8/27/2013

The Carnival Miracle

WOOT!

I think that may sum it up, really.  Perhaps I should just stop there for today.  I mean, really, the rest is sort of fluff, isn’t it?  Yadda yadda yadda… big boat! … yadda yadda yadda … sailing in the ocean! …

I sense, however, if you’re reading this, there may be a certain desire for details…

Or more probably, you’re just really bored and killing time… no one twittering anything interesting, eh?  I feel your pain….

Or actually, I DON’T BECAUSE I’M ON A CRUISE!

Early this morning, we made our way, via shuttle, to the Port of Seattle, where Carnival’s “The Miracle” awaited us (well… maybe not just us… perhaps a few others… say 2500 or so…) to set sail.  Now mind you, you’ve seen pictures of these massive cruise liners… and you have an idea of how big they must be in real life… but when you’re truly right up next to one… WOW!  Pretty amazing.  Also a little scary… I mean, the damn thing looks so… well…. Tall… maybe a little top heavy… like it could spill a little this way or that and drop off a few hundred people and really… who’d know? 

Anyway, we did the whole customs… bag checking… yadda yadda yadda stuff and finally made our way into the ship! 

And really had no idea where we were going.  It’s a big ship!

So, a few questions later, we found our way to the room… a room that really wasn’t quite as tiny as I thought it would be, with a Queen bed for my parents and a wee little twin for me.  A nice size window gives an excellent view of the passing scenery and there’s most of what you might want handy…

Except…

Ok!!  Damnit!  There’s this horrible print that hangs above my little cubby-bed… and aside from the fact that it’s poorly done and the colors are definitely watercolor a la 1985, the nightmarish thing is crooked inside it’s matting!!  ARG!!

It’s a shame the window doesn’t open… Otherwise it would swim with the fishes.  Concrete shoes on those cheap, plastic frames, baby! 

Ok, I must stop looking at the print… it’s obviously upsetting me…

Aside from that!  While my parents settled in, I ventured to the top of the 10 story  behemoth and went a little crazy with the photos.  Amazing views of Seattle from the upper deck, with swirls of clouds (in various shades) making the scenery all the more spectacular.  This was pleasant until a terribly upsetting, mandatory safety something or other drug me back down to the 3^rd deck.

My advice… hide from these.  Find some quiet, cool little corner and wait it out.  Yes, they are required by law… no, I really couldn’t see the point.  A safety card in my room would have told me as much and with far less annoyance. 

In brief: long waits while everyone is grouped into 4 sections… you’re pushed together so close you find yourself getting’ friendly with someone’s grandma… then piercing, repeated wails from a loadspeaker above your head… again… and again… and again… a few banal words… long pause for some tender loving moments with gramma, who is still pressed up against you… long piercing wails again… then the long, shuffled trek towards the door… the memory of your unwanted, illicit tryst with gramma still a fresh open wound in your now aching head… which, by the way, has now rediscovered that migraine you thought forgotten back in Seattle’s downtown shopping district….

Ah well.

Dinner was actually good.  Our “dinner area” is in the “Bacchus Restaurant”… a name which prompted a bit of a giggle from me.  After all, the average age of the person on board this ship is probably around 70… and that’s even factoring in the variety of grandkids… so the idea of a Bacchanalia was a bit entertaining…. And perhaps a bit nauseating… But the dining room itself! 

OMG!  So, of course, it has this vine/grape motif all over, including the railings and the ceiling panels.  What really cracks me up, though, are these clusters of purple globes all over the ceiling, walls, and … well… most everything else… that serve as both the lights as well as (of course) the “grapes” in the Hedonistic Orgy of a Dining Room we were to eat dinner in…

Still, at least the food was pretty good.

Afterwards, I toured the ship some more, listening in on bars with sad little guitar players doing 80’s covers (oh god… that’s classic rock now, isn’t it?... bleh)… piano bars with even more depressing live music… and a karaoke bar staged in this truly bizarre little place called ‘Mad Hatters’ that made the ‘Bacchus Restaurant’ look near austere and refined… Yea, don’t make me talk about it…

I wonder if I could put the crooked print under the bed?  I think it would fit…

Other entertaining things caught my attention as I ventured my way through the ship after dinner… but alas, exhaustion has found me out and I believe I’ll bring this to a close tomorrow. 

Tomorrow, a day of sailing!