Out of Mojitos

Day 4 - This is the last day of the cruise. I slept much better than the night before - no magic finger vibrations, and the lumps were strategically shifted out from under.

My poor bod has been assaulted in so many ways the part few days that I craved something healthier for breakfast. Coffee for starters, that's understood.

And I managed to cobble together a fairly healthy bowl, similar to what I usually have while not on a Cruising Ship.

I started with plain yogurt, added honeydew melon (on offer right next to the honeydon't melon), walnuts, almonds, a sprinkling of dried cranberries as the 'sinful' option of the bowl because they contain sugar, and also are cranberries, which were never meant to be consumed, and anyone who has opened a can of cranberry jelly will confirm that the gelatinous ridge-waisted tubular jiggling red poop that plops onto the plate is an alien substance to be avoided at all costs, and finally, to kick up the crunch factor a notch, Cheery Ohs. BAM!!!

It was tasty, to be sure!

Got to pay the mental rent, so that meant fetching the chromebook, and then searching for a quiet place to write so I could bang out a couple of self-serving marginally original of questionable taste and off colour of humour blog posts.

And I did find a place, just outside an empty lounge/club. It included a tub chair, which was the most comfortable work seating I'd yet found on board. And it was quiet. And had a view of the ocean, waving at me through the expansive windows.

Well, then the trouble started. The $22 a day internet, which had been fast and quite reliable, had ground to a halt, at least as far as adding photos to the blog went. Normally this process takes just a second or three - but now, inexplicably, it had ground almost to a halt. I would wait for 2, 3, 4 minutes, sometimes longer.

And of course I tried all the things. I jiggled cables, signed in and out, circled my chair, exited and restarted the browser, held my mouth funny... all to no avail. No, there was not a goddamned avail to be had.

I plodded along as best I could, until a children's movie started in the lounge, blasting at top volume. An of course, various loud shouty people with their loud shouty kids sat as close to me as possible in an area otherwise devoid of other people just to fuck with my concentration.

Time to move, back to the bookless library, which sounds like a literary gentleman's club.

BOOKLESS LIBRARY! STACKS! SHELVES SHELVES SHELVES! TWO DRINK MINIMUM, NO COVER. 

I had hopes the internet would magically work better there, but it didn't. I slogged along. The only trick I had left to try was to close the browser and completely shut down the chromebook. I was nervous that I might not be able to log back in to everything again, so I hadn't tried that yet.

Another change of venue saw me returning to Cabinette 00. I did the shutdown restart thing, and it made a huge difference. I also found that I could fairly comfortably work sitting up in bed. Ah whaddayou care, this is all just filler anyway.

All of this fucking around killed the morning, so I headed down for lunch. Care to guess?

Cheese steak. But for some reason missing most of the onions and peppers. Still good though. Bowl of salad with bokeh dressing as well.

I found a nice table out on the Poon Deck. Every day on the ship I find new things and places that I didn't know about.

That done, I'd earned some recreation. A safe, little play at the casino would be just the thing. Just a taste. A dabble.

Well, I came close. So aggravating! As close as you can get to a Royal Flush without getting a Royal Flush.

The session was a complete disaster and I was pretty pissed off. I went and hung out in the Cabinette for a while, chilled out, ate snacks.

Then I went and got some exercise, traipsing around the ship, looking at things, trying to find good places to walk. I've been hitting 8,000 - 10,000 steps a day.

Eventually it was 7:00 pm or so - this seems to happen daily. I headed to the casino.

I tested the bar theory and asked specifically - if I have the free drinks in the casino package, can I get a drink at this bar and the package covers it?

The answer was yes. I ordered a mojito. They are out of mojitos. Yesterday they were out of mojitos. How can you be out of damn mojitos??

Then... I ordered a mojito without the mint. Yes, that he could do. I reckoned that they were out of mint and that was the underlying issue.

I watched the bartender make the drink and he poured a full shot of rum. And then another. Yeeee haw. Problems solved, problems created!

I had another wee dabble because I'm a degenerate and was way, way behind in quads - I was DUE baby.

The good news is after losing quite a bit of dough I got Pointies again.

The bad news is that again I didn't get the kicker, and that after that I continued to be tormented with 'almost' hands.

I'd heard you can order two appetizers and/or two entres at dinner and tested the theory out.

I ordered the soup and my server suggested that it was really salty, so I switched to the fried green tomatoes. She asked if I would like to try a little of the soup so I agreed - and she then delivered an entire bowlful. It was indeed salty, and very good. I ate about half of it. 

The fried green tomatoes were just okay. The two entrees were the vegetarian curry dish, and the brisket - both excellent.

Not pictured, I ended up with two desserts - fruit plate, and some off-menu chocolate chip cookies.

I was stuffed!

My last gasp I did manage to get another quad, but for this trip, the damage was done - it was a pretty substantial ass-kicking.

Down in the Atrium, some fat pervert was getting women - and men - to sit on his lap and taking their photo.

Pervy Claus

And that was pretty much it. There was some admin to do around debarking, packing up the suitcase, putting it in the hall etc.

I slept well, was up at 6:00 am for a quick coffee and breakfast, and was back at the Greacey Palms by 10:30.

Thanks for reading, and huge, huge Thank Yous to the generous patrons of the blog who have thrown a ko-fi or donation my way, and some of you are repeat offenders, and you know who you are and have my ever-lasting gratitude.

I love that you appreciate the many letters and punctuation that somehow become mediocre, static entertainment here in this blog.

For now, Captain Flushiepants out. See you all very, very soon.

Shouty Happy People

Day 3 part 2 - The nap was just the ticket. An hour of blissful non-vibrating sleep.

I wanted to see the ship leave port first hand, so I hauled ass up to the 14th deck found a great spot to watch from.

There were a number of other gawkers up there as well, not making any bones about the fact that they were hoping to see some dock runners - people who were about to -or already had - missed getting back onto the Cruising Ship on time.

A Selection of Savvy Cruising Ship Tips

• In my opinion, it is impossible to shower on this ship without flooding the entire bathroom floor... unless you always stand between the shower head and the curtain. The curtain is short, and fortunately, the shower drain extends a few inches into the bathroom area.
• The faucet is a bit different. Left handle is water on/off. Right handle is water temperature. Be careful with your buoys and tackle!
• Leaving the fridge cabinet door open made the difference in getting the fridge interior cold! Thank you savvy readers!
• If you have your Sign and Sail card on a lanyard, store it on the door handle. Don't you be like me and forget it in the room!!! This essentially prevents that, because it's almost impossible to open the door and not notice the lanyard. I suppose the ultimate solution is to just keep it on you at all times no matter what.
• A gallon ziploc bag can transport a day's ration of chocolate chip cookies from the buffet to the comfort and safety of your Cabinette.
• Today and only today I remembered reading that if you have the drinks in the casino on us superpower, you can go up to the casino bar and request a free drink at the drop of a hat. I planned a rant on the casino drink service, which will appear below - then I remembered this. It should mitigate the thirst situation.
• The bar has bottled water. Where you take that water and what you do with it is totally your business.

We weighed anchor, set sail, and hauled ass out of Cozumel. It was pretty cool to watch it all from high atop the ship.

It was a fun time, but not a winning time, and then it was dinner time.

There are all kinds of people on this boat. There are people like me, and then there are people not like me. And then there are very loud, shouty people. I don't enjoy shouty people unless I am tipsy and one of them.

At the restaurant, I spied the table I was about to be led to and it was festooned and surrounded by shouty people.

I requested a table in a different section, which was quiet and largely unpopulated, explaining I'd experienced noise trauma from being next to the stack when the horn blew this morning (true) and I could use fewer blowhards around me.

They accommodated me very willingly and helpfully.

Behold, the menu, and the environs.

I opted for the Smoked Poblano and Corn soup, and attempting to erase the memory of the steel belted ribs from lunch, stubbornly ordered the pork spare ribs entre. Dessert... the melting chocolate lava spew cake. It's de rigeur when At Sea to have a volcanic dessert at some point in the voyage.

I enjoyed the soup deeply in the peace and quiet of the non-shouty section, it's poblano and corn overtones blending perfectly with each other, because that's what it is made from. The cumin was just so, and it was to my palette a little spicier than expected, which was a delight.

The Flavourful Soup. Ignore that it looks like baby shit.

The ribs arrived, accompanied by a smiling server. They looked alllll right, and they were. Nice and tender, as promised.

OK, not the super greatest, but I enjoyed the hell out of them.

Until some buffoon commandeered the pubic address system running 108 dB straight outta the devil's hairy triangle.

"ARE YOU READY FOR SHOWWWWWWWW TIME?!!!!!!!!"

This is my fault. My friend Jennifer warned me about this specifically and in detail! Beware the awkwardness of the fake happy dancing restaurant staff hi-de-ho clapping and prancing shit show cringe parade!

I forgot all about it. Occasionally I faked up some enthusiasm by clapping two or three times (on the downbeat, not the upbeat, just to show them) but I refused steadfastly to join the loud shouty people and wave my napkin in a circular motion, hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mudshark in your mythology, here it goes now, the circular motion.

Damn, what I put up with for you people to read about!

Save me.

Mercifully, this display of soul-killing dance moves lasted only about 7 minutes, just long enough for my choco-lava spurt cake to get cold.

It was ok, not spectacular. And it didn't ooze out of the ramekin like real lava either. Sadness.

And with that, I thought I'd hit the casino and have a few drinks.

Now, I have to address the cocktail situation in the casino. It's completely out of control. First of all, the drinks are tiny. Miniscule. I haven't even gotten one or two sheets to the wind, let alone three, this whole trip. I could never succeed in getting Maile Room drunk on this boat.

I started playing and it was 45 minutes before anyone showed up. I ordered a double vodka rocks. Fifteen minutes went by, and a different server showed up, so I ordered a vodka rocks from him. Then the first server appeared with a large very melted drink, and two chits to sign. She explained that they can't server doubles, so she ordered two drinks, and combined them.

Then the other drink arrived. I downed the "double" and handed him the empty and started work on the drink he brought. I felt almost nothing. I think they are pouring single ounce drinks or maybe even less than that.

The other weird thing about the servers is they are completely disorganized. They don't have sections. They all just serve the entire floor. I've given an order to a server only to have another one ask me no less than a minute later if I want anything.

It's all very odd.

Anyway, oh boy, I played hard, and had some success, but also some incredible disappointments. Witnesseth below, a set of Pointies without kicker which would have been $1000 instead of $200 if I'd got it, and a four to a royal misfire.

Pointies for $200

Failed Royal draw.

Only my fourth quad of this voyage.

Failed draw on a possible $2000 hand. $5 instead.

The gambling has not been good at all on this trip. I'm short a bunch of quads, and the terrible paytables aren't helping.

After losing back all the Pointies money, and then some more, I went and watched a band for a while, and then packed it in for the night.

One more day at sea, let's hope tomorrow brings some wins!

The Magic Fingers of Cozumel

Day 3 Remember the Magic Fingers bed vibrators that cheap motels had? You put in a quarter and supposedly enjoyed the experience.

Mrs. F and I tried one of those out once and it went on and on and was nothing but annoying to the point that I unplugged the thing rather than suffer through it.

That was my night last night. The ship up until now has been quite smooth, but this vibration started in the evening and went all night long. I'm pretty sure a size 70000 grommet has worn out somewhere.

I woke up quite early and witnessed our arrival in Cozumel - in the rain.

I got myself together and headed down for breakfast, comforted by the thought that today I'd be ahead of the t(hr)ongs of buffet cruisers and perusers.

Wrong. It was jammed. Everyone was there early because of planned excursions in Cozumel. I was there early not because of any plans, but because the vibro-bed had bounced me out of slumber.

I found a sheltered place outside on the pool deck to enjoy my omelette, hash browns, and snags. Bangers, actually.

A general observation about the food - it's been quite good. Time after time I've been pleasantly surprised by the taste of the various victuals, particularly the food in the sit-down restaurant. There's been barely a thing that I haven't enjoyed and consumed with mucho gusto. (That would change later on.)

It was still nice and early, and interesting things were afoot - and a sea, with additional cruise ships docking and whatnot.

Without any kind of a plan, I headed off the ship, along the long dock, and through the extremely long duty free gauntlet of vending torture, and into the tourist trap that is the Cruise ship debarkation point at Cozumel.

I walked through the official sanctioned cruise ship tourist trap places and out to the unofficial cruise ship tourist trap places, full of pharmacies, eateries, and people with placards hawking rides, tours, and so on.

People were generally very friendly, but I wasn't interested in shopping or getting a back alley tattoo.

I did wonder about the various prescription drugs that you can buy in the pharmacy without a prescription and whether people take these back on the ship and to the States.

Before too long I'd seen enough and headed back to the ship. I knew that this was not the real Cozumel, and I wouldn't see that unless I booked something or took a taxi somewhere.

The only money I spent was the $5 USD tip I gave these fellow musicians. I showed one of them the mighty callouses I have on the ends of the fingers of my left hand, from fretting the strings while playing guitar for The Tragically Hips.

Zapata Zapata Top

Back in the Cabinette, the day's towel animal was a little less impressive - a Stingray.

I am pretty sure I can reproduce that one.

So tempted. The key to the towel animal universe.

As a writer, one writes, one written word after another. And that's what I did, up in the library (which is almost devoid of any books).

It had been a very productive morning indeed! Tourist traps knocked off, blogging done, omelette consumed, self-confidence restored.

Lunch!

Tacos!

The Trays of Uncertainty

Michelin Ribs

Buffallllllllllllllllo! chicken sandwich, slaw, tater salad.

German chocolate cake.

Lunch was great, except for one thing - the Michelin ribs.

Not Michelin-starred ribs. Michelin. Like the tires, these things were freeway tough. I couldn't really get the meat off the bone with knife and fork. This is the only complete fail of any food I've had on the ship thus far. 

At least Bib would be happy.

That said, the tacos were tasty, but the meat had sat around for too long. Semi-fail, but edible nonetheless.

Next up was nap time. My short night made for a short-tempered Flushiepants.

I'm going to leave this off here as photo upload times have become interminable. Two hours to get this far - I'll try again later this afternoon to complete the day.

Capt. out.