First Night Photos
Today is still Weds., 2/2/2005.
So, it is 7:30pm and it is clear that if Debbie doesn't eat soon, she won't make it. She begged to order room service but after checking several times through the afternoon and early evening, the Grand Dining Room menu has still not been put on display and I don't want to call and ask someone over the phone to read the whole thing to me. She will have to go to the restaurant. We make it in and it is really moving. The staff are even staggering to walk. The waiter is sympathetic to Debbie and all the serving Filipinos in the small side room where we are seated come by and reassure her that it is always rough exiting and entering San Juan, but that in 3 1/2 to 4 hours it will calm down. From their lips to God's ears. She has soup, bread and some wine. They tell her the wine is good for her. I don't remember what the wine was, but we both liked it and it was served cold enough for her, which is unusual. She sits and nibbles another piece of bread through my salad and then our first course is delivered. I get ready to photograph it and realize that while Debbie has a filet mignon that I have been served fish and I ordered duckling. While I ponder whether to photograph or not and eat fish or not, Debbie has cut open the filet and it is bleeding on the plate. Not good. She only eats meat cooked very well-done and this would send her out of a room without being green and sweaty from seasickness. She bolts. I realize that we have been served the main courses of the table next to us as do they and now all three of us wait some more for new dishes to be cooked. I skipped dessert to go see about Debbie and either the ship is really moving roughly now or I have drunk way more than I thought I did.
It is bad. Debbie is in bed with the bathroom trashcan next to her. She is moaning and weeping and crying that she has made a terrible mistake. Don't I know it. She says she doesn't know what she was thinking, she can't sail for 122 nights. She is sobbing. I tell her we don't have to go, we can get back the huge sum of money we have already laid out, with the exception of this now very expensive and unnecessary little mini-jaunt.
That is not all. Debbie had reorganized the bathroom. She had moved the toiletries to the bathtub and used the space formed for our things. While we were out, Alina our stewardess, took all of our personal stuff, toothbrushes, etc. off the glass shelves in the bathroom and restacked her extra kleenex and toilet paper and moved all of our person hygiene objects down there. This meant 2 things that really upset Debbie, first that a stranger had touched her toothbrush and second that she had to get under the sink to get it after she had retched her guts empty. She is out-of-control unhappy and I have never seen her this seasick. Ever. She says that Alina walked in on her as she was trying to get undressed and before she had reached the toilet and they bounced off the walls in the little hall between the closets and the bathroom as Alina told her to call room service for crackers and juice if she hadn't eaten. Debbie told me she politely clawed past her newsletter to get to the toilet and Alina left. She told me to put out the privacy sign because Alina had seemed upset to find her in the room. Debbie felt like after the sacrilege she had committed in the bathroom staking out whose territory is whose with those glass shelves that she should have been ashamed to show her face to us again. But, I did not put out the privacy sign. I did call for crackers and juice. I stripped, turned out the lights and got in bed. About 10 minutes later, Alina came in again, with our liquor. It was not pretty. She was very annoyed at me for not putting that sign out. She put up one of her own after that. OK, I messed up, but she did know that the room was occupied and that Debbie was in here being sick. She couldn't hold that liquor delivery 'til morning? Now, Debbie is a little OC, and she is frantic with seasickness, but you know I do see her point about those shelves. We paid about $387/pp/per night to be here and that should have made the entire room ours for the duration. Also, good point about the toothbrushes, I didn't want to think about that while I was brushing, but...Ya know, what in the heck. We have a rough night and a long one. This cruise sails to the furthest point, which is St. Barts at 11AM tomorrow and then makes short jogs back each evening to return to San Juan. It is still rough very early the next morning and I can see small islands in the distance all around us. I will let Debbie stay in bed as long as she wants. I planned to walk a few miles around the track but black smoke is just billowing down over one segment and I don't want to walk that badly. I give it up, sneak back in the room and sit out on the balcony, looking at rainbows.
