May 18, 2018 - At sea

Another day at sea gives me time to reflect on the nature of cruising (again, remember that this is our first one):

• The ship is designed to separate you from your money.  I understand this--Disney World was the same way--but it seemed to be all the time.  Before I even got to the gym door on Deck 12 (it was a good gym), I was asked if I wanted a massage, a haircut, and a spa treatment.  Yikes!  If I was any more sensitive, I'd think they felt I was a mess.

• Everyone who has cruised told me about the food.  It really was good.  We had table seating for dinner but breakfast, lunch, and any snacking was at the Oceanview cafe.  This was the buffet area, and any readers that know me know that I like a buffet.  I don't know if I could have had food there 24 hours a day, but I got all I wanted--and the coffee (Lavazza) was 24 hours.

• We were swimming in antibacterial hand sanitizer.  I understand this too--I've read the stories about norovirus on board ships--but even with this, I'd estimate that about 20 percent of the people I saw had a cough or sore throat as we were nearing the end of the trip.  Fe got both a  cough and a sore throat, so now I'm counting on my caffeine and preservatives regimen to keep me strong.

• Another similarity to Disney--the international make-up of the crew.  I (of course) was fascinated by this and tried to read everyone's name tag to see the nationality, but to my tired old eyes it was written rather small.  I'm sure some of them thought it was weird of me squinting at their chest.  I expected a lot from the Philippines, but I think there were even more (at least in the areas we were) from Indonesia.  A lot were from India too, which I wasn't expecting.  Mauritius was the most exotic country I saw staff from.  A good number of them sang as they were working and I heard that Celebrity was one of the better cruise lines to work for.  I'll bet it's hard to be away from home for so long though.

• Seeing a new shoreline become clearer as you approach by ship is very different than landing at an airport.  It gives me time to think about who might be living there; what they do in these islands, mountains, and fjords; will the natives be friendly?  Silly, I know.  But if I go around saying that I'm a liberal arts major trapped in an engineer's body, I have to live up to it.