That's a Big Boat

I used to think the Galactic Empire Executor class starship was big, and in comparison to everything else in the mythology of floating space plastic, it's fairly heavy duty.

But this was before I boarded the Carnival Conquest, and now I know what a big ship really is.

This was our second family trip of the summer: a western Caribbean cruise with Suzanne's intimidatingly large family to celebrate her parents' 50th anniversary (I say intimidatingly large because the looks people gave us as we moved en mass around the boat were the same kinds of looks people must have given Billy the Kid as he rode into town - achtung family: that's a reference to Frank "Windy" Cahill; I'm just too lazy to footnote it.)

The Panamanian-registered Carnival Conquest is a beast of a boat, with 13 decks, glass elevators, escalators, pools, hot tubs, jogging track, casino, waterslide, and a 22 foot wide LED screen near the top deck that plays music videos and movies. The documentary about the ship I watched in our cabin said the ship carries a crew of more than 1,100 people and can generate 62 megawatts of power. 62 megawatts! According to the U.S. Department of Energy that's enough to power 46,000 homes (it's also 6.2% of the energy needed to power the flux capacitor of a DeLorean time machine - thank you, Wolfram Alpha).

Our six-point-two percent of time travel energy pushed us off from Galveston, Texas on a rainy Sunday afternoon and far out into the Gulf of Mexico. But even far after sunset, I could still see oil platform after platform glowing steadily in the inky night, and even through most of the next day I caught oil tankers here or there as they made their way to the coast. It wasn't until our second Fun Day At Sea (thusly named by the cruise line) that we seemed to be all alone in the great expanse of bluish-green water.

But let me back up, back to the waiter with a towel draped over his arm.

We were supposed to board the boat around 1:00, give or take, so our plan was to eat lunch as soon as we were on board (this was because we knew cruise ships were floating buffets and any hunger would be sated by a quick four foot walk to the nearest food line). Unfortunately, rain and computer problems delayed our boarding time, and so by the time we found our rooms and dropped off our carry-on bags (the big luggage would mysteriously appear outside our cabin door later), we were forced to take part in the compulsory life boat drill, which wasn't too bad. Yet they didn't feed us there, so afterward we began hunting a snack in earnest - not wanting to eat too much because dinner was lurking behind a corner.

(Eeating too little is a theme of cruise ship life, and it's a difficult one to master.)

So up on deck something-or-other - Lido I think (although it should be named the Speedo Deck for obvious reasons) a smiling waiter, sporting the above mentioned towel, and carrying a hubcap-sized tray on which were five tall, skinny plastic cups, a few decorated with tiny paper umbrellas and orange slices, glided right to us and handed me on of the cups. He did the same for Suzanne and then softly asked where we were from and if he could see my card.

The card in question was our Sail and Sign Card, a magical piece of plastic with a magnetic strip that acts as your room key, lets you on and off the ship (no passport required!), and allows you to charge anything and everything on the ship to  your account. No one on the ship takes cash - well, maybe the casino, but I didn't go there - so this is a very dangerous card.

Within seconds, our smiling waiter had taken my card, charged my account, and handed me a receipt. And half a second later I noticed that these two drinks, potent in their mixture,  just cost me sixteen dollars. 

And all I really wanted was the tiny orange slice for a snack.

Comments

[gaming mouse]

So the moral of the story is...don't try and get an orange slice for a snack on a cruise ship?