How to Cruise - Don't Be That Guy

Welcome back for the next installment of the How to Cruise series. I call this the "Don't Be That Guy" chapter. As you read on, I think you'll see what I mean.

On our first cruise with Dale and Carol, we were delighted to find that Royal Caribbean had an adults only pool and hot tub in the Solarium. One afternoon at sea, we made our way to the Solarium and found we had the hot tub to ourselves. We enjoyed the warm, relaxing bubbles for all of 22 seconds before a large man and his large teen sons climbed in with us. Dale, Carol, the Tiki Gal and I were now squashed into a small corner of the hot tub. The large man was obviously looking for a way to make the situation less awkward when he spotted the Egyptian decorations on the pillars that supported the Solarium's roof. He pointed his meaty finger at the decorations and said, "I wonder what them hieroglyphics say? I bet they say 'No farting in the hot tub.'" His sons immediately turned bright red and one let out an exasperated, "Oh, Dad!" Of course, we all busted out laughing, not because his joke was funny, but because we were so astounded that he had said it to a bunch of strangers. Unfortunately, the situation remained awkward so the large man and his large sons soon left us. Even though this man gave us a joke that we still laugh over to this day, if you find yourself in a hot tub with a bunch of strangers - Don't be that guy.

On our last cruise, we learned that Carnival offered cell phone service on the ship. The small catch was that the service cost $1.99 per minute. On our first night on the ship, we went to dinner in the formal dining room. We had a booth for four that looked over another part of the dining room. Just below us, a gentleman was sitting at a large table all alone. Pretty soon, we noticed that he had pulled out his cell phone. He then proceeded to call each member of his family on - we presume - their cell phones and reamed each of them out in a loud and angry voice for not being at dinner on time. Shortly thereafter, his family started arriving in ones and twos. We noticed that his wife didn't sit anywhere near Mr. Grumpy Pants that night or any other night at dinner. Throughout the week, we watched this family have extended conversations on their cell phones at dinner. They must not have realized that if they were calling each other, they would be paying $1.99 per minute for each cell phone involved in the conversation. Personally, I would have loved to see the look on Grumpy's face when he opened his cell bill and saw those charges. The lesson here, as always, is to be nice to people even if they are your family - and don't be that guy.

Late the next night, the Tiki Gal and I were out on our balcony watching the waves slip by and enjoying some time together. We had chosen our room specifically because it had an extended balcony that wrapped around the back corner of the ship. The balcony was huge - so big, in fact, that instead of the usual two deck chairs, we had four. So the Tiki Gal and I had pulled one of the deck chairs around the corner of our balcony. Since we were about to go to bed, we were wearing our cruise pajamas. To protect our privacy, I won't describe the cruise pajamas but I'm sure your imaginations can fill something in (sorry about that mental image, Dale, but the truth has to be told). Anyway, we're sort of hidden around the corner wearing our cruise pajamas when we hear some noise coming from the other side of our balcony. Neither of us were in a position to step around the corner to find out what was going on so we waited until it was over and then peeked around the corner to discover that the rest of our deck chairs were missing. Someone in the next cabin had jumped - at significant peril, I might add - over the railing from their balcony to ours and had then moved our deck chairs to their balcony. We were shocked that someone would risk their life over some deck chairs, first of all, but also that someone would think it was fine to "borrow" our deck chairs in the first place. The next day, we spoke with the security team on the ship and they then spoke with the guy in the next cabin. He apologized later but still didn't think he had done anything wrong. Don't be that guy.

And finally, when we were embarking on our last cruise, we watched a guy carry roughly fifty gallons of water through the entire cruise terminal. In case you were wondering, cruise terminals are big. We probably walked at least half a mile from the front doors of the terminal to our cabins on the ship and this poor guy (who I hear was trying to do something nice for a girl) carried, pushed and kicked an extra large case of bottled water over that entire distance. Not only did he get his cardio workout for the next six weeks that day, he was subjected to constant ridicule (or so I hear) for the duration of the cruise. Also, he found out later that there was cold, filtered water available at all times in the buffet area so there was no need to buy the family size pack of water. The most important lesson of all is, if you are ever thinking of doing something nice for a girl - Don't be that guy.