Friday, August 12, 2022

Royal Caribbean is All Knowing and All Seeing!

 I have no idea what time B came to the room last night. I fell asleep around midnight and the first inkling that I wasn't alone was 3:30am when one of the girls was talking to B at normal volume about her toenail at the foot of my bed. 

I think that was the start of RC unraveling what has been going on, which was (in diplomatic terms) a situational grey area. 

We were called into the Head of Security's office around noon. Turns out the girls had coerced alcoholic drinks out of new friends last night. Upon returning to their room, discovered one had a bleeding and damaged toe and went in search of nail cutter - finding herself lost and disorientated in crew quarters and in violation of a handful of ship rules. Security escorted her "home" to her state room where upon they found her friend dazed, confused and intoxicated in the hallway outside it too. 

"The Mothers" were called to the equivalent of the Principle's Office for a chat - it was immediately assumed I was the mother of one of them. Don't worry, I quickly cleared that up!

This is the part where we figure out darn fast how monitored we are. I was asked if I knew where the girls got alcohol last night. I said no and that my card was not authorized with "all you can drink" privileges because honestly, all I can drink is 1 glass of wine per day.  The Chief of Security (wearing a bodycam) said "I can see that" as he glanced at my file on his computer!

So yeah, every purchase is in your file. All the jewelry, drinks, excursions... on record. And connected via our Sea Pass/room card, which is attached to a credit card and brings up your picture when it's swiped. Safe to assume there are video cameras operating on every inch of the ship too.

At this time, everyone knew B's card was loaded with "all you can drink" privileges and it was her daughter who was in trouble.  They released me and called in the daughter.

I guess warnings were given and after a brief hold, privileges were also restored to B's card. But ok, it did get a bit weirder; Today B's daughter returned her Sea Pass to her and confirmed she had borrowed it at 3:30am after once again locking herself out last night. B had no recollection of that visit AND had no idea she she now had TWO Sea Passes with her name on it. We had one deactivated and handed in at Customer Service then carried on with the day. Did anyone feel the need to alert security and risk being invited in for another sit down behind closed doors? (I think it goes without saying the only person who could get another - replacement - card with B's name on it was B. They would never have issued a card with drinking privileges on it, to the 19 year olds and I certainly didnt go asking for it! Plus now we have a record of memory issues last night too.)

Onward!

Highlights of my day? The ice-skating show = funny, colorful, upbeat, fast-moving. Really talented performers in the most creative costumes I've ever seen.






Then before dinner we hit the comedy show. Fabulous. Hilarious. 30 minutes well spent. 


Today I wore white jeans and a purple silk blouse. Dinner was less formal. I had an early night - with a belly full of mushroom risotto and crème brulee. 


Side Note: I put on a Scopalamine patch Tuesday in preparation for my Haiti Labadee Bay boat ride. It did the trick. After 36 hours of wearing it, I could honestly say I felt fine - no motion sickness. However, it appears to have a side effect and my near vision was very blurry.  I couldn't focus at all within 2' of my face. I couldn't even read the journal I had just written, not to mention menu's, emails, brochures - Nada! I took the patch off at 7pm Thursday and concluded Saturday that 36 hours of patch wearing = 36 hours to recover vision.  

One thing I had wanted to get out of this trip was answers to my questions and experiments related to motion sickness remedies. As we stand today: 

1. Stemetil Pills - Need to be able to take before feeling nauseous or they will come right back up.

2. Scopalamine Patches - works great and such but comes with major vision issues that are incompatible with photography so I'd need to factor in the half life or time to recover if using this. 

3. ReliefBand - Yay! No issues except that it needs charging and that "gap" would also need covering. Plus in rougher conditions I'm pretty sure I'd need to partner it with meds to be sure. 

No comments: