A-muse-in' about Cruisin' - a compare/contrast essay

I used to comment after a Carnival Cruise that I'd been on the WalMart of cruises. Today I returned from a seven day sail on the Norwegian Sun.  What can I say?  If Carnival is WalMart,  then Norwegian must be the Dollar Tree.

Norwegian seems really excited  about its freestyle eating plan. Guests can eat at the main dining room anytime they wish, no assigned dining times.  That's nice, but Norwegian doesn't seem very excited about enticing guests to eat there.  The food was fine, but nothing special.  I was waiting for something like the prime rib and lobster night that Carnival offers, but there was nothing comparable on the Sun. Lots of chicken and pasta...the cheapest dishes to offer.  When the chef's specialty of the night is lasagna, that's not so special.  My theory is that Norwegian wants you to dine at one of their specialty restaurants where they charge anywhere between $15 to $40 per person for a good meal. Since the main dining rooms were often rather empty, this marketing technique seems to be working for them; but it left a bad taste in my mouth.  Carnival's evening meals were delicious, the staff knew us by name, and they even danced for us.

One expects to be pampered on a cruise.  Our room steward was a nice guy, when we saw him. However, I had to call every day about something.  I'm not a complainer, but when there are two people in a room it helps to have a bath towel for each person. And every single day I had to call and remind them of that fact. Sometimes we got ice, most times we did not.  More than twice I had to wash with shampoo because he couldn't remember to refill the bath soap container.  A few times I had to stick his cleaning rags in the hall.  I  like to think he left them there so we'd be sure to recognize that he actually cleaned the room.

I like to gamble.  I hated Norwegian's policy.  My preference is to charge to my shipboard account as I go along, and I could easily do that on Carnival.  Then, when I had my big wins, I could gamble on their money and stop using mine.  Norwegian won't provide that service.  They will be happy to let you put $100 at a time on their nifty gambling card for a nifty little service charge.  You have to spend it all though, there are no refunds.  Since they have the tightest machines on earth spending that amount wouldn't be hard to do, but it didn't take me $100 worth to realize they were giving me nothing. Nothing at all. I found myself explaining the machines to many novice gamblers..after they'd lost their $10 in as many seconds and were completely befuddled as to what happened. When one woman cheered the $9 win it took me $20 to get, I shook my head in disbelief.  Oh these poor people... Norwegian was set to make a bundle off them.

Their pillow mint policy left me speechless.  After two days of no pillow mints, I called to see what was happening.  Was the ship out of mints?  No.  You only get pillow mints when you become a gold member.  That happens on your third cruise. No pillow mints until your third cruise???  Carnival stewards actually turned down the bed and delivered the mints, sometimes four, yes four, at a time because I liked them!  I told the nice Norwegian girl that the promise of pillow mints would not be enough to entice me to take two more cruises.  I don't know how many times you have to cruise with Norwegian to get a bathrobe, but Carnival provides them them for virgin cruisers as well as the long-timers.

Anybody who has cruised is familiar with the towel animals that greet you each evening with your pillow mints.  The Carnival animals were the kind you wanted to photograph because they were so clever. Sometimes Marie and I got a towel animal and sometimes we didn't. We were luckier than our friends Mirah and Sara, they never got animals.  One night, Marie and I couldn't figure out what our animal was. We thought maybe a turtle or a butterfly; it was hard to tell. So, Marie flipped the animal over while trying to figure it out, and the towel cylinder in the middle popped up like a towel animal on viagra.  We decided to treat Mirah and Sara by sharing our towel animal with them, and yes, we delivered it upside down.

The entertainment on the Sun pales in comparison to the shows I've seen on Carnival.  In fact, we actually had more fun looking at the picture wall and the horrible photographs. Where do I begin? Pictures were uncentered, backgrounds were cluttered with other people or their feet and arms, eyes were closed, backgrounds wrinkled; these pictures wouldn't pass Photography 101. The poses were hysterical.  I actually wanted to buy one lady's picture.  She was running away from the porpoise with a look on her face promising that once she found a harpoon, that fish was going to be a sandwich. Another woman made Mirah laugh every night with her latest Top Model sexy pose.  One night she dramatically posed herself by sprawling out on the staircase and looking up at the photographer with Playboy eyes, french-kiss mouth, and propped up boobies. Another time she posed sideways with her Playboy eyes, french-kiss mouth, and back bending popped out boobies. We looked for her on the ship and found her wearing a Steelers shirt. That explained a lot. My favorite,though, was the mother and daughter team. Daughter was in her sixties and looked every day of it.  Mom must have been in her eighties.  They were biiiig girls wearing the same exact dress. Their picture had Mom inside an empty frame, daughter holding the frame, and the two of them looking dreamily into each other's eyes.  I had to slap my hand over my mouth to keep from howling at that one.  Next time you cruise, don't look only for your pictures, enjoy the classics.  Carnival lets you discard pictures you don't want.  Norwegian doesn't.  Maybe they're hoping that people like me will buy the funny ones.  I thought about it, porpoise lady!

Don't let me discourage you from cruising.  I had a wonderful vacation!  Just don't let the little things like an ebola quarantine, people falling overboard, engine fires and a three day power outage with non-flushing toilets, or a capsized ship keep you from booking a Carnival cruise. It's all about the pillow mints, and Carnival will give you as many as you want.