As far as the other guests go, it’s been an unusual cruise
for two reasons. One: there are a lot of newbies on board. People wandering
around more or less lost, not knowing what’s free and what costs extra, not
really even knowing the perks of things they’ve actually paid for. Second,
there’s also a lot of folks who just
don’t like kids, or at least don’t want to see them on their vacation. Nobody’s
really horrible about it – the most
we really get is cut-eye in the elevators or snark at the buffet – but it’s a
different experience then we’ve had in the past. On a typical cruise, two out
of every three people we run into smile or chat with our kids, or they tell us about
grandkids at home that they’re missing. But this time it’s the two thirds that
are gritting their teeth when we walk by, or saying things like, “Better you
than me, man!” I’m not even offended, it’s just… peculiar. I love traveling
with my kids. And (if you can pardon the platitude) I love how it lets me see
things in a new way through their eyes. We’ll be dragging these kids along on our
vacations for as long as they’ll let us.
Another weird thing was that prior to embarkation we didn’t
bump into anyone else going on the same cruise. Always, always, in the airport,
on the plane, in the hotel: we end up chatting with folks going on the same
cruise. Not this time. Because of that fact, I predicted we wouldn’t see a
single member of the crew we’d known previously. But the words had barely left
my mouth before Sarah’s dad picked out a sommelier he knew from his last
cruise, and Sarah saw the waiter from our
last cruise. This was followed immediately by Julie from the Fun Factory – who
our kids knew from two prior cruises.
Then there were scads of familiar waitresses and bartenders, and also an assistant maitre’d who was super-helpful during our first
cruise with Teddy. So my prediction proved less than accurate, is what I’m
saying.
That first day, the kids did a really good job waiting,
because they couldn’t do the two things they were dying to do until later that
evening (namely: go the Fun Factory and buy whatever random junk they could buy
at the shops). We did our best to distract them. We took them to the pool as
soon as our luggage (and swimsuits) got delivered, and when sail-away came, we
took them out dancing. There was an excellent house band led by a very
Adele-like singer, and the kids danced their little hearts out. Footage of the
McLean Family Dancers made the Cruise Highlights video produced by Celebrity, and while it was
fantastically cute we were still too cheap to buy it. Veronica is all
confidence when she dances. Susannah has moves, but she perfers the comfort of
being surrounding by her siblings. Teddy… is a wild flailer. His dancing
involves a lot of intense arm
thrusts. I think he’s aware that his style is unorthodox because he’ll often
grab your hands and team-dance with you. My favourite part was when a couple
beside us started swing dancing and Teddy was like, “Dad, we need to do that!” as if he wasn’t talking to the
second worst dancer on the boat.
Later came dinner in the main dining room, and that was
great as always. Our waiter was Harun, his assistant was Efrem, and the sommelier
was Lundi, and they were all excellent. It was just an hour away from the Fun
Factory being open, and the kids were sort
of patient about it. They did ask for a time check every eighteen seconds, but
otherwise they ate a good meal and were well-behaved. Then when seven o’clock
rolled around, they were out of their seats and ready to go. Veronica got a few
feet away from the table – but then she ran back and gave Harun a huge hug. I don’t even know why. Maybe
just as thanks for the chocolate ice cream he brought for dessert. But seeing
his smile is one of the things I’ll remember most about this trip. The kids get
a lot of attention from the staff in general, and they get asked for a lot of hugs
(which are happily given). But Veronica’s hug was totally unprompted and out of
the blue, and Harun had a look of such happy surprise on his face. Maybe it’s
the surprise that really stuck with me, because these guys have worked these
jobs for a long time and have really seen it all – the best and the worst that
people can be. Surprises are a rarity, I imagine.
From there, the bigs went off to the Fun Factory. We
finished dinner and tried to take Susannah dancing, but without the rest of her
dance crew she wasn’t really into it. So we took her to the shops where the
staff was totally into her and she was really
not into that. Then it took three attempts to collect the other kids from the Fun
Factory before they finally consented to leave, and soon after, it was beddy-bye
for the lot of us.
(Additional story that I couldn’t work organically into this
post: Whenever the ship needs to rotate
or make small lateral movements, they use these particular thrusters (I think they’re
called azipods) that make the ship vibrate. Anyway, sometime close to sail-away I
was waiting in our room while Veronica was using the bathroom. As we're navigating
away from the dock, they fire up the azipods and the ship starts vibrating. Veronica, on the throne and more than a little annoyed, says, “Who’s doing that?” Five seconds go by as
I try to think of how to explain it to her, and she calls out again with five
times more attitude, “Tell them to stop
it!”)
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