We Can't Do What?!?

It was nice to get into the room to dump the carryon Bag, the 24 pack of water, her Toiletry bag and a still no bird… OK enough with that!
 

Now SHE hands HIM the letters that were handed to them at check in but he didn’t bother to read.  Now they did and low and behold… all the ports except Bimini are closed to cruisers and the only way you can get off the ship is if you have booked a Celebrity sponsored shore excursion.

 

W.T.F.?!?

 

Sounds like a bunch of BS to force you into their excursions rather than you’re doing your own thing but they’ll check it out later.  It was time to meet Steve at the guest services to get the rooms sorted out.

 

What’s that you ask about sorting out rooms?

 

We'll part of the deal with Steve and Ellen getting free rooms from all their Casino Play was that even if they wanted to just give us one of the rooms, that isn’t how it works.  They each had to be in one of the rooms, so officially, Steve and I are in one room on one reservation number and Ellen and the Dragon Lady are in the other on a separate reservation. 

Now remember this little fact as it will play out in several instances later.

 

And since they couldn’t do the swap before sailing, we had to wait until we were on the ship to move Chucky into the same room as DL and Steve in with Ellen, which of course required getting new keys made for the appropriate cabin occupants.

 

Of course now, Guest Services Supervisor Salvatore, is not quite following the request.

 

It seems that the cruise had a large contingent of LGBTQ cruisers and he figured, 2 guys in one cabin, and 2 ladies in the other… wellll, Yeah, we could understand his confusion when we wanted to swap the combination.

 

So after a couple repeats of the issue, Salvatore is Sicilian as is Chucky who finally tries the explanation in two languages and suddenly Salvatore goes,

“Ahhh Si, Si Signoré, ora ho Capito”. 

Now He Gets IT!  

 

With the room situation sorted out and the proper key card/sailing pass in hand, it was time to address the closed port issue, which has a particular importance for Steve, Ellen and their son-in-law Bob.

 

S&E and their family had been vacationing in Aruba for over 30 years and the reason they chose this particular cruise and itinerary was that Bob had flown in with the cremains of his late wife Lesley, S&E’s daughter, to scatter her ashes in several of her favorite places on Aruba. 

 

Now, not being able to get off the ship unless with a Celebrity sponsored Excursion, put a crimp in the plan.  It would be impossible for any of the excursions, most of which were rapidly selling out, to make the 3 or 4 stops they needed to accomplish their mission.

It looked like they had to come up with a new plan, but were not too sure how.

 

Salvatore suggested we consult with the excursion desk to see if they may have a solution.  But of course with the handout given at check in, the line at the excursion desk wound around the waiting area like a python curling up for a nap.

 

Since we had to complete the safety drill we decided to do that first and come back later. 

 

Now-a-days in the digital era, the safety drill involves a few innovative steps.  Rather than head out on the boat deck and stand around in the heat for an hour until everyone for that muster station shows up, you can do most of it on your phone using the Celebrity App that we had to download prior to boarding.  It allowed us to watch a video of the safety briefing, listen to the Ships Emergency Signal blast, and then check in at our Muster station, which was actually in one of the Specialty Dining rooms. 

 

While there, the delightful young lady who scanned our Room Key to check us in for muster, informed us that she would be giving a Glass Blowing demo on Deck 15 at 4:00pm and invited us to attend. 

 

Since we had both been to Murano, Italy - at separate times of course - Steve and I thought that was a great idea and we might just do that after lunch while the rest headed to the casino to check in with the Casino Host.

 

But for now, it was time to head up to the deck 14 and the Ocean Café to discuss the port dilemma over a delightful lunch, with plans to go back to the excursion desk later when it wasn’t so busy.

 

Once again, this got out of hand so we'll continue this Saga, in the next episode of “Do they or Don’t they Get offa da Boat”

 

Ciao 4 Now

Uncle Chuck & 

The anxious to see what HE comes up with, 

Dragon Lady