I forgot to mention, of course that first day, we met our room attendant - Darwin. Oh my! He was the best. So sweet and funny. He made us laugh as much as we made him laugh. He was from the Philippines. All the crew was foreign, all Asian, from India to Indonesia. The only white crew person I saw was the cruise director. An extremely (annoyingly LOL) perky gal from the UK. We did hear the captain talk to us once, at the beginning - he sounded like he was from Norway or thereabouts.
Darwin took very good care of us. Our first towel animal was a polar bear. I told dh (who does our laundry at home) that I now expect him to fold my towel this way from now on, LOL. Dh gave Darwin heck for this and they laughed.
The next evening the animal was an elephant and Darwin had found my sunglasses in a case on the vanity and added the funny touch. DH was like "Darwin - you're killing me!" Darwin just laughed.
DH was a begrudging passenger....for all of about 6 hours...then he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was quite the chatterbug on the elevators. Between him and our friend most people got a fun little ride to their floor haha.
We had booked one of the entertainment shows for the first night at 8pm but since our dinner time wasn't until 6:45 we weren't sure we'd make it. We asked when we got seated and they thought we could make it, but we did not. So, we opted to go see a comedy show in the theater. Turns out that would be the only show we attended. We tried to re-book the missed show, but the app was showing that we already saw it, so wouldn't let us book again. I'm sure we could have rectified with guest services, but usually by the time we were done with dinner, it was late and we were all tired anyway.
The comedy show was really good. The guy was very funny. Only about 45 min long, so just the right amount of time. By the time we got back to our rooms it was 10pm and we were all worn out from the first day and went to bed.
The next day was at "at sea day". Seems like eating 3 meals took up most of the day, LOL. That 2nd morning we had our first experience with the buffet....(I'm making a schrinchy face right now, haha)
Sounds like you had a good first cruise experience. But the buffets…yeah, those left a lot to be desired in my opinion. I realized on our cruise, (and all were about 1/4the size of yours and that was hard for me to bear, btw 6 that the restaurants were actually open for breakfast and dinner, no reservations required, just walk in. I may or may not have gone and indulged in mimosas and eggs Benedict one morning on a subsequent cruise while DH wrangled kids at the buffet. I *truly* disliked cruising by the third one. Too many people, noisy, “scrunchy face” buffets, and kids, even on our smaller cruise line, EVERYWHERE! (Some of them mine, even) I returned more tired than I left.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I meant to say, “I realized the restaurant was open for breakfast and lunch, not just dinner.” Yeah, guessing we always got sick from the buffet, as well as all the PEOPLE on board. And, again, our cruises were a lot smaller than yours. I don’t enjoy crowds. And we, supposedly, were on a more sedate, upscale cruise line. Glad you enjoyed it, but I told my husband never again after our third cruise.
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ReplyDeleteI once had a craft paper that showed how to make towel animals and another to make tshirt animals. I never made either, so gave them away. Now, I wish I had kept them. It sounds like your porter was fun.
ReplyDeleteAdorable elephants!! A lot of the cruise employees are definitely foreign folks, cruising is very international. Cannot wait to hear about the buffet and I hope you're feeling better today.
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