We woke up at 11:30am (9:30am ship time). With the time changes, it’s easy for us to make it to breakfast now. We are hoping to make it to the sit down breakfast (7:30am-9:30am ship time) after the next time change.
Today the ship is sailing smoothly, and the weather outside is warm and sunny. At the pool, a horde of sun bathers have emerged from whatever hole they crawl into when the weather is bad. This makes it a good day to avoid hanging out on deck! Not that I hang out on the deck at all. :p
Sun bathing is a completely ridiculous way to pass the time. In my opinion, white people especially should avoid sun bathing. It only serves to turn them all into baked chickens. It’s really ugly, but apparently most people think it’s a more attractive color than normal. Hmm. I think that it’s a futile attempt at improvement. White people should just accept that they have the worst skin color of all peoples. By tanning they are only going from bad to worse, and they risk skin cancer on top of it. Ridiculous. To all white people: Embrace your genetic ancestry! Realize that the sun is your one true enemy, and avoid him at all costs! Oh, and use lots of sunscreen, and wear a hat at all times... Anyway, setting my silly diatribe aside, the deck is really a much nicer place without all the people.
We returned to our room, and I wrote yesterday’s update. Then I started a new game: Max Payne 2. I played MP2 for the rest of the day. It’s a very simple, linear game, but it is fun and amusing. It is one of the only places that I like the Noir genre. A few movies are also good, but otherwise I find the genre overly dramatic, and tiresome. Anyway, I beat MP2 in about six hours. It seemed a little harder than the original, in terms of how much damage you take from enemy gunfire. The story wasn’t as good as the original, and in the end I decided the game shouldn’t have had a sequel. It seemed tacked on, in terms of plot, and the happy ending seemed out of place for Max. It would have made more sense if he continued on as a sort of dark angel for other victims, rather than simply saying, “I dreamt about my wife last night, she was still dead, but it was okay.” My response, “If you say so Max...” Seriously though, after leaving god knows how many piles of dead bodies in his wake on his path to revenge his wife and child’s murder, and after witnessing yet another woman he loved get killed before his eyes, he avenges them all and five minutes later it’s all okay? I mean, what the hell is he going to do now that he still has no family, and has given up his license to slaughter (slaughter is really more appropriate than kill). Guess it’s a good time for Max to retire to the sunny island of Bermuda...
Davin says that if you play the game two more times, Mona Sax doesn’t get killed on the hardest difficulty. I could see Max ending up a bit happy in the end if he isn’t left completely alone. Still, I don’t know how Mona, a infamous contract killer, avoids life imprisonment at the end of the story. Something to look up online, I suppose.
Anyway, long story short. Max Payne 2 was an enjoyable game. It’s best attribute was that it was too short for you to get sick of the game play before it ended. Is it worth playing two more times to see Mona Sax survive? Absolutely not! It’s been nice playing with you Max, but it’s time for this girl to move on to the next game on her backlog list.
In between all this game time, Davin and I went to the buffet for lunch. We are enjoying the nice weather too. The sun bathers are the downside, but the upside is being able to sit out on the aft deck while eating lunch in the sun and watching the beautiful, endless sea pass us by. We had a very American lunch today. Davin had a hamburger, and I had a hot dog.
For dinner, we went to the Four Seasons sit down restaurant. We had chicken broth for an appetizer, and roast duck for our entree. They were both good. Except for the extra time it takes to eat, Davin and I appreciate the fact that we can eat somewhere other than the buffet. (Although, it still creeps me out that they have to put my napkin on my lap for me. I’m really tempted to grab it before they can, and do it myself, but I wouldn’t want to ruin my server’s fun... Besides, our purser’s are already disappointed and disapproving that we don’t let them clean our room twice a day. We only let them in every other day actually. So, I wouldn’t want to upset the restaurant staff too.) The buffet food is lower quality than the restaurant food, but the variety is pretty decent. On the QM2, the buffet food was also quite varied, but it was easier for that ship when it had three buffets, and a sandwich and burger station active simultaneously most of the day. The three buffets had themes, and that brought variation. One emphasized meat, one was Italian, and one was Asian. The Norwegian’s single buffet is much smaller than QM2's buffets, but it usually manages to provide variety. Unfortunately, they seem to have a few set things, like a bland pasta, which we think is to ensure that there is something edible for everyone. It is a shame that they have any permanent food options, especially ones that aren’t very good. They have ‘action stations’ which are permanent, so you can have spaghetti, stir fry, burgers/hotdogs, and pizza daily. It is nice to be able to create your own stir fry if you find the rest of the buffet food wanting. Still, you can usually find better quality food and something to your taste at the sit down restaurant. It just takes much longer to eat at the restaurant. So, those are your choices, quality food with wasted time, or mediocre to good food with saving time. Decisions, decisions...
Davin is glad we are getting two different cruising experiences. While we disliked the snooty atmosphere of the QM2, it is clear now that it had benefits. For example, the size of the ship and its stabilization systems are much better suited to weathering rough seas. Even on the worst days on the QM2 you barely felt the ship sway at all! On the Norwegian Sun, it’s rocking and rolling almost the whole way. Oddly enough, I seem to be less affected by this movement than Davin is. I’m the one with the overly sensitive stomach, but I think my body has adapted to the movement for the most part. Both of us are still taking the free motion sickness medicine however. Yesterday it was pretty calm and I didn’t take medicine or feel at all ill, but Davin still got a little nauseous and took the pill. Davin has decided that in the future, he will only travel by sea on the biggest and best ships. Looks like the QM2 has won out in his mind!
Other little things were nice about the QM2. For example, they offer orange juice and lemonade at all times. Claudia warned us about cruises not offering juice after breakfast. The Norwegian Sun is one of those ships. Also, the tap water on the QM2 always tasted like pure mountain spring water. It was honestly some of the most delicious water I’ve ever tasted, especially out of a tap. Claudia had given us the tip to bring bottled water on the ship. We didn’t because we were already overloaded, and it turned out that it would have been a waste on the QM2. But, again, on the Sun, the taste of the tap water varies daily. Sometimes it tastes fine, and others it tastes highly chlorinated! It can be pretty gross, so I can see why the water tip was a good one. It’s still drinkable though, and I’m happier saving money than having delicious water. :)
There are a few little things that we like better about the Norwegian Sun than the QM2 as well. The main one being that this ship has a nice, convenient location for eating outside. Deck 11 aft is on open seating area with a nice tarp over it, and it is located right next to the buffet restaurant. Looking back, we suppose it would have been possible to eat outside on the QM2, but it would have required taking our trays of food from Deck 7 to Deck 13 via the elevator. Or taking it to the outside swimming area on Deck 6 aft. However, we would have been eating on lounge chairs, because we are pretty sure there weren’t any regular tables outside. Another thing we are enjoying on the Sun, is the chips and salsa they serve all day in the Las Ramblas Mexican restaurant and pub. Their chips and salsa is better than the stuff we bought in Britain, and we like to snack on it while watching Voyagers in our room.
In terms of activities, the two ships are almost equally boring. However, there were a few things that actually appealed to me on the QM2's daily activity sheet. Classical concerts, for example. I’ve stopped reading the daily activities on the Norwegian Sun, because EVERYTHING is boring. Bingo anyone? It’s every day at 11am! Or perhaps an informal gathering for knitting, and croqueting... The reality is that the Sun has the feeling of a mobile old folks home. Not least because its guests are primarily over the age of 60. The QM2, on the other hand, was a snooty, rich person’s palace. In fairness, the guests of QM2 were also fairly old, and they also played Bingo, and gathered to knit, but at least the ship didn’t have an overly enthusiastic young lady come on the horn everyday at 11am to say, “IiiiiiiT’s BINGO TIME EVERYBODY!” That’s just going a bit too far... Plus, the old people on QM2 also did watercolor art classes, learned how to fold napkins, and how to tie scarves! It doesn’t get any classier than that! In all seriousness though, the daily dart competition on QM2 is kind of cool. That probably only seems cool to me though, because Dr. Bashir and Chief O’Brian played darts all the time on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
The QM2 had its faults as well. The insistence on formal dress at dinner was a big one. Honestly though, dressing up isn’t that big of a deal. Annoying, sure, but not the end of the world. Davin finds it a huge annoyance however, especially because of the fact that after the cruise we are stuck carrying around formal clothes for the remainder of our trip for no reason. It was nice that the special restaurants on the QM2 were included in the price of the cruise. However, these special restaurants never seemed to offer any food that appealed to us. Here on the Sun it is an extra charge for the special restaurants, and since we are not interested in paying, we are not interesting in going. It is definitely nice to NOT have to dress up here on the Sun for the main dining restaurants. Also, the Sun has a better menu selection than the QM2 restaurants, although we never did check the menu on the QM2 primary dining area which we could not go to because Davin did not have a jacket. (Although, Davin suspects that you only wear your jacket for the thirty seconds it takes you to cross from the entrance to your table, at which point you take your jacket off to be hung. But he supposes he could be wrong.) It seems to us, that the QM2 restaurants catered to ultra fancy people, and the food was more art than food. This really doesn’t lend itself to making the food more delicious. In fact, it is detrimental to the taste of the food. I want to eat my food, not admire it’s beauty! However, in the end, what it comes down to, is that on either ship there are options for obtaining edible food. So, in choosing which is the better ship, other factors seem to be the deciding ones.
Both ships have been found wanting in terms of jacuzzi temperature. It’s a huge disappointment. Anyway, the jury is still out on which is the better ship, and the better cruise line service. They both have pros and cons. I am enjoying the Norwegian Sun cruise more than I enjoyed the QM2, but I think it has a lot to do with knowing what to expect, and the fact that the time change is working with us, instead of against us, this time around. Cruises are simply not very interesting. The most important factors are: the ship stabilization, and the quality of the food. I really like being able to eat outside on the Sun, but I think it’s very cheap to not provide juice at all times.
The truth is, travel by ship is very inefficient, and completely ridiculous, but that also makes it amusing and endears it to me as a mode of transportation. I mean, who would ever choose to travel over 3,000 miles at a speed of 20-25mph? No one in their right mind! I enjoy having all the time on my hands however. Plus, it’s not a bad way to wind down a three month trip! (Another reason this cruise might be more enjoyable than the QM2 which took place at the beginning of the trip.) I’m putting all my time to good use, and am making great progress on my RPG, and on my gaming backlog. It’s pretty much like being at home, except that I have even fewer things to do, the food isn’t as good, and it’s overall less interesting. However, there are fewer distractions as well, so I am getting more done here than I would at home. So my overall impression of cruising as a mode of transportation is fairly positive, and I’m very amused by the whole thing. I’m afraid I’m still completely bewildered by the idea of cruising as a vacation however. It’s much more fun to just stay at home. So far, I can only see the possibility of it being a good way for old and decrepit people to still see the world. Considering the age of the guests aboard, perhaps they would agree with this conclusion. (Though I’m sure they wouldn’t approve on my descriptive words for their condition!)
Anyway, after dinner (which I mentioned a few pages ago) we watched one Voyager, and went to bed at 12:30am (10:30pm ship’s time).
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