What I did on my fall vacation
A few weeks back I wrote that my co-habitant and I were about to embark on a weeklong Caribbean cruise aboard the Margaritaville-at-Sea (MAS) Islander. It never occurred to me that someone from MAS might read that column, but just before we left I received an email from Maria Hayworth, president of Hayworth PR, saying that she had done just that and wishing us a pleasant voyage. It was a nice touch, and I was immediately thankful that I had not followed my initial urge to write that the name of the ship was the Titanic II.
While we waited to board, things got even better. We were pulled out of the long queue and told someone wanted to see us. I had a new passport, and I thought that perhaps my citizenship had been revoked for making one too many Trump jokes. Instead, a crew member came out and welcomed us warmly. Turns out that Hayworth PR had told them we were coming. We received several upgraded amenities, including a leather pouch containing 50 gold doubloons and a certificate for free Arby’s Horsey Sauce for life. (JK, folks, JK!) Even if we had not received upgrades, it would have been a very pleasant voyage, and I highly recommend that you check out MAS if you’re planning a cruise. Thus endeth the sales pitch.
Random thoughts while at sea:
* If you’re a shipbuilder and decide to have elevators on your vessels, it’s a bad idea to have the automated female voice in the elevators say, “Going down!” I suggest, “Descending!”
* A raucous celebration in the Islander’s atrium, with recorded music blasting and a strolling violinist who must have won the “Argentina Hunk-of-the Year” contest, was cool. But I found it almost impossible not to think of the ballroom scene in the film “The Poseidon Adventure,” in which celebrants are whooping it up just before a tidal wave capsizes the ship.
* Grand Cayman Island was fun, but I was saddened to learn that the Tortuga rum distillery and rum cake factory, in business since 1984 in a vintage building, will be torn down soon and replaced with a new, high-tech facility. I was even more upset to learn that the 15 men on a dead man’s chest were on a lunch break. And that I couldn’t sneak the six bottles of rum I had strapped to my body through customs.
* If you buy clothing in Jamaica, check the labels. My Bob Marley “One Love, One Heart, Jamaica” T-shirt was made in China. My camp shirt, complete with the words “Jamaica” and “Another Day in Paradise” woven into the fabric, was made in Malaysia. Depressing. But I am reminded that when we visited Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello several years ago, we couldn’t find even one item in the gift shop that was labeled “Made in U.S.A.”
* Cozumel is an island, not the Mexican mainland, so when we went ashore I felt like Christopher Columbus telling everyone he had reached the Orient after actually landing on Guanahani, an island that is roughly 9,000 miles from Asia.
* Each night at dinner, the MAS menu offered six appetizers, six entrees and three desserts. If you couldn’t make up your mind, your gracious server would let you have two of each if you asked. So when you disembark and complain online that the food was lousy, as did some passengers on Facebook, you seem entitled and petty. Remember: at home your choice could be between a can of lentil soup that expired three months ago and some brownish meat that might once have been part of a cow.
And you won’t get free horsey sauce.