Cruise 2016: Shake your groove thing

My ongoing battle with the coffee gnomes

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One of the secret habitats of the dreaded Coffee Gnomes employed by NCL…

My love-hate relationship with cruise-coffee has rekindled itself. How does one begin their day without some semblance of dark caffeinated warm brown love in a mug?

My wife can go all day without coffee. Not me.

As much as I look forward to getting on a cruise ship, I always dread the coffee. We had our first cruise just over ten years ago on this same ship. December of 2005. Back then, the Jewel was squeaky clean, with that new ship smell. Now, she’s still a clean ship. Lots of little updates have occurred in her most recent dry dock. But, the coffee… well… let’s just say that I love cruising, and dread the thought of having to get my morning pot of brown-caffeinated-gold from those damn coffee machine gnomes.

Good news, most of the “instant brew” dispensers in the Garden Café (buffet) have been upgraded to the grind and brew dispensers. Or, they stuck canisters of coffee beans on top of the machines and the coffee-gnomes hiding inside make a grinding noise, while snickering and diluting the hidden syrup when I push the button. The coffee gnomes in those machines are tricky little buggers. I know they take delight in making my coffee taste as much unlike coffee as possible.

While not as great as a fresh brewed pot, this “grind and brew” version is a step in the correct direction. It’s slightly better than used motor oil coffee from the diluted-syrup machines. Now that the gnomes have to actually work at grinding, and not just diluting gooey brown syrup, they’re probably even madder at me for complaining about the syrup coffee machines the past ten years.

So, I fill up my thermal coffee mug (using a fresh white ship’s cup that has not touched anyone’s lips.) I found that some the acidic taste that the short run grind & brews create can be cut by adding some hot water from the same dispenser. Hah! Take that, crazy coffee gnomes!

236Perhaps the Jewel has always had the grind and brew machines, instead of the syrup machines. After a while, all of the buffets and their coffee tend to cloud up and merge in my memory.

But, coffee it is (or so I’ll pretend for now). Add to it a pile of bacon, some fried taters and a cup of yogurt (no blueberry, so I have to settle for raspberry), and we’ll call it breakfast.

Part 2: Dancing to win

Wife and I took advantage of the booking specials and chose the Unlimited Beverage Plan. (Most of) The booze is included, we just had to pre-pay the tips for the bar staff. That means wine at dinner and the show for me, and cocktails for the wife throughout the cruise. Let’s just say that adjusting to the several drinks a night is causing us to relearn how to avoid hangovers. A week of this and we should be drinking pros again.

Wife warned me, however, I’m not allowed to drive the ship if I have a glass of wine.

After dinner, we headed off to the kickoff show. The Jewel’s Show Troupe (or whatever they’re called now) – song and dance folks – look like their usual good selves. This trip, in addition, we’ve got a comedic magician, or is that really a magical comedian, and a violin that tells jokes (not sure how that works)? As long as the magician is not related to the coffee machine gnomes, I’ll go to his show. His teaser portion of the show last night was good, a couple of twists, well planned, and funny.

Following that we went to Magnum’s lounge for music with Marissa. Her song list is tad shallow, but well rounded. The only area for improvement would be pre-printing her song list and distributing several copies. She had one handwritten list that we passed around. Which isn’t enough if she’s going to ask for requests.

In the past we’ve caught a few cruises with Jana Seale, and enjoyed Marissa’s vocals just as much as Jana’s. Marissa differs from Jana in having a more “upbeat” style. Jana does melancholy very well, while Marissa has a bit more “optimism” in her style. Definitely worth spending an evening or two with her music.

145After that, we headed up to Spinaker. We caught the end of a short set from the party band, Next Stage, from the Philippines. The lead singer has a great stage presence and good range.

That was followed by the Sing it to Win game show… this was basically an excuse to get the dance floor full, while playing a modified version of Name That Tune. No prizes were given, except bragging rights. Team Fire faced off against Team Ice.

Points were awarded for getting to the mic first to name the song, then each team had an opportunity to get more points by singing and dancing to the rest of the tune. The awarding of points was obviously designed, even to my wine muddled brain, to keep the contest close. Team fire won the night, but they had “Jeff from San Luis Obispo” who wasn’t afraid to sing, and knew every darn song.

Following that, the Cruise Director staff distributed raffle tickets. Tom the Assistant CD, announced that he’d draw a ticket, and whoever had the matching number could come up, select one of the staff members to dance-off with. My ticket ended with 702. As soon as I heard “dance off,” I slid my ticket over to wife. I’m not allowed to sing, nor to dance in public.

She would have two chances to show her moves on the dance floor.

Fortunately, an extreme lack of rhythm and an inability to actually hear a beat means I’m not allowed to dance (or sing) in public. This one was all up to the wife. Like our ticket numbers ever get called. 😉

Tom went to the bucket and pulled out a ticket. He read off the numbers. I assumed that the first four digits would all be the same. Then I heard… “Seven… Oh… One”

Wife was squinting in the dark, both tickets held in front of her face, her glasses (for far vision) up on top of her head.

“That’s you,” I said, clapping her on the back.

“I’m trying to read these,” she replied still squinting.

“Going Once…” Tom called.

“Here,” I yelled, as I pulled my 702 ticket back, and pushed my wife up.

“Are you sure?” she asked as she rose. She dutifully marched down to the dance floor. Tom checked her 701 ticket. After introductions of name and where she’s from, Tom told her to choose one of the cruise staffers to dance with. She finally settled on Christian to be her dance “partner” for the contest.

Christian dancing later in the week at the White Hot Party - but this is similar to how he danced with my wife (sans the angle wings)
Christian dancing later in the week at the White Hot Party – but this is similar to how he danced with my wife (sans the angle wings)

Things went sexy and grinding quickly. The piece ended up with Christian crab walking across the dance floor, pelvic thrusting into the air, as wife shook her grove thing, back-peddling away. Not having an active dance-partner of a husband, she seemed a bit timid when it came to bumping and grinding with the cruise staff.

But, the rest of us had fun watching her avoid the amorous and exuberant Cruise Staffer, while still trying to keep things shaking.

She was rewarded with her goody bag: T-shirt, water bottle, flying disk, etc… and some jewelry from the Duty Free shop. A pretty good haul for shaking her groove thing with Christian the Crab Dancer.