Winter Break 2024. Chapter 3. Why Are They Starving Us?

We woke up this morning to… cloudy skies! At least it’s not frigid.

I think the girls woke us up around 730, which was pretty good. Tzvi gave Hallie a speech the night before that she wasn’t allowed to wake us up unless someone was dying.

We headed upstairs for our buffet breakfast, but thankfully there was no line. Breakfast was fine. Standard cruise buffet fare. After breakfast Hallie wanted to go to the port shopping lecture, I think because she heard there was a raffle where you could win diamond earrings. I can’t believe it but we actually sat through the lecture for a full hour. In case you’re wondering, the good shopping is in Cozumel and there’s a shopping party from 8:00 - 10am. At the end they raffled off a bunch of prizes and we won! What did we win? “$100 off any photo package!” Amazing, right? Read the fine print: minimum purchase $500. Whomp whomp. I feel like that was one of those things that leave a poor taste in your mouth and you’d never see on Celebrity.

While we did that, Tzvi took Madeleine to the Boardwalk. They rode the ‘merican round several times, and then Madeleine discovered the climbing wall, which she absolutely loved.

Then it was raining and windy so we explored more of the inside areas. We found the arcade where we played air hockey, Hallie injured her finger on the puck, and then the girls wanted to play Mario Kart.After that we went to Broadway Musical trivia, which we didn’t do very well in, and then it was lunchtime. We went upstairs to the buffet only to find a long, long line. They basically said it was too crowded so they let people in 15 at a time. I don’t get it. Don’t make a ship for 6500 people if you can’t handle it. The real problem was that everyone was inside because of the meh weather. We got the same table we had for breakfast.

After lunch Tzvi went back to the room to do some work, and Inbar and I walked around the promenade. At 2 Inbar went to a flash mob dance rehearsal (can you really call it a flash mob if it’s on the schedule?) and I took the girls to the kids club. Hallie went in with no issue but Madeleine wouldn’t go. So we just stood outside the door for a while until Tzvi came to relieve me. I saw a Jewish mom arguing with the kids club staff upset that her kids couldn’t be together because they split the groups up by age, which like, duh. What does this mom think? They are going to put the kids together because she wants them to? Like, why? I mean I know I’m entitled, but to observe other people is something else.

Madeleine never made it into the kid’s club, so at 3pm Tzvi took her and Hallie to the puppet show. Madeleine kept calling it a puppy show, but thankfully was not upset when there were no dogs. It was called Away We Go and was about a half hour. It was glow in the dark and was very cute. The girls loved it.

During this time I went to the gym. It was not crowded. I was surprised, although I guess I shouldn’t have been. Although, I will say that the old stereotype of cruise ships being filled with obese people is definitely no longer true. The majority of people are neither fit and thin, nor fat. It’s mostly just normal people. Like us.

I met back up with the kids on the Boardwalk and we got milkshakes, this time strawberry and a vanilla malt. Before heading back to the room we made a stop at the Bionic Bar. It’s basically this robotic bar where you use a table to order what you want (you can choose from premade drinks or make your own recipes) and then the robots mix everything. Tzvi made up a drink that I did not like but he said was okay.

Then it was time to get ready for dinner! Early bird special once again. Tonight was formal night, which is always fun. Dinner was actually delicious. I had butternut sqaush soup and salmon. We also shared a vegan risotto and tried all of the desserts, but the good one was the apple crumble. Again, Madeleine had all of the noodles.

After dinner we had reservations to see the Fine Line, the show in the aqua theater, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to the weather. It was a little windy and rocky, and the show is basically a lot of diving, which I guess is tough to do with rough seas. Instead, we decided to try to get into Grease, which we did. Not the best seats but they were fine, and when you don’t have a reservation it is what it is. The show was great and the girls loved it. Hallie didn’t really get most of the jokes, but she understood enough to keep telling me the girls were sassy. At the end Madeleine said her favorite part was “the black girl at the end,” but which she meant the part when Sandy changes into the all-black outfit.

We tried to go for a snack but the buffet closed at 8:30! I don’t get it. People like to eat on cruises. Why are they starving us? Instead we took the girls to one of the bars on the promenade and they got strawberry daquiris. At some point we realized Madeleine had lost her white sweater. Tzvi thinks she left it at dinner and they probably swept it up with the white napkins and sent it down to main laundry. Either we’ll never see it again or that’s more free laundry.

Then they started to lose it and it was bedtime. Inbar went out to the comedy show, I went to the ‘90s party for a few minutes and Tzvi fell asleep in the room. He managed to get back up through and we went out to see Battle of the Sexes, which was silly but fun. They kept taking volunteers from the audience and at one point a group of four young Jewish guys went up. They were all from Brooklyn and they were all named Albert.

I have to say, even with the poor weather, this is going great. This is a great ship, there’s so much to do, the kids are loving it, Inbar managed to make it on board. Tomorrow I hope we’ll be far enough south that the weather will start to warm up. I think we can finally just relax and enjoy… right?

Wrong.