What I Did For Summer Vacation (in February) #2

Day 2 (Sunday)

New Orleans Preview – after a really mediocre warm (not hot) breakfast in our hotel lobby we took a short trip to one of the French Quarters (I’m starting to think that there is only one of them).  We boarded a trolley close to our hotel and rode it along the river front.  The river, in this case, is the Ol’ Muddy (Mississippi) and on this day at least, it lived up to its nickname.  Like the shuttle driver the trolley drivers weren’t overly friendly as we first timers tried to figure out how to put our “exact change” into the machine.  Although the temperature was “cool” the bright sunny day made it quite pleasant to be outside.  At the end of the Riverfront Trolley line we got off and walked through the French Market which was kind of a glorified flea market with a heavy emphasis on left over Mardi Gras masks and beads and anything to do with gators (stuffed heads, sandwiches, jerky, smoothies, etc.).  We walked down a few streets and into Jackson Square.  We noticed that there was quite a bit of restoration work going on.  We are very excited about spending more time here after the cruise.

 
On the ship – After returning to our hotel we dragged our luggage a couple of blocks to the cruise terminal.  We got all our stuff taken care of and boarded the ship.  We joined Cassandra and Bryan for lunch in the main buffet room.  Our cabins were ready for us shortly after lunch - we had three interior staterooms right next to each other on Deck 9.  We explored the upper decks of the ship while still in port.  It was rather windy but the temperature was warm enough to make it a pleasant day.  That evening we ate our second dinner at the Aqua restaurant and then attended a “Welcome” show in the ship’s main theater (for us hobbits, first dinner was just a couple of hours earlier at the grill on the upper deck). For the welcome show, our cruise “director” was part game show host and lounge singer and sang “Cabaret” as an introduction.  He had a good voice and all but I kept thinking this was a joke because it was so cliché - it was like watching a Saturday Night Live skit.  The show included a live band and singers and dancers (the girl in the leopard print leotard was also our emergency disembarkation coordinator).  After the show we wandered around and found a three person Japanese band singing pop music (with heavy Asian accents no less) – more Saturday Night Live material here too.  In a small pub we then found a “traveling troubadour” who was quite talented – kind of a young Bob Dylan type, playing the guitar, the harmonica and singing.   The lowlight of the evening was the Mardi gras “parade” – members of the crew threw beads at us then formed a “parade” into one of the lounges. The best part of this Mardi gras activity was watching Cindy steal a string a beads from an unsuspecting senior citizen.  Through all of this, Frank has done amazingly well.  We’ve walked and talked him nearly to death.  I think he has enjoyed the ship and the food with his only complaint being the “up-sells” - we are regularly asked to purchase reservations in fancy restaurants (with cover charges), upgraded beverage plans, bingo and game show sales, raffle ticket sales, photos, art in the art gallery, jewelry, etc.  Now that we know what their “shtick” is we can head them off before they get too far into their pitch.