Christmas Cruise - Part 3

Day 3: Christmas!

The plan for Christmas was to stop at Coco Cay, a private island owned by Royal Caribbean in order to spend a day chilling on the beach. My goal was to go snorkeling, my dream was to go snorkeling with the (nurse) sharks that are known to frequent the beaches tourists don't.  But on Christmas we awoke to the captain's voice. "Goooood morning ladies and gentleman,  buenas mananas damas y caballeros..." letting us know that due to the rough seas we would not be stopping at and tendering to Coco Cay. So we went back to bed.

At late breakfast, pondering a day at sea we (Ladies, Gentleman, Damas, and Caballeros) were greeted with another message, informing us that we would be stopping by Freeport due to a Medical Emergency.  Kicking off twice as fast, the ship veered off course and headed up to just outside Freeport harbour, where we lashed up to a tug, transferred our passangar, and spun ourselves around to head back out into the seas.

Four limbs. Unrelated: Ethan designed that shirt.

It seems you need to keep 2800 passengers occupied, because - just like slaves - you never know what would happen if we were forced to occupy ourselves.  To this end there were trivia games (which our cousin's encyclopedic knowledge of popular music won half of), there were dodgeball games (which we won all of, though having members on 3 of the 4 teams makes that easier), and there was Christmas caroling, which nobody won (though, you know, we were awesome at it). We even got out to the climbing wall. After climbing the toughest (5.9) route the right way, we set about making it harder for ourselves by banning limbs, impressing all the seven year olds we were in line with, and - when dad played along - most of their parents.

Three limbs... Two limbs.... The next climber is facing a real challenge.

Dinner was delicious and punctuated by all the wait-staff singing Christmas carols and dancing (Some wearing santa hats on their heads, others wearing napkins, tea cups, or stuffed fish on their heads). After dinner was Reid Belstock - the professional and amazing juggler, unicycler, yoyoist, and all around entertainer. His banter, mannerisms, and acts were funny in the ways clowns should be (but aren't) while being deft and more coordinated than I could ever hope to be. My favorite act involved him throwing a bowling ball and catching it on his head.... but I'll let you youtube it so as not to spoil it.  After Reid came more trivia and the "Quest - The Adult In-room Scavenger Hunt!"  I elected to finish my book and go to bed early, but my brothers and mother all went, so if Adam gets a gift certificate to a therapist next christmas, you'll know why.

Day 4: Key West

The last day on the cruise we visited Key West, which had a Bahamas-meets-New England Shore feel. We started the day with a ride on the tourist-train, a disguised propane-powered jeep that pulls several trailers filled with tourists. Through some reconnaissance and a solid basketball-style pick we claimed the back seat as our own, and our driver eventually sat off across the island, pointing out local highlights as we went. We passed Earnest Hemingway's old house - still filled with 6-toe'd cats, and saw "The Southernmost House", "The Southernmost Southernmost House", and the "Southernmost Point" in the 48 United States. You know, except for the military base to the south of it, the private key to the south of that, and Fort Taylor State Park - but it has a giant immovable buoy that replaced the oft-stolen sign for a great photo-op, presuming you don't mind standing in line to take a picture of a repurposed sewer junction.

We bailed on the last leg of the tour, returned to the ship for lunch - as is our habit - and to change! We threw on our suits (bathing, not three-piece) and grabbed the suitcase of snorkel gear and set off to the beach - which was in Fort Taylor State Park and thus 200' further south than the southernmost point. After a 15 minute walk and a surprise park-usage fee, we got to the beach and set about snorkeling! To be honest, I gave up snorkeling after swimming around the cloudy water for 5 minutes with no sign of fishes. Reports from Adam and our father indicate that there were over a dozen fish to be seen if you looked hard enough, but I was chilly enough I stopped worrying about fish and climbed up on the rocky islets to look around, annoy the seagulls, and ultimately dive from.  The beach wasn't too inspiring, and rather uncomfortable since the lack of waves hasn't bashed all the sharp coral into sand.  Once we'd finished bothering the sea/air creatures and playing on rocks we headed over to the fort itself, which was huge.

It used to have two more levels until changes in naval strategy and armament meant that being a harder-to-hit single story was a smarter choice. It came complete with a moat, and the roof was so thick that 15 foot cannons were used to reinforce the concrete. Unfortunately, there was nothing super photogenic about it (at least, not in the areas you were allowed to visit) and the adjacent military base and security discouraged photography enough I didn't bother, at least not until Ethan discovered his head was the same diameter as the mortar.

Profile picture? Profile picture.

Somewhat worn out but glad we managed to get in the ocean at least once on our tropical holiday, we headed back to the ship where (after a brief stop as security confiscated the knife I'd forgotten I had) we cleaned up for dinner. But before we could eat, we went watch push-off and the exit of the harbor. After a beautiful sunset the PA announcements got more and more frantic. Scaring Alex and I on the bow half to death with the Fog Horn, the captain requested that passengers SomeName and SomeOtherName check in with guest services. While we watched the shore-side performers juggle fire and jump cats through hoops (Yes, housecats. No, I don't know why) the captain periodically repeated his call. There were still two crew members standing on the dock with the gangway when we began casting off and winding in the ropes. Finally, as the appointed hour struck the deckhands pulled in the gangway and cast off the final ropes. The captain used his thrusters to slide out from the pier, swing us perpendicular to shore, and set off into the sea.

And Adam fed a fortune cookie to a telekinetic chicken.

Dinner was largely more of the same. I went all out, ordering two main courses at once in order to build myself a brilliant surf-and-turf. And to the delight of my family, the waiters knew it was my birthday and sung for me, clanging lids together as miniature cymbals. The after dinner entertainment consists of a Battle-of-the-Sexes type gameshow, where us boys assisted the men in getting 41 people to touch a single carpet square, while 43 women pretended to do the same thing. Not that I could see, finding myself sprawled 3 layers deep in the Bagel of Blokes? Circulo de Caballeros? Disc of ..... Nevermind. Moving on.

We abandoned the gameshow as it became apparent the women were massively cheating time to get seats for the evening's comedian. Steven Scott was excellent, specializing in impersonations of everything from subway trains to our captain. "Good eve-ning ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking from the bar. I mean the Bridge." If you have the chance to check him out I recommend it, and let me know how the last two minutes go. I had to avail myself of the facilities thanks to a birthday cocktail (a Kamikaze with 8 cherries in it. It was fantastic.)

I spent the last few hours of the day wandering the upper deck, in the deep blackness that is midnight in the middle of nowhere.

Day 5: Back Eventually

Our last day was a late morning, a long breakfast, and we took our time getting off the boat, stopping briefly to reclaim my pocket knife in what was a surprisingly painless process. As requested, here is my report from the contraband table from most to least common. Clothing irons, knives, multitools, handcuffs. Our flight home was uneventful, and Maryland disappointingly cold.

Having come up with nothing better, I'm gonna leave my framing/layout note here to finish.

Something conclusivatory here. Cruises are awesome. The end.