Comedy of the Seas

The excitement was building inside of me. Today was the day. WE WERE GOING ON A CRUISE!

We were headed to the cruise port in Galveston, to board Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas.

The last time I had been on a cruise was my senior year of high school. Four long years I had waited. I could already taste the endless amounts of food on my tongue. I could already feel the waves of the ocean and the warmth of the sun on my skin. I could already feel the wind whipping my hair to-and-fro. I could already see the palm trees in my near-distant future.

Little did we know the comedy of errors that was about to ensue.

For Christmas, my grandparents paid for our entire family to go on a cruise in celebration of their 60^th wedding anniversary. This included my grandparents of course, me, my parents, my three brothers, my aunt and uncle, my two cousins and their husbands, and my grandma’s sister and her husband. This made us a party of 16.

(grandparents not pictured below).

And when I say party, I mean party. My family is not necessarily the quiet type…

We started a countdown as we stepped from the port onto the boat. Let the party begin! I thought, as I head straight for the ice cream machine. I have this habit whenever I go on a cruise, where the first thing I have to do is get an ice cream and sit on the deck and look out at the water. Which is a fine idea except for when the ice cream machine is closed.

Um I’m sorry WHAT is going on here?!? I may have said this in my head or I may have made a scene. That’s up for you to decide. Carnival never would have let this happen. 

My grandparent’s are Diamond members on Royal Caribbean ships which means they’ve been on over 15 or so cruises with them. I, personally, have only been on 3 cruises and every one has been a Carnival cruise. But since my grandparents were paying for this cruise, they chose Royal Caribbean. Because they’re Diamond members they get special perks like discounted rates, priority check-in, and they even got free champagne bottles for their anniversary (which nobody put to use because they don’t drink).

Anyway, so far Royal Caribbean was starting off on the wrong foot with me. But I decided to overlook it and just eat some real food instead of ice cream. My family and I headed to the 11th floor where the buffet was located, and my mouth began salivating just thinking about all of the food I was about to encounter!

But to my utmost dismay, nothing looked appetizing. I was confused. The best thing about cruises is all of the food, everyone knows that. My dad told me there was more food located on the Promenade, so he and I head there. We entered into an Italian restaurant where he chose a sub sandwich and a pepperoni pizza and I settled for a ham and cheese sandwich. We both only took about one bite before looking up at each other.

“Dry,” I grimaced and set the sandwich down.
“Mine too,” he said. “Not even worth it.”
“I’m hungry and sad and now I’m thirsty,” I whined.

I looked all around for a drink machine where I could get some water but it was nowhere to be found. Apparently, on Royal Caribbean cruises they fill up the drinks themselves and set them out on trays where you come and pick them up. This meant no getting water whenever you wanted, no getting your own refills, and absolutely NO filling of personal water bottles. They made that adamantly clear.

Signs were posted all throughout the Promenade and Buffet that read, “No filling of personal water bottles” due to sanitation codes or something like that. I, being an avid drinker of water, had carried my Nalgene on the trip, and quickly learned that this was frowned upon.

For a boat that was filled with humans who are made up of 75% water, surrounded by trillions of gallons of water, I was genuinely confused as to why water was a scarcity here on the Liberty.

If you wanted to get some water you would have to wait for an employee to fill up a cup for you and set it out on a tray up on Deck 11. But even this was a problem because we soon found out that the buffet was not open 24/7 like we had thought. (Again, Carnival would have never let this happen). The buffet had odd hours. They were open from around 6am-11am, then they would close and re-open for lunch at noon and close again at around 2pm. They would open for dinner at 5pm and close for the night at 9pm. This was a major bummer for late night snackers (aka everyone on a cruise because the main attraction is stuffing your face)… 

So besides the fact that I was actually dying of dehydration, I was also constantly dying of starvation. I realize that I am sounding a bit dramatic and these are merely what people would call “first world problems.” However, one goes on a cruise with the expectation of being pampered and well taken care of and constantly having to take a Tums because of all of the food one has consumed.

As my cousin Cara put it, “We’re going to lose weight on this cruise.”

I can assure you this has never happened before in the history of cruises.

Later that night we decided that we would just order room service since the buffet wasn’t open. It sounded like a good idea at 11pm when we ordered. But it didn’t seem like such a good idea whenever the food didn’t arrive until 1am. We assumed it was just because it was the first night. Everyone was probably excited and decided to take advantage of the free room service.

Except for that it wasn’t just the first night. Every night, I repeat, every single night we would order room service around 10 or 11 pm and it wouldn’t arrive until 1 or 2am.

One particular night, my dad ordered a Honey Stung chicken nugget plate. By the time the food arrived 2 hours later we were all ravenous. My dad took the lid off of his plate to a big steaming plate of…………. white rice. We were all extremely confused. First of all, my dad didn’t order this, and secondly we checked the room service menu and rice wasn’t even on it. This became a big joke the rest of the week, and it is still one of my favorite memories from the cruise.

(Giant bowl of white rice pictured below as proof).  

The last day of the cruise was a sailing day. The captain informed us that we were going to be sailing through a big cold front that had hit Texas, and we were going to experience some extreme rocking. I didn’t really think anything of it because I don’t usually get sea-sick, but I was awoken to the sound of my closet door opening and slamming shut by itself. In fact, my entire room was shifting back and forth. As I peaked out from under my covers, I realized that one minute my head was above my feet, and the next minute my feet were way above my head.

I hopped out of bed, got dressed, and did my best to walk down the hallway to my parent’s room. It was kind of impossible to walk straight. In fact, everyone on the entire cruise boat looked like they were drunkards trying to walk a straight line for the police and failing miserably. I finally made it to my parents room where I quickly found out that the rest of my family was struggling more than I. One of my brothers was throwing up in the bathroom, my dad and another brother were laying in bed looking green, and my mom was doing her best to take care of everyone.

I took a motion sickness pill and got the heck out of there as fast as I could. I wasn’t going to let a little rocking ruin my last day on the boat! I had so many plans! I was going to work on my tan out on the top deck, swim for a little bit, go down the slides, watch the belly flop contest and the basketball tournament, and go rock climbing. I had a very busy day ahead of me!

As I walked outside on Deck 11, where the pool was located, my plans quickly came to a crashing halt. The rocking was so intense that the waves were literally crashing up onto all of the decks.

“All of the decks will be closed until further notice,” A voice announced over the loud speaker.

No. No. No. No. NO! This can’t be happening. I have a million plans for today- I cannot be confined to the inside this boat. 

I went back to my parent’s room to check up on my family and see what their plans were for the day. I found them all in the same position I had left them. It seemed they weren’t doing so hot and their only plans were to lay as still as possible and try not to throw up all over the room.

“Do you think it will only last for an hour or so more?” I asked my mom.
“I think it’s supposed to last all day, sweetie,” she said.

No way. I thought. There’s physically no way on God’s green earth that this storm could last all day. I had been on cruises before where it had been rocky, but had only lasted about an hour.

Boy was I wrong. 20 hours later and the boat was still shaking uncontrollably. I ended up spending the entire day playing cards inside the card room with some friends I had made on the ship. Exhilarating, really.

I don’t know how my family made it to dinner that night but somehow they did. Everyone was feeling a lot better, except for my dad. He was still feeling really, really sick which worried my mom.

Turns out my dad had caught the flu from someone on the boat. We found this out the next morning when we were back at our house and my parent’s were getting ready for work. My dad had passed out in the shower and my mom called 911 because he wasn’t responding. The paramedics came and wheeled him away on a stretcher. It’s normal to be really weak when you have the flu, but it’s not normal to pass out because of it. They hooked him up to an IV because essentially, he was really dehydrated which makes sense because THERE WAS NO WATER ON THE FREAKING BOAT.

“So what brings you in today?” The doctor at the ER asked my dad.
“The ambulance,” my dad joked from the hospital bed.

Thank God for humor.

Honestly, there is so many good memories and positive things that happened while on the cruise that I left out of this story for the sake of comedy. And if anything, this cruise reminded me how thankful I am for a family who appreciates humor as much as I do. You can get through anything when you are surrounded by incredible people who can laugh at themselves and their circumstances.