I'm gonna try to keep this entry short. It probably won't happen, but I'm gonna try.
I woke up pretty early again. Denise made it clear she wouldn't be getting up for awhile, so I ran up to the Windjammer to catch a quick breakfast before starting my day.
This reminded me of a couple of things I don't like about the ship. Let me make it clear that most of the crew is exceptionally polite. But every once in awhile, I ran across one who seemed to have a bit of an attitude. As I entered the Windjammer, they had one of their "wishy-washy" guys out front.
For those of you who don't cruise, or don't watch cruise vlogs, this is a pandemic-era development on cruise ships, Royal Caribbean ships in particular. They have crew stand outside the Windjammer restaurant to remind people to use the hand-washing stations that are set up on the side. (There's even a godawful song about it on one of the on-ship cruise channels, but the less said about that, the better.) I've even heard tell that if you refuse to use the hand-washing stations, they won't let you into the restaurant. However, I'm just not enough of a rebel to find out.
I dutifully headed to a hand-washing station, but how many of you have had this experience? These new-fangled sinks can be very finicky, and I moved my hands up and down trying unsuccessfully to turn on the sensor. The wishy-washy guy came over to tell me, "You've got to do blah blah blah." (I don't really remember exactly what he said. I just kept moving my hands around, and eventually the sensor turned the water on.) But when I'd finished, I couldn't see any paper towels. At this point, the guy got all impatient with me, and pointed, saying in an annoyed voice, "It's right over there!" (With an unspoken "Idiot!" implied.)
Look asswad, I just turned 65, and I'm half blind. In fact, I just ordered a pair of long-distance eyeglasses, but unfortunately they came in a day too late for me to bring them on the cruise. So thanks so much for making me feel like a moron first thing in the morning.
All I wanted from the buffet that morning was some scrambled eggs, some coffee and maybe some chicken sausages. I found an area that had mini-cheese omelette plates, and right next to it fried egg plates. I asked the girl behind the counter if they had any scrambled eggs. But of course, she was wearing a mask, so I couldn't understand her. She indicated a counter behind me, but when I looked, all they had was early lunch food. Fine. Guess I'm getting an omelette.
I took a couple of the cheese omelettes on my tray, and walked all the back down the end of the room where I'd come in, to where I'd passed the sausages. As I asked the guy to put some chicken sausages on my plate, I noticed that a couple of stations down, there were the scrambled eggs, absolutely nowhere near the other eggs. But I already had the omelettes I didn't really want, so too late now.
I sat at a table, and as I ate my breakfast, I saw we were passing some pretty island territory. I don't think it was St. Maarten yet, just some nearby island. It was nice, though.
After eating, I headed back downstairs to the cabin. Denise was still asleep, and the room was dark. I put on the TV screen and hit the mute button, to at least provide a little light. Then I got back to work on my notes.
At some point, we docked in St. Maarten. At some point, Denise got up, got herself together and headed for the pool. At some point I saw Daniel, and asked him to not even worry about cleaning the cabin twice a day, just please get it at dinner. At some point, he cleaned it anyway, while I waited out on the balcony and looked out on St. Maarten. And at some point, I ordered room service, and received some truly lousy chicken noodle soup, a distinctly mediocre grilled cheese sandwich and some tasteless iced tea.
But most of my day was about work. I cleared out those last two notes from the woman who had sent me a month's worth of notes, then started digging at all the notes that had arrived after that.
Finally, sometime around 4PM, I finished the last note. My box was clear. For about twenty seconds, until someone hit me with another one. Son of a bitch! But I was done for the day. I closed up my laptop and plugged it into the charger. Then I took a nap until Denise came back from the pool.
Denise was in a good mood. She decided to start cleaning up the desk (which was a disaster area), while I played around with the TV. At this point, I discovered that one of the cruise channels showed the main stage live, where the headliner of the night, Night Ranger was already doing their early show. (Night Ranger was doing the same basic thing that Human League had done the night before - they got on the boat in St. Maarten, played their two shows, then got right back off.)
Denise and I had originally planned to split up after dinner, as she intended to see Night Ranger while I was determined to hit Studio B to see John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. I didn't have anything in particular against Night Ranger, but I didn't have anything particularly for them, either. I'd have gone with Denise to see them just to be companionable. But I wasn't sure if I'd have a chance to catch John Cafferty's band again, and I definitely didn't want to miss them. Truth is that I don't even own a Night Ranger song, not even "Sister Christian". (And given how much music I own, that's something of an indictment.) I do, however, own the Eddie and the Cruisers soundtrack, and I really liked the movie, so I wasn't going to miss the band behind the music.
Actually, I was kind of surprised that Denise even wanted to see Night Ranger. They're certainly not her typical kind of band. But she said she'd been listening to 80's Cruise playlist on Spotify and had kind of been getting into them.
However, as she tidied up and started getting ready for dinner, and we listened to Night Ranger's early set, she got less enthused. And when they let their drummer sing a slow ballad and he sang it totally off key, she said, "Maybe I'll come with you to see John Cafferty." Yes! Score one for the grumpy guy!
I told her that knowing her taste in music, I thought she'd be more inclined to enjoy the Beaver Brown Band anyway.
Tonight, when we hit the dining room, we were given a table for two. The waiter asked if either of us had any food allergies, and one of us (I really don't remember which one) mentioned that I can't have nuts. I tried to further explain that I wasn't allergic to them, I just had a condition that wouldn't allow me to eat whole nuts or seeds. However, he looked at me blankly, and I knew he had no idea what I was talking about. He told me that he wasn't sure if the cake I'd ordered for dessert had nuts or not. (How many of you can see where this is going?)
The waiter forcibly napkined me. (I thought it was a strange thing on this cruise that some of the waiters would just take your napkin and put it on you, even if you weren't even looking or didn't want it on). He then went off to put in our orders.
I think we both had the beef stroganoff for dinner that night (which was nothing to get excited about - the noodles were good, but the alleged beef was - well, alleged.).
Dessert time came, and sure enough, the waiter told me I couldn't have the cake because it had nuts. I asked him did it have whole nuts, or was it just prepared with nuts? He didn't understand me. (Any Fawlty Towers fans out there?) I tried again, explaining that I had a medical condition that wouldn't allow me to eat whole nuts, but if there were nuts just ground into the batter, that was fine.
At this point, people from the tables around us were clearly listening in, and I was getting annoyed that I had to be telling the waiter my medical history just to get a piece of cake. (I could have just given in and taken a different dessert, but I really didn't want to - I wanted this dessert.) At this point, the waiter went to get the maitre 'd.
Ho boy.
The maitre 'd came over, and I explained everything again, once again giving my confidential medical information out as the people at the other tables gawked. Finally, the maitre 'd seemed to understand, and told the waiter to bring me my cake. Then he made sure to take our cabin number from Denise. I guess he wanted to be able to tell the medical staff later on where they could find the dead guy with the nut allergy.
I got my cake, and goddamnit it, it was good!
Our music schedule was light tonight. Jack Russell's Great White was the early show in Studio B, and neither of us was interested in seeing them. So we relaxed in the room after dinner until it was time to see John Cafferty.
We went downstairs at about 8:40. As we seated ourselves in what had become our regular area in the left part of the room, I was struck once again by how much more comfortable Studio B was than the main theater.
Soon, John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band was introduced and started playing. Their guitarist was seated, as he had fallen and injured himself outside of the Windjammer Restaurant at some point during the cruise, but it didn't slow him down any. He, and the rest of the band, were excellent. And as for Cafferty, he can absolutely still bring it vocally. The only slight negative was that I thought their sound mix was muddier than that of any other band on the cruise. But it really was a slight negative. Their set was first rate.
There were a couple of surprises for me. The first was that they went for it with "Dark Side" on the second song of the set. I'd have thought that would have been their closer. The second was that they performed the song "Hearts on Fire" from the Rocky IV movie, which I had either forgotten was theirs, or maybe I never even knew it in the first place. In any event, it was one of the highlights of my cruise.
Cafferty himself was likable and entertaining throughout. At one point, he told a funny story about running into and comparing notes with a couple of guys he used to play softball with when they were all in their twenties. The two other guys were both retired and talking about grandchildren and retirement houses. When they asked him what he did, he was like, "I have a band." And they were like, "A band! But you're 70!"
Anyway, it was a great set, and I was glad we'd chosen to see them (although everyone I spoke to had said Night Ranger was really good, too). Denise enjoyed it as well, and agreed after the fact that Cafferty and his band were probably more to her taste than was Night Ranger.
After that, we stayed on in Studio B. The next scheduled event was the 80's cover band Jessie's Girl, scheduled to play for a "Rock Vs. Rap" party. I was a little iffy about the rap part, but I figured this might be my only chance to see them on this cruise, so I decided I was in.
Now I had heard a lot of good things about this band. Two years ago, when my hip-hop-loving son was on the cruise with my wife, this was the only band she'd successfully dragged him to, and he'd enjoyed them. The way Denise described them, I was under the impression that they handled the new wavy stuff on the cruise, and Trial By Fire handled the heavier stuff, so I was really prepared to like them.
Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The two male singers had kind of hyperactive, annoying personalities. One was swinging his mic stand all over the place. The band had a new little curly-haired female keyboard player. At one point, she strapped on a keyboard guitar and stepped a little out front to play, only to be accidentally bashed in the back from behind by the big goofball swinging the mic stand. I swear I actually saw her mouth go, "Oof!"
She was a lot more tentative about stepping out front for the rest of the set.
The other guy came out wearing a boxer's warmup jacket and mimicked punching out the bass player during "Eye of the Tiger". (Yeah, there was a lot of Rocky tonight). These guys had just a little too much aggressive energy for me.
As for the female singer, she had a powerful voice, but was a little flat a few times. (Denise thought she was just having a problem with her monitor. I wasn't so sure.)
In any event, we hung in there for about an hour with them. At that point, Denise had to use the ladies room, and asked me if I wanted to leave after that. I did. Again, they were by no means horrible. But my clear favorite among the three cover bands (Jessie's Girl, Trial By Fire and Strangelove) was Trial By Fire.
At that point, we went back to our cabin for the night. Denise went to sleep, and I stayed up for awhile writing my cruise blog entry for Day 3. Meantime, I had a few notes left in my work box (maybe three or four), but it was starting to get a little more manageable. I asked Denise to set an alarm for 9AM the next morning, as I wanted to catch a 10AM interview in the Royal Theater with Belinda Carlisle.
