“The night we met I knew I was going to marry Serena,” our ruddy-nosed tablemate said, looking lovingly at the tiny woman seated between us as she guzzled the fifth flute of champagne she had ordered in the 10 minutes since we had been shown to their table. “But I wasn’t looking forward to going home and telling that to my wife.’
My wife and I are on day five of a 12-day cruise from Lisbon to Florida. Some of our friends think we’re crazy — they say they would lose their minds being confined to a ship that long — but on previous cruises, we’ve found we actually prefer the days “at sea” so here we are and so far, we’re having a swell time. Literally. The weather was perfect for the first four days but last night around dinnertime we entered choppy seas with swells of up to 15 feet, which are supposed to continue until tomorrow. Sunday morning we’ll dock in Bermuda for two days, then continue on to Ft. Lauderdale, arriving a week from today.
The food is excellent, plentiful and available around the clock. I woke up hungry at 2 a.m. the first night out— I was still on Florida time — and considered taking advantage of the 24-hour room service but didn’t want to wake up my wife.
There are, if we choose to avail ourselves of them, nonstop activities — multiple trivia games, “Name That Tune,” bridge, lectures, classes, bingo, mahjong, virtual golf, dance lessons and more. There is a nicely-equipped fitness center, a spa and a walking track around the top deck.
But the most entertaining part of this cruise, as is the case on every cruise we’ve taken — we aren’t sure if this is our seventh or eighth but it is most definitely the longest — is talking with our fellow passengers.
To wit:
- The fashionably dressed seventy-ish woman from New Zealand who presides, from just after breakfast until at least 10 p.m. when the stage show ends, over the smoking section on deck nine near the pool where, every 15 minutes or so, an attendant, without asking, brings her a cold bottle of Stella. All the crew members seem to know her. Why she feels compelled to spend money on cruises when she could stay home and drink and smoke herself to death is beyond me, but she is an endless source of information about the crew and who’s doing what with whom.
- The female half of a couple we met at Trivia who said she owes her life to Evita Peron. Her parents, who fled the Nazis, had settled in Peru where, in the late 1940s, the medical facilities were primitive. A Peruvian doctor told her pregnant mother he could either save her life but her baby would die, or vice versa, but no way he could save both. Our friend's grandmother, who had moved to Argentina, sent a letter to Evita, wife of the country’s president, begging her to arrange for her daughter to have the baby in an Argentine hospital where both would have better chances of survival. Evita took care of everything, and both the mother and baby survived. Today, oddly enough, we attended a lecture on Broadway musicals of the 1970s and the presenter described “Evita” as the story of a despicable woman. Our new friend could have set him straight.
. Last night we were seated at a table for six with two other couples, including the aforementioned Robert and Serena. Before she became incoherent, Serena told me they spend four or five months a year cruising. They have earned diamond status in the cruise line’s loyalty program (excuse me, programme, they’re Canadian) which means they can book a regular cabin and, if one is available, get upgraded to a suite. Serena, we couldn’t help but note, clearly loves to drink, as does Robert but he holds his liquor better. Perhaps that’s why they are loyal to this particular cruise line — the drinks are included in the fare. They have been together for 47 years, same as us.
Robert said he was married with three children the night he met Serena. He went home and told his wife he was leaving her for his new love. The divorce was ugly and protracted. A few months after it was finalized, his ex-wife married his stepfather. And when Robert’s stepfather and ex-wife, now his step mother-in-law, had children of their own, those children became not only their half-siblings but half-uncles and -aunts of Robert’s children.
“When my kids had to draw their family trees in school, it was really fucked up,” he said.
Serena, as this story was unfolding, switched to Chardonnay and finally told the waiter to leave the bottle on the table which is against policy but, since he was having to refill her glass every two minutes, he didn’t object. By the time dessert had arrived, she had ordered two glasses of port. When we saw them at the stage show after dinner, she had returned to champagne.
At lunch today we ran into to the other couple who had been at our table. They told us that after the stage show, Serena had tumbled down the grand staircase between the fifth floor and lobby, and had to be taken to the infirmary on the third floor where, amazingly, it was discovered she hadn’t broken any bones. All she had were a few bumps, bruises and scratches.
At that point Serena and Robert hurried past and waved at us with their free hands. His other hand was holding a glass of red wine, hers held a tall glass with a wedge of pineapple and a tropical umbrella on top. We laughed and joked that perhaps they were going to the Friends of Bill W meeting — cruise lines always list a “Bill W” meeting on the daily schedule rather than call it what it actually is, an “AA”meeting — but we somehow doubted it.
When we saw Robert and Serena later at Trivia they said they had been at a Blind Wine Tasting event which was a lot of fun and it’s too bad we hadn’t joined them.
A week to go. More people to meet. More stories. We’re having fun, and looking forward to our first Thanksgiving dinner at sea tonight, followed by a performance by an Irish magician. At his first show three nights ago, he picked me out of the audience to be his on-stage assistant and the butt of his jokes, but I didn’t mind.
This time we’ll know better than to sit on the front row.
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