Spring Break 2023
Saturday, March 11
How to Take a Shower in 3 Easy Steps
The next morning, we woke up to shower and head to the cruise port … but… the shower wouldn’t work. I made a call to the front desk who sent maintenance up. We waited. And waited. And waited until about 45 minutes before the Uber to the cruise port showed up. Amy was almost undressed to take a washcloth bath when the young man knocked on the door.
She threw something on, and I let him in. Now … this was a handicapped room built for the hearing impaired. It was one of the last two rooms open that night or we would not have taken it. The shower had multiple twisty knobs in it (keep in mind – HEARING impaired). Hiding his laughter, he investigated the shower and explained to me that one of the knobs pulled out to start the flow of water. So, if I were hearing impaired, I would have figured it out. Since I was a Kansas bumpkin dumbass, the room wasn’t built for me to understand.
Have you Had Your Break Today?
We kicked him out of the room and quickly showered and stepped out the front door in time for the next Uber. Mehemet (our driver) took us to McDonalds first so Amy could have a Diet Coke. While she was inside, I asked Mehemet if he owned the vehicle or if Uber works with them to be part of the Uber Premier program.
Mehemet purchased it himself with money he had earned working for Royal Caribbean. I said something about how rough of a job that must have been for a young man. He said he was thankful for it; it was a good life while you are young. You get to see the world, and it’s where he met his wife and got married. It also allowed them to immigrate to the US and start their family.
After driving under us under the cruise ship we were scheduled to be on and narrowly missing a luggage trolly a Carnival worker hurled across the road. We thanked Mehemet and prepared to board our boat – the Carnival Sunrise.
The Carnival Sunrise
When we originally started planning this vacation, I had not heard of this ship. At one time, it was one of their most well-known (notorious?) ships. “What do you mean, Colby?” Well, this was the ship made famous in 2013 when an engine caught fire and it drifted for several days. It was later dubbed “The Poop Cruise.”
I can say without a doubt that after Carnival dry-docked the ship and changed her name, it is a lot better for having gone through that.
The ship is old, but the refurbishments it went through added a lot of Carnival’s new features to the ship – Guy Fieri’s Burger Joint, Guy’s Pig & Anchor Barbeque, Red Frog Pub … etc. She is also one of their smaller ships, limited to about 3,000 people as opposed to 4000-6000 on the newer ships. When we pulled alongside other ships you could see the rust marks and deterioration on those ships more than the Sunrise.
Welcome Aboard!
The boarding procedure had changed a lot since our last Carnival cruise. We were supposed to be on this cruise on Spring Break in March 2020. That’s right – our Covid Cruise. Somehow, I had parlayed that short two-person cruise into a 5-day 4-person cruise. Happy anniversary, but we only have the kids for a few more years, so why not? That and they gave us a FAT onboard credit for being really cool about it.
The last time we cruised out of Miami, the line rivaled some of the basic training lines I waited through in Fort Jackson. Now, they had us on the boat in 30 minutes and there was at most a 5-minute wait anywhere.
Mustard Safety
We went through the mandatory “mustard” drill (Shaq gets me – he also calls it a mustard drill in the safety videos) and then moved on to the Lido deck where we got to watch the party and wait for our room to open.
The girls changed to swimsuits and immediately jumped into the water. Amy and I spent time together, drank some drinks and met people around us. Seeing that KU played that night, we were in our Jayhawk shirts and already planning to watch the game at the sports bar that night. Well, this attracted others… we met at least three other Kansas City area families during the next hour or so that were looking forward to tonight’s game.
We finally went to our room and unpacked. I realized I had made the horrible mistake of not packing my sooper-comfy Oofos flip flops. Disastrous! I would need to buy some cheap flip flops or something in the Carnival shop later.
End of the Road
After grabbing a burger, we 0watched the KU – Texas game… then left disgusted as the Hawks barfed all over themselves to Texas in the Big 12 Championship tournament. At some point in the game, all the Longhorn fans onboard figured out they were winning and decided to join us in the bar to stand in front of the tv’s to passive aggressively gloat at us.
Ok, all they did was block the big TV… however, after the Texas fan performance during the KU game against Arkansas during the NCAA tournament the next week, I will not hold back on my current feeling of disrespect for them. This made me an Arkansas fan for the second week of the NCAA tournament. Normally, I would never cheer for an SEC team over a Big 12 team, but considering Texas cheered Arkansas just wanted an easier team to play, I hope they get beat by 50.
Scene: Day 2
We gave in with about 8:30 to go and went back out to look through the stores. The girls started playing a scavenger-hunt through the stores. I looked for flip flops but struck out. The best I could do was buy Carnival branded Crocs. Unfortunately, I have standards and refuse to be caught dead with them on my feet. I gave up and looked at bottles of liquor I would never drink, cigars I would never smoke and watches I would never wear instead. Eventually, we returned to the room to go to bed. It was early still, but we had only had about 4 hours of sleep.
