Back!

Here I am, back in Philly! The wind's blowing, the skies are clear, and the leaves are blowing off the trees into my waterlogged backyard. Reality.

The last day of the cruise actually turned out to be the best one weather-wise and lack-of-activity-wise. We docked at Disney's private island "Castaway Cay" sometime early in the morning, pulling right into the harbor near the beach. Within minutes of docking, ignoring all admonishments to the contrary, hundreds of grumbling parents towing hordes of squealing kids clogged the corridors and the stairwells trying to get out and grab the choice spots on the beach. The exit to the ship is on Deck 1 and we were on Deck 2, so we got to see a lot of these morons jockeying for position and grousing in unison. Morons.

Eventually the hatches were flung open and the early crowd surged out onto the island. As islands go it's pretty small-- maybe a couple of square miles-- and pretty flat. Two hurricanes and some recent storms had pretty much leveled all of the the larger vegtation and the beaches were dotted with slightly yellowing short palm trees recently planted as replacements (at least according to the helpful Romanian waitress who kept my supply of bloody marys at an appropriate level). There's a walkway that curves along the central bay from the ship to the shops and other assorted buildings. Dodging the tram hauling the truly laziest of the vacationers (the walk takes 7 minutes and the tram takes 6), we headed down the walkway and found the beach, staking our claim to three lounge chairs strategically situated under two palm trees barely taller than I was.

I can't really tell you what most of the island looks like, considering I spent about 6 hours alternating sitting in the sun reading my book and drinking margaritas and the other half of the time swimming in the lagoon with Emma (whose really turning out to be a pretty good little swimmer...as long as she has her pink lifejacket on). The sand was kind of odd...a little bit silty with a kind of muddy feeling to it when you dug your toes into it out in the water. I guess it must just be the way the sand particles work...there wasn't a particle of dirt anywhere. Not too bad, but it kind of reminded me of the icky freshwater ponds I'd swim in as a kid.

Lunch was served around noon, some fairly typical BBQ fare that sent the crowds stampeding to the lunch shanty and pavillions in order to get the jump on the choicest pre-formed meat patties, chicken, hotdogs, and ribs. We grabbed trays and carried them back to our beach chairs and avoided the whole scene.

In the afternoon, Lorna took Emma over to the kid's club for some whale bone digging and I settled back for an hour of reading before my parasailing adventure. Nice.

Parasailing. Well, all I can say is that if I'd ever known how non-scary it was, I certainly would have tried it a long time ago. I mean, from an objective standpoint, the idea of hanging in a harness and dangling 400 feet above the water while being pulled along by a marginally-liscensed "captian" driving a speedboat sounds kind of frightening, right? That's what we all thought when we boarded the boat: me, a mom and dad toting 3 young boys, a honeymooning couple, and a pair of giggling Japanese girls wear duds way too hip for the excursion. We had been "briefed" (now I know the meaning of the word) by bored-sounding girl and were all a bit nervous. It sounded complicated.

After blasting out of the harbor at high speed and getting into the open ocean, the two friendly island guys running the boat freed up the cables and launched the parachute into the air. After getting the dad and his kid harnessed up and strapping them into lifejackets they hooked them together to the parachute harness and gunned the engine and the tandem parasailers gently lifted off into the air. We all watched them go up, waving and smiling the whole time, waited a few minutes, and then watched them get reeled in (after a brief intentional dip into the ocean to wake them up). I got my first clue that this wasn't going to be a nailbiting experience when the 8 year old who made the first flight unhooked himself, smiled to the rest of his family, sat down, and just said "that was cool."

Eventually my turn came up and I was harnessed and instructed to sit on the deck. I did, the motor revved, and I lifted off as gently as going up in an elevator. After about 30 seconds I was in the air, drifting along with a great view of the island and nearly no noise from the boat below. I waved to a fisherman I flew over, held on to the straps, and grinned from ear to ear as I reached maximum height and marveled at the view. There was no noise except the whistling of the wind through the shrouds and the day was crystal clear: perfect! A couple of relaxing minutes later I was reeled in, dipped into the water, and landed on the deck. Piece o' cake! I only wish I could have stayed up a lot longer.

By this time it was 4pm and I headed in to meet up with Lorna and take care of last minute getting-off-of-the-boat stuff. After attending a 30 minute lecture about what to do when we left (a lecture, we were assured, that we didn't have to take notes on...I did and was glad), I met up with Lorna and we watched Emma "graduate" from the "Disney University" on-stage with the Mouse. Very cute!

Afterwards the night was kind of a blur: we watched a movie in the theater ("Ladder 49." Eh.), got dinner, and headed back to the room to pack. All of our gear had to be in the hallway by 11, so we had a mad rush to cram our dirties back into the bags, make sure we got everything, tag the bags and haul everything out. Sleep was good.

The next day (yesterday) was kind of a blur, with lots of bag finding, bag hauling, bag checking, and typical airport BS. I'm beginning to realize that while I actually love flying I hate airports. Run. Wait. Run. Wait. Ugh.

When we got to the airport all but one of our bags was located fairly quickly. The other I thought was lost but after some wrangling with the baggage folks I spotted it on a different conveyor than the one our stuff had come up on. The fact that it was the bag with the booze in it made me wonder how it might have gotten there (accident? Ha!) but everything seemed to be intact except for a bottle of peach schnapps which had leaked all over the T-shirt I'd wrapped it in. Mmmm! I'm gonna smell pretty fruity the next time I have to travel and use that bag.

We took a taxi home, unpacked, and basically all went to bed by 8:30. Back to reality!

Day 6, Coming in to Castaway Cay

So I started thinking yesterday: is the ship gaining or loosing weight on the voyage? It is a pretty self contained system after all. Since environmental regs prohibit them from dumping waste overboard and I didn't see them unloading anything when we docked, I can only assume that the ship's getting heavier as the voyage continues. People buy stuff at the ports, people eat stuff on shore, and it all has to go somewhere. Over a long enough voyage would the ship actually begin to settle much lower in the water unless it docked and got rid of stuff?

Kind of a gross thought, I know, but it's thoughts like this one that occupied my mind yesterday while we were at sea and had very little to do. Oh sure, there were plenty of planned activities, but I can't stand the whole Character meet-and-greet thing and I missed the napkin folding demo, and I'd much rather sit around and read and drink fruity drinks than participate in most planned activities. I'm on vacation for cripe's sake! I don't need structure!

Yesterday was very low key and I found myself walking the deck with a bloody mary by 10 AM, strolling around and thinking thoughts like the one I outlined above. Later in the morning I headed up to the top deck with my iPod and a new book (Jennifer Government) and was nearly overcome with the irony of sipping cocktails in the morning next to the pool on a Disney Cruise while reading a cyberpunk novel about megacorps taking over the world and listening to Helmet. It all seemed terribly imperialistic and decadent. Not that I had any problem with that at the time. If I only could have been oppressing someone at the same time or talking with a stockbroker about a hostile takeover would it have been any more perfect.

My cynicism did take a beating yesterday afternoon when we went to see the big show on the ship, Disney Dreams. While the inner curmudgeon in me was still hard at work trying to grumble and grouse, it's tough to be a dark cloud when your daughter is grinning and clapping and literally "whoop whoop-ing" with her arm in the air during the production. It was really very sweet. I had to cave sometime!

Last night we got a call from the manager of Palo (the fancy-shmancy adults-only restaurant on board) informing us that our spot on the waiting list was up and we could get a reservation. We'd planned on taking Emma to dinner with us, but she was more than happy to ditch us for some activities in the kid's club so we headed up to the top deck for dinner. During the day the view's spectacular from there but at night...well, we really couldn't see anything.

But it really didn't matter. We had by far the best meal of the trip and a very, very nice bottle of Barolo. We ate like kings for a couple of hours, attended by a very friendly waiter named (I think that this was his name...really) "Ciao Romano." A pseudonym? I don't know...I hope so. Otherwise, what the hell were his parents thinking? We finished things off with chocolate souffles, collected Emma, and headed off to bed.

I have to say that the food at Palo was great, but I had one quibble: since when is pizza an appetizer? Seriously, the were serving 10 inch pizzas as appetizers (before the antipasti and salads). Rediculous. And people were eating them! In fact, not only were people chowing down on what would have been considered a pretty decent meal in itself before they ate anything else, but because there's no limit on food that can be ordered, I saw people scarfing multiple entres! This one couple behind us had filet mignon, seafood pasta (a big bowl of it, from what I could tell), AND a freakin' lobster which they shared. I've seen and had so much freakin food on this trip while attempting to eat normally and I feel like a bloated tick most of the time...how could these people snack on pizzas for appetizers, eat salads, bread (served with three dipping sauces), and then chow down on a major entre and a half? Ugh. People from poor countries who have to serve schumucks like us must just think that Americans are the most disgusting slobs in the world. Wait. I think that most of the world things that anyway.

Today we're docking at Disney's private island, Castaway Cay. I'm not entirely sure what country this island belongs to (I think it's probably part of the Bahamas), but it did occur to me that its suprising that Disney hasn't used this base of operations to seceed from the rest of the world and set themselves up as an independent country. It'd make sense from tax purposes and who could stop them? I also wonder what happens if people who aren't official Disney visitors try to come close to the island on their own boats? Do they have little mouse-eared gunships patrolling the waters around the island to keep sailors away from the beach with their dingys? Does the island actually appear on any charts? The whole thing actually has a very James Bond "Island of Evil" feel to it.

Eh. I plan on sitting in the sun all day, reading a book, drinking out of a coconut, and sucking up the irony.

Day Five, at sea

Oh, we Americans on vacation are so easy to maniuplate!

All it took for me was a half a bottle of Pinot Grigot, a couple of cocktails, and a mariachi band to pull me into a conga line in a restaurant on the ship last night. The horror! Hopefully there are no pictures that exist anywhere. But it was pretty funny...a few songs in the whole restaurant was up, in a line, whooping and dancing behind the band. I guess it doesn't take much to crack my cynical shell. But where else would this ever happen? Conga lines just don't break out anywhere. It might be more intersting if they did: a particularly ebullient piece of musak comes over the speakers at the local Mickey-D's and the whole place starts dancing? Conga lines to end boring meetings? Maybe they need to put mariachi bands at the DMV to make waiting in a line a little easier. They'd have to serve drinks, too but it's an approach that hasn't been tried yet.

Yesterday we boarded a ferry off the ship and headed over to Cancun to go to the Xcaret Eco Archeological Park. The name of the place is kind of stupid-- it sounds like something from an overly ernest afterschool special-- but it's actually a beautiful place. Carved out of the jungle near the sea, it sported various animal displays, a butterfly farm, a gorgeous stretch of beach, some very tasty restaurants (mmmm...cerveche!), and some minor Myan ruins. The best part though was the underground river, an actual quarter-mile river through a cave that you can swim through. We did that first, placing our belongings in a big waterproof bag that they lock and then hand you the key to before trucking it to the end, donning a life preserver (seemed dumb at first but it helps if you just want to float), and walking down a long cave to a pool and jumping in. Basically the idea is the same as one of those waterpark "lazy river" things...just kick back and float. And float we did, through caverns, out into natural pools, and back down into the darkness again. The place had just enough light not to make it totally creepy and the water was crystal clear. Even Emma enjoyed it after realizing that she wasn't going to sink like a rock if I let go of her.

After that experience we got our stuff together, had a very nice lunch in an open air restaurant overlooking the ocean, and spent about an hour at the lagoon paddling around and getting some sun. Absolutely gorgeous! We then changed clothes and explored the park for about an hour (the ruins were there but kind of lame...not much more than a few walls and piles of rocks), and headed back to the bus for the trip to Cancun and the ferry port. Unfortunately we never really got the chance to look around too much, but I'm sure now that we're going to be back.

Last night's activities included the aforementioned conga line and a trip up to the top deck for a "Pirates In the Carribean" party which featured, as far as I could tell, a bunch of guys in pirate garb dancing around on stage to AC/DC songs and playing air guitar. Odd. I'd never pictured 17th century buccaneers behaving that way, but in retrospect they probably would have been rocking out to stuff like that. Arrghh! Then Pirate Mickey and crew came in and "saved" us all (much to Emma's relief) accompanied by a boy-band soundtrack. Enough: we decided to head back and go to bed. I have to say that I definitely identified with the pirates more than the Mouse. At least they had better taste in music.

Today we're at sea all day, high-tailing it back to the coast off of Florida and a stop at Disney's Castaway Cay where I will take my life into my own hands parasailing tomorrow.

Day Four, Nearing Cozumel

As far as I can tell, Costa Maya is a fiction cooked up by the travel agents and Mexican Ministry of Tourism (or whatever they call it..."Ministry" sounds like its probably right). Not that it doesn't exist-- we did dock somewhere-- but the little blue dots on the map representing the "towns" of Puerto Costa Maya and Majahual (where we docked and where we went to the beach) are far more substantial than the reality of the places themselves.

By a pure stroke of luck I happened to be on the Promenade Deck (Deck #4 which encircles the middle of the ship)when we came into port. All I could see was an enourmous half-a-mile long, T-shaped concrete pier sticking out into the ocean, an ironically-pink cinderblock building fronted by an enormous Mexican flag, some thatched cabana roofs, and an endless jungle stretching out as far as I could see along the coast. Really, really endless and flat, with nothing to break up the green carpet except the occuasional palm tree sticking its head up above its neighbors. All I could think of was that the Spaniards who decided to land here hundreds of years ago musta been out of their freakin' minds to step off of their ships and into that jungle.

After breakfasting in the room on higly-fibrous foodstuffs, we packed the backpack with clothes, water, money, towels, and loads of sunscreen and headed ashore. After a long walk down the pier through hordes of overweight vacationers toting bags way too small to hold all their provisions, we got to the entrance to the port (the pink building I mentioned before). We were greeted by two locals in full Myan regalia blowing on conch shells, a sight that would have been a bit more authentic if it wasn't for the fact that they were surrounded by fat sweaty guys in sun visors and "funny" t-shirts snapping pictures. Our security was ensured by one lone Mexican army guy perched on the top of the building glaring at us all with an M16 in his lap.

The main part of the port is basically a gigantic enclosed shopping mall, a retail outpost on the edge of the jungle where very agressive salesguys try to get you to buy any piece of junk that your gaze falls on for more than a few microseconds. There are also diamond stores galore (am I the ONLY person onboard this ship who is so dirt poor that I can't drop a couple of thou on a new tennis bracelet or watch? Who are these people who go on vacation and spend the college fund on jewlery?), assorted hopeful-looking real estate sales offices, a tequila store, t-shirt shops, and various places selling rugs and other local goods. There's also a restaurant and a big salt water pool with a swim up bar for those that are too scared to venture out of the compound to actually see the country that they're visiting.

We got the heck out of there as fast as possible and headed to the taxi stand where, after some wrangling and confusion, ended up in a van bound for Majahual with about 60 of our closest friends...at least it felt like they'd crammed that many folks on in the van.

Driving out of the compound we passed through the gate an onto a brick road lined with more jungle and occasionally punctuated by stone markers bearing words like "Chicle" and "Plantain." It took me a moment to figure it out, but basically we were looking at the various sections of a beachfront resort that has never been built. I never learned the history, but it seems to me that basicaly the Mexican government probably decided they'd develop this part of the coastline, funded the building of a port where none had existed before, got in cahoots with some developers who put in the roads and markers, staffed a couple of real-estate offices, printed some brochures, and waited. I think they're still waiting. Since we arrived by sea we didn't get to experience the overland route, but from the looks of the roads it doesn't look pleasant or condusive to encouraging weekend vacationers. I guess it must just be equal measure of hope and greed that spur these kinds of doomed boondoggles. Lorna rightly pointed out that we saw much of the same in Turkey. Strange.

In a few short minutes we arrived at Majahual, a very small seaside town that held the closest swimming beach near the port. If you're trying to picture Majahual, just picture any of the dusty little Mexican towns you've seen in the movies and then slap a beach on the side of it and add a couple of plamtrees. One side of the street was flanked by small concrete buildings with fading paint, shops selling rugs and hammocks, guys in the street hawking cigars, little restaurants flanked by fading Sol and Corona signs, small dark children selling lanyards and embroidered handkerchiefs, and piles of debris and broken down cars. The other side of the street (the beach side) was populated with open bars with thatched roofs, many, many plastic beach chairs, palm trees, and boats pulled up onto the beach or moored about 10 feet from the coast. The street itself was about 30 feet wide and consisted of dusty, powdery sand constantly being kicked up by taxis whizzing by. The whole town was maybe a half a mile long, but that's probably pretty generous.

We found a likely looking beach to hang on, paid our 4 dollars, commondeered a couple of chairs and an umbrella, and settled in for the day. The actual beach itself was about 10 feet wide (more like something you'd find on the Chesapeake Bay than on the ocean), but Emma dove right in to making sandcastles, I grabbed myself a Sol, and Lorna applied sunscreen and kicked back. We had a palm tree right next to us which provided coconut husks for Emma's various boats and building projects, the sun was out, there was a breeze off the ocean, and the beer was mere steps away. Very nice!

After swimming for a while (well, wading, as the water never really got higher than my chin), I headed out to explore the town. I must look like a total rube becasue I hadn't gone more than about 100 yards before a guy tried to sell me cigars and, after I told him I wasn't interested, he lowered his voice and upped the ante. "You wanna do better than that?" he rasped "What do you want? I got weed. I got blow." Yeah, I thought, I can't wait to spend the next 20 years of my life in a Mexican prison. "No thanks," I replied. He countered, "Would you like to see my sister?" I hightailed it down the road and he waved at me with a grin while preparing to snag the next passer by. I think he was probably kidding about the sister thing. I hope.

Eventually the clouds rolled in, it rained, the clouds rolled out, the sun shone, the clouds rolled back in again, it rained, the sun came out...you get the picture. After a couple of cycles of this (and several hours and more beers) we decided to head back to the ship and pack it in. Another quick cab ride in a taxi festooned with hotrod stickers and we were in the port where the rain really began in earnest. This seemed like a good time to get lunch so we ducked into the bar/restaurant and stuffed our faces with fish tacos, quesidillas, nachos (with the biggest glob of guacamole on top I'd ever seen), and more beer (a very classy 40 of Sol served up in a plastic icebucket). We sat on the patio next to the pool and avoided most of the rain while being serenaded by an octet of incredibly dunken 40-ish moms on a bender singing Abba songs.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful...some shopping (I bought a bottle of Mezcal, Lorna got a silver bracelet, Emma got a noxiously-purple shaved ice), a bit more poking around, and back to the ship where we showered and collapsed on the bed. I was wiped (sunburn and suds, I think) and slept for a while while Lorna and Emma went out to see a show. Skipped dinner (thank gawd! I feel a lot better for having fasted a bit) and went to bed early.

Today its Cozumel where we plan to spend the day at the Xcaret Eco Archeological Park which actually sounds like it'll be pretty cool. I'm dying to try snorkeling in the underground river, though I guess I'll have to see if there's time. There are also Myan ruins to look at, a beach, an acquarium, and loads of other stuff so I'm sure we'll be busy. We leave Cozumel tonight and head out to sea all day tomorrow.

Day 3, Nearing Costa Maya

As someone who has spent his whole life feeling humiliated by clothing, last night's "formal" affair definitely put me on the cranky side. Why, oh God, why am I being forced to stand around drinking obscenely weak mai-tais sweating in a rented tuxedo with a shirt that's too short and a jacket that's too long at the arms? This is FUN? It's a Disney Cruise for cripe's sake. Even if we all get dolled up and try to be all sew-fis-ti-kated and all we're still on a boat festooned with gigantic mouse ears! Erk. Must be a male thing. All the guys I saw (with the exception of two very sharp looking older gentlemen in their Marine officer's uniforms and another jolly fellow in a kilt) looked uncomfortable and cranky while all the women looked like they were really enjoying playing dress up. This is, of course, totally normal but it didn't stop me from feeling a bit cross, especially after fumbling with those damn fake buttons provided with the tuxedo designed to cover up the real buttons on the shirt. Here's a big idea, oh rentable formalwear providers: why don't you just make the black shiny buttons part of the shirt? I'm sure that technology has progressed to the point that there are Space Age Materials that could stand up to multiple launderings. Grumble. Grouse. Complain.

Yesterday we were at sea all day which meant lots of on-board Activities to keep us busy. And busy we were, running to breakfast (typical buffet swill served in an incongrously-lovely room on the upper deck), dashing back and forth to the room for things we forgot, ducking the shark-y looking salesguys who want to sell everyone on board Disney timeshares (one of the Circles of Hell, as I recall), and accompanying Emma to various character meet-n-greets so she could get get her autograph book inscribed by various four-fingered critters and the ever-popular "Princesses." The Princesses are interesting cases because they're all played by (unnervingly hot) actresses not encased in suits. They had all the major ones lined up at a table greeting the kiddies (99% girls) and signing autographs in giant swoopy doodles. Oh, except for Pocahontas...for some reason her handwriting resembles the font found in the logo for her movie. Those darn injuns! The only notable omission to the Princess Lineup was Princess Jasmine. Being ostensibly a middle easterner, I wondered out loud if she was omitted for security reasons. Nobody thought it was funny.


We lunched at the Asian Buffet (more inexplicable fusion cuisine where its possible to have both potstickers and mac-n-cheese on your plate at that same time) and I impressed the Swedish stirfry cook by dumping (he wouldn't do it) two tablespoons of chilli pepper flakes into my noodles n' veggies. "We've got a record!" he declared while tilting the pan towards his fellow chef and choking on the capsaicin fumes billowing from my rapidly burning lunch. I had a brief moment of panic when I thought I might end up triggering an evacuation from the noxious cloud emanating from my hotpepper overload. Luckily the air cleared quickly. Yes, I overdid it, but I really needed something that wasn't spiced to the lowest common denominator. I'm also happy to report that there were no later gastrointestinal reprocussions. More than you wanted to know, I'm sure.

Later in the afternoon we attended a very fun wine tasting (one of the least-Disnified events I've attended on the ship yet) where I learned how to cut the neck off of a champagne bottle with the aid of nothing more than a champagne flute. Neat trick! I'm gonna go out and buy myself a case of Frixinet or Cold Duck to practice on when I get home. I don't think anyone in the world who isn't a degenerate wino would cry if I mangled a few bottles of that stuff. Afterwards, we finally managed to spend about an hour and a half on deck reading and watching Emma go down the giant water slide (kids only...drat!). I got a bit of sun but I'm starting to worry that I'm going to come back looking like I went on vacation in a subway terminal if I don't get outside more.

Later that night was the "formal" thingy I mentioned earlier, preceeded by The Golden Mickeys Show, a faux-awards show/musical which proved to me once and for all that Wishing Upon A Star and Dreaming the Impossible Dream are worthwhile activities which will apparently, under the influence of song and smoke machines, Make All My Dreams Come True. A good lesson to learn and one that I'm sure I'll be able to turn to again and again during those darkest days of my life. If Baudrillard has not experienced what I have last night, he's full of crap. Comon, Jean...confront the Simulacrum head on, you big wussy!

As I write this we're about to pull into Costa Maya where we're planning on heading out to the beach all day, soaking up sun, booze, and seawater in oversized quantities. Don't be suprised if you read my complaints about sunburn tomorrow. I never learn.

Day Two, Out of Key West

It kind of freaked me out yesterday when I began to notice all the handwashing signs onboard. They're everywhere: in the restaurants, in the bathrooms, near the drink stands, even in the bathroom in our room. "Hand Washing Instructions," they're all labeled, continuing on with a 5 step procedure that involves (believe it or not), soap, water, and vigorous scrubbing...even under the fingernails. The instructions are usually accompanied by a vague warning that "it's cold and flu season!" but the fact that the Overlords of the Disney Boat feel compelled to lecture adults on proper hygeine is kind of freaky. Am I on a plague ship? A floating biological time bomb? Could this whole boat end up like a glitzed-up Marie Celeste, adrift in the Carribean as we succomb one by one to various diseases brought about by the fact that we didn't spend the required minimum of 20 seconds scrubbing our mitts every time we ate, drank, smoked, or used the bathroom? Should we really have biohazard suits in our cabins along with our life jackets? I'm unnerved. Luckily as a farmboy I was exposed to so many icky germs on a regular basis that I'm pretty convinced my immune system will get me through the trip. Maybe.

Yesterday we were in Key West, a place I've never been before. We did the touristy stuff as long as we could stand: the Conch Train tour, the Aquarium, and the Shipwreck Historium in about 2 hours. It was fine, though the bric a brac stands and cheap tourist goods clogging the area were giving me a major headache most of the time. Having Emma in tow and wanting to pretend to at least give off the appearance of being good parents we never went into any bars which, I understand now, is really the point of the place. In retrospect, its kind of weird that Disney would take a ship filled with people who really can't spend all day and all night getting loaded to a place specifically designed to facilitate bad behavior. What's next? Disney tours to Mardi Gras? That'd be hilarious.

What's also hilarious are the various videos playing on the in-room TVs. Designed to "orient" us with the various "customs" of the places we're stopping, they're probably some of the most politically correct, spoon-feeding, dumbed down cultural instruction ever created. "Remember!" intones the Speedy Gonzales-sounding "mexican" narrator, "In Meh-he-co we use the Peso!" Holy crap! Are there people on this ship that don't know that? "Gol dang, Marie! These dark folks use some other kinda money!"

After playing tourist for a while, we went back to the ship and I made a run for booze to bring on board. Tip: this is absoltely necessary if 1)you don't want to go totally insane and 2)if you don't want to go broke. I found a very nice bar/liquor store where the proprietor made me a mojito to go while I browsed and procured several bottles and a couple of limes to bring back to the ship. Whoops! Didn't count on the limes being an issue...apparently produce from Key West (part of the US last I checked) is verboten. They confiscated the limes and ignored the booze. Priorities.

The rest of the day was spent alternately eating in the room (free room service...dangerous!) hanging out on deck, attending the completely annoying (though suprisingly amusing) "Who Wants to Be A Mousketeer" faux game show, drinking, and eating some more. I'm beginning to feel that I can understand why being left to my own devices is probably not a good idea for long term survival. On the other hand, Emma spent a very wholesome evening engaged in various wholesome activities lead by very wholesome looking women in their 20's who all have inexplicable Austrailian (could be New Zealand, but I don't think so) accents. Why are the Aussies the only ones qualified to take care of children? Whatever. Emma's having more fun than I thought a kid could stand. Makes me happy.

Today we're at sea all day which means an overabundance of Disney activities, "characters" lurking about, and probably way too much food again. Tomorrow we're in Costa Maya which actually sounds like it could be pretty interesting. I'll try to remember that they use Pesos there.

16 Hours In

I'm here on the boat. After a long flight down from Philly (made longer by the airline's inexplicable decision to delay the plane 45 minutes so some group of badly-dressed and loud vacationers could clear security and get on board), a short and fairly pleasant bus trip, and all the required document checking and card stamping, we made it on board by about 3 pm yesterday. Unfortunately by the time that we actually dumped all of our stuff off in the room, it was too late to get into any of the fancy-schmancy stuff that you can only sign up for while on board. Bad timing. If I were to ever do this again (and that decision currently remains on hold), I'd get here a lot earlier. The important thing is that Emma got signed up for all the cool kids stuff (I wish I could go!) and is happier than a pig at a tea party being fed premium corn and fanned with palm fronds.

Currently its raining like crazy as we head towards Key West, though the Tropical Storm Tracker says we're in the clear. You gotta wonder when the storm tracker is the first thing bookmarked on the Web browsers here.

And speaking of Web browsers, yes, they do have Internet access in a suprisingly stylish little internet cafe (without the actual "cafe" part). The downside is that this freakin' access is costing me ninety bucks for the week. Erk! Their TV's use Direct TV, so I'm sure that the connection is probably just a satellite one so it seems a bit steep, but I really couldn't resist spending the money so that I'd have soemthing to do other than irritate my family at 5 AM.

The money. Ha! That's one of the other funny parts. Rather than actually use real money on the boat, we're all assigned a "Key to the World" card which we can use to pay for absolutely everything from drinks to crap in the shops. This system has two effects: one, you don't have to carry a lot of stuff with you and 2) you have no conception of how much you're spending. "Grey Goose instead of rail swill in my G&T? But of course, my good man! Here's my card! That diamond tiara my daughter's been oogling? But of course! Here's my card! A three hour massage by four fingered mouse-suited massuses in my own private cabana on the upper deck? Why not!" I'm sure that coming back to reality is going to be pretty expensive.

Yesterday after dropping our caryons off in the room (and doing a bit of nail-chewing waiting for our bags to show up), we went to the "Bon Voyage" party on the upper deck. It was unstoppably, relentlessly cheery and after seeing a bunch of 40-something parents "waving their hands in the air" as if they didn't care, I was ready to go and so were Lorna and Emma. We have our limits. We did get to snag a few frozen drinks (not in coconuts. Bad!) and a couple of more cocktails before we left. Mission accomplished.

The dinner times are pre-set when you get on board and ours wasn't until 8:30 so I spent the next couple of hours lounging around and reading (Harlan Ellison's Slippage...a very dark and cynical choice for the journey) while L&E prowled the shops and snagged character autographs. We regrouped, got dressed, and headed out for dinner.

Dinner as at The Animator's Palate, one of the theme-y restaurants aboard and a choice imposed on us by the masters behind the scenes who set shedules. The food was actually pretty decent and a lot more interesting than I anticipated (duck and goat cheese flatbread, butternut squash soup, and a pretty passable vegetable curry for me), but the "show" was fairly lame. We sat at a big table with a couple of other families, one which said nothing to us and the other composed of 2 older parents (easily mid 40's) with a blond 4 year old whose eating habits seem to be as horrible as my own daughter's. We exchanged a few words -- the wife seemed far more willing to talk than the husband-- but didn't exactly engage in the kind of dinner conversation one might find in a Victorian novel. The two parents (we never even got their names) were battling seasickness, so I'm hoping that when things calm down and we coax them into a couple of drinks later on, they'll be more entertaining company. We're stuck with them at dinner for the rest of the cruise.

After Emma literally fell asleep into her Mickey Mouse icecream bar (it was about 10 at this point), we headed off to our "Stateroom" (gaak! A little too grandiose for me) and went to sleep. No Beat Street for us last night. I think I'm going to have to be a lot drunker before I venture down there.

Off to Key West!