Day 1: Saturday, 8/14/1999

We did all the ticket and paperwork things along the way in the pier building, and finally it was time to get ON THE SHIP!! (not "the boat"!) Our ship is the Zenith. It's bloody huge: 12 floors ("decks"). We're in #4111, one floor down from the entrance lobby on the "Horizon Deck". We checked out our cabin ("stateroom"), walked up to Deck 12 to take the "official" tour led by our official ship Cutie Pie, Rob the Entertainment Host. We also had a life jacket drill (stylish in fluorescent orange nylon with nifty silver reflectors and a whistle), and finally we were moving.

We watched New York pull away from the Bon Voyage party on Deck 11 (poolside), where we drank fruity things from souvenir glasses and received "the only free thing you're likely to get this week": a dance lesson! -- in the Electric Slide (which Jessica let me drag her into) and then the Macarena (at which we drew the line). Eventually we left in search of a new battery for my camera and a Snickers bar to take the edge off having missed the Embarkation Buffet (again, the only time all week we're likely to escape eating for as long as three hours).

Next we hit Jessica's personal playground: the casino! We started with 2 quarters on the slots and won as many as 10 altogether, which we promptly "reinvested" until they were gone. Then we stood watching the Caribbean Stud Poker table until Jessica couldn't take it anymore and sat down to play. On her last cruise she made $300 at poker. She'll now have to win $313 to beat her old record.

We wandered around some more and made our way outside on Deck 11, where we discovered what the signs "Caution: Strong Winds" were talking about. We got some pictures of us laughing hysterically as we tried to cross the deck into wind stronger than we were. We finally went back to the cabin to rest until dinner (late seating: 8:30 pm), and used the nifty interactive TV system to order tickets for our "shore excursion" on Tuesday: the glass-bottomed boat tour.

Dinner. We came, we met, we schmoozed, we ate a fabulous 5-course dinner, served by our waiter Dragan (with a stunning Slavic baritone). Then on to the Celebrity Show Lounge, where we chatted up Entertainment Hostess Leigh before sitting down for the "Broadway evening," featuring the lungs of Michelle Murlin (who was apparently on speed, having more energy than the other 200 people in the room combined), backed by the Celebrity Orchestra.

We walked around on deck some more and saw some spectacular lightning -- otherwise it's so dark you can't see anything beyond the wake of the ship, white foam on black water. Then we finished up with writing this "daily log" in the deserted Rendez-Vous Lounge over a way-too-strong Irish coffee, and retired to bed.

People We Met Today:

• Leigh Graham, All-American (except she's Canadian) entertainment hostess, who plans to extend her tour of duty beyond the usual 6-7 months, just because she likes it so darn much.
• Rob Harris, also Canadian, entertainment host who shook a mean booty at the Bon Voyage party. It turns out that of the six members of the Entertainment Staff, all but one of them are Canadian, and two of them are named Rob. We promptly named this one Cute Rob and the other one Dorky Rob.
• Gavin and Ian (taking the tour with us: a hyper little blond kid with blue titanium-framed glasses, and his brother).
• Theatre Boy and his sidekick Sideburn (some very New York- looking kids in their early 20s).
• Our table mates:

  Julie and Jeff live in Baltimore; Jennifer (who is Jeff's sister) and Wayne live in California. They're all vacationing together.
  

  Ida, Mary, and Steve (from the Tri-State area: NY, NJ, CT). Mary and Steve are college friends. Mary and Ida work together for IBM in Armonk, NY. Steve and Ida had never met before today, but they seem to be surviving the experience. Ida is a striking young Asian girl with long fuchsia nails and a bright lime-green dress. Mary is more old-fashioned looking, plump with a friendly face (she ordered the sugar-free ice cream). Steve has a crewcut and an earring, and an odd way of looking you in the eye that made Jessica feels he was definitely staring in a lecherous way. Tomorrow we'll rotate places so that she's not sitting directly across from him, in order to test this theory.

• Our waiter Dragan Simic and busboy Robert (not Rob). Robert's primary items of English vocabulary are "Excuse me!" and "Would you like some more?".
• Our sommeliere (a woman), Krysztina, who wears a little ceremonial cup on a sash around her neck.
• Cruise director Todd Ferguson, who led tonight's introductions before the show.
• The spa girls, with way nifty accents: the facial girl from England (Alex), and the massage girl from South Africa (Martina? with spiky bleached-blond crewcut). Jessica concludes there is definite staring material on this ship.
• The Miami (Texas?) ladies, who every day wear matching white (or black) pantsuits and white (or black) poufy round hair bows.

Day 2: Sunday, 8/15/1999

We went up to the Windsurf Cafe (Deck 11) to scrounge for some breakfast (fruit and cereal and Danish), and then we sat outside on the pool deck and talked about writing. But the weather was cool and windy and overcast, and shortly it actually began to spit rain, so we gave up and ran for cover with everyone else. Back to the cabin to change clothes again, and we headed up to the gym ("Fitness Center") for a 20-minute treadmill workout, then a quick shower and 20 minutes out in one of the three outdoor hot tubs ("whirlpools"), before beating it back to the cafe for a very nice "casual" lunch buffet.

One more shower and change in the cabin before the 3:45 Bingo game, host(ess)ed by our pals Leigh and Rob. 4 rounds total; $30 for our two sets of cards. The jackpots ranged from $96 to $260, but needless to say we didn't win any of them. However, we stopped off at the casino afterwards and Jessica picked up $40 playing poker. I bought new nail polish at the duty-free shop (we browsed the $25 "Designer Rings", but nothing struck us, at least in a good way), and we went back below to redo my nails and prepare for tonight's Formal Dinner ("the Captain's Gala").

Day 3: Monday, 8/16/1999

First day in port! We had auto-requested an 8:30 wake-up call which never came, but Jessica's rebooted body clock woke us up at 8:40 anyway. We got some breakfast and headed up to the Sun Deck (12) to watch the ship sail into Bermuda. This took close to an hour all told -- Bermuda is really a long chain of islands, and we had to pull all the way around to dock in Hamilton Harbor. (Meanwhile, we ran down to the Library to fill out today's quiz, and tried to meet up with other Scrabble players as scheduled in the Zenith Daily, but none showed and then we got kicked out of the Card Room anyway by crew members waiting to clear the ship with the Port Authorities.)

Everyone lined up to get off the ship; we made it down the gangway at around 11:45 or noon. We wandered up Front Street (where the dock is) for a while, looking at T-shirts and keychains in all the souvenir shops, not to mention Levi's and Marks & Spencer and Pringle woolens, and a drugstore. Finally we decided to head for a beach to see the fabled pink sand of Bermuda. But all the beaches are further down the island along the southern shore (we're currently toward the West End), so we had to find the bus terminal and buy tokens to get on the #7 bus at 2 pm. I accidentally jumped the gun trying to get us off the bus, though, so instead of riding all the way down to Horseshoe Beach (supposedly the nicest), we ended up hiking a little to get to the very beginning of Elbow Beach, the first one along the shore.

We walked up through the campus of Bermuda College (about a half mile total) to the Stonington Beach Hotel, apparently owned and run by the college. We paid no heed to the sign saying "For Hotel Guests Only," and trotted down the wooden stairs right down to the beach. The sand did not in fact look pink (more of an ordinary beige), but the water was turquoise and warm and perfectly clear -- not one shell or rock or strand of seaweed. Jessica hadn't worn her bathing suit, so she only waded in up to her knees; but I (who had) got to frolic in the surf. Then we sat in some "borrowed" beach chairs, Jessica on the shady side of a beach umbrella (napping), and I on the sunny side (reading Glamour). I woke her up after an hour (4:00 pm), and we got ourselves together to schlep the half-mile back to the main road (how could it be uphill both ways?!) to catch the return bus. A few of them blew right by us, but finally we got one that dropped us right in front of our ship 15 minutes later.

We ran to our cabin to rinse the sand off, ran up to the Windsurf Cafe (5:00 pm) to snag some afternoon pizza and frozen yogurt, and then ran further up to the gym for a 20-minute stint on the Lifecycles followed by some stretches. Jessica had a headache, though, that wouldn't go away, so we tried to stop at the sundries shop on Deck 8 -- but now that we're in port, regulations dictate that not only the casino but all shops have to remain closed, so we had to go down to the infirmary ("Hospital") on Deck 3 to score her some Tylenol. Then we headed back to the cabin to shower and dress for dinner: "Informal" night tonight. I had Rack of Lamb, and blancmange for dessert.

At the beginning of dinner, our sommeliere came up and asked our table, "Who here is in cabin #4111?" It turned out that Jane, our travel agent, had sent us a bottle of wine with her compliments! It was a nice, rather dry rose in a cool "sexy" curvy bottle. Jessica didn't care for it overly, and I only drank one glass -- but when you have a bottle of wine, they store it for you so you can go on drinking it the following night! At this rate I should be set for the rest of the week.

Bingo night was (again) disappointing, although I got up to one-number-away in the final "blackout" round (where you have to fill your entire grid to win). Then it was back up to the pool deck for Island Night, where they served "Coco Loco" cocktails in actual coconut shells with drink umbrellas (this had been among the highlights of Jessica's last cruise), and made us all (again) dance the basic cruise repertoire of the Electric Slide, the Macarena, and the Hot Hot Hot. Actually, by the time Jessica got through the coconut drink (consisting of rum, creme de coconut, coconut milk, coconut water... basically whatever they could come up with), she loosened up sufficiently that she got voluntarily out on the dance floor AND managed to look like she was having fun doing it! All the ladies from our dinner table actually ended up out there together at the end, so that was a nice bonding experience. But then it was midnight and the live music had to be taken indoors (darn those port regulations), so rather than proceed with the party to the Rainbow Room, we finished up with the Fruit Buffet (featuring "Melons On Parade," the very impressive handiwork of whoever it is whose job is to cut all the decorative fruit on this ship, of which there is quite a lot) and went back to the cabin.

When we got there, we discovered an extra envelope left (with the usual chocolates) on our turned-down bed. We had WON today's quiz! (You have to get the first, best score to win. This was a geography-themed quiz, fill in the blank, not multiple choice; we used the atlas [didn't say you couldn't, and the quizzes do take place in the Library] and still got three wrong, but it must have tied everyone after us.) We won a keychain in a velvet bag, and a pen, all Celebrity signature items of course...

Also, we decided for the hell of it to pull down the "upper berths" (which fold into the walls) and sleep up there tonight.

People We Met Today:

• Ellen, in the photo gallery, who (a) convinced us to buy our formal portraits; (b) is from Staten Island; (c) is traveling with her oldest daughter, who truly looks like both Juliana Margulies and Nancy Kerrigan; and (d) within six minutes had tried to fix up her 26-year-old son (in absentia) with Jessica and her nephew (now living in Boston) with me!

Day 4: Tuesday, 8/17/1999

The glass-bottomed boat tour was a veritable feast of beautiful sights, not least among them being the human contingent. First came the dock hand who looked like Ricky Martin, only taller and leaner and with long blond dreadlocks. And then there was our tour guide for the coral reef segment of the voyage, who looked like Elle MacPherson at 23 and talked like a marine biologist. We thought we heard her name as Phoebe, but it might have been Kiki (and she totally looked like a Kiki), so we referred to her as Kiki-Phoebe for the rest of the day. But aside from all that, it was awesome to see the coral reefs right under the boat (hard "brain" coral, soft "finger" coral, and stinging "fire" coral), and tons of fish (mostly snapper and a few angelfish), and then to cruise back riding on the boat's upper deck and get the harbor-cruise perspective on Bermuda. For a finale, before we started the ride back, Kiki-Phoebe started throwing whole loaves of bread down into the water (she had five or six), and ALL these fish would swarm and converge and knock the loaf of bread around on the surface of the water until it disappeared. Then we got to cruise back listening to calypso favorites (and a little Kenny G, but hey) over the loudspeaker.

We stopped at a gift shop just the other side of the dock building, and bought presents for everyone we could think of (one-stop souvenir shopping) and a T-shirt for me. Then we went back up to the ship for the usual lunch buffet. When we had filled our trays and were wrestling with getting drinks, two (not one but two) tuxedoed young waiters appeared at our elbows, graciously whisked the trays away from us, and paraded them out to a table in the shade on the pool deck, where they proceeded to pull the chairs out for us. We were dumbfounded and sat there for a minute after they left, smiling big goofy smiles and going, "Yeah, this is what they meant by service!"

After lunch we went back down into Hamilton, meandered through some more shops, and took another bus down the shore -- this time to Horseshoe Bay Beach, which is apparently the most popular one (it actually has a taxi stand outside it). The path down from the main road was absolutely gorgeous, lined with palm trees and other lush tropical things, and then there was a bathhouse/concession stand in aquamarine stucco, right before the actual beach. The water was still clear and warm and turquoise, and today we actually saw the pink flecks in the sand (they're bits of some particular kind of shell that gets ground up with the sand) -- apparently it's easier to see it when it's slightly overcast as it was today. We got down there around 4 pm and lounged or dozed until right around 6, when suddenly little drops of rain began to fall seemingly from nowhere -- the sky over the ocean was bright blue, but over our heads and behind us was this huge black raincloud, and in a few minutes the rain was coming down hard. We fled for the shelter of the bathhouse with the remaining diehards; and then after about five more minutes, the rain magically died down, and we could make our way back up the hill to catch the bus back.

Back to the stateroom: shower, scrub sand from all available bodily surfaces, prepare for dinner. (Informal night again; I had meant to wear my sleeveless pink polo dress, but changed at the last minute into short black skirt and black spaghetti-strap tank; good thing since tonight we got "couple pictures" taken at the table, so I coordinated better with Jessica's long black skirt and black-and-silver flowered stretch tank. Life on board is a never-ending fashion show.)

We skipped Bingo tonight, but simply had to attend the '50s & 60's Sock Hop in the Show Lounge, because earlier in the day we had received a personal invitation from Cute Rob, who had the afternoon off. We had been coming back down into town after lunch and crossed paths with him and a few of his colleagues -- I didn't recognize them, in their civvies, until after they had passed us -- but then suddenly Cute Rob turns around, runs back down the stairs, zooms up behind us, puts an arm around each of us, and walks us across the street! He filled us in on the best beaches to check out, and encouraged us to come out for the Sock Hop after dinner. Needless to say, we were highly encouraged. So we went. The staff girls were all decked out in poodle skirts, and the staff guys in jeans and white T-shirts (complete with cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve -- we hassled Rob about these and he showed us they were unopened!); except for Assistant Cruise Director Chris who went the "'50s dork" route, complete with white tape on black glasses frames and gleaming saddle shoes. There was a twist contest and later an Elvis impersonation contest, and I actually managed to drag Jessica up onto the stage to participate in the dancing. For a while, anyway, until she got bored and decided to head back to the cabin. But I stayed and ended up dancing two whole slow dances with Cute Rob, and didn't notice until later that his Magic Marker tattoo had rubbed off green on my arm (!).

I got back to the room sometime around 12:30, and Jessica was sitting up in bed watching Star Trek: Insurrection. We ended up staying awake talking until something like 1:30, and finally zonked out without taking time to write up today's log... oops!

Day 5: Wednesday, 8/18/1999

St. George is a lot quieter and more residential than Hamilton, but unbelievably picturesque, all these white roofs gleaming in the sun on pastel stucco houses, and little alleyways winding up the hillsides. We took lots of pictures (and almost lost my sunglasses in the process, until we traced our steps back to a potted palm where I'd dropped them while leaning off a balcony to take a picture). Then we bought stamps at the post office, and went to the White Horse Tavern in the town square to write out all our postcards (Jessica: 4; me: 17). The bar was right out of Cocktail, and right on the water, and I finally got to order a "Dark and Stormy" (apparently dark rum and ginger beer; second only to the Rum Swizzle as Bermuda's national drink). We absconded with some swizzle sticks in the shapes of sea creatures, and headed back up to the ship for lunch.

One more trip down dockside to write and mail the last of the cards, and check out some more souvenir shops (and an actual grocery store, where we saw actual Bermuda onions but bought water instead), and that was it for setting foot on Bermudian soil. But we got in a quick dip in the pool before dinner.

The evening was as usual: shower, dress for dinner (Casual/"Western" in honor of tonight's Tex-Mex midnight buffet and country line dancing...). We had a tenth person appear at our table tonight: Paul, from Raleigh, NC, who had a work conflict come up when he was supposed to be boarding last Saturday, so he flew down to meet the ship today in Bermuda. It turns out that he was Ida's friend from college, so that completed the connection. The whole restaurant was noisier and chattier than usual tonight -- we thought maybe it was that people were more loosened up in their casual clothes.

After dinner we stopped in the photo gallery to pay still more money for yesterday's "couple" shots -- but they really are nice portraits... And then we again went our separate ways for a while, so I could get in some goofy line dances without subjecting Jessica to it any further. I ran into Mary, Ida, Steve, and Paul there, so I went on with them to the Rainbow Room after the outdoor music ended at midnight -- but by 12:30 I was fading, so I said goodnight and headed home to bed, where Jessica had faded long before.

Day 6: Thursday, 8/19/1999

We tried to get breakfast, but since it was almost 10:30, all we could get was tea up in the cafe. There's always food somewhere around here, though, so we went looking for today's trivia game in the Rendez-Vous Lounge where there were croissants to be had. (We realized only after we got there that the trivia game had been in the Tavern -- and had started at 10. Oh well -- we had to settle for the quiz.) Then we went up to the pool deck and napped or read on deck chairs in the shade (we'd already decided yesterday that today should be a low-sun day) until it was time to eat AGAIN (two hours later -- lunchtime!). We ended up getting cheeseburgers from The Grill today, and again losing the battle to carry our own trays (I actually fended off two waiters before the third one wouldn't take no for an answer. "You can run, but you can't hide!" he said cheerfully. "I'm beginning to get that feeling!" I joked back).

We ran into Leigh and Rob again right after lunch, on their way to teach Napkin Folding and Shuffleboard, respectively. We sat down in the lounge to do most of a crossword puzzle, until it was almost 3 pm and time to watch the ship pull out of Bermuda, so we ran back up to Deck 12. We hung out up there awhile, then came back downstairs and happened to notice that it was time for the casino to reopen (FINALLY! now that we were back in international waters), so we dropped a couple more quarters in the slots. Then at 4 we caught the Youth Program's "Summer Stock Theater" presentation, consisting of three one-acts: "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" (the Ensigns, or older kids); "The Floating Pagoda" (a puppet show featuring the 6- to 9-year-olds); and "The Monkey's Heart" (in which all the very little ones got to stand around in monkey or shark masks, and look cute). And then it was time once again for Bingo with Leigh and both Robs, so we shelled out for two more cards (hardly anyone was there, but we STILL didn't win anything. Maybe tomorrow night). Then we went back to the cabin to write in the log until dinner.

Tonight was the second formal night (me: long black satin sheath dress, black sandals; Jessica: chartreuse camisole, black ball-gown skirt, and -- at long last! -- ballet flats). The highlight of tonight's dinner was the Grand Baked Alaska Parade, where (no joke) all the chefs and waiters and busboys came parading around in a big procession with flaming Baked Alaskas, and then stood around the dining room and sang "Auld Lang Syne" with the passengers -- being as this was the Farewell Dinner (we didn't want to allow that it was, since we have a whole day and night yet to go, but someone suggested that it was at least our farewell to Bermuda). The photogs came around this time to take pictures of the whole table, but I took some just around the table so we wouldn't need to buy the group shots (!).

Day 7: Friday, 8/20/1999

Day 8: Saturday, 8/21/1999

Disembarkation! We placed a wake-up call for 6:45 am, which (thank goodness) actually came through this time (they have a completely automated voice-mail-type system). Unfortunately I'd woken up at 3 am and had a tough time getting back to sleep -- but we had to be out of our cabin and into the "public areas" no later than 8, so 6:45 it was. We actually got all put together by about 7:45, so we locked up the cabin (you leave the key-cards in the room) and went up for breakfast and to see the ship pull in. (We'd been able to see the New York skyline, via the closed-circuit camera aimed out from the top of the ship, as soon as we woke up -- but we had to get out on the deck to really believe it. Jessica had run up to photograph it a bit while I was showering, too).

There was a line a mile long for the buffet breakfast, but there was actually an 8:15 "late seating" scheduled in the formal dining room, and since (a) we hadn't experienced the sit-down breakfast and (b) we knew we'd have tons of time to kill, we decided to hold out for that. So we sat out on the pool deck while the ship docked shortly after 8 am -- it was almost as if we'd never pulled away from the pier! Then we went down to breakfast, and were told to take our usual table -- which was cool because in a couple of minutes we were joined by Jeff and Julie, Wayne and Jennifer. So we had a mini-reunion over omelets and Cream of Wheat. Then we had nothing to do but find a spot to hang out with our hand luggage until our "disembarkation number" (13) was called. That spot turned out to be the Celebrity Show Lounge, where entertainment host Mike was running a game of "Name That Tune" to keep us from getting restless. We got halfway through the the '80s when they began to make the disembarkation announcements, so that was the end of the game. And then the two of us played Geography until Jessica stumped me with St. Croix and won.

Finally our number came up around 10:30, so we got in the mob line to go down two decks and down the gangway into the pier building. We'd really been hoping to get a last goodbye in with Leigh and Rob, but alas, they were nowhere in sight this morning (probably using their two hours of "shore leave" before they had to get their act together to welcome aboard the NEXT shipful of 1600 passengers). So we located our suitcases (color-coded by baggage claim area; ours were Grey tags); handed our customs forms in to the nice officer as we walked through; caught sight of Ida, Steve and Paul (but not Mary) for a last wave goodbye; and got a taxi home to Jessica's place.

T H EE N D

... except that we're still experiencing the feel of the floor rolling up and down waves underneath us (this takes a couple of days to wear off, it seems). And we composed a Magnetic Poetry ode (after a three-hour nap, almost) in honor of our experience:

our trip
 
white spray on dark water
girl s in gorgeous gown s
celebrate ing life and friend ship
and drool ing over rob

Epilogue (Random things we remember):

• The ship has 12 decks and 3 stair towers (A, B, and C, from front to back). Our cabin was beyond Stair Tower C, putting us in the "ass end" (technically, "aft") of the ship. It did get rather confusing because so many of the decks and stairs looked the same. To make it easier to orient ourselves, most of the public areas were grouped on decks 7, 8, and 11; also, on our tour the first afternoon, Rob pointed out that most of the dining areas were in the back of the ship and the recreation spaces were toward the front, hence the mnemonic, "Fun in the Front." To which we promptly added the corollary, "...Food up your Ass!" This became our mantra every time we discovered we had yet again come up or down the wrong stair tower, which happened at least once a day. (It was a pretty silly week.) The stair tower closest to our room (C) led up to the back entrance of the Caravelle Restaurant; unfortunately, it was cut off from the rest of Deck 7, so when the restaurant was closed, we'd have to go up or down one more flight and walk to a different stair tower in order to get to any other place on Deck 7... this also happened at least once a day.
• In the public-area decks, anytime there wasn't live music going on, they would pipe in music: usually hits of the '70s (and sometimes the '80s). We heard "Dust in the Wind" a few times, and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers".
• The waiters not only carry your tray for you in the cafeteria (an incongruous enough situation), they pull out your chair and place your napkin (white linen, of course) in your lap.
• In Bermuda, being a British colony, they drive on the left side of the street. The disorienting thing about this, as a pedestrian, is having to remember to look for cars and mopeds coming at you from the right first as you cross the street. (And riding in the bus, going around corners, it invariably looks like the car coming at us is in our lane and about to smash into us head-on...)
• For some reason, the elevators on the ship had the slowest-closing doors we had EVER seen. They seemed to open and travel at a normal rate (except for stopping at almost every floor all the time), but you could literally count to ten while the doors closed.
• The stair towers had tubular chrome railings (glassed-in on the outer railings, open for the center rail since you didn't have to worry about falling through), and mirrored walls on all the landings, and brass edges on all the steps. We would see the poor housekeeping guys perched on the stairs at all hours of the day, hand-polishing these stair edges with a rag. Amazing.
• Anytime the ship's photographers went out, the resulting glossy 5x7's (or 8x10's) were put on display in the "Photo Gallery" for us to browse and locate. When you found yourselves, you were supposed to bring all the photos up to the counter, to either pay for the ones you wanted (usually $6.95 for 5x7's, up to $24.95 for 8x10s!), or discard the ones you didn't. We heard a million jokes in the Photo Gallery about buying other people's photos: because they were cuter than yourselves, because you were stalking them, etc. It was unclear whether you'd actually be allowed to buy someone else's photos... but it seemed easy enough...