The reason we are house-sitting is because my in-laws are on the Grand Voyage cruise with Holland America. They are doing the “Grand South America and Antarctica” section, and they set sail from Fort Lauderdale about six hours ago. Yes, that’s a two-month cruise! They booked the least expensive room they could stand (not sure if it’s inside or oceanview, but definitely no balcony) and they packed as frugally as possible…which is not very frugally, if I know my mother-in-law. They are going to go to all kinds of places that are mythical to most people I know. They are not going to set foot on Antarctica, I think, but they are at least cruising by it. Even though I will be spending 11 days in southern California next week and 11 days on a cruise next month, I am still jealous. Who wouldn’t be?! Damn, two months off work…my father-in-law works for the government, I guess that’s how he can manage it. Unfortunately they started the trip by leaving their $2500 camera in a hotel in Georgia…I’m pretty sure my mother-in-law killed my father-in-law over that, but they arranged to have it shipped back to us before they set sail tonight, so I think their minds are at ease for now.

In other news, I lost a game of Scrabble tonight, damn!

We haven’t gone on our trip to Alaska yet, that’s next month, but we’ve already arranged for a vacation after that. I never thought I’d be the type to go on a million cruises, but they are more economical than land vacations. I still need to see France before I die, but I’m enjoying cruising at this point in my life.

For our tenth anniversary, which is on or around February 14, 2008, we are going to be taking a cruise to the Caribbean. Everything is so perfect - we know we like the cruise line, it leaves a couple of days after our anniversary, it is the exact week of my spring break from Gallaudet, and it goes to places I want to go, particularly Aruba. And even better, we’re going with Pied Piper, which is a gay-owned travel agency that organizes large groups on mainstream cruises. It’s not like the full-ship charters done by RSVP, Olivia, R Family, and Atlantis, but it should still be fun! They get almost 600 people on their annual November sailing, and the one in February isn’t quite as large but it should still have a good-sized crowd. I am really excited about it! We wanted to go to Paris and Amsterdam for our 10th anniversary, but I’ll be in school, so this is an ideal solution.

Today was a sea day. Carnival calls these “Fun Days At Sea” but for us they are sometimes boring and sometimes relaxing. After breakfast we went to the Cruise Critic get-together, which was very poorly attended. The cruise director speculated that people were probably feeling sick because the seas were so choppy. I asked him about a Friends of Dorothy meeting (we’ve seen a few women who might be gay, but nobody we’ve said hi to) and he said he would add it to the schedule. Unfortunately it wasn’t in there when the schedule was slipped under our door for tomorrow, but that’s okay.

After the CC event we went to hear the cruise director (peppiest person on board) talk about Bermuda. It was interesting but I was falling asleep anyway, and I snuck out halfway through for a nap. A stayed for a bit more and then went to some jewelry event, then she came back to the room and joined me.

When I woke up I wasn’t hungry, so I was going to go to the library to use a computer to look up some info I forgot to bring for geocaching. A woke up too and said she wanted lunch first, so we had lunch and then went to the library. Unfortunately I spent 20+ minutes and failed to get anything useful, because the connection was slow, the printer didn’t work, and JavaScript was blocked. So I went to the front desk and explained, and they removed the $11.50 charge from my account. After that we wanted to relax and read, so we brought our books up to the top deck, which was temperate, windy, and shady. Unfortunately the pool was right below (it always is, no matter what ship you’re on) and the activities there were loud, so I was having trouble reading. We were going to find a spot inside to read but nowhere suited us, so we read back in our room.

Eventually it was time to get ready for formal night, so we got dressed up. A helped put up my hair in a nice way, and we had dinner with her parents. Unfortunately it wasn’t very enjoyable, so I only ate half my entree…but I’d had an appetizer, soup, and salad already, so half was pleanty! I had coconut and rum sherbet for dessert. After dinner I convinced A to get our formal portrait taken…not sure yet if we’ll buy them. Then we went to the theater for the Broadway-style show; the only bits I knew were from Gypsy and Chicago. They also did Mamma Mia, Wicket, Les Miz, Hairspray, The Producers, and Thoroughly Modern Millie. I just love those Broadway-style shows…production numbers are my favorite, and that’s all those shows are!

That was it for the day…we came back to our room and got out of our fancy clothes. So that was our day at sea! No bingo, no casino, no swimming (they only filled the small pool), just reading, napping, and relaxing.

Today did not start well. We were on the bus by 7:40 but it did not leave at 8:00 because some people hadn’t shown up. The dispatcher finally gave the driver authorization to leave at 8:30. I saw that we were heading out of the city, and then I dozed off. I woke up 20 minutes later and went to the bathroom. As I walked there I noticed the bus was on some serious curves, and I wondered “What part of I-95 has these curves?” When I got back to my seat I looked around and I saw we were on the DC Beltway approching I-270! That seemed odd, but I knew we had another stop so I figured we needed to go up 270 to get there. And then…we drove past the exit for 270. I ran up to the driver and said “Are we supposed to be going south?” She said her directions said 95N to New York, and the only sign she saw was 95N to Baltimore. I said “uh…that’s where we needed to go.” And then I went back to my seat…but we kept going south!

I went back up to the front and said “Do you need help getting turned around?” So I guided her onto River Road…and she tried to go left instead of right as I’d indicated. So she backed up on the roadway and then went right. She had mentioned she was supposed to take exit 6 to Wilmington, and I explained how she needed to take the left side ramp before the Delaware Memorial Bridge. When I got up to go back to my seat, a guy sitting up front whispered “can you come back for Wilmington?” I laughed, and he said “no, I’m serious.” So I stayed awake all through Maryland. A tried to call the cruise line and the bus company but got nothing helpful. At that split, I was back up front but didn’t say anything. She made it okay on her own, but then I had to direct her to the bus station too - and I’ve never been there! She had a terrible time negotiating turns, and drove up on the curb a couple of times. This woman was clearly in the wrong job! Fortunately one of the people we picked up in Wilmington guided her to the New Jersey Turnpike and from there she was fine…except for missing a turn trying to get to the port in Bayonne.

After all that, check-in was a breeze. We slipped our “water” bottles (one with vodka and one with rum) past security and got on board. I led us to the rooms and we sat down for a bit. Next, we took a bit of a walk around, then came back to the room. Just as we were taking a short nap, an announcement came on for the muster drill. So we put on our lifejackets and went to our muster station, etc. Then we came back to the room to finish our nap.

Dinner was fine. It took a couple of minutes to get my vegetarian menu, and it took a long time to get my soda. (I got the “soda package,” which is unlimited sodas for $5/day…they are $2.50 each and I usually drink at least two a day, so it’s a good buy for me.) For dinner I had a fruit soup, a small plate of fruit as an appetizer, some salad, and very tasty tempeh in peanut sauce. I got two desserts - cheesecake, and lychee ice cream which I shared with A.

Next we went to guest relations and complained about the bus. They’re going to follow up with us after they tell the head office. So we went back to A’s parents room and shared some champagne and conversation before bed. Then I took a shower (in our room, of course) and got water all over the place - the shower head kept wanting to point out into the rest of the bathroom. I didn’t know the hose was twisted, but when I got out I told A and she fixed the hose. So now I’ve been writing this, and I’m going to bed - oh, before I forget - lots of motion on board, very noticeable rocking of the ship no matter where you go.

This is kind of a long post, so feel free to skip over it. I wanted to share an opinion I just posted, so there are quotes from others to put it into context. The thread is called Are gay men welcomed on Olivia Cruises? The answer from Olivia is no, but there’s been a lot of discussion about men’s space vs. women’s space, whether Olivia is practicing discrimination, whether this is different from the Augusta National Golf Club, etc.
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The date for our cruise to Bermuda draws nearer - about a month away now. We haven’t gotten our documents yet, but other people who are on the same sailing are starting to get theirs, so ours will turn up any day now. I ended up finding out our cabin assignment anyway, because it showed up when I logged into the Celebrity website. We’re in #9033, which is a full deck of cabins, below a full deck of cabins, and above the casino (approximately). I don’t think the casino operates when we’re in Bermudian waters, so we’ll only have to worry about it on the two sea days - and it’s unlikely we’ll hear anything anyway.

I’m not sure yet where my in-laws’ cabin turned out to be - I think they booked a guarantee, as we did. The point of booking a guarantee is that you will hopefully get bumped up a category or two. On the Zenith, though, there are only oceanview cabins anyway - no balconies - so there wouldn’t be a big difference if we had gotten upgraded.

In theory, these are our actual vacation plans. The Caribbean cruise in January 2007 is no more; the trip to Disney in early September 2006 is no more; the Caribbean cruise in late September 2006 is no more. What we are now doing is a seven-night cruise on the Celebrity Zenith, leaving on October 7, 2006. We will be sailing to Bermuda, a place that I have never been particularly interested in, but won’t mind adding to the list of places I’ve been. The reason we are doing this is because A’s parents are taking us, and because they’re taking us we’re not arguing about the whens or wheres. We don’t know our cabin yet, only that it is a guaranteed oceanview room; the reason to take a guarantee rather than a confirmed cabin is that you might get upgraded.

I never expected to become a cruiser - there are too many places I want to see in depth that aren’t really reachable by cruise ship (for example, one-day stops at Le Havre do not count as seeing Paris). But this will be our third cruise, and we have a fourth planned for Alaska in May 2007 with my mom, so I seem to be cruising a lot.

Well, the vacation plans are no longer so wonderful or concrete. It turns out my mother might not be able to go on the Legend of the Seas cruise. It also turns out the travel agent marked up the cruise price $100pp. I thought she and Royal Caribbean were donating as a thank-you for getting our busines…I didn’t realize passengers were also donating. Quite frankly we don’t have $100pp to donate to the child care center.

If my mother does go on the cruise, then we will probably drop out of the group but still remain on the same cruise. That will save us at least $100. If my mother doesn’t go on the cruise, we have three choices: cancel altogether ($70 fee), go on the same cruise but without my mom, or book a different cruise through the same agent. It’s all messy and I’m annoyed because of the cancellation fee. That is a lot of money for us. Argh.

Also, I had to go out yesterday to replace my cache, which had apparently been Muggled. The park manager said nothing had been turned in, so I just replaced the cache altogether. While crawling under the tree I managed to pick up a tick on my torso, which I didn’t notice until I was getting ready for bed. A got it off for me but it took a while because the damn thing wouldn’t let go. Now I have a sore spot where the tick was. I never want to get a tick again.

Today I booked a cruise. It’s not until January 2007, but I booked it! The deposit was $500 for both of us; the per-person fare is $914. It’s a benefit cruise for the day care center run by my parents’ church. My mom will be going too, but she’ll be rooming with someone from the church. It’s on Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas, which is a slightly older ship but they usually still keep older ships in nice shape. We booked a Category I guaranteed cabin, which means we have a chance of getting upgraded to something nicer rather than knowing in advance what our cabin number will be. (The tradeoff is that we might end up under the kid program’s main room, or something like that.) The cruise is round-trip from Tampa, and it stops in Grand Cayman, Costa Maya, Belize City, and Cozumel. The stop at Cozumel is on my 26th birthday, and it’s a nice long day there (7am-11pm), so that should be a lot of fun.

I think we are actually going to turn this into a two-week vacation by going to Disney World the week before the cruise. I’ve never been, and we were planning to go sometime this coming fall anyway, but this way we’ll save ourselves paying for a separate trip down there. The combined one-way fares to Orlando and from Tampa seem to be about the same as round-trip fares to Tampa, and Amtrak between the two is only $9. We’ll probably go for one of the timeshare resort stays you can find on eBay - you get a very cheap room rate in exchange for walking around the resort being pitched to for a couple of hours. I’d really love to stay in a Disney resort to get the full Disney experience, but that is a lot more expensive.

So this should be fun, even if it will keep us from taking a vacation in 2006. We’ll probably do something like a long weekend in Williamsburg because that’s fairly cheap, but we can’t do anything major. But a two week Disney + cruise vacation in January 2007 will be awesome. I love traveling.

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the best way to get across the Atlantic Ocean was by passenger liner. Many thousands of immigrants came to America on ships like the Rotterdam and the Carpathia (the latter would become famous for rescuing survivors from the Titanic). These ships were usually utilitarian, as it was not until the late 1960’s that cruising for pleasure became popular.
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