Now we’re really on vacation. The day starts with our stateroom attendant Maria brings us breakfast including eggs and other assorted items on a large tray that we decide to eat while sitting out on the balcony wearing the complimentary robes and slippers that came with the expensive room.We’ll be out at sea all day so the bar and pool lounge make up a big part of the days plans. Miss Junior Giddy, still enjoying being in her late teens wants to sleep late and have breakfast delivered late to her room, so Chrissy and I head down to the pool area to seek out a couple of lounge chairs. We get a couple by the indoor pool. There are two huge pool areas on the Solstice, and the sun is really hot above the outside pool, so inside with the air conditioned area and ambient music is really a good choice to start the week. The inside area also features two larger hot tubs – unfortunately, as we set down on the lounges, we looked over to the tubs to see a bunch of seniors stewing away and decided to wait a while before we head in.
After a while Junior Miss finds us and we all hang for a while until the air conditioning starts to feel a little too cool, then it’s a mission to find three lounges together outside. A few well placed bribes and a quick move of a glass containing an un-claimed pair of dentures secured us three prime lounges in just the right amount of sun. Almost immediately after we laid back, a waiter came and sold us a cooler of beer – opening all of them so we couldn’t sneak any back to the stateroom to save for later. It was a dilemma, but we managed to get them all consumed.

Mid afternoon rolls around, so that means it’s time for Chrissy’s nap. She heads back to the room for a little lay-down time. I decide to slap my souvenir Beck’s Beer cooler around my shoulder and walk around the ship. Up on the top deck the wind starts kicking up and I narrowly escape getting slapped in the head with a lounge chair cushion that kicked up in the wind. I decide it’s safer to just sit my ass down on a couch at a lounge the back of the boat and watch the waves roll away.

Afternoon turns to early evening, so I head back to the room. It’s the first formal night, and this evening I get to wear the tuxedo I ordered off the internet. Seems to be a great idea – I took my measurements with a ruler and a yardstick – then e-mailed them to the Cruise tux rental site – and as soon as we got into our stateroom on Sunday – my rental tux was there – complete with a black and a white jacket, two white shirts and a fancy vest. There was a set of matching cufflinks and a pair of those ridiculously shiny shoes. Oh, and pants and a tie too. I was going to be stylin’ and profilin’ this evening!

Bullshit. Here’s a tip from Bonehead; Never, I mean never, even if there’s a gun being held to your head order a tuxedo online. Get a measurement. This fucking monkey suit had about everything wrong with it that could be. First, the pants. When I measured myself – I even added a few inches to be safe on the length – I figured I could hike them up under the vest and nobody would notice if I had too. No worries there, these pants barely reached my ankles even though I wore them lower on my hips than Shakira wears jeans. Then the shirts. Look, I’d be the first to tell you I have abnormally long arms. My knuckles are often scraped and bruised from dragging on the gravel. Here too though, I padded the measurement a couple of inches just to be safe. No go. The sleeves here were so short, the cufflinks could have chafed my elbows.  The jackets looked like they’d been pressed by a gerbil and the fucking clip on tie was knarled and twisted. Guess what you can’t have on a ship. An iron. Some safety precaution they went over while I was dozing off at the mustard drill. So I was going to be a douche bag in a rented ill-fitting tuxedo. Chrissy and Junior Miss however looked nice.

Back to Blu in my tuxedo I’m feeling extremely self-conscious. We stop in the lobby for a family photo, I try to hide behind the wife and child. Then it’s over to the restaurant.

Like last night, we stop off at the Emerald Lounge on the way in for a pre-dinner cocktail and some live jazz. Junior Miss doesn’t drink of course (she’s such a good kid) but she has been enjoying the selection of complimentary nuts they put out. It’s here in the Emerald Lounge that new met the world’s greatest cocktail waiter – nice guy from Columbia named Jose. We met Jose on Sunday, and he quickly moved some of the nice cushy chairs together so the three of us could sit together. Chrissy ordered some bizarre red martini, me – Johnny Walker Black on the rocks. We came to the Emerald Lounge every night on the trip and Jose always remembered our drink order and on two other occasions moved around some of the seating for us as soon as we approached the lounge. He even remembered that Junior Miss liked the nuts better than the dried fruit plate they put out. We had purchased a trip package that included “pre-paid” tips, but on the last night we made sure to go out of our way to make sure we saw Jose and gave him an extra gratuity. Well worth it.

Since it was formal night, the ship’s paparazzi were out in full force. At dinner, we posed for the photos with our normal stupid faces. The photographer seemed a little less amused than we were. The funny part about all the photos they take of the passengers is that they have a huge photography area where they print out and post them for folks to spend $20.00 on each if they want a picture for a souvenir. We keep making ridiculous faces, and each day it’s real easy to find ourselves, as they seem to be posted in a rather central prime location. All the other passengers pose and smile nicely. We generally look like a bunch of escaped mental patients.

Perhaps it was the fancy dress, but the conversation at dinner was unusually highbrow. Chrissy and Junior Miss had a deep discussion about Communism, Socialism and the theory that the US Income Tax system is actually illegal. I spent most of that time noticing just how cool my humongous soup spoon was.

After a delicious dessert it’s really time for me to take a nap, so we head to the Solstice Theater for the late performance of the ships version of their Cirque de Soleil show. The performers are most definitely talented, but I’m just not a very big fan of these types of shows. Lots of bending and posing for applause. I like acrobats as much as the next guy – but the interpretive moves and overuse of “jazz hands” just wears me out. Aside from the comfortable seats offered in the theater I can’t give you much more of a review of the show, however before the show, the Captain and his crew came out on stage for a few moments. I’m guessing that Chrissy was steering the ship right about now, as she wasn’t in her seat and the good Captain had his entire crew, Gilligan, The Professor and the rest up on the stage. I did notice though that the Captain and his crew also all wore ill-fitting white jackets, they were all too short.

A quick power nap and I was ready to go! We headed to the Celebrity Central Theater for the midnight comedy show. The comedian was Steve Kramer – he seemed to have an impressive resume of TV and stage credits and he was pretty funny. Part of the act however involves dragging poor inebriated audience members on stage to participate. So when he asked for four guys to come up, Chrissy and Junior Miss of course did the honorable thing and shouted out while pointing to me. I tried to shrink down into my seat but to no avail. My ill-fitting tuxedo made me stand out like Ted Nugent at a PETA rally.

So there I am, up on stage, blinded by the spotlight about to make an even bigger ass of myself. There’s three other guys up there too to help absorb some of the embarrassment, so I prepare to give the full Giddy. Our first assignment is to act out our favorite zoo animal. I inexplicably select a dog, step up to the mic and in my most regal English accent simply say “woof”.  Brought down the house. Then Steve does his midget Elvis shtick and we all have to do a dance to whatever music comes over the speakers. I get a basic techno rave tune from Berlin – perfect for me to kick out my patented prospector dance.

Basically a spin off of the “Shipoopi” from Family Guy, imagine a mix of Yosemite Sam and Michael Flatley kicking up his heels.  At the time I figured what the fuck, I’ll never see these people again, let me act like an idiot. After that we all got to dance like MC Hammer – since I was already wearing poorly fitted slacks, I fit right into the groove.

Well, who knew. After the show, since we’d all had plenty of sleep throughout the previous night and during the day – we decided to go clubbing. There was really only one club on the boat “Quasar” – lots of dance music and drunk folks, we felt right at home! As soon as we walked in we were pounced upon by a terribly over-served middle aged woman who insisted that Chrissy and Junior Miss dance with her. The child was able to break free, but Chrissy could not. Fortunately for her, the song ended as soon as they got out to the dance floor. She made a beeline away to the bar.

Things didn’t really get better for her there. A guy who looked just like “House” started ogling her.

There was another old guy who looked like Mr. Roper who was smiling and giggling.

I’m sure she was feeling a little uncomfortable, so I did what any other chivalrous husband would do – I ordered myself a scotch on the rocks. I let the Viagra twins each order Chrissy a drink (more booze budget for me) and then suggested we sit down for a while and watch the inebriated guests crash and burn.

While we were sitting down, two nice young crew member lads came up and told us how much they enjoyed my prospector dance. One of the kids, James is from London, he runs the liquor store on the boat and is a break dancer. The other fellow is from Ireland and doesn’t drink, making him more or less unique. We chatted a bit about scotch but the conversation always went back to dance. I told them that I really got my skillz from Young Junior Giddy – after all 13 years of dance lessons must have meant something.

Once James discovered that she too was a dancer, it was on! That’s right, he pulled her to his side of the couch and Chrissy and I had officially been served! As we headed to the dance floor beneath the huge glistening disco ball, the other dancers parted or fled. James and Junior Miss thought they were both all that with their break-dance and Soulja Boy moves. Chrissy and I scored huge though with a waltz, the robot and chicken dance. Finally though, we brought the competition to a definitive close with a perfectly synchronized version of the prospector dance. This thing is going to catch on – soon everyone in the club was doing it, it was surreal.

But it was 3am and they started hinting that last call was about to be made, so we decided it was time to call it a night. Tomorrow we dock in San Juan and we figure that it might be fun to create a ruckus in Puerto Rico, so we might as well get some shut eye beforehand.

Back in the stateroom Chrissy and I decided it was a good time to loudly debate the merits of eggs sunny side up versus scrambled. We put our breakfast menu order outside the door and went to sleep.