These were originally posts made on SP, a web-based board I used to participate on. Four posts are included: a general post about our cruise, a post about Bermuda, the saga of Cynthia's broken leg and some thoughts about costs.
Explorer of the Seas ship cruising from NJ to Bermuda
This is about our cruise. Steve is writing a web site with a few hundred pics, but I get to get my two cents in too.
It is a weird thing to go on vacation and at various spots throughout, find you are writing posts in your head.
The primary reason we did this cruise was because it was a family thing. We're not really cruise-type people ourselves; we're more camping kind of people. As noted elsewhere, we had 3 staterooms of family. We were supposed to have 5, but Steve's stepmother was too ill to go and his brother's wife was in her third trimester so wasn't allowed, so we were down to 3 staterooms.
The ship itself has 11 main decks, plus 3 partial decks, for a total of 14 decks. Here's some pics I googled (I was not allowed custody of the camera): (Steve: Yes she was, she just isn't as good at photography as I am.)
The entire fifth deck is just of shops and clubs, a bit of a "mall".This pic shows about 1/4 of it:
On the 11th deck, there is both an open pool area with the main pool, 5 or 6 hot tubs, multiple showers and a bar. Separately, there is a solarium with a giant jacuzzi, wading pool, and surrounded by sculptures.
The pools are all filled with sea water, so you float no matter how much buffet you partake of.
At one end of the 11th deck, there is a buffet that is open nearly 24 hours, plus a couple small restaurants, at the other end is the fitness center, which has all the exercise equipment you could ever want, plus classes, plus another jacuzzi, saunas and steam rooms.
Above the fitness center is the spa, where there's a bazillion types of massages, facials, pedicures and manicures one can have in utterly decadent surroundings.
On the 12th deck, a track circles the entire pool area for joggers. In addition, on the 12th-14th decks, besides the giant circular jazz club, there's also a miniature golf course, basketball court, shuffleboard courts, inline skating rink, and the kid's club, which includes another pool with a slide.
There's also a rock-climbing wall:
There's also an ice skating rink, open both for passenger skating and for full-blown musical extravaganza ice shows.
The main shows are in a two-story theatre and include singing, dancing, acrobatics and comedy shows.
Oh, and there's also a casino.
There's about 10 restaurants, plus the main dining room, where you have a head waiter, main waiter and assistant waiter for each table. And if you can't get your butt up and out to any of those restaurants, there's also free room service.
In short, you are not going to diet on a cruise. "I'm hungry" on a cruise means "my stomach doesn't actually hurt right now and probably has a good 2-3 TB empty space in it."
HUGE amounts of food are wasted. I said I thought they should have a farm deck and raise chickens and hogs as they'd likely raise enough for the next cruise each time out.
There's "themed" bars... everything from a jazz club to a goth club to a cigar club. Probably about ten to fifteen bars total. But... you don't have to get off your lazy ass to get a drink, they are offered to you constantly. On the deck, in the restaurants, just walking around... people are trying to give you things where "you get to keep the glass" with lotsa umbrellas in them. They *just* stop short of following you into the restrooms to give you drinks.
In short, don't go on a cruise if you're an alcoholic either. Though they *did* have AA meetings on board!
And that is another thing, there are activities constantly. You get a daily printout of all the activities. If you spent no time eating or drinking and just ran from one activity to another all day, you wouldn't do half of them.
I didn't even *see* half the public areas of the ship. We just weren't gone long enough.
Just looking at pictures of the thing, it's a disgustingly decadent display of conspicuous consumption. Everything in me utterly disapproves of the entire thing... it's gaudy and ugly and wasteful...
And I utterly loved it!
On the one hand, I was relatively pleased we were going to Bermuda. Bermuda is a relatively rich country, and I would've been mortified had we been pulling into some poverty-stricken place with this disgustingly decadent ship.
But on the other hand, I felt apologetic regardless. I lived in Florida for 12 years. We *hated* tourists. They were stupid, in your way all the time, and drove prices up. I was just utterly embarrassed to *be* a tourist.
Bermuda is about 21 square miles. There's two main towns, Hamilton and St George. Cruise ships dock right in town, there's usually 2 or 3 docked in each town. However, we were in a ship too large to dock in town, so we docked at the naval dockyard.
We were in Bermuda two days. The first day, Steve and Cynthia were booked on an excursion to do an introductory scuba lesson, so I was on my own. I bought the $12 transportation pass which allows you all the buses and ferries you want for a day.
I walked around the dockyard, bought some Diet Pepsi at a convenient store (none on the ship!), then caught a ferry to Hamilton, which was about a 20 minute ride.
The cruise ships were docked on Front Street, which is a road filled with pastel-covered shops. The road was as cleaned and sterile as Disneyworld.
The roads are *very* narrow, sometimes walled on both sides also. The cars were all small, boxy, European things. And they drive on the left, which I discovered is more confusing than you think, even though I never drove. Just riding in a bus was weird. Bermuda wisely does not allow car rentals, but they have not yet outlawed moped and scooter rentals and I saw a near-accident every 5 minutes or so cause by a dumb tourist.
I walked down the main road, stopping once for more Diet Pepsi, then got to the end where a dock full of containers was. I had figured out by then that there is almost no industry in Bermuda and everything is hauled in. All the shopping provided for tourists is stuff that had to be shipped in and therefore costs much more than if you just bought it at home. I was interested in how they got the stuff in the containers around given that the roads were so narrow. So I hung out for a while and saw what they did... a day cab truck pulled out with a short flatbed just long enough for a single container. While much smaller than the trucks we drove, it still looked darned difficult to drive on those tiny roads.
After that, I got off the tourist strip and explored Hamilton a bit. The rest of it wasn't so Disney-like. I spoke to a few folks here and there and stopped at the real post office to buy stamps. I saw a small kid with the most *gorgeous* dreads and stopped him to compliment him on his hair. I also saw businessmen with the long-sleeve collared shirt and tie, dress shoes and knee socks, and bermuda shorts - which looks so ridiculous to my eye.
I eventually walked to the main transportation terminal and caught a bus back to the dockyard. The bus ride was about an hour long, but I got off a few times to visit beaches along the way.
At one point, there was an annoying tourist sitting beside me discussing how much better buses were in NJ. I was sitting with a local and just cringing in embarrassment. The tourists later asked the local how to get places, and the local was quite polite, which surprised me. I'd have told them to go the fuck back to NJ if they wanted to go to the beach.
Generally, Bermuda reminded me of Florida, very similar flora and fauna, and bermuda grass of course. There were a handful of unfamiliar plants around also, but mostly it all looked like Florida. There were entirely different ants too, the kind that accidentally sitting on at the beach didn't cause me severe pain as it would in FL.
But the water is an entirely different color. And not just *one* different color, but several different colors. I am not good with colors so can't describe the shades, but it was gorgeous.
Bermuda is basically a bunch of sedimented coral on top of a dormant volcano. Because the ground is porous, rivers and streams don't develop, so the water doesn't get filled with sediment from runoff. Also, there is really no industry there, so little pollution. So the water is basically completely clear everywhere.
October was a good time to go as it wasn't unbearably hot. It was hot cause I was doing so much unaccustomed exercise walking all over the place, but not too bad. My first day out, I never even put sunscreen on and only got a very mild sunburn, just a bit of redness with no pain at all.
I was watching for farms during the bus ride and saw a few very small cultivated fields (like a half acre or so), one even had a couple goats on it. I also saw one larger farm (maybe 5 acres) that actually had a tractor. If there's any cows, I don't know where they hide them. As far as I can tell, they pretty much import everything and their only real industry is tourism.
Eventually, I got back to the dockyard, hit the convenience store for some more Diet Pepsi and stamps and got back on the ship to meet up with everyone for dinner.
The next day, Steve and I were scheduled to go on a kayaking/snorkeling excursion. The tour guides picked us up at the dock in a small boat and we left. The one tour guide was talking over a microphone during it, and he was basically doing standup comedy during the boat ride. He was kewl.
Then we got to our beach, and discovered they weren't *really* kayaks, but these molded plastic things you sit on two to a 'kayak'. We went all over the place and stuck very closely to our other tour guide, who turned out to be the interesting one as he knew all sorts of kewl stuff, biology, ecology, etc. He answered questions, stopped whenever there was something kewl to look at, etc. We saw all kinds of crabs and fishes and such.
Steve rescued a glass bottle during a stop, using both our paddles to fish it off the bottom. He later rescued a plastic bag too.
We arrived at another beach, docked the 'kayaks' and went snorkeling. The water and air was *just* a tad too cool, but when we finished up and got back into the kayaks to return, we were comfortable enough, though I expected it to be cold cause it was windy and overcast.
On the boat ride back, there were coolers of bottled water, soda and beer. Overall, I really enjoyed it; they treated us like people, not like tourists. And I'd wisely slathered myself with sunscreen before we left, so got a bit of color, but no further burning.
We went back to the ship for a quick lunch and then wandered around the dockyard. There's an entire mall there, so we bought a few touristy t-shirts. Mailed our postcards. Basically, acted exactly like tourists after all, though hopefully not stupid and obnoxious ones!
So that was our second day and I'd say we could easily have spent another week or two; Bermuda is pretty cool.
Cynthia, whom is 23, hit it off majorly with Jamie, who is 7. Jamie greatly admired Cynthia... the tattoo behind the ear, the piercing through the tongue and eyebrow, all the black eyeliner, black lace dresses with incredible cleavage and such, the many umbrellas Cynthia saved her from $10 drinks, etc. And Cynthia adores kids so adored being adored by this kid.
Anyways, we had cruised to Bermuda, done all the Bermuda stuff, and were cruising back on Wednesday night when the events in our drama took place.
So they had noticed that "The Chamber", a sorta semi-gothic bar on the ship, had a "family disco" thang happening from 9-10 PM (normally, it's an adult-only bar). So Cynthia took Jamie dancing and when they were done with that, they decided to go hot tubbing up on deck 11. We had all figured out that hitting the hot tubs after 8 or 9 PM was kewl... the whole deck was deserted, the bars were closed, it was just a handful of people, if anyone at all. Great place to de-stress and get away from the crowds. So Jamie went with Elaine to their cabin to get suited up, and Cynthia came back to our cabin to do the same.
Meanwhile... ya'll may remember Steve recently posted what a pain-in-the-butt he is with all his "rules" needed to sleep. With the 3 of us sharing a stateroom (which, as is traditional, barely has room to turn around), Steve's rules were broken repeatedly and he hadn't gotten much sleep. We had decided after dinner to go lie down, Steve cause he was exhausted and me cause I had a touch of seasickness. I had told Steve he was not allowed to be grouchy at interruptions; it was freaking 8 PM when we went to lie down after all. He didn't manage it though! So Cynthia came in to get suited up... this woke us up. Then Elaine called wondering where Cynthia was, this woke us up also. Then 2 minutes later, the phone rang again, and Steve screamed into it, "WHAT?!?!"
I later heard the story of how the entire call went...
Cynthia: "I'm on deck 11. I think I broke my ankle. They're taking me to the infirmary on deck 1. Tell my mom to meet me."
Steve: "Who is this?"
Cynthia eventually got it through Steve's head what she was saying, his body language changed to "crisis mode" instead of "seriously annoyed mode," which woke me up more fully, we got up and got dressed and made it to the infirmary before Cynthia arrived. There were around 5 or 6 people scuttling around... everyone got there before Cynthia.
The really ironic thing was because Cynthia's date for the evening was 7 years old, it was the only evening she'd done zero drinking. Apparently, walking sober was a tad difficult for her.
She fell and realized she was badly hurt and also that she was alone. A bit later, a lady walked by and Cynthia called her. The lady reported the problem, then went back and stayed with Cynthia until help arrived. She told Cynthia that she should squeeze her hand to take her mind off the pain, that she was a tough lady, she had 5 kids. Eventually, help arrived, a wheelchair, some ice, and a phone with which she called us.
A ship's "hospital" is both impressive and unimpressive simultaneously. There are 5 or 6 different rooms, including an ICU. There is one primary MD, a nurse anesthesiologist, and several aides. There is an informality that is interesting... they let me back there right away and I remained most of the time, except for x-rays. When I first saw her, I was shocked, a "growth" the size of a baseball was sticking out of her ankle (though the skin wasn't broken). The x-ray guy asked me to leave so they could take some pics and see if it was broken; I pointed at that lump and said, "Look. It's *broken*" Heh.
The nurse anesthesiologist wasn't there yet, so the MD put the IV in. I was surprised, I didn't know they even knew how to do that. Well, turns out... they don't. Cynthia got poked several times and was a bloody mess before the thing was in and later had a rather huge bruise.
Meanwhile, I'm just trying to get hold of myself, cause I'm kinda freaked out, but need to be comforting. I sat down on a chair out of everyone's way and petted her and talked to her soothingly, while trying to calm myself down. Cynthia asked Steve to go find Elaine and Jamie and let them know what happened, and I remained there trying to be comforting.
The x-rays are hanging on the wall by now, and I can clearly see two breaks myself. The one, the smaller, thinner bone, is fractured, but mostly lined up. The other is completely dislocated and not where it's supposed to be at all. It makes me cringe almost as bad as seeing her ankle does.
And as I am murmuring and making soothing noises, the doctor and his aide are trying to find a pulse in Cynthia's foot and can't. And it's really, really cold. And they are discussing this and I am overhearing them. Cynthia is kinda out of it with pain, so she is missing the conversation, but I suddenly realized why they don't usually let you back there when they are treating someone in normal hospitals. I am having a very difficult time not freaking out and only the thought that the *only* thing I can do useful right now is pet and soothe Cynthia is allowing me to maintain at all.
And I *did* maintain then, but writing this, I'm finding myself kinda freaking out here. I'm all shaky and kinda spazzing.
So, the nurse anesthesiologist showed up, asked when she'd last eaten (it's a *cruise* - you eat *continually* for *days*) and decided she couldn't have general. He set up a continuous blood-pressure reader, a continuous pule thingy, put her on oxygen, and then pulled the defibrillator over in easy reach. And I started saying this mantra to myself, "I may not freak out. I must simply soothe and stay out of the way. No matter what happens, I must not freak out."
So he gave her "something to relax" then shot some Demerol into the IV. Then the MD on the other end gave her a shot of local into her ankle and she screamed and cried and the anesthesiologist gave her another shot of Demerol and I petted her and told her it was OK to just breathe deep, take a deep breath, and started doing it with her... they set her ankle in one shot, causing a new round of screaming and crying, and soothing sounds and petting, etc.
Afterwards, they asked her about her pain level, and she said on a scale of 1-10, it was a 3 1/2 and they asked what it was when she came in and she said 25, and they decided it was still too much, and gave her another shot of Demerol.
But they decided it was likely set properly and began putting her in a very thin cast. The MD was literally telling his aide exactly what to do, open one of those packages, soak it in water there, lay it out on this table... and I realized this assistant had no clue what he was doing.
They got her bandaged up and she said her pain level was only 1/2 now. Steve arrived and said Monique, Elaine and Jamie were outside and wanted to see C. In fact, when Jamie heard what happened, she *demanded* to be taken to the hospital right away and wouldn't hear anything else. Ron was upstairs with the twins who were asleep, but the whole rest of the family was here. So they decided to do x-rays so we all had to leave the room for a few minutes. I told Cynthia I'd be a while cause I needed a freaking cigarette, and Steve was back to stand in for parenting duties.
Monique came with me and I told her what had happened. When we got back, they'd let Elaine and Jamie in to see her, so we waited outside until they were done so the room wouldn't be too crowded. Then we went back in. Monique did her visiting and the doctor spoke to me and Steve.
They needed to keep her there a few hours to monitor her circulation (but she *had* some again, so...). The set was temporary, she needed to get to an ER as soon as we got to port. She needed surgery. The ligaments were completely disconnected from the large bone in her foot.
By the way, the ship hospital takes *no* insurance. They give you forms for reimbursement, but you have to pay now. And... you have no choice. Because when you got on, you attach a credit card to your ship card, which is used for all onboard purchases. You *thought* this was about $10 drinks with lots of umbrellas where you get to keep the glass, but they've now just added $2K to your bill.
And... I hadn't given them a credit card, but my bank card. So... they just grabbed $2K out of my checking account. This just after Steve quit his job! ARGH!
Cynthia's injury cost more than the cruise. We will get reimbursed eventually, but she's got Medicaid, so it'll be months.
Eventually they discharged her, gave her some Percocet, and then stuck her in a wheelchair (too wide to go into our non-accessible stateroom) and let us go. Those bathrooms are too small for one person to use comfortably, with one trying to help the other, and neither of us skinny chicks, it was a mess. I spent the last day of the cruise basically getting Cynthia dressed and undressed, in-and-out of bathrooms, and fetching things for her. Got her to a couple shows and dinner too, but most of the day was in the stateroom.
We had to be packed by midnight, so we got that done, and I awoke during the night with her crying beside me a few times... the pain meds weren't cutting it (she was sleeping with me in the double bed since the break, Steve got relegated to the bunk).
Then the next day... getting her dressed, fed, to the meeting place for disembarking, disembarked, onto a bus, off the bus, to our luggage, through customs, on to a van, back to the hotel where we'd left the car, inside to have lunch, to the airport, into a wheelchair, got her ticket, her luggage checked, and gave custody to an airline employee. All this with multiple bathroom trips...
I spoke to her roommate a few hours ago, she'd been picked up and they were on their way to the ER. I don't know anything else just yet; I suspect they're not calling cause it's so late.
Cruising can be surprisingly cheap for what you get.
Monique (my SIL) is into it. She got married on a cruise ship... they flew the whole family out to BC, got married, then they took an Alaskan glacier cruise for their honeymoon.
She's cruised a number of times with her husband various places. And she did an all-chick cruise before Steve's mom died, her and Steve's mom, his aunt and one cousin, where they flew to Asia and cruised with stops in China, Japan and Korea.
Anyway, she is good at finding deals. She hangs out on cruise forums and knows when the seasons are and all that. And since she wanted to make it a family cruise, she found a *really* cheap deal for us.
This was an 'end of season' deal, being that the tourist season for Bermuda is almost over. However, it was gorgeous in Bermuda and I doubt I'd have liked it much hotter anyways.
We boarded the ship on Saturday morning and began eating and drinking immediately! Our staterooms were ready at 1 PM and then the ship left dock that evening. We got to Bermuda Monday morning and left Tuesday night, arriving back in NJ yesterday morning and disembarking just before noon. So basically, it was 6 days total.
The cruise itself for the three of us Steve cost us around $1500. Course, we had a crappy stateroom, but there's no point in paying for a nice one as you generally don't do anything but sleep and shower there (unless you break a leg!).
Cynthia got a roundtrip flight from Houston for $250. We got a hotel in NJ the night before, and including parking for a week and transportation to and from the port, it was under $200.
I budgeted an additional $250 each for excursions and spending money. Cynthia went scuba diving, I went kayaking/snorkeling, Steve went on both. Most of the spending money beyond excursions went for drinks. I also spent another $140 or so on tipping.
We spent a bit on t-shirts and postcards and such, and another bit on buying some duty-free liquor the last night to bring home. And I bought some of the pics the professional photographers take of you like crazy all over the ship.
The whole thing came in at less than $3000 for the 3 of us. You *could* spend a lot more if you are into shopping, gambling, drinking more seriously than we do, etc.
Course, Cynthia's broken leg nearly doubled that cost on us, but if you *don't* break a leg, this can be a pretty good deal.
On the other hand, we could go camping for *months* for $3000, so...