Tuesday Ocho Rios

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We had a half a day beach BBQ trip booked for Jamaica we set the alarm for 8am and ordered breakfast in the cabin for 8.15, giving us plenty of time for a shit, shave and shower for a 10am pick up for the beach.

I woke up first and was glad to see at last it’s sunny and hot outside, but we’re still out at sea (we should have docked by 7am), perhaps I misread it and we’re docking at 9. While we were eating breakfast there was a garbled tannoy announcement in the corridor, we couldn’t hear it and didn’t pay much attention to it; I assumed it was calling earlier shore excursions to their disembarkation points. We had plenty of time for our trip so we’d finish breakfast and crack on.

10 minutes later there came an announcement on the multi channel system that broadcasts into the rooms as well as in all the corridors and public areas – ‘Dis isa yo Capitaain speeeking (he’s Italian) you ain’ta goin nowhere today, itsa way too choppy, and da Jamaica Authorities closa da port off Ocho Rios’.

Fuck it !! – He went on to say he’d hang around a bit in case the weather changed and the Jamaicans changed their mind. I thought it didn’t look that bad myself, but no-one would listen to what I’ve got to say would they . . . . . evidently if the sea is too rough the swell throws the ship against the pier and smashes up the dock - pissing off the Jamaicans, or the motion of the ship could bounce passengers about and they could spill a Martini and someone could slip on the wet floor and it would create a passenger safety issue.

There are shedloads of cheesy ‘no win no fee’ lawyer ads on telly here, with well over 2000 Americans on board, all up for a bit of compo from Carnival if they stub a toe at sea, I suspect the potential for litigation was a big factor here and so after an hour when the weather never improved the Captain moved on. I can’t blame him really.

Pondering what to do now, we switched on the telly in the cabin and they were still showing the Carnival Cruises promotional video of all their Jamaican shore excursions to ‘save hundreds of dollars buying Caribbean tanzanite jewellery - visit fantastic unspoilt beaches, BBQ and party on the beach’ and shit like that – Nice, it was like them saying ‘Hey buddy - this is what you’re gonna be missing today’, rubbing salt in the wound and at the best really poor timing, they could have at least put on some more lawyer ads for us.

We got a refund for our shore trip and they gave us $20 a nut refund of Jamaican port fees that we/they never had to pay. No compensation though, weather factors are an act of God - read the small print, and off we sailed at a very leisurely pace for Grand Cayman imprisoned for another 24 hours, but at least the Jamaican sun was out and it was 80 something degrees, hot at last.

Q - What do 2500 pissed off people who are now stuck on a ship for another 24 hours want to do at the first sight of sun in 48 hours . . . .
A - right . . . . now this ship may have enough lifeboats for every passenger and crewmember, but it certainly ain’t got enough sun beds - and them yanks have learned a few tricks from the Germans. None of these cruise lines seem to have grasped the fact that the average passenger is far more likely to want a sun bed than need to be rescued at sea, and these lifeboats take up so much room where you could put loads of beds - and they’re cheaper than lifeboats too . . . but I suppose you can’t have everything, just ask that geezer on the Titanic, I bet they had loads of beds. Anyway I recon if you can’t swim you should stay away from boats.

We eventually found two sun beds together and set about making up for the last three weeks of cold Florida weather, Carnival were very good though, as a special concession and just for us, the Captain cancelled the crew’s day off, (they couldn’t go anywhere else anyway) and opened the Casino and all the bars and shops for us to use – so kind . . . . they never mentioned they saved a fortune in diesel by driving to Grand Cayman at 2 knots per hour rather than 25 kph - or is that me being cynical again.