Green’s Travel Tips

October 2006

We Cruised the Eastern Mediterranean…

September 16 we landed at Sky Harbor after 12 fun days on the new Carnival Freedom.

What a great area to cruise! In addition to revisiting several places, we increased our

countries visited so that now we are up to 48 different ones. That includes the two

smallest countries, the Vatican and Monaco. Barb wants it to be 49 but I won’t let her

count Sicily as a separate country.

Surprisingly I only gained 5 pounds, but I’m not so sure about another one of the Solera

residents that went along. He got used to pizza between 1 am and 3 am each night. He

says he couldn’t sleep--- sure Joe----.

How to be cool on a cruise ship

…

Having Solera friends with us on this last cruise made me stop to think about how

intimidating a cruise ship can be. A cruise ship, at least the newer ones are more than

900 feet long. Stop to realize that is 3 football fields long. Now imagine you are at one

end, the fields are all closed in and you are looking for an area about 10 feet by 20 feet.

That’s something like your first impression on a cruise ship.

First of all it is a ship, not a boat. Boats are rather small, about 12 to 30 feet long, are

open and do not have separate decks. A cruise ship can have 12 decks or more, are

enclosed, and as I said LONG.

The next thing to realize is that ships have their own names for things. Get used to

saying bow rather than pointy end. Also it is the stern, not the flat end. When you go

toward the bow you are going forward and you go aft toward the stern. Already you will

be able to impress a ship’s officer with your coolness.

.

Upon boarding a cruise ship you look for your cabin or as some lines say, staterooms.

Well, actually that’s the second place you go. First is the restaurant. Since you will be

on board anywhere from 3 days to over 100, get started eating and drinking. You don’t

want to miss any of the all included food opportunities. Besides, your bags may not have

been delivered to your cabin yet.

Now look for your cabin. You have the number; it is on your boarding documents. Once

on board there will be a ship directory and a separate pocket sized ship “map” that tells

you what is on each deck. The cabins will either be designated by a letter or number at

the beginning of the cabin number. You will soon learn the first letter or number of your

cabin refers to a deck. There are also several hundred ship’s employees available to

direct you and make you feel welcome.

Great, when you are on the correct deck, your head swells with how cool you are. So

where is your cabin in that 900 or so feet of corridors?

When you refer to the sides of a ship, it is either port or starboard when you face the

bow. Port is the left side. An easy way to remember is that port has four letters and left

has four letters. Another rule about cabin numbers: even numbered cabins are always on

the port side and odd numbered ones are on the starboard. The last rule, which will help,

is that the numbers of the cabins get larger from the bow to the stern.

You are now soooo cool. You find your cabin, unpack and then go visit the ship. After

finding the dining room, shops, casino, theater, lounges and pools you decide to go back

to your cabin and, what else, get ready for dinner. To return to your cabin, you board the

elevator, punch the button for your floor and smile all the way to your deck. Then you

get off, go around the corner to your passageway and … damn…wrong side! Oh well, it

says odd cabins right there on the wall so you just go across the way to the other passage

and you really are cool.

Besides you have many days to get oriented. Have fun.

If you’ve never cruised better book now –can’t waste all this coolness.

SLAC Member Bob Green
480/664-7354.