Day 3 - All Star Smooth Jazz Cruise - Jan 30, 2007

Day 3 begins and we're still at sea, but it's warm all over now. After leaving cold Galveston on Sunday, we're at sea all day Monday and all day Tuesday. We will be docking at Montego Bay, Jamaica, at 8am on Wednesday. Now we can finally hang out on the outside balcony to our stateroom. It's rather bizarre watching all that water rush by as we plow through the ocean.




One good thing about the cruise is that, every day, the boat publishes a newsletter they call "Carnival Capers." They deliver it to your stateroom every evening, covering events of the next day.


They give you a wealth of information, such as when each venue or restaurant opens, special events times and locations, special offers, even when the sun will rise and set, according to the ships position. It's a very useful rag.

We did breakfast again in the Monet dining room, and this time got seated with a couple from Chicago and another couple from Rochester, New York. It was quite cold where both couples had come from. Neither of these two couples were part of the jazz cruise. In fact, they had no idea there were going to be jazz concerts every night on board.


(The extra-gaudy Monet.)

Early on, I had thought that the entire boat would be filled only with people who had signed up for the jazz cruise, but, in fact, the jazz cruisers made up only about 1/3 of the 3,000 passengers on board. I didn't find out that 2/3 of the cruisers were not there for the jazz until we were on board. And none of the non-jazz cruisers we talked to were told in advance that 1/3 of the boat would be taken by jazz cruisers. In fact, we began to hear complaints about it. Since there were jazz concerts every evening in the Toulouse Lounge, and then autograph and interview sessions after the concerts, the Toulouse Lounge did not hold the normal number of shows that it would have. Normally, everyone on board could attend ANY of the shows anywhere on board. But, for this cruise, only those who were registered with the jazz cruise were allowed to attend the concerts. So there were fewer "open" shows on this cruise than on a typical cruise, and the non-jazz cruisers were not that happy about it. I think in fairness that everyone should have been told that about 1/3 of the boat would be taken by a private group. Indeed, at the jazz concerts, there were guards at the door checking your credentials and big signs reading, "PRIVATE PARTY." It didn't really make us feel special. It made us feel somewhat resented, since the non-jazz cruisers were denied full access to the boat. The non-jazz cruisers were not allowed in to the jazz concerts, even if they wanted to pay to attend, because it would have meant even fewer seats for us, the people who paid specifically for the concerts. Not ideal. Ideal would be every single passenger being a jazz cruiser.

If you book a cruise, you might want to ask them if there will be any sizeable private group also booking the cruise at the same time. Might save you some aggravation.

It was finally warm enough to go up on the top deck and go sunbathing and swimming in the outdoor pools. There were four huge hot tubs and three swimming pools on board, plus one long amusement-park-type slide from the very top deck down into one of the pools. The kids loved that. Eh! KIDS!! Kids everywhere! Yech!! We were discovering that this boat takes extra effort for kids and families with kids. If we had only known!!

Now that it was warmer, the top deck was totally PACKED with people, but we were able to find a couple of lounge chairs and settled in for some sun and some reading. My wife quickly gobbled up a couple of trash-fiction novels and I'd brought along Tom Robbins "Jitterbug Perfume." That guy has done some serious psychedelics. The warm sun made it start to feel like a real vacation.

Hey, there's enough time for another nap before the jazz begins at 5:30pm. We ARE on vacation, right? It's ok to take a nap, right?







One problem with all the jazz concerts at 5:30pm and 6:30pm is that you are inside when the sun sets, and so you miss the "sunset," unless you sneak out and snap a picture. But then, your seat is gone when you return. They made it quite plain: "NO SEAT SAVING!"




The first concert at 5:30pm in the Toulouse Lounge featured Alan Hewitt and Paula Williams. At 6:30pm, Gerald Albright was due to take the stage. I'd never heard of Hewitt or Williams before, but Paula Williams is a, uh, rather husky black female (ex-linebacker perhaps?) that plays a very nice melodic saxaphone. Check her out. Gerald Albright is rather old-school, kinda old, not too mobile, but decent. We caught most of their performances.

After an unsuccessful dinner seating on Monday, this time, for Tuesday's 8:30pm seating, we got to the Monet about 8:15pm. Since it was going to be "open seating" every night, several other diners began showing up early. The doors to the restaurant remained locked until 8:30pm sharp. By the time 8:30pm rolled around, there was a large crowd outside, packed in rather tightly and sweaty. This is another problem with open seating: pressure to get there early to get a "good seat." My short wife was getting claustraphobia and my bad feet and back were bothering me big-time before they finally opened the doors and we rushed in like travelers on Southwest Airlines. As expected, several diners began mooing like cows. But they didn't exactly stampede. It was rather orderly, in a mildly-panicked kind of way.


As we were entering, the head waiter said over and over, "same seats as last night! Everyone take the same seats as last night!" Well, hey, Komiko, (practically every employee of Carnival is from a foreign country), we didn't have a seat last night, so how can we sit in the "same seat?" So we just grabbed a couple that were open, wondering who had sat there last night that could not now sit there tonight. Tough caca, pal.


You have to hand it to the wait staff. This boat serves 10,000 meals per day, every day, and they were quick with service and food. Since all food was included, we ordered a lot: appetizer, salad, main course, dessert, etc. As soon as you finished one course, BOOM, they picked up your plates and brought out the next course. We started dinner at 8:30pm and were done by 9:15pm. And this is while serving about 500 people at the same time. Quite a production. I wish I could say that the food was outstanding, but it wasn't. The calamari was rather rubbery, the caesar salad was nothing to write home about, my steak was rather tough, with a lot of fat, and the chocolate mousse was very bland. Some people were raving about the food. Takes all kinds, I guess.


I can be a pretty funny guy now and then. Here's a shot of my lovely wife laughing so hard she started crying. I can't remember what I said exactly, but I had her in stitches. She can't remember either. Perhaps the wine had something to do with it.


After dinner, we tried the casino again, but this time the craps table was jam-packed with people and since there was only one craps table, we didn't wait around very long for it to open up. It didn't.


The boat began pitching a bit and we learned that we were sailing into a storm. Oh joy! Lots of booze, and now ... is the boat moving, or is it the booze? Both, unfortunately. It was a little too much, so we retired to our stateroom again to lay down and try to not get sick. The non-jazz cruise travelers were having some huge party and conga line all around the ship, even in the storm, and they continued up on top in the pouring rain. It was a little chilly in a driving rain, or so they told us later. We were too busy trying to not get sick. More dramamine, please!


Oh yeah, tonight's "towel animal" was a, uh, um, what the hell is that? A swan? A copperhead snake?