A supposedly fun thing I did again

After COVID, I thought I'd never get on another cruise, but here we are

On December 20, 2024, I fly to Fort Lauderdale to jump on an eight day Caribbean cruise. The date marks two things I never thought I’d do: voluntarily go to Florida, and step foot on another cruise ship.

Not that I hate cruises. I’ve only been on one, but unlike David Foster Wallace, I had a good time. It was a supposedly fun thing that I’d do again. After COVID, however, it was hard for us to justify vacationing in a floating petri dish.

But cruising is an ideal way of vacationing for Jessica’s sister, Karen, and her husband, Lewis, who have two young kids. Add in my mother-in-law, a posse of Karen’s friends, one of Jessica’s longtime friends, Julia, Julia’s partner, James, and Julia’s mother—we’re a big group. Twenty or so in all, so there’s always someone for childcare.

So, despite our concerns, Jessica and I board the ship. Life is a highway and all that. What good has morals or beliefs done for me anyway?

Day 1

Spent the entire previous day traveling. Between the flight duration and the time change, it feels like I never experienced December 20th. It’s like the day just never existed. This is the first—but certainly not the last—occasion during this trip that I’ll feel untethered from time. Cruise time, I will learn, is different from real time, which does not exist on a cruise.

Our boat is the Celebrity Apex. Ours is not the only boat shipping out of Fort Lauderdale today. The hotel lobby is frantic with distressed families trying to keep their shit together. Especially frightening are the Disney cruisers, all already adorned in their Mickey attire. In the Starbucks line, moms and dads with Waltograph-emblazoned shirts stand around with twitchy eyelids and barely-contained rage. I can’t imagine a worse hell.

The port is only about a mile from our hotel, but it takes nearly an hour to drive there with all the cruise traffic. I sit next to our Lyft driver as he’s way inching along in traffic and I can tell that he’s having a quiet nervous breakdown.

The Celebrity Apex feels like a fancy mall upon entering. We step into a three-tiered gallery complete with chandeliers, cafes, bars and a casino. I know this is par for the course on cruise ships, but I’m still amazed at what people can do to the inside of a boat. But then again, most of my boat preconceptions come the movie Captain Phillips, so anything above the grade of “industrial cargo ship” seems extravagant to me.

On the last cruise I went on, our room was basically a bed and a porthole. But the Apex’s rooms have king size beds and floor-to-ceiling windows through which to gaze out upon the sea and ponder shit. I’ve had expensive hotel rooms that weren’t this nice. Karen and Lewis’ room even has a window that you can open for what, I think, is meant to be where you throw out all your single-use plastics.

As the boat gently peels off from the mainland, our group gathers near the back of ship on the deck of the Oceanview Cafe. We splurged on the premium drink package, which gives us access to any drink , but I figure going hog-wild right out the gate is an amateur move. Me? I’m more of a dignified cruiser. So I sip on a Miller High Life and eat a slice of pepperoni pizza as Florida slips into the distance.

I stand next to Shirven, one of Lewis’ friends from New Orleans, and we talk about the various destinations. Shirven is from Trinidad, and tells me he has friends in Nassau—capital of the Bahamas—and promises an insider tour when we get there.

I notice his drink and ask what it is.

“Scotch and water,” he says. Baller move.

“Ah,” I say, dignifiedly, and then order a Scotch and water for myself.

Scotch-buzzed, I roam the buffet and ladle out a steaming bowl of beef stew. Let the record show that the first real meal I eat on this cruise is beef stew.

At dinner, the sommelier doesn’t let my wine level drop below half full. I don’t remember what I eat but I’m pretty sure it’s good. It’s a three hour event, and by the time it’s over, I’m almost too ahem tired to go to the magic show, but if I know I’ll regret it if I don’t, and I didn’t come on a cruise to regret things.

Day 2

Wake up to the boat docked in Key West, Florida. Jessica, my mother-in-law and I have planned to go on an offshore excursion—a trolley tour of the island.

Leaving the boat is the last thing I wanna do, I’m not hung over per se, but my body, head, and soul are not happy with me. However, Key West is really the stop of this cruise that I’m truly interested to see. I’ve heard from friends about the trashy weirdness of the Keys, and I want to see it for myself.

Once we debark, we pass through swarms of officials wearing tour jackets, all directing clueless people where they need to go. I nod my head like an idiot just so they will stop talking to me. I don’t have it in me to make conversation. That’s the thing with cruises: everybody wants to talk to you and how your experience is going. Everyone seems willfully ignorant of the fact that many (i.e. me) are in a State Not Conducive to ConversationTM. I have long wanted to invent a line of businesses called Quiets that would specialize in barbershops, rideshares, and Trader Joe’s. No one who works for a Quiets of one of these places would permitted to talk. There would also be a cruise branch of Quiets.

We jump on our trolley and our driver keeps offering me candy. Sir, I’m 40 years old, I think, but take the candy anyway. I sit close my eyes and pretend to doze so he doesn’t offer me any more.

Key West is eerie, like a city that’s slowly being erased by the elements. Both the buildings and the people look ravaged. It’s like the white people version of New Orleans—the debauchery is there, but none of the coolness or style.

We get off the trolley at the Ernest Hemingway Home museum. Turns out, that guy was kind of an asshole? But he was also the owner of polydactyl cats so now there are nearly 60 six-toed cats roaming the property, all descendants of the original Hemingway cat. They’re pretty much the keepers of the museum, impervious to the museum’s restrictions. There’s one sleeping on Hemingway’s bed! I take more pictures of cats than anything else on the trip.

After the Hemingway house, we ride around the island. Throughout the tour there are constant mentions of Jimmy Buffett—who famously lived and recorded in Key West. I pretend to get excited every time he comes up, and my mother-in-law is convinced that I’m actually the hugest Jimmy Buffet fan. When Jessica tells me this, I think why not? I’m at the perfect age to descend into no-bad-days mediocrity.

And for that reason, I make Jessica come with me Key West’s Margaritaville restaurant. As a newly adorned Parrot-Head, this is my Mecca.

We’re seated next to Karen, Lewis, their kids, Courtney, Jason and Nica. They too, it seems, could not resist the ultra chill vibes radiating out of this place. They’re all drinking margaritas I ask how the margs are in Margaritaville. “Disgusting,” they say.

Jessica and I order Coronas, and the server asks if we want them “loaded”?

“What’s that?”

“Oh, we just pour tequila in ‘em,” she says, her eyes empty, her soul fleeting.

“We’ll just have them plain.”

After dinner that night, our group ends up at one of the ship’s fancy martini bars. The weed gummy I had taken earlier is making me self-conscious, so I head back to the room. I scroll through the ship’s streaming video service, which has a random variety of old and new movies. I put on 1959’s Return of the Fly starring Vincent Price and immediately fall asleep. About an hour later Jessica comes in like a whirlwind, saying that she’s more drunk than she can remember, but it only half registers. The last thing I remember her saying is “this is bad.”

Day 3

We’ve landed in Bimini, an island in the Bahamas. Jessica will not be getting out of bed today and I really have no desire to leave the boat. From the upper deck, I can see the entire island and it looks just like a tourist trap of pay-to-play beaches and hotels. I decide that today is gonna be a Me Day, which is somehow justified in my mind as being different from the concurrently happening Me Week.

I put on my swim trunks and head up to the upper deck pool to lay out in the sun. It’s really not that warm, but the deck is full of people from colder climates who burn shamelessly in the sun. I try to share in their enthusiasm by ordering every ridiculous tropical drink I can think of because this premium drink package is not going to drink itself. I start with a mai tai, then move on to a G&T, and finally house down two piña coladas. There’s a DJ spinning loud, annoying music in the pool area, and I know the drinks are working because when he starts playing a reggae cover of “Walking on Sunshine” I’m like, hm, not so bad.

A father and son next to me discuss the movie Deadpool & Wolverine. They’re both fans of the irreverent and extremely referential humor. “It made like $1 billion,” the kid says.

I try reading a novel because I’m a smart and literary dude, but everything happening around me is too stimulating to focus on the pages. I explore, and stumble upon an outdoor theater playing Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice to a few people—none of whom seem to care that it’s the middle of the day and the sun is blasting the screen.

At dinner, Jessica makes a cameo, but just the idea of food churns her stomach, so she returns to the room. I order the steak.

The rest of our group has spent the entire day at one of Bimini’s resort beaches, so everyone’s a little sunburnt, dehydrated and irritable—feelings that are only compounded by the fact that nobody really likes our server, who’s just a little too much. We will eventually request tables out of her section, which, yes, makes us look like assholes. But that’s cruise life, baby: It transforms you into your worst self.

After dinner, I join Julia and James to play a dice game in Eden, one of the Apex’s extravagant restaurants where you have to pay for food. Eden is kind of like a boat version of a Consortium Holdings restaurant where everything is frivolous and kind of dumb but good-looking. To get there, one must walk through a mysterious, undulating hall of mirrors adorned with sculptures that look like globs of semen suspended in zero gravity.

After dice, I drag James to the boat’s late-night pizza cafe because the edible’s kicking in, thereby erasing the memory of eating a three-course meal two hours ago. We find Lewis, Shirven and their kids at the cafe, and we all eat second and third dinners.

I check the Celebrity app (the only thing that works on my phone since I didn’t buy an internet package) and see that tonight‘s late night entertainment is a silent disco in the ship’s nightclub, which I’ve come to think of as “Da Club”. I’ve never been to a silent disco before and actually have only hadn’t even heard of them until recently, but I’m fortified with pizza and just about every other liquid you can find on this boat and I want to get my silent disco on.

I try to round up a posse. Shirven’s wife Nichole and their two young sons come along, but once James sees what a silent disco is, he’s like no thank you.

For the uninitiated, it is eerie. The room is packed with people with LED-trimmed headphones—red, blue and green depending on what station they’re listening to, but there’s a disconnect between the amount of people and the expected volume. Instead of a raucous buzz, there’s only a low murmur. Almost funereal.

I put the headphones on and the blast of music erases any uncanniness. I sit in dumb wonder while watching the mix of young and old grind and sweat. Everyone’s trashed. I get the vibe that a cruise’s silent disco is just one step away from becoming an Eyes Wide Shut-style orgy.

I try dancing next to Nichole and her kids, but I realize wait, I don’t know you well enough to look this stupid around you. I excuse myself to the bar and order “Patrón. On the Rocks. With a lime. “ The power of this drink order makes me feel godlike. This premium drink package is definitely going to my head.

I stand to the side and watch the sea of LED headphones bob around. Every so often, people will cheer for the song playing on their station and then the whole room will switch to that color.

Oddly, it feels like a community. But then again, that could be the Patrón talking.

Day 4

Today, the boat docks in Nassau. Again, I can see a lot of what’s going on from the deck, and honestly, it’s kind of depressing. Everything just looks like it’s been ravaged time and time again by climate change and colonizers. The majority of their economy comes from cruise ships like ours, and all these ports are just fabricated little towns built by cruise lines. I know the Bahamas have a rich history, but the majority of these people on this boat could get less of the shit about it. And I’m complicit, too. It’s a sobering vibe that almost pushes through my premium drink package buzz. Almost.

But as Karen is describing the strangeness of Nassau, she lets slip that there’s a Señor Frogs near the port.

Hold the phone.

I’ve already become a Margaritaville expert on this trip, why not also add Señor Frogs to my Elderly Spring Breaker CV? Maybe it’s time to check out what all the fuss is about. Millions of mentally underdeveloped college kids can’t be wrong. Right?

When I leave the boat—along with thousands of cruisers from other boats—I pass through the cruise lines’ makeshift Disney-esque town. Every fifth person tries to sell me weed or cocaine. “Sugar booger” they keep calling it. I text Shirven to see if he’s interested in Señor Frogs, but he’s already with his buddies, halfway around the island. Looks like I’m doing this alone.

I spot the giant, plastic mascot of Señor Frog’s, I know I’ve made maybe not the right decision, but a decision nonetheless. “Come on in, traveler,” the frog seems to say. “Pull up a seat, let us pour you a three-foot beverage whilst you rest ye weary head.”

There are lots of drunk families in Señor Frog’s. Kind of warms the heart. I take a seat at the bar and peruse the menu. I scroll through the drink menu as if it makes a difference what I order. Since it’s my first time, I figure I should just go with the signature cocktail, the Sr Frogs.

“Do you like sweetness?” the bartender asks.

“Not really,” I say.

“Then don’t get that,” she says. “Get the Frog’s Punch”.

I upgrade my Frog’s Punch to the yard-size, because when in Rome, etc. My total for a single drink with tip comes out to over $30.

Behind me, the house’s MC/hypeman has brought two families on top of another bar (lots of bars in this bar), and pitted them against each other in a beer-chugging contest. It’s a tight race, and it makes me happy to be alive. The MC crowns a winner and then squirts some blue-colored liqueur into her mouth for a full minute.

The bartender brings my drink. I take a sip and it’s the worst thing I’ve ever had. I’ve never had a drink that made my teeth hurt. And this isn’t even the sweet one?

The MC starts a conga line, promising shots to everyone who participates. I’ve yet to see him deliver a proper shot to anyone, and I wonder how long people usually hang onto these empty promises. The conga line ends on a small stage, where it transforms into some coordinated line-dance. I expected a lot of things from Señor Frog’s, but Lynchian vibes was not one of them.

I finish my drink and both my brain and my stomach say fuck you good sir.

This is my Christmas Eve.

Day 5

It’s strange to celebrate Christmas on a cruise. Even as an adult, I still get the anticipatory excitement each December 25th, but it’s hard to feel it when every whim and desire has been met for the past four days. But we wake up early to watch my nephew and niece open presents, and that brings joy to my late-night pizza-enveloped heart.

That afternoon, James and I watch another magic show, a matinee this time. The magician really brings it for his Christmas show, including a trick where he calls on different members of the audience, asking for personal information: the year they were born, the code to unlock their phone, how many years they’ve been married. After he’s gathered information, he asks another audience member to add everything up on their phone’s calculator, and the result is something 122524328, or 12/25/24 and 3:28 p.m.—the exact time of his delivery. It astounds and amazes me, and I will go to my grave forever wondering how it’s done. As a teacher, I know if I pulled that trick on the first day of school, I’d have every kid eating out of the palm of my hand for the rest of the year.

Everyone looks nice and fancy for Christmas dinner, but I have opted to wear my ugly Christmas sweater adorned with a skull and blinking LED-lights embedded in the fabric, which make me look like I have flashing nipples. Happy holidays, fam.

After dinner, my mother-in-law and I play blackjack in the casino. I quickly realize that the dealer is working with at least five decks of cards, which nulls any strategy one can have. I quickly lose, but my mother-in-law keeps handing me chips. We play for an hour; she breaks even, but I’ve lost everything.

Next, I book it to Da Club for Christmas karaoke. I arrive the moment it’s scheduled to start, and the KJ is already handling a large stack of sign-ups. “It’s going to be a long time, dude,” he warns. I sign up anyway. Members of our group gradually join me in Da Club, and even though we keep talking about going somewhere else, someone keeps buying rounds of signature cocktails called Orange Crushes.

We’re so busy throwing back Orange Crushes that I don’t realize my name has appeared on the karaoke queue. What song did I even put in again?

The KJ hands me the mic right as the shimmering guitar of The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” on. On the screen, a countdown signals my cue, diminishing like the life bar of a Street Fighter character trapped in a deadly combo.

You might think that because I picked a song so ubiquitous that I would know the words, but no. It’s not 10 seconds in that I’m fucking up. The lyrics look alien. I know all the words, but not in the right order. I struggle for breath. Please don’t let me have a heart attack singing The Killers on a cruise ship, I pray.

The song ends, and at least I’m still alive. My face flushes with embarrassment (certainly embarrassment, not the drinks). Everybody claps.

I rush to the bathroom to unleash a stream of Orange Crush, and an older gentleman in the next urinal says, “Good job, buddy.” I’ll take it. You know you did okay when you get bathroom props. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Day 6

The boat has docked in the Dominican Republic. I know I should want to get off the boat and explore, but the consecutive days of hedonism have made me yearn to just sit in the state room and watch whatever movies are playing on the ship’s random streaming service. I’ve already watched Minority Report, Blank Twice, and The Front Room—a random and esoteric selection that a person delirious with the flu might watch.

But Jessica and I persevere. We leave the boat, and follow the zombified crowd into Puerto Plaza.

If the docks in Nassau and Nimia felt like vulgar attempts to hide the real Bahamas from cruise goers, Puerto Plaza is like the Men In Black memory eraser, neutralizing any inkling that poverty and the effects of climate change exist in the Caribbean. It’s a gated-off amusement park with artificial beaches with drink services, taco stands, and even a fucking lazy river. Honestly, it freaks us out.

I’m tempted to order an overpriced burrito just so I can take advantage of the free wifi. Six days of no internet has left me jonesing. For the past few mornings, I’ve opened Instagram to see if by chance I’ve caught any stray signal, but it’s just been the same person’s family Christmas portrait every time, and now I hate their festive faces.

We debate a plan, but it’s not much of a debate. We could go back and get our swimsuits. We could spend the day in the lazy river. I could buy that expensive burrito in order to get my internet fill. But on the boat, that’s all free.

So go back to the boat, and after a few piña coladas by the pool, I don’t care about anything Puerto Plaza could offer me. The ship yet again has taken me under its mighty, terrible power.

Day 7

I feel sore. Like, in my shoulders. I don’t even know how this could happen. I think my body is physically trying to reject the cruise, as if it’s manifested as a foreign object lodged in wherever my pleasure center is. The spleen, perhaps? If this were David Cronenberg‘s The Fly, I’d be in the final phase before my body turns into a literal cruise ship.

Just the mere thought of alcohol offends my stomach. I feel like I can go on a month-long detox or do Dry January with my eyes closed.

But there’s a wistfulness in the air, an acknowledgment that soon our reign as kings and queens is coming to an end, that we will soon have to make our own meals like suckers and idiots. We’re approaching a reentry into the real world, where nothing is granted to us and everything requires some level of effort, intelligence, and articulation. Ryan no like.

In the buffet line, somebody recognizes me from karaoke. It’s going to be hard to leave this.

That night after dinner, Jessica, Julia, James and I go to Da Club for music trivia. The host plays clips from ABBA, REO Speedwagon, and Kim Carnes—all songs that I only know because of karaoke. We don’t win, but we’re close, and by that point, my nightly weed gummy has kicked in. All the reservations I had about drinking: gone. I order an Old Fashioned—the first proper drink I’ve had in a week. It’s delicious. Why haven’t I been drinking these all the time? Oh that’s right, because I’m a guy who goes to Margaritaville and a Señor Frogs as a 40-year-old.

That night, we’re jostled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the boat. I’m excited to end cruise life, but I’m also sad to leave it. One more sleep and I’ll be able to see my dog and cat. One more sleep until I can set upon repairing the damage that I’ve inflicted on my body for the past week.

Day 8

We’re docked when I wake up. Just one more breakfast I think. I proceed to fill my plate with baked beans, a bagel, a slice of pizza, a burrito, and a doughnut. I set my food down on a table and then go back for a side plate of nachos.

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