Things We Learned

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Today was our final “sea” day which means no stopping at a port today. Here are a few things we learned about South America. The toilets flush backwards… as in, they swirl the other direction when they flush. It is dark at 6pm every day, 365 days a year. They have 12 hours of daylight 365 days a year. The country and the people overall are poor but their shores are lined with Asian based banks like The Bank of China.

I’ve already said the Brazilians onboard and in the shops have been rude. Brazilians love to hate Argentinians and Argentinians hate to love Brazilians is a “known” saying around here. Frankly, I don’t think the Brazilians like anyone.

Today on the boat overheard speaker they announced “Happy Hour – Buy 6 coffees, get 6 free” repeated several times so we didn’t just think we heard that – that’s what we heard. I’m assuming a family might want those coffees or maybe they give them a coffee card. I don’t know. That’s a lot of damn coffee. The announcements are in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian but we still understood it enough to know that is what they were saying. Our waiter told us it was “nothing” for them to drink 10 espressos a day and he himself drinks about 6 a day.

The hallways of the ship have a very low music playing at all times. It’s nice. It’s all English songs. This afternoon I heard Adele, ABBA, the Bee Gees, etc. I like it. The nightly singer at the main bar tonight was singing Lionel Richie’s “I just called to say I love you” and the entire audience broke-out singing loudly with the chorus. It’s odd that so much of their music or songs onboard are in English but nothing else. How do they know what the song is about if they don’t speak English?

This afternoon we heard the following announcement in ENGLISH: “Attention stretcher crew, Attention stretcher crew, bring the stretcher to room 1108.” It was repeated twice. We were both sorta sad about what may be happening in that room and then Kamie said “Hey – they made that announcement in English so the crew would understand but most of the passengers would not.” Interesting, huh? The crew have all told us you must speak English to work on this ship and all of them do speak English. Btw, most of the younger people seem to speak English – like the kids in school or a few teens/young 20s guys all seem to speak English. This book is either very old (mainly retired Argentenians or Italians) or very young – 20-something Brazilians. There is also a large wedding party which boarded in Rio. Which is another interesting note. This ship never has a “zero count” – they board passengers in Rio, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo. They all do respective round-trip cruises out of their home country. Almost every night there is a white party, leopard party, Red/White/Green (Italian) party, black and white party, etc.

Today was the hottest day we’ve had on this trip – it was up to 93 degrees and blazing sun! We are on the wrong side of the boat today for the sun so our blackout curtains were closed for several hours this afternoon and Kamie, who is red like a lobster from too much sun at this point, found the indoor smoking lounge with a/c and planted himself there for a couple of hours. We are both a bit sunburned and feeling it right now.

I tried to exchange money onboard at the hospitality desk and for the second time, they refused me. The first time, a couple of days ago, I wanted to buy Brazilian Reals and they said no. Today, I simply wanted to exchange $100 US bills for $50 US bills. They said no. This is UNHEARD OF for a hospitality desk on any cruise in any country where we have visited. I mean.. UNHEARD OF. And the thing is, we saw the cash deposit machines lined-up the day the Brazilians embarked so we know they used American dollars to fund their cruise cards. We saw the Argentinians do it too. I went to the casino clerk and she said she wasn’t allowed to help me. We were attempting to get change to tip some workers. Brazilians and Argentinians do not tip, btw. They didn’t even tip our guide/driver in Rio all day. I agree the American tipping culture is OUT OF CONTROL – like you want a tip for counter service? No. However, not tipping someone who went out of their way to help you all day would seem rude to me. I don’t know… I have mixed feelings on that. Londoners consider tips rude since the average waiter there makes more than the average construction worker or laborer. Each country is different. America needs to calm down with all the tips. I was in Crumbl Cookies in Saint Peters a couple of weeks ago… I walked -in, ordered 4 cookies, and she asked me to pay and turned around to box the cookies and there was a TIP screen on my order screen before I could pay. A tip for counter service is NOT happening in my book. I won’t be guilted into doing something so dumb. Employers can afford to pay their workers better. I already paid almost $5 a cookie and that was too much.

Tomorrow, we will be in a cooler and possibly rainy Montevideo, Uruguay. Our boat will also dip inside a little cove on the way to Buenos Aires so things will be nicer on our balcony again. We paid for an excursion to see downtown Montevideo and then to a winery outside of town. Costa called us today and said they had cancelled our excursion because only Portuguese speakers signed-up for the excursion (Brazilians) an no Spanish speakers had signed-up so we had two other Spanish-speaking excursions we could choose. For the first time in my life, I feel discriminated against for sure. Not necessarily by Costa as they have to keep the Brazilians happy so they will continue to cruise with them but the Brazilians do not want the English speakers (the Americans) on their excursions. The other two Spanish excursions were to a football stadium (soccer) or to ride around the downtown and hear the history in Spanish. No thanks. I did a quick search for info on Montevideo and we should be fine walking about 1.5 km into town. There are some antique shops, stores, and some historical buildings along the way. The 10 mile radius surrounding the port in Montevideo is the safest area of Uruguay and is full of ex-pats which means the rich area. We asked Jester, our dinner waiter who is hilarious, what he thought of Montevideo and he was extremely helpful. He said there is a full market with lots of interesting things to purchase. He recommend the caramel and the tea cups that have a straw that strain the tea for you (called mate here). We’ll see what we can find at the market tomorrow.

We spent today walking the ship and reading. I uploaded most of the pics from our phones to my computer and packed all of our dirty clothes into one suitcase along with a few things we won’t be using again. There were several neat things going on around the ship like a “Voice of the Seas” contest for passengers, dancing classes (waltzing and one that looked like salsa dancing), and various drink specials all day. I tried a “Pink Panda” which is popular on the ship. It’s strawberry syrup, coconut milk, and rum. It’s like a pink pina colada and it was refreshing.

Dinner was just okay. The offerings are very much not things I was interested in trying. Kamie had veal and potato gnocchi. I had spaghetti. I tried the chicken stroganoff and he ordered beef with french fries. I couldn’t do the chicken stroganoff with rice so I also had beef with fries. They even brought us ketchup. We are pathetic. There’s only so much odd food you can eat before steak and fries is a must. The desserts all sucked again but to be fair, all cruise ship desserts are usually lacking a little.

I finished my day with Kamie snoring beside me while I almost finished reading the beautiful story of Atlas and Lilly. If you know, you know.

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Photos

I tried their version of a cappuccino at breakfast this morning
It was super strong and there was zero sweetness. I added some of their sugar. I wouldn't drink one again.

Toilet flushes backwards
This pic was taken in a port not on the ship. The ship's bathroom is nicer

Our cool shower
It is always blue. Always. It has an overhead spray, three body sprays, and a handheld sprayer.

Look at me in front of the jogging track
Where I never once walked or jogged this ship. It was too humid. I would have melted.

Comments

[Stacy]

So what were the leaves?
This is how our Puerto Rican cruise was:debarking and embarking at every port. Ready for next blog chapter please :)

[Eeda and Jahn]

You crack me up! I had no idea they did this... never reaching a zero count! Interesting. I am going to post the last 3 entries tonight and tomorrow night. :)