Mortified magician
Little did I know that being candid with a ship's officer would subject my family to one of the most humiliating moments of our lives. When asked by a Carnival Conquest higher-up if we enjoyed the magician who performed sleight of hand between courses at the exclusive Chef's Table supper, I gave the “so-so” gesture of a teetering flat hand. If I had responded with, “Oh, just wonderful,” we wouldn't have been visited by Máté the NotSo-Great the following night in the main dining room. Nearly in tears and speaking in a soft voice, the Hungarian begged my forgiveness for “ruining” our cruise. If Southwest Airlines' “Wanna Get Away?” ad campaign had been around back then, I would have swam to shore to take the next plane out. So I did what every embarrassed coward would do and hid my face in my hands until the magician made himself disappear. Someone else who conveniently vanished for the remainder of the cruise was the two-striped blabbermouth officer.
Hairy chest contests, representing debauchery gone overboard, have been banished by Carnival.
Hirsute high jinks
The hairy chest contest is all but gone from ships, but for decades this poolside pastime was often the biggest offender of any family-friendly cruise. Carnival put this crowd favorite on hiatus with the industry's 2021 restart and permanently manscaped these displays of debauchery in August. Of all the impromptu strippers, cross dressers and other guys-gone-wild who brought shock and awe to the Lido deck, the most tragic was this dude who jumped from the top steps to impress the female judges. To the horror of hundreds around the pool, he slipped on his landing and broke a leg.
The poor guy not only came in third place but was on crutches the rest of the cruise. Not sure what was worse between the physical pain or being the laughingstock of the ship for six days.
Gator sighting
After six nights of being greeted by a sunglasses-wearing dog, hanging monkey, googly-eyed snake and other cute critters in our cabin on the Carnival Conquest, the mother of all towel animals had my wife screaming bloody murder. Waiting for us in our stateroom was an 8-foot alligator made of dark blue pool towels that in dim lighting looked way too real. The stowaway snapper was the pièce de resistance by our linens-skilled steward and earned him a tip almost as big as his gator.
Dressed to impress
Walking back to my cabin to turn in and get out of my suit and tie, I thought about how underdressed I felt being the only gentleman not wearing a tuxedo on “Gala Night” aboard Cunard's swanky Queen Elizabeth. That is, until a lady wearing nothing but her birthday suit put out her “do not disturb” door hanger the very second I passed her stateroom. Her blasé reaction could have been because she probably had her first birthday about 75 years earlier, or that she was completely snockered. Whatever the case, this bloke in the suit no longer felt underdressed.