Vacation Journal

As is often the case when I go on vacation, the desire to write gripped me more while Lindsey and I were on our honeymoon than it does in my normal day-to-day. I came home with tons of ideas, some good and some bad, and itching to put pen to pad (or, in this case, finger to keyboard). Cruises are fantastic places for people watching and as the trip went on, I made notes of all the interesting/ridiculous things that went on through the week. Since at least two of the books I read on vacation were journal-types, I felt inspired to create one for this trip.

DAY 1
10:00 am - I left my wedding ring at home. Good start.

12:00 pm - We’re pulling into the parking areas for our cruise. The standard Carnival lot costs $50 for the week. A steep price, to be sure. There are tons of “discount” lots surrounding the terminals, some complete with people out waving cars down to park in their spots. One is discounted to $29. My question is, having already paid the sum for this cruise and all the excursions therein, why in the world would I park my car, unsupervised, in someone’s yard for a week for $20 less than in the lit, secure, official lot? The extra $21 will probably not pay for the new tires and stereo you’ll need when you get back.

12:38 pm - We are experiencing a significant delay in boarding the boat. Apparently it got in late and isn’t clean yet. We’ll be here a while.

1:25 pm - There is a boom box playing AWESOME vacation/party tunes like “Celebrate Good Times” and “Locomotion.” Even better, it’s clearly intended to be played during the typical 20 minute wait for boarding. Therefore, we’re talking about an 8 song loop. If I hear “Gloria” one more time…

4:30 pm - After finally boarding the boat, we are immediately sent to our Emergency Stations to practice putting on our life jackets. The woman asks us not to blow the safety whistles attached to said life jackets and shockingly no one does. We do, however, find out that everyone else on the boat has an assigned life boat(s) to go to, but we do not. I guess we’ve drawn the short straw and have to go down with the ship.

4:42 pm - We finally leave the pier approximately 3 hours behind schedule and immediately have to return because someone is having a medical emergency. Personally I think someone from our little section realized we were to be fed to sharks as chum in the event of an emergency and decided to bail.

6:05 pm - Our waiter for the week is named Isoyaman. He looks and talks very much like the grown up version of Data from “The Goonies.” Lindsey cannot understand a word he says.

6:12 pm - We share a table with a Hispanic couple, a mom and her 20-something daughters, and a very odd pairing consisting of a woman who looks to be in her mid 50s and a young teenage boy. I’m intrigued.

6:33 pm - There is a child (no older than 4) at the table behind us. He continually gets up and runs around the dining room as if this was not a cruise ship filled with strangers who paid a chunk of money to be on vacation. His mother, strangely, seems to think it is fun to get up and climb around all the other chairs to chase after him over and over.

8:26 pm - We’re attending a sort of orientation to life aboard the boat and events therein. Our cruise director, Steve, looks like Chris Elliot and sounds like Wallace Shawn of “Princess Bride” fame.

10:02 pm - After flipping channels on our stateroom TV for a few minutes, we realize that all the network stations are Denver affiliates. For the rest of the week we will receive all the important news and goings on of Colorado. If Katy Wallis had anything going on in her neighborhood last week, I know all about it.

DAY 2
8:45 am - Each day we get a sort of program called the “Carnival Capers” that describes the days events. Today’s is headlined, ““Fun” Day at Sea” as if to suggest quite sarcastically that there will be no fun had this time around.

11:05 am - At another all cruise gathering, Steve discusses the upcoming set that a comedian is going to do later that night. He stresses that this will be an r-rated performance over and over again. After about the twelfth warning, I’m starting to wonder what exactly is going to happen at this show. I think he may murder someone for comedic purposes.

11:16 am - During the little show, Steve brings the Carnival mascot onto the stage. This sucker looks like a multicolored brother of Hellboy. I am not kidding. His head is shaped like the whale fin that comes out of the top of all Carnival ships and it looks like sawed off horns. Creepy.
12:29 pm - While walking back to our room, we pass a door that has been decorated with the phrase, “Relaxing in the Breeze” spelled out, along with pictures of two women I’m assuming were occupying the room…and a teddy bear. Yup, these are the people we’re sharing a boat with.

2:38 pm - Lindsey and I are reading on one of the platforms. The book I’m reading, written by a half-crazy Christian author, spends a full chapter denouncing Harry Potter. Meanwhile, two feet from me, my heathen wife is ready Harry Potter. That’s what we call irony.

3:36 pm - One of the non-Denver channels that we get is Boomerang. (Yes, we get frickin’ Boomerang but not ESPN.) It is a Spanish channel, however, so all the advertisements and the names of the show are in Spanish but all the shows themselves are English. Also, it’s really weird how the names of shows and movies are changed in other countries. “What I Like About You” is apparently called, “The Adventures of My Sister and I” in Mexico.

6:45 pm - Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of one of the kids I used to teach in Grapevine. Bailey Littlejohn if I’d had a dodgeball I would have plastered you, kiddo.

11:21 pm - There is no cheese on this boat. I mean, sure, you can get a slice of American on your burger. But there’s no cheese on the salad bar, no cheese for hot dogs, and no cheese for baked potatoes.

12:02 am - I flip over to one of the movie channels to see what options we’re going to have for the next 24 hours and the opening credits for “Nights in Roadanthe” are rolling. Blerg. Too bad Jason isn’t here, he could watch his favorite movie upwards of 10 times in one day.

DAY 3
8:00 am - We wake up to the sight of another Carnival cruise ship docked across the pier. I consider starting some sort of battle with them but think better of it. For now.

9:15 am - As we walk through the Welcome Center in Progreso, we come across an out-of-control beer vendor. He’s jumping around like the leader of the Grambling University marching band and blowing a whistle that I’m pretty sure he stole from one of our life jackets.

9:17 am - Another vendor approaches the man in front of us with a book of tattoo designs in an effort to get show him the fine craftsmanship they offer here in Progresso should he want to get a barbed wire tat around his bicep. The man is upwards of 60. I question the marketing technique.

9:33 am - Our tour guides are named Jose, Arturo, and Antonio. I kind of don't believe them.

10:47 am - We’re being given a tour of a Mayan city. It is incredible experience to see what these people could do with so little technology.

11:01 am - It is blowing my mind how many people have come on this walking tour through a rocky, uphill terrain wearing flip flops. Just stupid.

11:08 am - There’s a guy with us sporting a Mardi Gras tattoo. I don’t mean something reminiscent of Mardi Gras, I mean it just says, “Mardi Gras” across his arm. Do I really need to comment on this?

11:21 am - Oh the joy of people watching! There is a man here who is pushing 70 and is being accompanied by a woman I would have sworn was his daughter until it is CLEARLY confirmed that she is in fact his wife. She has to be 25 years younger than him.

11:43 am - As we take a few minutes to sit around this beautiful watering hole in the midst of buildings that are thousands of years old, the guy next to me pulls out a can of chaw and beings chewing and spitting all over the place. Nothing says classy like spitting chewing tobacco residue all over sacred Mayan architecture.

12:40 pm - There is a family sitting next to us on the bus with a baby. Not a kid, not an infant, a baby. Like a 2 month old screaming baby. I cannot think of a better way to have a terrible vacation that to bring a baby on a 5 day boat trip to Swine Flu country.

2:00 pm - The movie screening in the on-board theater today is “Australia.” I question this on two fronts: First, “Australia” is 17 hours long. Who is going to watch this instead of enjoying the many amenities of the luxury boat they’ve paid to be on board? I’m pretty sure they could have gotten through the entire “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, director’s cut, before finishing “Australia.” Second, this movie was a complete and total failure on all fronts. 22 people saw “Australia” on its opening weekend and 17 of them were related to Hugh Jackman.

6:08 pm - At dinner tonight only one dude in the entire dining room is wearing a t-shirt. This happens to be a Michigan Wolverines t-shirt, proving once again that Michigan fans are idiots.

DAY 4
9:12 am - As we make our way into Cozumel, we can’t help but take notice in the differences between our boat, the Ecstasy, and the other boat that follows us around, the Fantasy. Everything about the Fantasy seems better. Even the lettering on the tail of the boat is straighter and more prominent than ours. It’s a good thing I didn’t start a war with them yesterday, they probably have on board machine guns.

9:25 am - We’re waiting to leave on our excursion for the day and I’m watching all the people roll in from the two boats. One is wearing a t-shirt that say, “I’m so gay I (poop) rainbows.” I worry about this young man because he obviously has a serious medical condition that has been magnificently misdiagnosed.

9:55 am - For today’s excursion, Lindsey and I are taking a submarine down to look at the reef around Cozumel. This turns out to be one of the coolest things I have ever done. The water here is amazing.

11:19 am - All of our tour guides are wearing tiny, tiny shorts that look like they belong in Gob Bluthe’s “Hot Cop” routine in “Arrested Development.”

12:03 pm - Lindsey and I eat in the city and I drink the water given me. If I die in the next 12 hours we’ll all know why.

12:50 pm - A little known fact about Mexico: their top six retail markets are t-shirts, glass products, wooden trinkets, jewelry, liquor, and Nacho Libre masks. Seriously, every store we’ve seen thus far sells masks by the dozen. If I’m ever down on my luck, I think I’ll create a gang of bank robbers who wear these masks during our heists.

2:28 pm - Between episodes of “The Travels of My Sister and I,” Boomerang plays a music video. This one is the Japanese-drawn Power Puff Girls, singing in Spanish, to what I’m pretty sure was the Ramones’ song “Blitzkrieg Bop.” This is the weirdest thing I’ve seen yet.

8:42 pm - After skipping dinner in the dining hall, we bump into one of our tablemates in the grill area. She proclaims that she is proud of herself because, while at the beach party in Cozumel, her daughters passed out before she did. Yup, these are the people we’re sharing a boat with.

DAY 5
9:30 am - None of the food here is exquisite but it is plentiful. I will probably need a month to clear all this crap out of my system.

11:26 am - While walking on one of the decks, I spot what appears to be a manatee sunbathing. Upon closer inspection, it turns out to be the palest, fattest man you could ever think would be sun bathing. His positioning is so awkward, too, that one might think he was being forced to be in the sun for the first time and, like a 6 year old, had decided to pout about this with his head stuck down between his folder arms. It was weird.

12:39 pm - Oh dear readers! If only I had access to such technology that would allow me to take pictures simply by blinking my eye! There is a large woman standing in front of me wearing shorts that probably never fit correctly and displaying, quite prominently, a large tattoo on her upper thigh. I can’t stare directly at it for fear of being spotted but it kind of looks like a portrait of Don King.

3:47 pm - “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” is the movie of the day for, I think the third time this week. I’ve seen parts of this film about 30 times now and I really kind of wish I hadn’t at all.

11:07 pm - Cheese! We’ve found cheese! There’s a huge tray of it spread out in the grill. It is as if the kitchen staff kept it hidden from us all this time just in case there was some sort of coup and they needed to have something to barter with in exchange for their lives. I’ve already eaten a plate full.

I’m going to get a barbed wire tattoo around my thigh,
Brian