Sunday, November 11, 2018
New Orleans, Louisiana
The bed at the hotel was super comfortable. I have nothing but good things to say about this place (except maybe the neighborhood...it looks just a little bit ghetto) including the free breakfast. After eating I watched the History Channel up in my room waiting for time to pass so I could get closer to the gap between check-out time and my port arrival window. They were playing a selection of war movies today in honor of Veteran's Day and this hour's selection was "The Dirty Dozen." It's been a long time since I've seen it.
Hilariously they did the same thing the movie I watched before going to bed ("American Sniper") did in that the swearing was over-dubbed into PG-rated language (In the case of AS, the phrase "mother-fucker" was changed to "mother-lover." What?) . You know, standard cable and its care for the innocent children watching. But did they tame back or edit out any of the violence? (And believe me, "The Dirty Dozen" is plenty violent.) Of course, they left all that shit in. God forbid the kiddies hear "shit" or "fuck" but sure, let them see people shot in the head and getting burned alive. Make future little warriors out of them. Boys, girls, heck, even faggots are recruited to "fight for freedom" now. Oopsie about that ex-Marine that shot up those folks in Cali last week though. Aw, it's not the military industrial culture fucking up the minds of these guys is it?
But I digress...At precisely 11 am the front desk called me to "see if I'd checked out already." Man, they are tight about that check-out time for sure. I called for an Uber and he arrived about 20 minutes later. Young Hispanic kid playing (ugh!) hip-hop, but he kept it low. Had nearly zero words to say. I don't think he spoke English actually 'cause when I talked a bit to him he just nodded mutely. Turns out that even though the Port was only a 15 minute drive, time got chewed up big time by the cluster fuck that is the system for the cruise ships in New Orleans. Massive jam of cars and taxis trying to off load or be directed to parking. Again, aside from the fact that parking at the hotel for the week saved me about a hundred dollars, I'm also glad I didn't have to drive into this mess.
To make the chaos even more acute, when I dropped my bags off with the SeaCap, he admitted that I might not see them for many, many hours since this was the first time this ship embarked out of this port. I can't imagine the level of coordination needed between the dock workers and the ship workers at both the worker and management levels. Must be a nightmare.
Luckily as I now could see where the embarkation point was in person, I knew I could easily just ride the escalator up to the Riverwalk mall and hang out there until 1:00 (my assigned time). I went up with just my carry-ons now; my laptop bag and my trusty 36 year old fleece backpack, and enjoyed a couple (or about 4 actually) Abita drafts from the Fat Tuesdays concession. Sitting out on the boardwalk area, I got some great shots of the ship sitting right there in all her glory.
At 1:00 on the dot I made my way back down to the embarkation gate. There I saw a vast line of people waiting in queue. It looked like Harry Potter opening day! It turned out to be about an hour wait. Chatted with a couple from some state up north, I forget which...and since I was a bit buzzed...I mean I chatted and they listened. I become Ric with strangers when I've had some liquid social anxiety lubricant it seems. Once at the ID Check area, they bid me a quick good day, almost running to the desk. They seemed relieved that they'd now be rid of me and they wouldn't have to worry about me tagging along with them all week. LOL!
The millennial black girl at the ID check kinda freaked out when she saw my Birth Certificate. "I need your passport, sir." she complained as if I were an idiot. "That's my Birth Certificate plus my driver's license." She quickly turned to her manager, clearly perplexed. The manager also looked at my document with stink eyes. Well, it is an incredibly yellowed and tattered glorified index card with typewritten text issued in 1969 so yes, it is quite ugly. But, it has the (almost faded out) official seal of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations so it's legal. (Maybe the girl was freaked out by the word "plantations?") Oh, not those kinda plantations my dear...oh, wait a minute...Providence was a center of slave trade in colonial times so, er, um, yeah....
After a few minutes I was finally recognized as a citizen of the United States, and allowed to board.
I made my way rather efficiently to my stateroom. I'd studied the deck plans ahead of time so I knew where on the ship I needed to go. Here's a pic of my room...get a load of that big window! Not a balcony, but IMHO, the next best thing. I'm right up at the forward section towards the bow of the ship. This window faces forward so I see directly where the ship is headed. It's on a slant so I get a great swath of the sky and sunshine as well. Also, I can sit on that window seat cushion and just enjoy my view. If I sit there and look directly up, I can see the bridge jutting out overhead. I'm just two decks below it.
We were supposed to disembark at 4:00 pm but we didn't get going until almost 6:00 due to the cluster fuck intake. Oh, one benefit of this mayhem: My carry-ons were scanned and no one said boo about the bottle of wine sitting in the backpack. Did they not see it or since they're rushed, they aren't checking so well? I decided to be honest and report it since they want their "corkage fee" of course. Strange thing though, I checked my shipboard account and they haven't charged me that $15 fee. Maybe they fucked that up too? I mean, it was just one disorganized guy writing a log of the declared wines (of all the passengers who told him about them) on a scrap piece of paper. Oh, and the rum in those rum runners in my checked bags? Yes, they made it! In fact my bags were sitting by my cabin door when I first arrived to it so they were scurried on board pretty darn fast.
EDIT: They did eventually charge the corkage fee.
Met my cabin boy, er, I mean, steward (he's not particularly hot anyway) Albert and happily he speaks English well with only a slight accent. Am I becoming one of "those" White guys?
Walked around a lot exploring the ship. It's a tough workout, let me tell you. Just the walk from the nearest bank of elevators to my very forward cabin has me huffin' and puffin'.
Had a 22 oz. Heineken draft at the outside part of a bar called Syd Norman's Pour House. Actually only about $10.50 so I don't think the drink expense will be that bad after all. Factor in my room stash and I'm gonna make out on this expense category as well. Oh, and shortly after turndown, I asked Albert a question (how to operate window shade) and he just gave me a bottle of champagne! I recognized it as the kind the cruise line gives out to its Latitudes (frequent cruisers) members. He said the lady down the hall didn't want it. It was unopened so, sure! Maybe Albert was rewarding for my honesty as well since, I would guess, if I hadn't alerted him to something, he might have caught hell:
When I first got into my cabin, I was unpacking and straitening things up when I noticed an envelope with some other passengers' names on it. Of course I opened it, I'm not THAT goody two-shoes. But it wasn't cash (which may or may not have been turned in by me...Just sayin' The angel and devil shoulders come into play here.) it was casino player's cards and swipe cards for two free drinks. Anything swiped could easily be traced back to me if I tried to use it, so I alerted Albert about them. He thought at first, like I had, that the previous cabin occupants had left it, but the dates on the cards and the included letter indicated they were on this week. I would guess they booked this cabin then got an upgrade to a balcony just like I booked an inside and got upgraded to this.
Ate dinner at the buffet (awesome), saw a Broadway musical vocalist (Jeri Sanger: fantastic) and pushed through my fatigue to attend a blue stand-up comedy act at 11:00 pm sipping one Corona. Trying to get to sleep later was a little hard since the bed took some getting used to. Much less comfortable compared to the previous night's experience and also, after about 3:00 am or so, we were finally out of the Mississippi and into the Gulf of Mexico and since I'm on an upper deck and way, way forward, I was feelin' the motion of the ocean.