It seems I never got around to posting our cruise ship "experience"...
The First Cruise: (The cruise that never was)
This was 10+years ago. The wife had been wanting to go on a cruise. Saw all the ads and how "romantic" it is etc.
I finally give in to make the static go away. OK, you plan it, you book it. Tell me when it is so I can put in for vacation well in advance.
She books a 7 Day 6 Night on Royal Caribbean leaving from New Orleans. Google says 8.5 hr. drive if you don't eat and you don't pee. If you are an experienced traveler with females, you know they don't listen when you tell them to skip the coffee so we don't have to stop two times in the first hour. Of course, "I have to have my coffee." So in reality, the trip with stops for gas, food, and bathroom breaks is more like 12 hours because there is always a wreck inside the perimeter of Atlanta that adds that stuck in gridlock traffic ambiance to the day.
We finally get there and had selected a hotel right across the street from the Port Authority. Made arrangements to leave the car in their parking garage for the cruise.
The ship was scheduled to dock the previous evening and be ready to board at 0800. That was the time we chose to
beat the rush.
While we are eating breakfast, she gets an automated text from the cruise line saying delay boarding until noon.
At noon, we are dockside with the Porter who has a clipboard full of pages. He takes our tickets and flips pages until he finds what he's looking for. "Yep, your cabin if affected, you're not going."
It seems a water pipe ruptured and flooded the electrical panel for the port side forward portion of the ship right below the bridge. None of the cabins were flooded, but no lights and no a/c. Also took out their GPS nav functions. Had to have a tug guide them into port in the dark. (I guess the days of old school navigation is dead)
Porter points to a nearby small building and tells us to wait there for a rep from the cruise line for more info. Tells us if we leave, we won't get a voucher for another cruise. This is at noon. Building is small and there isn't enough seating. Most of us sat on our suitcases for the duration. No one from the cruise line ever showed up.
At 1700, someone from the Port Authority came and told us what was going on. Told us to call the toll free number to get a refund and gave us the voucher for another cruise. I get on the phone and book 3 days at the hotel we just checked out of figuring there would be a line at the counter. (And there was).
So went spent three days seeing the sights in N.O. and driving home with a detour to see the Naval Air Museum at Pensacola. The WW 2 Museum was the highlight for me. Best food we ate was in their restaurant.
Bourbon St. was let down. The trouble with Mardis Gras vids is they're at night so you can't see the warts, and there is no sense of smell.
The Voucher Cruise
It turns out the voucher was only valid for one year from date of issuance. Being we had both burned most of our vacation for the cruise that never was, we had to wait until the following year, which gave us a 6 week window to choose from.
There were no 7 day 6 night cruises like the first one in that time frame. We had to downgrade to a 5 day 4 night cruise to a different part of the Caribbean. This cruise departed from Tampa.
One of my dear friends visited us the weekend before we left to take the cruise. He was getting over whatever variant of the flu was going around that year and we all thought that being he was 90% over it, he was not contagious.
We depart for Tampa. My route for going to Florida avoids Atlanta. If there is even one wreck, you save the 30 minutes Google says the time penalty is for going "off Interstate." Believe me, it is time well spent. No crazy BMW drivers doing 90+, no traffic, just serene countryside until you emerge at Macon and get back on I-75. It's the best 30 minutes you ever "wasted".
Board the ship the next morning. Wife is feeling a bit queasy. We stroll around the ship and see the sights from the bow as it leaves port.
By the next morning, she is sick. Cliff Notes version is she never leaves the cabin the rest of the cruise.
So, after getting her OJ and whatever light fare she thinks she can manage each morning, I explore the ship. Go on a beer crawl. Quickly discover that out of the multiple bars on this ship, only one of them has craft beer. An English Themed Pub in the bow. I spend a good bit of time there while on the ship. There is no longer skeet shooting off the fantail like in old movies, and origami towel folding class was not my cup of tea. The pool was crowded with a cross section of the "over fed generation", and I wanted to keep my lunch down. It was bad enough seeing them with their clothes on and the "Buffet Busters" in the chow line taking the "all you can eat" thing as a challenge.
Ship only makes two stops on this cruise. A six hour stop in Key West, and a 2 day stop in Cozumel. Honestly, I wish it had been the other way around, but whatever. Earnest Hemmingway House was cool. Most of the stuff is tourist trap stuff. Would have liked to see more of the historic stuff, but no time. Didn't want to be that guy who was 5 minutes late getting back to the ship.
Wife starts feeling better on the leg back to Tampa and is mostly OK when we dock. She's forever held a grudge against Charlie for making her sick though.
So, this was strike 2 for her on cruises.
Strike 3
Wife's dad and step mom got sucked into the time share racket decades ago and the only good part is that he got one in Vegas so it trades with all the other time share venues. They would book a long weekend in Gatlinburg every year and we would meet them there. This was October 2019.
They had a dispute with the time share company and their account was flagged. Upon check-in the rep calls a meeting to smooth things over. Gave them a free cruise to make things right. Being we were there also, he gave us one too, even though we had nothing to do with any of it.
The date she picked was right when Covid was ramping up and all the cruise lines cancelled all cruises.
I haven't heard any more about cruises since, and I don't bring the subject up.
I tried "exploring" but the doors were locked and none of the deckhands were willing to give me a tour. I don't think I've ever been more bored at sea... 
