I’m writing this from somewhere in the middle of the Sargasso Sea. Before today I didn’t even know where the Sargasso Sea was. Although I’m sure many of my readers know well that the Sargasso Sea is an area of the North Atlantic Ocean just to the east of the United States in the mid-Atlantic region, this was one of many geographic facts that I simply didn’t know. So as I write this, I’m cruising aboard the Norwegian Cruise Line Breakaway headed back to New York City after spending three lovely days in Bermuda. I discovered I’m in the Sargasso Sea by glancing at the televised “Where are we now?” screen in my stateroom. The same information was surely available to me on the southbound leg of the trip, of course, but I didn’t take the time to look at it.
Caesars Entertainment invited all of their Seven Stars guests on this cruise (originally offered only for one trip in August but due to the demand, cruises in September and October were later added to the offer) and it was a generous offer. Usually when you receive a “free” cruise from Caesars, you need to pay port charges (perhaps $250 per person), gratuities ($12 per day per person), and various other charges. On this cruise, all of these charges were paid by Caesars. Plus you could choose to spend a few days for free at an Atlantic City hotel before and/or after the cruise with free transportation to and from the ship. Caesars also included a free beverage package that normally costs $49 per person each day (I wouldn’t have purchased it, but since it was included we used it a little) in addition to $330 in shipboard credit that could be used for a number of things.
This was my first cruise with Bonnie. I’m discovering that she can be trusted completely about the ‘larger’ things but not so much about the ‘lesser’ things. For example, I was carrying considerable cash with me when we arrived on the ship because, before arriving in New York for the cruise, we spent a couple of days on an offer at Harrah’s New Orleans. I locked the money in our stateroom safe—and shared the combination with Bonnie because she also had some valuables to lock up. I wasn’t worried about her ripping me off. I would call that one of the ‘larger’ things.
With respect to the ‘lesser’ things, we noticed the water slides on the first day. There are four separate tubes 40 feet high (or thereabouts) zigging and zagging down to the pool deck. Two of them (yellow and purple, see image below) “merely” go round and round until they get to the bottom, the other two slides (red and blue) begin with a 30-foot drop immediately out of the gate. (A totally open “family” slide, in a slightly-darker blue in the picture below, is also available. I didn’t try it but the children who did seemed to enjoy it very much.)This gives you enough momentum to build up speed and actually go slightly upwards at a few points on your trip down to the landing chute. (You can see the upward path of these slides in the picture below. If somebody doesn’t have enough momentum to make it over the high point, they’ll fall back to the low point, which has an escape hatch where it is easy to climb out. Although you can’t see the escape hatch in the picture, it’s easy to see the low point of the drop slides is very close to the deck.) Each of the four slides has its own landing chute — which is like a long bathtub with one to two feet of water in the bottom. The water in the bottom absorbs your momentum and no matter how fast you’re going, you’re gently stopped within five feet or so after entering the chute.
I told Bonnie that I thought we should both experience the water slides. She was convinced I was trying to kill her! I asked her if she felt the same way before we went on the zip lines in North Carolina a few months ago and she said that she did. Bonnie admitted that she ended up very happy that she had actually gone on the zip lines so she agreed to go down ONE water slide.
On Wednesday afternoon, after lunch on our first day in Bermuda, I told her I needed a nap. We had stayed up late the night before and had spent several hours that morning walking around Hamilton, the largest city in Bermuda. I was beat. Bonnie was fine with me napping. She decided to take a book up to the pool area to read. Her legs were a little sore from the morning’s walk so she felt that soaking in the Jacuzzi would be a good idea. That was fine by me.
When Bonnie returned to the room, she told me that she had gone down a water slide while I napped and had, therefore, completed her “water-slide-commitment” to me. She felt that she didn’t need to do it again. Simply put, I didn’t believe her. Among other things, her hair wasn’t wet, she couldn’t remember which slide she had gone down, nor could she recall how she was instructed to place her hands during the descent. Not to mention, of course, that I didn’t think she would ever go down if I wasn’t directly behind forcing encouraging her to go down the hatch. As I found out more about the water slides and kept pressing her over inconsistencies in her story, she continued to change her remembrance slightly to take into consideration whatever new “fact” I had brought to light. It was actually fun listening to her continually change her story. I knew she was not being truthful, although she kept denying it. (If you ask her today, she’ll insist that she actually had gone down the slide and that I’ve continued to be unreasonably skeptical. That’s her story and she’s sticking to it!)
Regardless of Bonnie’s prior water slide experience, she agreed to go down the slides with me on Thursday evening. Unfortunately, the slides were closed because it was raining. That wouldn’t affect the sliders who were going to be drenched anyway but it would cause the NCL employees running the attraction to stand out in the rain. We decided to put it off until Friday morning, after which we would take a bus to Horseshoe Bay — which has a lovely beach.
Friday morning arrived clear and sunny. As we walked to the slides, I insisted that she precede me on the trip down. I wasn’t positive she would go down if I wasn’t immediately behind urging her. She went down one of the easy ones and as soon as she was “clear” (which means she had safely arrived in and then exited from the landing chute), I went down myself. It was wet, exciting, and the water in the landing chute was surprisingly warm when I got there. We both agreed it was fun. I suggested we go down the other three slides. I got her to go down the same easy slide for a second time while I went down the other easy one. Later I came back and went down each of the two “drop” chutes just to say I that I had done all the slides. They were faster and a bit scarier — but I knew that hundreds of people did it every day so I was pretty sure I wasn’t in any real danger.
The best “deal” on the ship is to prepay $250 towards a future cruise booking (one per cabin per future trip) and receive either $100 in shipboard credit or $125 in slot play immediately. Caesars gives its bigger players a couple of “semi-free” cruises every year, so I was pretty sure I would use them. If not, they are fully transferable. Bonnie and I are planning on two back-to-back cruises in Europe next spring on NCL, so I put $500 on my card ($330 of which was actually paid by Caesars, thank you very much) for two packages — giving me $250 in free slot play. There wasn’t much video poker in the shipboard casino and I had heard from passengers who had gone on the ship in August that the pay schedules were pretty poor — as is typical of cruise ships. I didn’t scour the entire casino, but I found some $5 8/5 Jacks or Better. I played the requisite 10 hands and fortunately turned the $250 free play into $300. (My expectation was $243.25. I also earned 25 slot club points — which are worthless unless you accumulate a lot more of them.)
Years ago Bonnie went on a cruise with her now-deceased husband, played bingo, and won. She therefore concluded that playing bingo on cruise ships is a good idea. I told her that it was a terrible gamble but if she put up her own credit card when she checked in she could play as much bingo as she wanted. Apparently I convinced her. I think she ended up paying $1 for two postcards and those were her only charges. I appreciate a thrifty lady. Even one who might fudge the truth about some of the ‘lesser’ things.
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