Call out, Poseidon, call out and blow your shell horn! But will I heed your beckoning wail to join you on the high seas ever again? Eh... I'm not so sure. Read on for the deets...
The drive to Miami was flawless. Hulk was a good boy. My fitness for the drive was fine and I think I only stopped twice to pee. No "kidney ache." I was making this drive the "1900's way" in that I was doing it without any cell phone service whatsoever. Yup. No Google Maps, no Wayz, no technology whatsoever, just a screenshot I made of a Google Map capture that I edited with a drawn-on red dotted line to describe my route down 27, along LeJeune Rd. merging onto Flagler Street and connecting downtown to the Premier Parking garage. None of this really helped since my red dotted line obscured the street names and I forgot them by the time I got to Miami. Of course I got lost and I had to do like we did back in the ancient "1900's"... I had to stop at a gas station and ask for directions. It worked out and I eventually found my way there. I guess it helps this is my third or forth trip there so I should have remembered some details from past years.
I first experienced it last year but now I remembered to take a shot or two of the new MSC terminal. It really is very nice. No waiting in long queues for hours... looking at you New Orleans. You enter, go through passport processing, you're immediately cleared, get a little number card and sit to wait for your group number to be called, then make your way through check-in which is not a desk thing anymore, just walk through some security shit (or is that before the number thing?) and a scanner and some smiling staff people waving you through politely and you walk the gangway up into the ship. Easy peasey.
But then shit all went fucking downhill from the moment I stepped onboard the SS Misery ship. No, I'm kidding. It wasn't that bad. At least not all at once. Read on...
I hadn't had an adult beverage in over a month and the long drive had me a bit parched so I sidled up to the bar at the Seaview Lounge to have me a frozen strawberry daiquiri after a quick little peek around the atrium and main concourse environs around Deck 8. The Seaview Lounge is the same as the sister ship's New York neighborhood named bars in the same location. The drink was weak and way too small and too sweet. And it was $17.50. Old booze-hound me would be pissed. New me was just: meh.
The main atrium and "commercial" decks (those with the most shops and bars) look very similar to Seashore and Seascape without the NYC theming. They went all tacky EuroTrash version of Gucci meets Vidal Sassoon meets Saturday Night Fever with the decor on this one. Chrome = Classy, according to them. Oh, and throw in an unexplained sprinkle, here and there, of 1880s Parisian art scene for good measure. And this ship was laid down in 2019, so you can't blame it on "outdated style." They really think this looks "special."
I had a couple Heinekens at the Sports Bar (similar in theme to the Seaside sister ship versions) and one last drink of a frozen Pina Colada up at one of the Sun Deck bars and even though it seemed like I'd be tying one on, I stopped. I felt bloated and full, buzzed and though not quite drunk, I'd had my fill. Very different from "old me" where I'd drink to oblivion, right? Switched to Diet Cokes from there on out for the night.
I actually attended the Sail Away Party this cruise. Well, kinda... From on high, as you can see here:
You'll notice I timed the video so that I'd get a nice slowly rotating shot of the Miami skyline as the ship made its 180° turn in the channel turn area that they have for that purpose.
So here's a shocker: When I went to my cabin, who's there to greet me but my cabin steward. Well, that's no shocker, you say, right? That's quite expected. But would it be the norm to be met by the same cabin steward you had last year on a different ship? And, he remembered me! He remembered details about me like what career I had when I worked and he even remembered my cabin number! Samsi! (I think it's Samsi. Shit. I'm sure not good in remembering things, especially names. In my post from last year, I noted his name as "Hamesi" but I also remember mispronouncing it then, at first, as Hamedi, so I don't know what his name is but I really think I heard him say Samsi this time.)
But I'm not entirely convinced he really remembered all those details like as if he had eidetic memory or some shit like that. I think they have a roster of boarding passengers and it has some kind of indicator printed near each name for returning passengers and especially if the computer sees that the steward has had them on their caseload before, there's a flag. Each voyage, stewards are probably trained to jot down details they learn about their folks in a log and this is put in the computer for use later in cases such as this. But he passed it off like he's just got Rain Man memory. Yeah right. Then go fucking count cards at a casino, Samsi, make a couple hundred grand, and get the fuck outta the hell of 16-hour work days for unknown months out of each year, and enjoy your life with your wife and kids which I do think he said he had. How can family men bear to do this job? Fuck this corporate oppressive world and the "new-fangled slavery."
Here's my steerage cabin, by the way. Oh yeah, did I mention? They never upgraded me. Nope. I got what I paid for. Evil greedy corporate billionaire fucks. I got way too used to balconies over the years. This fucker felt like a fucking solitary confinement prison cell. THE HOLE.
Oh, I forgot to include pics of what I ate. You know what, let's shake it up this time and I'm just gonna post all my meal pics right now for all the days since now I have them strewn all on my Windows desktop like I prep my photos for blog posts like this and I can't remember what meal was what or when. It's all a gluttony blur. Many visits to the cattle call round-up with the other fat mooing beasts and these are the plates I chose to take pictures of. For almost all of it, it was delicious. The not-so-delicious shit was just "meh" so nothing was terrible.
Did morning trivia and the entertainment staff person conducting it was awesome. He reminded me of that guy last year who did "The Carlton," remember? Well, when we played TV song trivia this time, Fresh Prince came up and I challenged this guy, Emmanuel, a Black gay guy from Vegas to do the dance. But he suggested volunteers from among us participants do not only that, but also someone could sing the lyrics to the Fresh Prince rap theme song. A Black girl volunteered to do the rap and guess who volunteered to do The Carlton? Yup! It was a hoot! I wish I had video.
Here's the area we did trivia each day. Same location as the other ships, no "Times Square" look though.
Oh, now this brings me up to the show. But wait, I forgot last night's show! Oh shit. You know what, Imma just gonna put shots of all the shows here and include captions of what they were and how it was. The only one not shown will be the magic show from Wednesday night because that's best forgotten. That's how bad it was.
Monday night's show was a Queen tribute show. The singing was awesome, especially one male lead who hit those Freddie Mercury notes perfectly! They all sing with an Italian accent though, but, well, would it be MSC if they didn't? Oh, and look at the funky Russian hats or whatever and shit as the costumes above... is that not fucking similar to my prediction they'd do some Rich Man's Frug style thing? Even the aloof stares in this shot! I love it!
Tuesday night they did a show called "Rouge" and it was billed as a Moulin Rouge-style show. But it was soooo MSC. A throne and royal themes (they have a thing about royalty a lot!) the medley of songs were from all sorts of genres, pop, rock, folk, you name it. No opera, but they did have the Willy Wonka Oompa Loompa song for some reason? Totally bonkers.
And, again, skipping the forgettable magic act, Thursday night we got a Michael Jackson tribute show. This one was lip-synched but the performer looked and danced just like Michael and kept his lips "in-sync" with the tracks so it was very convincing. Nicely done.
Alright, as you can see, we're doing this TRAVELOGUE in a very different format. Not very timeline journal-like. Ah well. It's a collage really. I took a good amount of pictures so they can speak for themselves and do the days and times really matter? It all happened this trip. That's it in a simple nutshell. For instance, here's both some shots of our berth and our neighboring ships in Nassau (for which I again just stayed on the ship) and the obligatory private island shots from one of the upper ship's decks. (I did go to my "spot" on the North Beach on the island and swam in the ocean and had a very brief good time.)
Here are some shots of other spots on the ship, usually taken while hunting for the elusive quiet spot or quiet time.
And my outfit selection each day.
"So, wait a minute, Michael..." I can hear you asking, "Where's all the negative shit you alluded to at the top of the post." Oh, well, I took notes. But this time, I didn't write them down, I verbalized them on my phone's voice recorder. I have over TWO HOURS of audio files I took over the week of me basically hilariously ripping everything and everyone to shreds in true bitchy queen fashion. But I have to edit it down, compile it, and stitch it together with some montage imagery to make a podcast-style YouTube post. It'll take time, but when it's done, I'll be sure to link it here, sweeties...