{"id":1169,"date":"2016-05-12T21:12:30","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T21:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelwithus.us\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2016-05-12T22:18:35","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T22:18:35","slug":"how-we-survived-the-sea-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travelwithus.us\/?p=1169","title":{"rendered":"How we survived the Sea Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faithful readers may recall we had some trepidation heading into our Sea Day yesterday. For years Mary has been trying to get me to try another mass-market cruise after our 2 previous unhappy attempts. We were both hoping that I might actually enjoy it so we could maybe cruise more often for less money. If you know us well, you will know that I am the one who is sometimes (unfairly) called a princess. I am the one who is sensitive to noise and abhors crowds and is picky about food. So it never occured to us that Mary would be the one who suffered on the mass-market cruise. But there you have it. I had a mostly lovely day yesterday whereas La Grumpia resurfaced and is definitely ready to get off this ship. I was amazed that it turns out Mary is the one who can’t handle the mass-market cruise, but Mary pointed out that she hates crowds even more than I do whereas I get more upset about people misbehaving and not following the rules. When I thought about it, I realized she was right. I can tolerate a crowd better than she can, but I am becoming more and more unable to tolerate the loud man next door and his loud tv, and I get very angry every time I see someone wave off the Purel lady and walk into the buffet without sanitizing their hands. Hello idiots! Norovirus! My main irritants though, are not constant, while the crowds are.<\/p>\n

As for yesterday, we began the morning with our chocolate covered strawberries which are becoming better and better (i.e. less green, less ginormous) every morning. At breakfast the day before I had noticed, after eating, that there is an omelette station, and since the breakfast items are in general quite sub-par, I thought I would try an omelette on our Sea Day. So yesterday, at breakfast, I stood at the very disorganized omelette station and waited 10 or 15 minutes for my omelette. Then I had to wait another 10 minutes for someone to bring me a bowl of Greek yogurt. Every morning I ask for it and every morning it throws them. Then I had to weave through the crowds to find Mary. Mary had decided to get up from the table to get some more of something at the exact time I was searching for her on the deck, so I had to make two circles through the crowd with my very heavy plates before I found her. Many people have complained about the weight of the plates. It’s crazy how heavy they are and there are no trays available so getting a meal together always takes more than one trip. Once I found Mary I said, “From now on, we’re eating in the dining room. I can’t take this anymore.” She nodded or something which I took as agreement.<\/p>\n

For lunch we went to the dining room. You can ask for a table for two or if you’re willing to share you can join another table. The people ahead of us looked to both of us like people we couldn’t bear to join, so we waited for a table for two and were given, just one minute later, a table for two right at the window! Soon they brought the couple who had been in line behind us to sit at the table for two right next to us. That couple talked with the couple on the other side of them and we were left alone. I did a little eavesdropping and learned that the couple next to us were from Victoria. I wondered if they would be allowed to leave the cruise in Victoria (tonight) rather than in Seattle tomorrow morning. So once the people they had been talking to left, I struck up a conversation. I thought we had a quite pleasant conversation and yes, they are allowed to leave the ship in Victoria tonight.<\/p>\n

After lunch I wanted to swim so we headed to the solarium. There were hordes of people in the chairs around the pool, but no one actually in the pool, so we headed to the locker room. Most of the lockers were taken and it was difficult to find an empty one that actually locked. I went to the front desk to ask if I could have some rubber slippers which are in the lockers in the mornings but not in the afternoon. The front desk attendant came back and could not find any slippers. She told me to ask a locker room attendant if I saw one. She was attempting to get back to her job at the front desk when a woman who was attempting to lock a broken locker said, “It won’t lock.”<\/p>\n

“It’s broken,” I told her.<\/p>\n

“It’s broken,” the desk attendant said. The desk attendant seemed flustered and I felt responsible for taking her away from her duties so I attempted to help the broken locker woman. I found her a locker that wasn’t broken and was going to show her how to lock it, but I suddenly really had to pee.<\/p>\n

“Mary can you show this woman how to lock her locker?” I asked. Mary looked confused but seemed to assent. “I’ll be right back,” I said and headed to the toilet stall. That was my second strike of the day. (The first one, which I didn’t yet know about, I will divulge later.) When I returned, Mary had managed to lock the woman’s things into the locker and now was unable to unlock it. Fortunately, the locker room attendant appeared and she unlocked the woman’s locker and gave me some rubber slippers.<\/p>\n

We headed out to the pool where there were two pot-bellied men standing in the water on the side doing nothing and two other men acting like they might swim, but not actually moving. “Oh no!” Mary said. “I’m going back to the room.”<\/p>\n

“I’m swimming laps,” I said. “Come on, it will be fine.”<\/p>\n

“I’ll see you later,” Mary said.<\/p>\n

As soon as I got into the pool and swam one lap, the theoretical swimmers left, and the pot-bellied men stayed out of my way. Because the ship was moving, the water in the pool was not calm and with each lap when I hit the mid-point of the pool there were a few seconds where it felt like I was in one of those swimming in place pools, not moving anywhere at all. Then, magically I would break through the resistance and continue on my way. I thought it was really great. I saw Mary walking through the pool area towards the elevator. “Hey Mary!” I called to her. “This is really cool. It’s like one of those swimming in place pools!”<\/p>\n

She gave me a weak smile, pointed, said “Look!” and then something I could not understand.<\/p>\n

“What?” I asked?<\/p>\n

Again she said something I couldn’t understand. “What?” I asked. She turned her back to me and walked away. I thought she might be taking a strange route to come closer to the pool and explain to me what I was supposed to be seeing, but she was gone. Later I told her she had turned her back on me and walked away while I was talking to her and she said, “Oh, I didn’t think you were listening to me.” Once I got out of the pool I saw she had been pointing out that we were in sight of land.<\/p>\n

My swim was lovely, though I may have overdone it. My right elbow is a bit sore today. After the swim I had a lovely lie in the sauna. There was only one other woman in there and she was appropriately silent. A few people opened the door and said things like, “Wow, this is too hot!” and then left, but I was able to tune them out.<\/p>\n

I went to the OceanView cafe to peruse the ice cream flavors, and went back to the room with a scoop of strawberry and a scoop of peanut butter. Then I showered. I really like our bathroom. It is large for a cruise ship bathroom. The shower is also large with glass walls. If you leave the bathroom door open while you’re showering, you can see the reflection of the sea in the artwork on the wall, and it is really fabulous to watch the ocean while you are showering. It was such a sunny day that if I had sat out on the balcony I would have gotten a sunburn so instead I lay inside reading, “Secrets of Six Figure Women” This book is about how I can earn a six-figure income and afford to do the luxury cruises rather than the mass-market ones. Eventually I fell asleep and Mary woke me up when it was dinner-time.<\/p>\n

We sat at our table for two and they offered us some sort of complimentary rum cocktail with four different kinds of fruit juices in it. I will rarely turn down a fruit juice rum cocktail so I accepted. It was interesting and most likely had 1\/4 teaspoon of rum or less in it. I am a lightweight and I felt NO alcohol in my system. Early on in the dinner Mary started coughing because she had swallowed wrong. She abruptly got up and walked away from the table and as I was watching her go, wondering if she was okay, the man at the table next to us started up a conversation with me, and we were well in conversation when Mary returned. This dinner was what used to be called Formal night – now it is Elegant Casual. Lobster and beef wellington were the featured main courses. I chose beef wellington, along with a kale – squash salad. Both were quite good. Mary chose chicken. For dessert they had baked Alaska which I was curious about. Mary ordered apple pie a la mode. I ate a bite or two of my baked Alaska and almost all of Mary’s pie and I was really, really full! And, it was time for my massage. Bad planning!<\/p>\n

I headed up to Deck 11 for my massage and Mary headed back to the room. Once I got to the waiting area and was reading about the different offerings I remembered that we had a coupon in the room for a free add-on treatment. I went to the front desk to ask if I could have the free add-on treatment and he said I would need the coupon. At that point my massage therapist came out to meet me, so I asked if I could call my room and ask my partner to bring the coupon to me. My partner was VERY resistant to bringing it to me. She was already in her jammies. However, I begged, “Please! Please! You just need to leave it at the front desk!” and she relented. Thank you Mary! (This was Strike 3 against me – more on this later.)<\/p>\n

You may recall I met my massage therapist, Punika, yesterday when she gave me a complimentary 20 minute shoulder massage in the hallway outside the Oceanview Cafe (i.e. buffet). She was adorable and gave an excellent massage so had not needed much of a sales pitch to convince me. Last night, she took me to a room where there was a mat on the floor. She had me lie on the mat with a sheet over me and then she massaged and manipulated my body – had me take deep breaths as she moved my body in certain ways. It felt a little like assisted Pilates. I was a little worried about my back but I mostly trusted her and it was an excellent massage. She gave me a foot exfoliant and massage add-on, which was also excellent. I was quite, quite happy. And my back feels a little bit better today.<\/p>\n

Every time I have ever had a spa treatment on a cruise ship they have ended by trying to sell me a bunch of crap. I was prepared for this and had already decided that I wasn’t going to buy anything but was going to add $20 on to the 18% required service charge. After all, she gave me 20 minutes on Tuesday, and I’m pretty sure the 8:00 time she gave me was not a normally scheduled time and she only did it to get the sale. Once the massage ended, Punika recommended some sort of essential oil something something for my feet. “You can read the box,” she said. “Because my English is poor.”<\/p>\n

“Your English is excellent!” I told her. “It is better than any second language I can speak!”<\/p>\n

She seemed very pleased by this compliment. I told her that I use something called SuperSalve that has a number of different essential oils in it and she said, “Oh, then you don’t need to buy ours.” I was stunned. Usually there is a really, really hard sell. I asked her how long she had been on the ship and she told me three months. She’s been working on cruise ships for a year and a half, and works six months and then has two months off during which she goes back to Thailand.<\/p>\n

“Do you have children?” I asked her.<\/p>\n

“No,” she said. “I am single. But I talk to my mother every single day. It is so great now that we have internet!” I asked her if this was her first time in Alaska. She and her fellow massage therapist had been bemoaning the cold the day before when they were giving me and another woman our free massages. She said yes, and I said I hoped she got used to the cold eventually. She told me that Wednesday was the first time she had ever seen snow on mountains and it was so beautiful. Then she said, “Yesterday when they made us do promotion near Oceanview Cafe I heard some people say they saw bear and me and my friend we just left our spot and ran to see bear!”<\/p>\n

“Did you get to see the bear?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“Yes!” she said. “Very small but we saw it!” I told her I was glad she had left her spot and that she had gotten to see a bear.<\/p>\n

Punika left the room so I could get dressed and when she came back she had the coupon for the add-on treatment. “Your husband brought coupon!” she said. I didn’t bother correcting her and she then told me that if my husband wanted the same treatment she would give him the thai massage and the foot treatment without any coupon for the in-port price at any time he wanted. Plus, he could wear his gym clothes, because men aren’t comfortable taking off their clothes.<\/p>\n

“Thank you!” I said, knowing that my “husband” would not have any interest in getting a massage the next day. Punika escorted me out to the spa reception desk and said, “Tell your husband!”<\/p>\n

“I’ll tell him!” I said, smiling and waving. The man at the reception desk looked at me and smiled. I’m pretty sure he was the person Mary brought the coupon to so he knew I have no husband. But it just seemed easier, and kinder, to pretend.<\/p>\n

I found a phone and called Mary to see if I could bring her anything to thank her for bringing me the coupon. “No thank you,” she said. When I got back to the room she was still fairly grumpy. I learned that I had two BIG strikes against me for the day, along with one smaller one. One: assigning her to show a woman who didn’t speak English how to operate a locker; Two: asking her to bring me a coupon in the evening when she was already in her pajamas. She put shorts and a nice top on to bring me the coupon, but apparently endured a lot of stinkeye from snobby people in the elevator who felt that she wasn’t well-dressed enough on Elegant Casual night and who thought that it is good manners to give dirty looks to people whose outfits you do not approve of. My first strike of the day had been striking up convesration with our neighbors at lunch. Mary said last night that she hates eating in the dining room – “because you have to talk to people” – and that she was planning to have the rest of her meals in the buffet. That’s a shame because I think I like the dining room much more than the hectic buffet.<\/p>\n

When I decided to tip Punika an extra $20 I knew I was depleting our on-board credit and would not be able to buy all the L’Occitane goodies I had planned to spend the balance of our credit on. Easy come, easy go. But shortly after I returned to our cabin, there was a knock on the door and our stateroom attendant, Oscar, handed me a notice apologizing for the nightmarish embarkation on Friday. In compensation, they were adding an additional $50 to our stateroom credit. Magically, my L’Occitane Happy Hands lotion set came back into the equation. I did think it was interesting that they waited until late Wednesday night to compensate us for something that happ\"IMG_20160511_083846479_HDR\"<\/a>ened on Friday. All the shops will close once we get into Victoria at 5:00. Cynically, I wonder if they are counting on many passengers not actually managing to spend their newfound $50.<\/p>\n

Our next door neighbors had decided to stay in and blast their tv all night rather than go do something elsewhere, so I resorted to earplugs. I hate that man more and more every time I hear his loud voice. But the earplugs were effective and I fell asleep fairly early. I sleep so well on a cruise ship. I’m going to miss that!<\/p>\n

This morning we had our now standard-delivery of 6 chocolate covered strawberries – I mean, really, how cool is that!!!! – and then we went up to the buffet. This time I ordered my omelette and then while it was being prepared I went in search of Greek yogurt. By the time I got my yogurt my omelette was ready. “Mary?” the omelette chef asked. I smiled and moved forward “You took a very long time,” he said. I apologized. I do hate to throw them off their game. I just have to have my own survival game too. You may wonder why I used the name Mary. It’s because yesterday when I gave him my own name he asked how to spell it. I hesitated, and then decided my actual spelling would confuse him so I said, “L I Z,” and watched him write down “L I C.” I had no idea how he was going to pronounce it when my omelette was ready and this caused me a bit of angst. It turns out that Lic is pronounced “Lis” like the beginning of “lisp” (whereas my name is pronounced “Lis” like “his”). But Mary suggested that today I just use her name.<\/p>\n

After breakfast I went down to the shops – rushed down, in fact, because they were having a “mega-sale” at 10:30 and I wanted to avoid those crowds. At the perfume store I bought L’Occitane almond shower oil and a L’Occitane happy hands lotion set. It is the same set I bought last year on the Queen Mary and it definitely made my hands happy. We now have used up all our cruise credit and owe 84 cents. Mary will probably get a beer tonight leaving us with a grand total of around 10 bucks.<\/p>\n

A couple of days ago we got a notice that if we book a future cruise on the ship we will get an extra $100 cruise credit. The deposit is refundable and I have been going back and forth ever since as to whether or not to put down a deposit. There have been some sublime moments in this cruise: sitting out on the balcony, swimming in the solarium, the spa sauna, my thai massage, the most excellent ice cream. But then there are the crowds, and the loud people, and the thin walls. I have mostly loved this cruise, but it was not inexpensive. And Mary is fairly unhappy and mildly unpleasant on sea days. So there’s that. I think we probably won’t put down a deposit. Maybe we’ll try a different mass-market line and hope for thicker walls and better crowd management. Or maybe I will become a six-figure woman and we can sail Crystal, which we know we love.<\/p>\n

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Faithful readers may recall we had some trepidation heading into our Sea Day yesterday. For years Mary has been trying to get me to try another mass-market cruise after our 2 previous unhappy attempts. We were both hoping that I might actually enjoy it so we could maybe cruise more often for less money. If … Continue reading How we survived the Sea Day<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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