Drama, Humor And The Unexpected At Sea

These clouds have a silver lining.

 So instead of two sea days that turned into four that has now turned into six we are still smiling and actually thoroughly enjoying our cruise. Sound impossible given all I've told you? Nope. The food is still great. The fellowship continues. Did I mention it's warm and sunny? I do wish we hadn't run out of blueberries but I will survive.

Thought I might give you some glimpses of little things that have happened that have filled our days. First up, a little drama (besides the ship's dilemmas with ports). There are two kinds of onboard credits. One is nonrefundable and can be used for excursions and costs for extra things on the ship that are not included. That scored me a new necklace since Bob never wants to leave a balance in that account. 

The second onboard credit is refundable. As we skipped ports, the port fees and taxes were credited to that account. So we ended up (before skipping Aruba) with a little over $300 in that account. A message on our phone indicated that we needed to go to the front desk and get that in cash. Bob checked the balance on our account and noted that it was gone. When he looked at me, I shook my head. Not me. 

We went to the desk and the fellow who had given our money to someone else was on break. They called him back and he produced a paper with a signature. "Not mine," said Bob. "You can check it against other things I've signed and see that it isn't." By now we had figured that somehow the fellow had misunderstood the room number someone had given him and never questioned it further. Now he decided he would call security and check the video at the time of withdrawal and they would call us when it was all figured out. Security? Video? Sure put this writer's imagination to work.

After lunch, it was all worked out and we got our cash. "A clerical error." 

How about some humor? We always go to the Palm Court before dinner and there is dance music playing. Besides "Love Potion #9" they like to play "Hernando's Hideaway", a tango. When it started playing, I looked at Bob, leaned in a bit and said, "The music just makes me want to wrap a leg around you." He choked on his drink. Ah, fond memories of learning the tango.

One of the things we were grateful for as a perk for the Grand Voyage was the offer of free medical service. Our hope was that we wouldn't need it. Well, Bob came in from playing Paddle Tennis the other day and said, "I saw the doctor."

"You what? What's wrong?"

"I saw the doctor." And then comes that wicked little laugh and glint in the eye. "He and I played together and beat the other guys that were so good."

Okay, just one more. Back when COVID began, my housecleaning services were canceled and I went about figuring out how I was going to get it all done on my own. I have this to do list app and I plotted out how I could clean each section of the house a little at a time and then set the plan to repeat. It's worked out well enough that I don't expect to rehire the service unless it becomes physically impossible for me to keep it up. So, as I looked at my to do list in anticipation of going home, I saw that I would arrive just in time to clean the downstairs toilet and bathroom. Now that we are delayed, I marked it done and it won't pop up for a few more weeks, she says brushing her hands off. 

And just so you don't think the rest of the passengers lack humor about this whole thing, I post this with permission from the creator, Gary Brasher, The Ballad Of The Serenity Ship. (see photo). Some of the staff sang it last night.