks, get the photo IDs, go down 7 decks,and go parasailing. Parasailing was fun. Sam and Sally went up about 450 feet and had a great view of Nassau. 7 minutes later, they were back on the boat going back to the dock.

The Sierras met up with the rest of the group at 10:30am. Since the parasailing got them wetter than they’d planned, they went up 7 decks, got changed, went down 7 decks, and met the rest of the group again.
We took a taxi to something called Cabbage Beach on nearby Paradise Island. As we drove thru whatever island we started on, we’d noticed that it was pretty armpitty. Once we crossed the bridge to Paradise Island, we noticed an immediate change. It seemed much more like a resort area.
Once we got to the beach, we were inundated with requests to spend money. Ron spent some on rental of a beach umbrella. the Sierras spent most of the time under the umbrella cowering from the sun.

Friday – Halloween

The girls had already gotten costumes for everybody. The girls were sexy she-devils and the guys were vampires. Tim’s vampire had white make-up and a dead Elvis look. Ron and Sam had a Bahama vampire thing going. Ron also had horns and Sam had dreadlocks.

The 6 of us got more attention than I would’ve guessed. A couple of folks wanted their pictures taken with us.

We had a lot of pictures taken by the ship’s photographers. We were often asked to look especially evil and threatening. Tina said that Sam’s “evil” look made it seem ass though he been asked about how to use a snorkel. Sam would have said that it was his divide-by zero look but why quibble.

Saturday – Go back to Michigan

The Tango’s flights were scheduled for mid-afternoon and the Romeos and Sierras flights were later still so we were in no rush to get off the ship. Our “Faster to the Fun” packages could have had us out by 7:30am but wandering around Miami with a week’s worth of luggage had no appeal. We sat around on the deck, catching up on email and Facebook, until about 10:30am when the invitations to leave got less friendly and more terse.

The return was much less dramatic than last year’s. There were no frantic drives across states in the wee hours, and no power outages when we got home. The Tangos did get some new flights but were otherwise unmolested.

Sam’s final thought for the day was “Thank gosh I don’t have to work tomorrow.”

Heard on the trip:

“Look at the stem on that guy.”
“Shut up! Shut the f**k up!”
“I hate these cloth napkins. I can’t make spit balls with them.”
“Where’s the spa?”