Monday, December 15, 2008

Alone at Sea, Day 3

When I awoke the ship was rocking. My head was soon to follow. I couldn’t walk without holding on to the handrail and it wasn’t because we were going through the perfect storm. The water was somewhat choppy but it was mostly my equilibrium. This made a lovely cocktail with my normal morning low blood pressure and lightheadedness. It’s times like this when you just suck it up and do what you can do. I wobbled up and got some sea sickness pills from the purser. I wanted breakfast but each 50 feet toward the restaurant was a major achievement in navigating so the it seemed light years away. I grabbed a muffin as I teetered by and dove for a seat. I slugged through the next two hour like that prepared for an entire day of laying in bed. Fortunately I felt much better after noon and headed up to one of the open decks. My target was the adults only deck which as I expected was crowded but I got a place next to Mrs. Unfortunate Thong and her bejeweled husband and whining teenager. I saw them each day of the cruise and they were a strange lot. Lots of bling, very little zing.

About fifteen minutes after I situated myself next to Senor Bejeweled the sun said goodbye for the day . After an hour of progressively colder breezes I gave up and returned to my cabin. Again I was exhausted from all that relaxing so I napped. Later when I wanted something to eat I went up to one of the slightly-better-than-fast-food restaurants. The bar food was sub-par bar food and the dining room fare was mixed. You know you’re on Wal-Mart cruise lines so you should expect Wal-Mart food. You won’t be disappointed.

There is certainly a diverse group here. Lots of Spanish speakers. Sort of reminds me of the group of people you might see at an amusement park like Cedar Point. Aside from being an elitist, my point is that there was little or no opportunity to find anyone interesting to talk to. Not exactly “my crowd”. I spoke only to the Golden Girls. The Philips, whom I was appalled to learn were not actually both named Philip, do not count because I only spoke to them through the Golden Girls. But that aside I didn’t feel lonely and not too bored. I tried not to think too much how my experience would have been entirely fun with the lovely M at my side. Since I ate at the early seating, it always felt like dinner was fifteen minutes after lunch. At dinner the Golden Girls raved about the pictures of me that the ship’s photographer took every night at dinner. I later took a look. How can you like a picture of yourself?

Dinner was uneventful but I did learn that the sister with no name was actually Lorraine, so I excused myself and promised to meet them at the show. After blogging I headed for the Dynasty Lounge and tonight’s show - Shout. It was decent. Pretty similar to the previous show in theme. Just a hodgepodge of American music and generations. After the conclusion, I said my goodbyes and headed to make my deposit at the casino. As always they accepted my money without a word. After catching the end of Sunday Night Football I packed, set my bag in the hall, gulped some Atavin and nodded off.

Day 4 arrived. Lots of doing nothing waiting to get off this tub. All and all this cruise was not an unpleasant experience, but I won’t do it again. I’ve done at least a dozen solo vacations and although they beat staying at home and freezing your ass off, but they leave much to be desired. This one goes down as the second east interesting solo trip .

I’m now waiting for the plane. Had Pizza Hut pizza for breakfast and I’m ready to ride. Sorry I didn’t do anything stupid this trip -- yet.

See you in the funny papers!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Welcome back, thanks for giving me something to do during lunch today; I enjoyed the posts!