Beebee is pleased: The laundrette is just a few cabins down the hall from their cabin. After starting a washerload of clothes, Pati and Beebee headed downstairs for breakfast in "their" restaurant, called Universe.
They were seated with 6 other people at a window with a good view of the ocean speeding by at 17+ knots. The gentleman across from Pati, a native New Englander, has sold his house and car and now cruises continuously, with over 100 cruises completed on at least 4 cruise lines (including every ship of two different lines). Across from Beebee was a perfect gentleman from Kentucky, also a longtime cruiser with interesting tales. On the other side of Pati was a retired special education teacher from Fairfax County. (She had flown to Miami out of National Airport on Saturday; her flight was also delayed and de-iced.) Beside the New England gentleman were a congenial retired couple, also frequent cruisers, on their first Atlantic crossing. Across from them was a younger (relative to the rest of us!) man who spent most of his limited conversation correcting other people's trivia about cruising.
Without naming names (which she doesn't know anyway), some of these cruisers reminded Beebee of actors in Taco Bell's Super Bowl commercial.
Pati and Beebee have mixed feelings about having breakfast daily in the restaurant and may just try the Lido deck self-serve breakfasts in future. The service in Universe was extremely slow and the waiter had trouble with English, i.e., couldn't seem to connect the spoken names of food on the menu with the actual food. For example, one cruiser asked for brown toast, got hash browns, asked again for wheat toast and finally got it. However, everyone at the table was of an age to persist until they got what they wanted.
On the other hand, service was so slow that people got to talk about their favorite topic, which was cruising and how many cruises and different ships they had been on. They didn't seem as interested in where they had gone, just how they got there. Pati and Beebee, being relative newcomers to cruising, mostly just listened to this.
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Why didn't Pati talk about Halloween props and woodworking projects? He's well versed in those! Or better yet, pose some Euler problems!
ReplyDeleteThe Kentucky guy was older than trees. And, one good scare and half our table would keel over. We are pretty much the under 70 crowd :)
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