Saturday, July 16, 2011

My love/hate relationship with Carnival Cruise lines

I freaking LOVE roller coasters. I do. I find them thrilling, not frightening, and probably because I know I'm more likely to be attacked by a shark in my bathtub than to get killed on a roller coaster, so no matter what crazy loops or dives they take, I feel pretty safe. Which brings me to admitting that I find sharks fascinating - but more in a I can barely swim in a pool alone without freaking myself out a little bit way than anything else. I like watching Shark Week just as much as the next person, but I have absolutely no desire to actually meet a shark in person. It's pretty similar to how I feel about Mario Lopez, except that I don't change the channel when I see a shark on tv. Unfortunately, Mario and I have met and the only way I'm willing to go through that hell again is if I'm there to watch him get attacked by a shark and our interaction is limited to when I get to stuff chum into his pockets.

The last time I personally had to worry about getting attacked by a shark, other than during my visits to the neighborhood pool, was when I went on a snorkeling excursion in Belize. My husband and I were on a cruise with my parents, my husband's brother and his wife, and a couple of their friends. My parents somehow knew better than to sign up for this type of mayhem, but the rest of us decided to go on an excursion that involved a 45-minute ride from the ship to the snorkeling spot on a double-decker party boat with a seemingly endless supply of rum punch. My huzz, in his never-ending quest to befriend and entertain everyone around him with his fratboy-type antics, convinced more than half of the boat, including an octogenarian who he nicknamed and called "Old Blue" for the rest of the trip, to do multiple rum punch "shots" through a snorkel. I reminded Huzz about this right after Old Blue almost took a nose dive off the gangplank at the end of the excursion, but he insists that Old Blue wasn't that plastered and that he's sure he saw "the poor old guy" trip.

Did I mention that even though I didn't drink any on our trip, I freaking LOVE rum punch? I would have probably given in to my mom's multiple requests to go to mass with her had they been serving that instead of red wine. Rum punch is THAT delicious. What munchie would go best with rum punch to replace those stale ass wafers? I mean, it supposed to be the body of Christ, for Christ's sake and that implies that it should taste pretty freaking miraculous. Wouldn't it make more sense for it to taste so wonderful that you'd immediately say, "Oh my god, that is SO good!" when you eat it? Makes sense to me. Hmm, maybe cinnamon sugar tortilla chips with a little pineapple salsa on the side. I am pretty sure that's a Pampered Chef recipe. Yeah, that might get me there, but I want a plate and my own glass. I don't need a whole platter, just a little dessert plate would be fine.That one wafer and sip from the same cup crap is for the birds. Rum punch and chips and salsa, Catholics - I think that might be your best best in getting a few more butts in the pews. You're welcome.

Unfortunately, I skipped on the rum punch during our cruise because I happened to be about five months pregnant at the time. I don't take it out on him much, so no biggie. Looking back, one snorkelful probably wouldn't have had any noticeable effect on my child, but would have made my snorkeling experience much less stressful seeing as I was completely convinced that I was giving off some extra yummy two-humans-in-one smell to all sharks in a fifty-mile radius. Let me just say now that we didn't see any sharks while we were in the water. None. Zero. Zilcho on the sharko. But, much like anchovies in Caesar dressing, even though you can't see them doesn't mean they are not there. Even though it's the Caribbean, it's still ocean - of COURSE there are sharks in the water. I'm pretty sure that a pregnant human tastes just as delicious to a shark as shrimp-stuffed crab does to me. Meanwhile, sharks probably hate rum punch. I mean, their jealously of how cute dolphins are kind of makes them act like assholes, so it wouldn't surprise me which means all those rum punch-soaked people that were swimming all around me were perfectly safe. Meanwhile, I was dizzy from continuously turning to try to spot any ominious or vaguely shark-shaped shadows being lured closer by my delectable pregnant aroma.

The other little detail that would might have helped would have been if the jerk(s) in charge of choosing movies to show in the cabins of the ship hadn't continuously been showing the movie Open Water for the four and half days before our snorkeling excursion. What a saddistic fucker this guy has to be. What really pisses me off, in all actuality, is that I think it is absolute genius. I find it ridiculously hilarious-- now that I'm OFF the boat, that is... I just wish I'd thought of doing it myself. I mean, I recognized the irony every time I caught a glimpse of the movie while we were on board, but my overactive imagination wouldn't let me appreciate it until the cruise was over and I was back on land. While we are on this subject, I'd just like to put it out there to the people of the Carnival Cruise line that although I love, love, LOVE that you let a pregnant me order five of the cheese plates from the formal dining room and take them back to my room, that your wonderful room service is free, that the steel drum band by the pool (surprisingly) doesn't annoy me, that your waitstaff and porters have always been delightful and accomodating, and that I really do love taking cruises even if the excursions are ridiculously overpriced but I'm too scared of getting left behind not to pay for them, you should know that there are several movies that should never be played on a cruise ship, at least not while I'm aboard.
These movie include, but are certainly not limited to:
- Open Water (Wasn't this already established?)
- Titanic (Because I've never seen it, but I know how it ends.)
- The Perfect Storm (duhh...)
- Speed 2 (Not necesssarily because it's set on a cruise ship, but because it sucked.)
- any of the Jaws movies (Besides starring asshole sharks, none of them were made this millenium.)
- Deep Blue Sea (see Jaws reasoning)
- Couples Retreat (Because its snorkeling scene is pretty much how I expected my experience to turn out.)

I can only hope that I will get a call from Carnival (or any other cruise line, for that matter) asking me to choose their on-board movies, and that this post totally ruined Caesar salad for Mario Lopez.

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