Pardon our horribly-slack blogging, we're packing up to go home! We're going to make it up to you by finishing off like we started - a blog a day! Yes, if you can remember almost three years ago, unemployed Johnny was cranking out a new blog post every day on average. Now those idle days are back again, so for the sake of symmetry (and catching up on a lot of adventures) he'll attempt to roll them out like he used to until it's time to head to Heathrow...
We just had a few more things to say about our cruise experience through Scandinavia, or more specifically about one of our new all-time favourite things: Days At Sea.
As cruise virgins, we'd been slightly worried about being bored on our four "Days At Sea". We'd supposed that only mad-keen Bridge or Bingo players would enjoy what the ship had to offer on these days. But we were so wrong. The Jewel Of The Seas was like a 5-star hotel dropped onto a Whitsunday Island, decorated with everything from the Weight Watchers Forbidden List. Our typical Day At Sea would see us shuffle into the all-day buffet at around 10.30 (just in time to catch the omelette-making-guy before he knocked off) and gorge ourselves before attempting to burn off the calories with EPIC table-tennis matches - rallies lasting hundreds of shots were not unheard-of. We'd then swing past the library to pick up the day's cerebral activities - fresh trivia, crossword and sudoku puzzles were provided each day - and settle down somewhere, possibly with a coffee from the (hideously-named) Latte-tudes Café. After swinging back past the buffet for another bout of eating, we'd often adjourn to the games room for some Scrabble, take our books to one of the pool areas, or do something a bit more active like Mini Golf, Rock Climbing or hitting the gym. And then all too quickly it would be time to eat again, this time in the Tides dining room with our regular dinner companions.
Of course we got to know our fellow diners very well. But with this cruise being an American-run enterprise, all of the service staff were hyper-attentive in that "Really want a good tip" way. Luckily our Peruvian waiter Juan and his Turkish assistant Mehmet were genuinely nice guys and had quite a Laurel-and-Hardy routine going - often unintentionally! Mehmet had more than a touch of Manuel from Fawlty Towers about him, while Juan was ever the consummate professional.
Our "stateroom attendant" Sori was a towel-folding magician - each time we came back from dinner we'd have a new sculpture awaiting us. It turns out that all stateroom attendants get taught how to do this, which slightly diminished the special feeling, but it was still impressive:
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There were characters among our fellow passengers as well, some of whom achieved notoriety through participating in the various game shows run by our cruise director Joff (aka John Cleese - exceedingly witty and entertaining, even if his endless quips had a slightly well-practised feel to them). One couple in particular will forever remain in our memories. During a "Love and Marriage" show, the wife was asked who (aside from her, of course) her husband would most like to have with him on a desert island. She replied that he would choose his brother. When they swapped over, the husband (they'd been married for a year) simply could not think of an answer. Under intense pressure from Joff, his wife, and the crowd, he blurted out "My secretary?!?!?" at which point both the crowd and the wife exploded, but in rather different ways. For the remainder of the cruise that couple looked somewhat strained.
Johnny has already expressed his displeasure at violators of the dinner dress code - the passenger who most incurred his wrath was a Hispanic diner on the next-door table who consistently flouted not only the dress code but also basic rules of table manners and politeness. Thus he acquired the unenviable nickname of "Stupid Latino Ugly Guy", or SLUG for short. Sadly we have no picture of the Slug, but just imagine Jabba The Hut from Star Wars but with fewer interpersonal skills and you've got him nailed.
On the subject of famous likenesses, Johnny thinks that our cruise line may in fact be the forbidden lovechild of the Transformers' Autobots and Decepticons:
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At 90,000 tons, if the Jewel ever does transform into a robot, JUST RUN!
1 comment:
If you're really worried about being bored, visit www.domo-sudoku.com where you can play free sudoku puzzles.
Cheers
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