Captain's Welcome Party

It was advertised as starting at 1.30pm so we went up in good time and waited with the throng outside the room with the large sliding door – which was closed - and with a smiley young lady guarding the open/close switch.  Crew members came and went and, each time the door would glide slowly open and then close promptly behind them.  Anticipation was growing.  Finally the door opened.  I held my ship’s ID card proudly in my hand ready to prove my elevated status to the staff on the door.  Nobody wanted it.  All they wanted was to squirt some cleansing gel on my hand to stop me spreading any norovirus I don’t believe I have.

We were in.  We found a spot where we would be able to see El Capitan when he did his inevitable speech about guests like us being the backbone of the company etc.  Whether we would be able to understand him could be another matter.  This one is Greek and, we thought, if he has a thick accent it could prove an uphill struggle.  We were offered a glass of wine or bubbly or something non-alcoholic and settled back into our seats.  A fellow passenger asked if he could join us.  He was alone and explained that his wife (who sounded like she might be a rather delicate little flower) had been confined to their cabin with suspected Norovirus.  He then insisted on shaking our hand so, in the hope that his wife hadn't passed the bug onto him, we responded warmly!

He seemed surprised that we had got into the party – if I can give it such an elevated status - as we were wearing shorts.  We’d looked at the party invitation beforehand and it said that the dress code was smart casual which tends to mean anything above the level of one‘s birthday suit.  He said that he had seen a number of people being turned away for that very reason.  Well, we were inside now and that was surely because of who we were, so no worries on that score.

Now these events ain’t what they used to be. Times were when we went to any and everyone, just to get the free drinks.  When you’re paying $9 a glass (or rather half a glass) plus a now 20% service charge (that comes to £8.31 in all) then plundering some free drinks at one of these parties was some sport and quite an art.  I can remember a couple of lads in the family – no names of course – who are the current record holders with I think it was 6-apiece and whilst clearly not impossible, it does take some doing.

But when the cruise line tempts you to book with a sweetener of a free drinks package, the thrill of that sport suddenly evaporates.  The man we sat with proved to be quite interesting, a postal worker from Miami who was very anti-Trump and even more anti-guns and even he had heard a bit about Brexit.  How embarrassing is that?   It now seems that the UK’s Brexit fame has spread worldwide with all the implications that go with it.

The captain did his speech and we could follow what he said.  He didn’t go on for too long and at least spared us the stats as to how many evolutions of the ship’s propellers it takes to get us from Grand Cayman to Colombia.  He then introduced us to the Loyalty lady whose job it is to make us sick of our some of our fellow guests.  Today’s top accolade for the number of loyalty points gained  for stays on board their ships went to Mr and Mrs Permanent Cruisers who had amassed a cool 50,000 points or so while our measly total stood at something like 300.  Even if we spent all our remaining days in life on board, we’d never catch them up, meaning we’d never enjoy the moment of being given a bottle of bubbly, of Mrs A being handed a bunch of flowers and the opportunity to have our photo taken with the captain for the cruise line’s next edition of their magazine.