Winter Break 2024. Chapter 2. A Ride on the 'Merican Round.

Is there anything like a cruise ship terminal on boarding day?

Six thousand people filled with nothing but hope and excitement. The vacation hasn’t yet begun. The children haven’t yet started whining. The ship hasn’t yet started rocking. Nothing has gone wrong yet, and everyone just wants to get to the buffet.

We approached the check in area hesitantly. Tzvi scoped it out, trying to figure out which agent would be most lenient. Would the matronly Southern grandmother be nice and let Inbar go? The crew cut gray haired veteran in his fifties certainly wasn’t the right choice. Well, in the end it didn’t matter because it wasn’t our choice. They directed us into a line and we ended up with Pedro. I don’t know if that was really his name, but he was a Hispanic guy in his late twenties with a peach fuzz mustache and a little mullet and kind of looked like the character from Napoleon Dynamite. He fumbled through his script asking us a few basic questions, then took our passports, scanning them each with his tablet. After me, Tzvi, Hallie and Madeleine the whole screen went green with a huge check mark.

When he got to Inbar’s passport, he flipped the pages and landed on her visa. Her expired visa. He tried scanning it with his tablet, but nothing happened.

“Are you trying to find the first page?” Tzvi asked after a moment, realizing something was wrong.

Pedro nodded and Tzvi helped him find the right page. He scanned it.

Green!

Check mark!

He handed us back the passports and said “enjoy your cruise.”

We walked forward, kind of stunned, kind of confused. We crossed the length of the terminal, scanned our boarding passes and then walked the ramp up to the ship. [Soundtrack from Titanic plays in our heads.] And then we all stepped aboard and started our cruise.

That was it. No one really checked anything or asked any questions. It felt crazy and we couldn’t actually believe that she had made it on that easily, which caused Tzvi to wonder (unfortunately, out loud) whether that meant they were going to be checking things on the way back into the US. That brought us all down momentarily, but we managed to push that aside for a week and enjoy the cruise!

Stepping onto the ship we were immediately thrust into the crowds just trying to navigate the entrance and make their way in. We entered at the Royal Promenade. I remember feeling like I needed to orient myself to the lights and just stepping into this place for the first time.

We managed to find an elevator and headed toward our rooms, but there was a sign saying they wouldn’t be ready until 1:00pm and it was only around 12. No bother, we would go upstairs to the Windjammer buffet. Well, that’s where we encountered the first of many buffet lines. It was a line just to get into the hand washing area. I don’t understand why a ship for 6500 people only has like 8 sinks total, while the Celebrity ships have like 20.

Anyway, we finally found a table and sat down. That’s when we saw it. All around us. Covered heads, covered elbows, and a whole lot of plastic wrap. Did I mention we decided to sail out of Galveston to avoid the Yeshiva week crowds? Anyway, lunch was a bit rough to navigate, but we managed. Initial thoughts on the buffet is that there’s less variety than there was on Celebrity and the food definitely isn’t as good. Also, there’s no pizza at the buffet which is a huge let-down for Hallie.

We went to our rooms, which are surprisingly spacious (in terms of cruise rooms). Our luggage wasn’t there yet, so we decided to explore the ship. A bit about the ship. We’re sailing on Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas, which is an Oasis class ship. Tzvi and I were on Allure of the Seas, a ship of the same class, so we remembered the layout (or at least I did). The ship is pretty massive and has several “neighborhoods” including the Boardwalk and Central Park (yes, a park with trees). There are three pools and a kids splash area, four water slides, a huge non-water slide that swirls around over the back of the ship and an outdoor “aqua-theater”. Unlike our most recent cruises, drinks weren’t included in our cruise fare, so Tzvi and I got the deluxe beverage package. One nice thing to find out was that the milkshakes at Johnny Rockets are included in the Deluxe Beverage Package. Starbucks Coffee on the other hand, is not (there is an actual Starbucks on board – not a ‘we proudly brew Starbucks’ (though they have that too), but an actual Starbucks). There are only two places to get a decaf cappuccino on this ship. I don’t get it.

I went to the dining room just to mention about allergies and ask about kosher food. Of course they have the packaged stuff (have you seen who is on board this ship?) but I asked about fresh stuff like we got on Celebrity too. Nope. I also asked about the dining times, because we were scheduled for 5:00pm. Early bird special? The only set dining times on this ship are 5pm and 7:45pm, and turns out if you come later than 5:15pm they give away your table. This is also where I saw two old men yelling at each other because one cut the line. Happy vacationing.

We went back to the room, found our luggage, and started to unpack. We met our stateroom attendant Made (which is an ironic name for a housekeeper), and I asked him for 20 extra hangers, which seemed to surprise him. Do people not hang things? Eventually he had to switch me to wire hangers. We explored the ship a little, checking out the kids club and some other areas. We got our first milkshakes, but it was too cold to walk around outside so we went back to the room and unpacked. Tzvi got some kind of rum punch and we tried to watch sail-away from the balcony, but it was freezing.

We changed for dinner and made our way to the dining room for our 5:15 reservation. We were sat at a table right next to a table of our kin. They had paper plates, plastic silverware and lots of airplane meals. We overheard them talking to the maître de, who said that there were 250 people that had requested kosher food on this cruise. If there’s only 250 of them, why do we see them everywhere?

Before taking this cruise we had read that the included food (i.e., no extra charge) is sub-par, and the food you pay extra for is very good. That was certainly true. I still love the idea of eating in the grand-three-level dining room and having the same waiter every night, but even I have to admit the days of this cruise standby are probably coming to an end. It just wasn’t what it used to be, especially when it comes to the food. On Royal I think they really don’t put too much effort into the dining room food because they want you to eat in the specialty restaurants. We had a tomato soup, which kind of just tasted like tomato sauce. Tzvi had halibut and I had salmon. Madeleine ate all of the noodles.

After dinner we walked around and saw more of the ship. I took Hallie for her first strawberry daquiri at one of the bars and Tzvi and Madeleine checked out the Boardwalk where Madeleine discovered the carousel. Except, she didn’t call it a carousel or merry-go-round, she called it “the ‘Merican Round.” And none of us corrected her. For seven days. And yes, there really is a full size carousel on this ship, and I think Madeleine’s mind was blown by the fact that she could just ride over and over again for the whole cruise.

We decided to go to the ice show. We didn’t have a reservation (if you recall, they were all cancelled), but we got in no problem. It was a solid show, thought I didn’t actually understand any of the storyline. Cool ice jumps though. Hallie kept asking Tzvi what was happening, but he didn’t understand either. Eventually he got tired saying “I don’t know” and started making things up.

During one scene there was some kind of projections of fire. “What’s happening?”

“They’ve made it to the center of the earth and she got burnt by the lava because it’s really hot, and now she’s hideous but it’s okay because it’s all mole people down there and they’re all ugly too.” (In the next scene Hallie pointed out that the skater didn’t look burnt.)

When the main female skater left the ice, “Where did she go?”

“To get some cheese.”

After the show it was bedtime for the girls. We went back to the room where we found they had left us chocolate covered strawberries.

Tzvi and I figured that this would be like our last cruise, where we would end every night drinking cappuccino and kahlua and cream, eating whatever the dessert of the day is and discussing the day’s events. Unfortunately, there’s just nowhere to do that on this ship. We had to get the cappuccino at the Café Royal on the Royal Promenade, which is the one place that makes decaf cappuccinos (the other being the spa, which was closed). Then we had to go to another bar to get a Kahlua and Cream, which was delicious because you can’t screw that up. But there was nowhere to get cake. Café Promenade did have some desserts but they just did not look good.