The first night out I drifted off to sleep to the gentle rocking of the boat. I rather liked being rocked to sleep. In the morning Terry and I went to the main dining hall where a lavish Easter brunch was stationed. There were ice sculptures of bunnies, and there was an ice tower with blood red lobsters perched at every level. With so many choices, it was close to impossible to decide what to eat. People circled, backed up and bumped into each other in their quest for food. They swayed as they walked since no one had their “sea legs” yet. The noisy clanking of plates and the rush of the crowd made me uneasy. There were dozens of solid foot high chocolate bunnies on display and one woman plopped one on her plate and walked off. As a young child, I remember trying to eat a whole chocolate bunny in one sitting. The result wasn’t pretty and I refused to eat any chocolate for years afterwards.
All of the excess must have resulted in people gorging themselves. There were certainly plenty of overweight passengers. It had the opposite affect on me. I ate light. I believe I scooped some scrambled eggs on my plate, picked up a yogurt, a cup of orange juice and then went upstairs. This was to be a full day at sea and I didn’t need to have anything sloshing around inside me. A porter tried to seat me near a port hole overlooking the ocean, but I insisted on overlooking the lavish madness. Terry struck up a conversation with a lady at the table next to us as I sketched. Out of the blue the woman told Terry that she had a book in her. Terry was shocked since she has just begun toying with the notion of writing a book. The woman said she was clairvoyant.
We returned to this huge dining hall each evening to sit at a table with three Canadians and two women from Miami. I would say that cruising is much like trying to survive a week long wedding reception with its lock stepped schedule of planned events and formal dining.