Y-O, Day 2
These things actually get progressively better. However, since Monday was a sea day, I'm a little at a loss, since my entire day was spent drinking by the pool. Hopefully I can piece most of it together.
From what I can recollect, we all decided to sleep in a bit. I ordered room service, but the latest I could get it was between 9:30am and 10am. So I put that on the order form and passed out the night before.
10:05am there's a phonecall and almost immediately a knock at the door. Both from room service. What timing. I grab the ham and cheese omelette that sounded great at midnight and take a few bites, realizing 2 things: I'm exceptionally dizzy, and exceptionally tired. Which means I'm mostly hungover. I go back to bed, to wake up around 12:30pm. I then scarf down a cold omelette and feel much better about myself.
Everyone gathers together and we head to the Windjammer, the onbard dining hall, buffet style. Since breakfast ended at 11:30, I started piling on the chicken breasts, mashed potatoes, waffles (don't ask why there were waffles at lunch), nachoes and of course I hit the dessert tray for some sort of chocolate mousse. Two thumbs up.
[Edit: I knew I forgot something. We went to the gym Monday morning. We made an attempt to stay in shape.]
After breakfast, me, Train and Zach head to the gym, the Shipshape Arena. We go in, browse around a bit. There's a pretty large gym, lot of Nautilus machines, a hottub, sauna, steam room, showers, the works. We hit the freeweights for a while. The only ones on the ship were dumbells. Ah well. We meet up with Jeremy there, he works with us too. After about 45 minutes we decide to hit the sauna.
Through the empty men's locker room, we open the door to the sauna and are blasted by the heat. Never been in a sauna before, and it's like 140 degrees in there. Very hard to breathe. At this point it's only me, Train and Jeremy. We sit down and watch one of the more homoerotic things we've seen lately.
A guy with a giant teapot on a stick fills the pot with water, then goes around and starts pouring it all over the other two guys that are laying on the wooden slats. They're grunting and groaning, telling each other how good it is, and telling us to try it. The guy with the teapot fills it halfway, walks over to me (since I'm the closest) and makes an attempt to start to hose me down. That's our cue to leave, so we do. Freaks.
Then we decide to try the steam room. We go to open the door, and it opens in front of us. Out pops a balding, overweight guy with a big handlebar mustache. He's completely naked, except for the hand towel he's using to cover his junk, and he twinkletoes his way passed us into the shower. We then decide that maybe the hottubs are for us instead. We dive in, and once again our entire crew shows up so everyone else leaves. I love us. Afterwards, we decide we're getting too hot, and it's time for the pool.
[End Edit]
We head straight down to the main pool deck, and are in awe. There's probably 2000 people on the deck, in the pool, in the hottubs, laying out in the lounge chairs. That's a lot of friggin people. Hit the bars, get a few buckets of beer and lounge around in the pools and hottubs ourselves.
On the first sea day, the crew has a race. There are 6 horses on wheels and each one gets a driver from the passengers. The horses are lined up on a "racetrack" with 15 lines on it. The MC has 3 dice in a big glass shaker, and when he shakes the dice, the number that shows up is the horse that takes one step forward. Pretty straightforward. You can bet on the horses, cheer them on, etc. I wasn't too interested, until i realized we had horses 5 and 6, with Lulu and Merri. Now, it's gonna be a race.
Nothing too bizarre happened though, although Merri got caught cheating twice when she stepped too far forward each time. It happens.
After that, they started auctioning the horses off for a big race on Thursday, the next sea day. Whatever the auction was for, went into the pot. The first horse sold for $450. The total pot was around $2600 or so. Big spenders out there.
The races end, we head back into the pools. Nothing too big for the rest of the afternoon. I see Jamie and Heather lounging around, so I stop to talk to them for a few, then they leave to go to the gym. Nice to know they keep in shape.
Dinner is coming up, so we all head back to the rooms to shower, aloe ourselves up and change. The sea days are also the formal dinners, since they know everyone will be on the ship. This one is also the Captain's dinner, and he invites certain couples to his table to eat dinner with him. Thankfully for him, he didn't invite any of us. He was an enormous bore, so dining with him would have been cataclysmic, since our party didn't like being bored. Dinner was good, more steaks, chicken, everything under the sun. It's great.
This is the introduction of one of the better running jokes from the cruise. We ask the Englands for some English slang. Just to hear it. After a few boring ones, they come back with "a Crafty Butcher." We're intrigued, so we ask about it. "Y'know, a guy who sneaks his meat in around the back." We're floored. Best term ever. We decide to have a little fun with it.
We tell Jesse that the English just told us about Crafty Butcher, and that it means "a guy who can handle his meat," or a real splashmaster. Jesse falls in love with it, and calls himself a Crafty Butcher for the rest of dinner, the rest of the night, and most of the week. He wont get wise until Thursday, I think. I love that kid.
After dinner we head back upstairs, and here is where the fun for the night starts.
Jeremy makes it known that he has brought a mullet wig with him, from home. He goes back to his room, and comes back with the sweetest mullet wig ever, complete with mutton chops. We are all instantly in love. I make the suggestion that Matt wear it, since he's got the goatee/stache to go with it. Matt puts it on, and we all swear that wig was made for his head. He puts on a black button-up shirt with pot leaves on it, and some big sunglasses, and The Mullet Man is born. We start wandering up and down the halls, taking pictures of Matt in various poses. Merri decides to be his sister, Roxy, and Jen is to be his other sister, Foxy. They stroll around with him, arm in arm, disgusting half the ship and causing the rest to fall into hysterical laughter with their cries of "Oh Matt, we love you, take your sisters to bed!"
Another decision is made, this time to hit every bar and lounge on the ship, prancing around with the Mullet Man. We head through the Promenade, a mini-mall where all the stores are located. We hit all the smaller bars throughout the ship, breaking into conversations, walking through dancefloors, even offering kisses for luck in the casino.
Around 11:30pm, I find out that there's a comedy show going on in the Lyric, the onboard theatre. I make the call that Matt should be in the front row, getting heckled as a redneck. This idea is met with such enthusiasm that I was the only one left standing as everyone else sprinted to the Lyric. On the way in, we stop to get some more buckets of beer, and I see Heather outside waiting for Jamie. I stop to pose for a picture with myself, her, and the Mullet Man. The others head inside, and I stay to talk for a few. Jamie shows up and comments on how I once again have a full bucket of Bud Light under my arm, and how she can't wait to party with us. Of course. I point out the mullet to her, she almost doubles over in laughter, and then I join the rest of our group in the second row, stage left.
The comedian is moderately funny. Has a few good bits, sings a few funny songs. However, he's not heckling the Mullet Man. So Merri starts hecking the comedian. She's extraordinarily loud, like always. She's down about 15 beers, like always. However tonight, as we were to discover much much later, she's also down about 4 Xanax. Which means she's tripping balls, since she's a tiny girl.
After every joke the comedian does, she answers with a "Y-O" at the top of her lungs. She's continuously talking, and eventually drags Jen into the "Y-O" bit. After about 45 minutes, the comedian sees what's going on, starts talking about women, and where they're from. He asks us where we're from, and we all yell "NEW YORK!" at the top of our lungs. Hey, he asked. His response was classic, and is apparently now spoken of as legend in the rest of the crowd. "Let me guess, Long Island?" The entire crowd erupts, people applauding everywhere. Merri gets up and bows. "Yeah, there's a big shock. Sit down loudmouth. Oh yeah, nice hair dude."
Now that the mullet has his recognition, Merri calms down. We file out of the show, only to see Moosifer and Big Tom outside the bathrooms, waiting. "That was you, wasn't it? How did I know?" The crowd filing out high-fives us all, stops for pictures with the mullet. We are still the centers of attention.
Now the finale for the night, Jesters. It's become our regular hangout at this point. And now with a mullet, well who could resist? Down to the Jester we go, making the guard's eyes bug out of his head. We grab another whole section of the lounge and sit down to relax. Much more picture taking and enjoyment.
The mullet attracts the attention of a very cute girl, by the name of Ally (short for Alexis we later find out). She takes a picture, asks for a light, then sits down by me and we start talking. Apparently she works for Royal Caribbean, she's a dancer in one of the shows. Her dancing consists of jumping around on stage in a thong. I promise her we'll all be at her next show.
We keep talking, she fills me in about the ship. How there's a secret crew bar down in the depths where only they can go, and beers cost 75 cents. I'm infatuated and want her to sneak me in, but she says there are cameras everywhere. Damn. She tells us that unless we hit a crew member, we can't get kicked off the ship. We'll just get a slap on the wrist. Very good to know.
Midway through the conversation, she asks Jen for a light for her cigarette (yuck) and notices Jen's 87 karat engagement ring. Really, it's huge. They talk about that for a minute, then Jen drags her further and further into conversation, further from me. I look over to Train and he says "Wow. That was an amazing cockblock. I'd punch her if I didn't like Jeremy so much." I feel just about the same.
She comes back a few minutes later, and someone has taken her seat. So she sits down on my lap. That was nice, but futile. As it turns out, it doesn't really help since I find out 15 minutes later that the crew aren't allowed any contact with passengers outside of social. They can talk, but that's about it. Can't be in hottubs with them, can't swim with them, definately can't hook up with them. Sigh. Hot, slutty dancer on my lap and I can't touch her. Might as well be at Scores.
She leaves a little while later, drunk off her ass. We meet Tim, an Englishman who works at the General Store in the Promenade. Kristy had met him plenty of times before, since she had a few bottle buy mishaps the day before. So she introduces us to Tim. We talk to him for a bit, then get to the good conversation. We want to know how to offend the Englands at dinner the next night.
The English are either light years ahead of us in cursing, or they're just coming out of the
stone ages now, i.e. Crafty Butcher. Apparently calling Tim a jew is what you'd have to say to piss him off. We, of course, say yeah, duh. We call everyone that. Turns out, it has to do with the opposing soccer team in his town being backed by a big Jewish community. Calling him a jew means he backs his opponents team. And that really pisses him off. Who'd have thought you'd need a reason to be called a jew.
Jester's closes down at 3am again, so we grab more buckets and head up to the hottubs. Less crowded tonight, apparently being in the sun all day saps everyone's strength. Calm night, except for Merri and Craig enjoying the hottub a little too much for everyone's comfort. Eventually Zach, Danielle and Christie show up, and start cavorting around. I must admit, those two look damn good in bikinis.
Craig gets into a fight with 3 guys about Boston vs. New York, and Merri has to bail him out a few times since he can't hold his own. It's kinda funny. Then Zach and Danielle move over to the loungechairs to snuggle. Hence his name, snugglemaster. It's really sickening, that he has a gf at home, and now a cruise gf. Bah. Youngens. Jesse and Christie disappear for a while, the Boston vs NY fight continues, and eventually it's around 5am.
No one notices Merri disappear with Craig again until the next morning. Oops.
Suffice it to say, I'm way too drunk to take anyone home, barely even myself, so I stumble back to the room to pass out in the top bunk after another long, fun day.
Day 3 maybe later today/tonight, otherwise tomorrow. They just keep getting better.
From what I can recollect, we all decided to sleep in a bit. I ordered room service, but the latest I could get it was between 9:30am and 10am. So I put that on the order form and passed out the night before.
10:05am there's a phonecall and almost immediately a knock at the door. Both from room service. What timing. I grab the ham and cheese omelette that sounded great at midnight and take a few bites, realizing 2 things: I'm exceptionally dizzy, and exceptionally tired. Which means I'm mostly hungover. I go back to bed, to wake up around 12:30pm. I then scarf down a cold omelette and feel much better about myself.
Everyone gathers together and we head to the Windjammer, the onbard dining hall, buffet style. Since breakfast ended at 11:30, I started piling on the chicken breasts, mashed potatoes, waffles (don't ask why there were waffles at lunch), nachoes and of course I hit the dessert tray for some sort of chocolate mousse. Two thumbs up.
[Edit: I knew I forgot something. We went to the gym Monday morning. We made an attempt to stay in shape.]
After breakfast, me, Train and Zach head to the gym, the Shipshape Arena. We go in, browse around a bit. There's a pretty large gym, lot of Nautilus machines, a hottub, sauna, steam room, showers, the works. We hit the freeweights for a while. The only ones on the ship were dumbells. Ah well. We meet up with Jeremy there, he works with us too. After about 45 minutes we decide to hit the sauna.
Through the empty men's locker room, we open the door to the sauna and are blasted by the heat. Never been in a sauna before, and it's like 140 degrees in there. Very hard to breathe. At this point it's only me, Train and Jeremy. We sit down and watch one of the more homoerotic things we've seen lately.
A guy with a giant teapot on a stick fills the pot with water, then goes around and starts pouring it all over the other two guys that are laying on the wooden slats. They're grunting and groaning, telling each other how good it is, and telling us to try it. The guy with the teapot fills it halfway, walks over to me (since I'm the closest) and makes an attempt to start to hose me down. That's our cue to leave, so we do. Freaks.
Then we decide to try the steam room. We go to open the door, and it opens in front of us. Out pops a balding, overweight guy with a big handlebar mustache. He's completely naked, except for the hand towel he's using to cover his junk, and he twinkletoes his way passed us into the shower. We then decide that maybe the hottubs are for us instead. We dive in, and once again our entire crew shows up so everyone else leaves. I love us. Afterwards, we decide we're getting too hot, and it's time for the pool.
[End Edit]
We head straight down to the main pool deck, and are in awe. There's probably 2000 people on the deck, in the pool, in the hottubs, laying out in the lounge chairs. That's a lot of friggin people. Hit the bars, get a few buckets of beer and lounge around in the pools and hottubs ourselves.
On the first sea day, the crew has a race. There are 6 horses on wheels and each one gets a driver from the passengers. The horses are lined up on a "racetrack" with 15 lines on it. The MC has 3 dice in a big glass shaker, and when he shakes the dice, the number that shows up is the horse that takes one step forward. Pretty straightforward. You can bet on the horses, cheer them on, etc. I wasn't too interested, until i realized we had horses 5 and 6, with Lulu and Merri. Now, it's gonna be a race.
Nothing too bizarre happened though, although Merri got caught cheating twice when she stepped too far forward each time. It happens.
After that, they started auctioning the horses off for a big race on Thursday, the next sea day. Whatever the auction was for, went into the pot. The first horse sold for $450. The total pot was around $2600 or so. Big spenders out there.
The races end, we head back into the pools. Nothing too big for the rest of the afternoon. I see Jamie and Heather lounging around, so I stop to talk to them for a few, then they leave to go to the gym. Nice to know they keep in shape.
Dinner is coming up, so we all head back to the rooms to shower, aloe ourselves up and change. The sea days are also the formal dinners, since they know everyone will be on the ship. This one is also the Captain's dinner, and he invites certain couples to his table to eat dinner with him. Thankfully for him, he didn't invite any of us. He was an enormous bore, so dining with him would have been cataclysmic, since our party didn't like being bored. Dinner was good, more steaks, chicken, everything under the sun. It's great.
This is the introduction of one of the better running jokes from the cruise. We ask the Englands for some English slang. Just to hear it. After a few boring ones, they come back with "a Crafty Butcher." We're intrigued, so we ask about it. "Y'know, a guy who sneaks his meat in around the back." We're floored. Best term ever. We decide to have a little fun with it.
We tell Jesse that the English just told us about Crafty Butcher, and that it means "a guy who can handle his meat," or a real splashmaster. Jesse falls in love with it, and calls himself a Crafty Butcher for the rest of dinner, the rest of the night, and most of the week. He wont get wise until Thursday, I think. I love that kid.
After dinner we head back upstairs, and here is where the fun for the night starts.
Jeremy makes it known that he has brought a mullet wig with him, from home. He goes back to his room, and comes back with the sweetest mullet wig ever, complete with mutton chops. We are all instantly in love. I make the suggestion that Matt wear it, since he's got the goatee/stache to go with it. Matt puts it on, and we all swear that wig was made for his head. He puts on a black button-up shirt with pot leaves on it, and some big sunglasses, and The Mullet Man is born. We start wandering up and down the halls, taking pictures of Matt in various poses. Merri decides to be his sister, Roxy, and Jen is to be his other sister, Foxy. They stroll around with him, arm in arm, disgusting half the ship and causing the rest to fall into hysterical laughter with their cries of "Oh Matt, we love you, take your sisters to bed!"
Another decision is made, this time to hit every bar and lounge on the ship, prancing around with the Mullet Man. We head through the Promenade, a mini-mall where all the stores are located. We hit all the smaller bars throughout the ship, breaking into conversations, walking through dancefloors, even offering kisses for luck in the casino.
Around 11:30pm, I find out that there's a comedy show going on in the Lyric, the onboard theatre. I make the call that Matt should be in the front row, getting heckled as a redneck. This idea is met with such enthusiasm that I was the only one left standing as everyone else sprinted to the Lyric. On the way in, we stop to get some more buckets of beer, and I see Heather outside waiting for Jamie. I stop to pose for a picture with myself, her, and the Mullet Man. The others head inside, and I stay to talk for a few. Jamie shows up and comments on how I once again have a full bucket of Bud Light under my arm, and how she can't wait to party with us. Of course. I point out the mullet to her, she almost doubles over in laughter, and then I join the rest of our group in the second row, stage left.
The comedian is moderately funny. Has a few good bits, sings a few funny songs. However, he's not heckling the Mullet Man. So Merri starts hecking the comedian. She's extraordinarily loud, like always. She's down about 15 beers, like always. However tonight, as we were to discover much much later, she's also down about 4 Xanax. Which means she's tripping balls, since she's a tiny girl.
After every joke the comedian does, she answers with a "Y-O" at the top of her lungs. She's continuously talking, and eventually drags Jen into the "Y-O" bit. After about 45 minutes, the comedian sees what's going on, starts talking about women, and where they're from. He asks us where we're from, and we all yell "NEW YORK!" at the top of our lungs. Hey, he asked. His response was classic, and is apparently now spoken of as legend in the rest of the crowd. "Let me guess, Long Island?" The entire crowd erupts, people applauding everywhere. Merri gets up and bows. "Yeah, there's a big shock. Sit down loudmouth. Oh yeah, nice hair dude."
Now that the mullet has his recognition, Merri calms down. We file out of the show, only to see Moosifer and Big Tom outside the bathrooms, waiting. "That was you, wasn't it? How did I know?" The crowd filing out high-fives us all, stops for pictures with the mullet. We are still the centers of attention.
Now the finale for the night, Jesters. It's become our regular hangout at this point. And now with a mullet, well who could resist? Down to the Jester we go, making the guard's eyes bug out of his head. We grab another whole section of the lounge and sit down to relax. Much more picture taking and enjoyment.
The mullet attracts the attention of a very cute girl, by the name of Ally (short for Alexis we later find out). She takes a picture, asks for a light, then sits down by me and we start talking. Apparently she works for Royal Caribbean, she's a dancer in one of the shows. Her dancing consists of jumping around on stage in a thong. I promise her we'll all be at her next show.
We keep talking, she fills me in about the ship. How there's a secret crew bar down in the depths where only they can go, and beers cost 75 cents. I'm infatuated and want her to sneak me in, but she says there are cameras everywhere. Damn. She tells us that unless we hit a crew member, we can't get kicked off the ship. We'll just get a slap on the wrist. Very good to know.
Midway through the conversation, she asks Jen for a light for her cigarette (yuck) and notices Jen's 87 karat engagement ring. Really, it's huge. They talk about that for a minute, then Jen drags her further and further into conversation, further from me. I look over to Train and he says "Wow. That was an amazing cockblock. I'd punch her if I didn't like Jeremy so much." I feel just about the same.
She comes back a few minutes later, and someone has taken her seat. So she sits down on my lap. That was nice, but futile. As it turns out, it doesn't really help since I find out 15 minutes later that the crew aren't allowed any contact with passengers outside of social. They can talk, but that's about it. Can't be in hottubs with them, can't swim with them, definately can't hook up with them. Sigh. Hot, slutty dancer on my lap and I can't touch her. Might as well be at Scores.
She leaves a little while later, drunk off her ass. We meet Tim, an Englishman who works at the General Store in the Promenade. Kristy had met him plenty of times before, since she had a few bottle buy mishaps the day before. So she introduces us to Tim. We talk to him for a bit, then get to the good conversation. We want to know how to offend the Englands at dinner the next night.
The English are either light years ahead of us in cursing, or they're just coming out of the
stone ages now, i.e. Crafty Butcher. Apparently calling Tim a jew is what you'd have to say to piss him off. We, of course, say yeah, duh. We call everyone that. Turns out, it has to do with the opposing soccer team in his town being backed by a big Jewish community. Calling him a jew means he backs his opponents team. And that really pisses him off. Who'd have thought you'd need a reason to be called a jew.
Jester's closes down at 3am again, so we grab more buckets and head up to the hottubs. Less crowded tonight, apparently being in the sun all day saps everyone's strength. Calm night, except for Merri and Craig enjoying the hottub a little too much for everyone's comfort. Eventually Zach, Danielle and Christie show up, and start cavorting around. I must admit, those two look damn good in bikinis.
Craig gets into a fight with 3 guys about Boston vs. New York, and Merri has to bail him out a few times since he can't hold his own. It's kinda funny. Then Zach and Danielle move over to the loungechairs to snuggle. Hence his name, snugglemaster. It's really sickening, that he has a gf at home, and now a cruise gf. Bah. Youngens. Jesse and Christie disappear for a while, the Boston vs NY fight continues, and eventually it's around 5am.
No one notices Merri disappear with Craig again until the next morning. Oops.
Suffice it to say, I'm way too drunk to take anyone home, barely even myself, so I stumble back to the room to pass out in the top bunk after another long, fun day.
Day 3 maybe later today/tonight, otherwise tomorrow. They just keep getting better.