That’s when I heard the cabin door click. I pulled off my sleep mask to be greeted by a room full of light and G asking me to spell him in 15 or 30 minutes so he could get a cup of coffee.
5:57am!
And we weren’t even the first people claiming seats at the MUTS pool.
!!!
Super Bowl spectatorship on MUTS is not for the faint of heart. But it can be oh-so-much fun, kind of like when you’re camping as a kid and your dad wakes you up before dawn to climb the nearest fire tower using flashlights just to watch the sunrise.
Unfortunately, today was not one off those oh-so-much fun experiences. Today was NOT the best day ever.
But I didn’t know that yet at 6am. I also didn’t know what the day’s temps would be, but it didn’t matter; our cabin is literally right under the Calypso Pool area so we’d be close for clothing changes. More accurately, our cabin is literally next to the Calypso Pool, along side the pool walls. The swells had returned overnight, and, because the pools had been filled during yesterday’s reprieve, we heard heavy sloshing all night long. It was exactly like sleeping on a beach, and wasn’t at all unpleasant…except for the eleventy-seven times I had to get up to use the bathroom during the night. The suggestive sound of moving water!
So, anyway, I dressed in slacks (those same pants must have gotten a little stretched yesterday, because they felt great today) and a long sleeve T-shirt and stuffed my new sweatshirt into my backpack, along with AirPods, sunscreen, 15 Wet Ones packets and our battery backup and did actually manage to spell G in under 30 minutes. He made a coffee run and thus began our day.
Loungers were never set up (they take up too much space) but G had settled in at a table with chairs. Another table was already occupied and the Lido dining crew was busy setting up an extra charge area on Deck 16 that we didn’t even know about until today. Apparently, this was being sold on embarkation day, but as we didn’t go through normal embarkation, we had missed it entirely. It cost between $395-$495 for a table for four and included a table cloth and food service delivered to your table. I don’t think it included drinks, though (special Super Bowl drinks were priced at $18).
Setting up the conspicuous Super Bowl viewing experience
We were plenty happy in the cheap seats. Even though the sun (supposedly) rose, it started feeling even chillier, and I put on my sweatshirt and then pulled up the hood and added a pool towel around my shoulders…and fell back asleep sitting up in a chair.
The sexy reality of Super Bowl spectatorship on MUTS
At 8am, MUTS started broadcasting Tai Chi, and I opened my eyes to see that we were surrounded by a few people partaking in that. G went to the International Cafe to get those muesli cakes we enjoy so much and I switched to drinking hot water with lemon and the hours passed.
Unfortunately, rain showers passed over every so often and we traded wet pool towels for dry pool towels over and over and over again and it all felt very familiar. This was definitely not our first rodeo. In fact, we were remembering back to being on the Grand Princess for the first Super Bowl ever shown on MUTS, out of Galveston in 2005. There was a huge marketing campaign, that you could watch the Super Bowl on a drive in movie-type screen on a cruise ship, and it sure sucked us in.
Good times.
Finally, the air started feeling even cooler and the rain became heavier and steadier. I traded out 31 pool towels (really!) as they all became soaked, and my clothes became damp in spite of the towel changes and, no, this was definitely not oh-so-much fun. But by noon the game was still more than two hours away and we looked at each other and decided to throw in the towel (haha). Two minutes later we were back in our cabin and turning up the heat and taking hot showers and willing ourselves to warm up. We hung up our wet clothes on our stretchy clothesline and it sagged under the weight of them.
I was able to go to my ukulele class dry if still not warm, and that cheered me right up. We ended up in the Piazza today, as Club Fusion was being used for the game, and learned three more chords. Progress is being made (and my fingertips don’t hurt at all at this point)!
We watched the first three quarters the game on our cabin TV and at that point decided to go to dinner in the Michelangelo Dining Room. I mentioned that it was obvious the Patriots had already lost, and G finished with “their will to live”, and yes, I expect they were maybe feeling that way but luckily for them they didn’t have the first ever shut out in Super Bowl history. But, good grief, that was one boring game.
I wonder how those people who paid $495 for a table fared in rain.
Gloomy dinner view tonight
We dressed in our warmest clothes and ate comfort food at dinner and our resulting full bellies made the day seem much better. So did tonight’s Princess Theater show, the return of singer Gen Maldonado who we had seen at the beginning of last cruise. My God, what a voice, what a talent, what an entertainer.
We took a peek at the dessert menu before we went to the show to determine if we wanted to return to the dining room for coffee and dessert, but we really weren’t hungry enough to do that, and so we ended our evening early, at 8pm.
Just one more day until Hawaii, and (even better) a stable ship!
Life, even when it rains during the Super Bowl, is good. :-)
