Up until very recently, the closest I’d ever come to going on an ocean cruise was sitting through three hours of the movie TITANIC.
All that changed last week when I travelled aboard Carnival Cruise Lines LUMINOSA ship all the way from Brisbane to Airlie Beach (1126km).
This floating city with an onboard crew of 926 (that’s crew, not guests!) was party headquarters for four celestial days and nights.
Before we roll the highlights, here’s some interior pics to set the scene –
Snow White may not have been around but something even more beautiful was – stunning, soul-tugging daily sunsets and sunrises. Seas the day!
On the 2nd night I went on a lolly search, cause…well… I ‘needed’ some. I found my lollies alight. They were being sold at a counter next to one of the lower deck cafes.
The person doing the selling was impressive to say the least. 6ft-3 inches tall, this 25 year old blonde Amazonian wearing a newly-starched white captain’s uniform complete with shoulder epaulettes and decorated officer’s cap was friendly and also not in a small way skilled with a plastic hand scoop. A little overdressed I thought for the role but, ok, this is ship life and this is, at least in part, show biz.
The lollies were in individual containers and you had to request one by one what you wanted, which further added to the spectacle of the occasion – not unlike this Jerry Lewis clip, though thankfully she was tall enough she didn’t need a ladder to reach.
We saw a total of four stand-up comedy shows during our high seas adventure. One of the performers mentioned how whenever he drives down to the Gold Coast and passes Movie World his kids ask if they can visit.
Because he doesn’t want to pay hundreds of dollars in entry fees he tries to convince them Movieworld is a place where little children are tortured.
When his kids say they don’t believe him, he winds down the car window and let’s them hear the screams coming from the rides in the park. Alright, it was funny when he told it.
Ok, the skull image above is a little dramatic but seriously… after a night of heavy drinkin’ and freakin’ by the serious merrymakers on board, walking around deck the next morning at 6am (on the way to visit my mate Gym) it may as well have been a ghost ship.
Just about no other human is around, apart from some workers mopping decks and polishing glass panels. Almost eerie when you consider there were over 2000 passengers on board.
Equal parts safety briefing and stand-up comedy routine, the daily schedule run-down delivered over the ship’s loud-speaker system in the sexy Spanish accent of our super-flamboyant Activities Officer ‘Rainer’ was never less than high-grade entertainment in itself.
There we were at breakfast innocently eating our custard-filled croissants and honeydew melon slices when magic entered the room.
At the table opposite ours was a family with two young children – a two-year-old and a five-year-old, both girls.
In an impromptu moment that left us open-mouthed, I watched as the waiter converted a table napkin with a couple of nimbly-executed folds into a come-alive finger puppet that completely floored the kids for the next minute and a half.
Table service like that you don’t see every day.
See that sign? Our ship was covered in ones just like it. Our room suite was covered in ones just like it. Only the ones decorating the LUMINOSA said DO NOT THROW ANYTHING OVERBOARD.
Wanna know a secret? I did. Throw something overboard, that is. I admit it. Not one, not two but three orange pips. Flicked ’em between my fingers and over the rail they went. Under the cover of night.
Wanna know something else? That’s only the thing I’m admitting to. There was something else. Bigger. Much bigger. Whoopsie! It did a 50 meter high plunge over the side as well. But what that thing was is best kept to myself. I will say it was bio-degradable. But still naughty, right? Can you guess what it was? Five guesses and you’d still be wrong.
See how wide those carpeted hotel corridors are from the 1980 movie THE SHINING? Halve that and then minus a few more inches and you will start to get an idea of how narrow the ships room corridors are. Think train corridors but with way more sway.
Looking over the balcony at night into a sea of black for some strange reason floods my mind with all types of weird survival scenarios.
How long could I survive if right now I was headed for that freezing cold water? Would I try to swim or just float? If I swam, what direction would I head? How long would it be ’till someone noticed I was missing? Why am I thinking these thoughts? God, is that an albatross flying past in the inky black sky? Sniff** Sniff** Oh-oh! Someone’s smoking on their balcony again!
It’s lucky I like this 1975 song. Across the four days of our cruise it was pretty much on loop across multiple decks. It kind of summarizes the ‘Carnival’ vibe that lived on board for the time my wife, daughter and I were there. As the saying goes, the disease you’re most likely to catch on cruise ships is party fever.
Thankyou Carnival for a wonderful four days. Hope to see you again in the near future.
So what did we REALLY think? Taking a leaf out of the book of the folk on the show ‘Travel Guides’, my wife rated the experience a 6 and a half out of 10. I gave it a nautical 8. My 13-year-old daughter refused to rate it (because, you know… moody teenager – and if she ever reads that description I may be in a spot of bother).
A cruise is definitely on my bucket list, Glen. Even though I hear horror stories all the time about diseases and sewer lines that get backed up and whatnot. But your recounting is magical! It’s stirred up my cruise desires all over again. I think the key is probably just doing a short one, like you. Definitely not weeks and weeks. I love the way the rooms look. It all reminds me of Willy Wonka, lol.
I also saw that Errand Boy clip and was laughing from the first 30 seconds when all the water disappeared. Oh man, I need to see that movie again. I need to see Mr. Lewis again!
One “hole” in the candy scene, however. How did that “older” woman get up that ladder in her skirt and with her lack of upper body strength and get those jars down?! lol
Anyway, it sounds like a blast. Glad you had fun.
Side note: truly amazing to have to post a sign telling people not to throw trash into the ocean. The mind boggles.
Shorter cruises are the way to go for ‘beginners’ still finding their sea legs, so to speak. TBH, we’d tried and gone through all the on-board activities that interested us by the end of the 3rd day.
Thoughts around an ‘old movie’ like Jerry Lewis’s THE ERRAND BOY (1961) prompt me to voice one of my laments about NETFLIX. What’s missing from that service is a ‘Vintage Movie’ category. They have every other ‘type’ listed for searches – docos – anime – movies by country -obviously every ‘genre’ under the sun – even a LGBTQ category – but no ‘Classic Hollywood’ category. For that principal reason 99% of what Netflix offers has zero appeal to me.
Sure, a tiny, tiny sprinkling of older films are there – I was watching both THE SHINING (1980) and the original Jamie Lee Curtis HALLOWEEN (1978) on Netflix recently – but they are like needles in a haystack on Netflix. Naturally I did a search the other night for JERRY LEWIS – nothing! Netflix must see it as not worth their while to stock a lot of older content, thinking that everyone would prefer to just gobble up the latest and (not so) greatest. But not for me, so until they recognize that there are tens of thousands of people out there like me – who prefer the ‘older stuff’ (‘they don’t make ’em like that any more) and incorporate a dedicated category they could name something like GOLDEN HOLLYWOOD I will continue to use NETFLIX solely for looking at documentaries.
And on the trillion-to-one chance (ok, better make that 1000-trillion-to-one!) chance someone reading this comment knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who worked in any capacity for Netflix and was able to send this message up the chain to any execs, well… that would be just dandy.
Netflix do have a ‘request a title’ form people can fill out
https://help.netflix.com/en/titlerequest
which I’ve just done now for three Jerry Lewis films – but it’s not the same as them going the whole hog and offering up a dedicated category for ‘Classic Hollywood’. Ok, I think I’ve got that out of my system! Phew! Obviously time for me to go do something else… like, hmmm…. I don’t know – maybe some… exercise? tee hee
Hahaha. I completely agree!! Oldies but goodies. And you can’t say they wouldn’t appeal to anyone but us because Jerry Lewis’s humor was a precursor to The Naked Gun humor, and those movies were very popular. Just because it’s ’61 and things look different doesn’t mean it’s not just as funny or other movies aren’t as interesting. But then again, if something doesn’t explode within the first ten minutes, a lot of people DO tend to get bored, I think……. 🙁
Ok… back from swimming some laps in the local pool. A little investigating on my part reveals there are dedicated old movie channels on streaming platforms – such as CRITERION CHANNEL – TCM (Turner Classic Movies) – and FANDOR.
Problem for me is none of those channels are accessible if you’re outside the U.S/Canada. The way around that – and here’s where things get techy – is to get a VPN (Virtual Private Network) subscription which basically ‘tricks’ those services into seeing your IP address as being from the U.S. At the moment I don’t think I’ll be bothered going to those lengths.
That leaves just one alternative for classic movie buffs (apart from the ‘ol mail order DVD’s) – watching UTUBE on a television – which I sometimes do anyway. There’s a UTUBE channel called TIMELESS CLASSIC MOVIES that I might give a go.
Gosh, when I woke up this morning I never would have predicted I’d go on an information bender about ‘old movies’ prompted by an innocent remark Stacey made in a comment. I must obviously have the time at present to do that – which I do since I’m on (paid) school holidays. Anyway, as usual Stacey your comments are always so real and relevant and ‘on point’ and hugely appreciated by me!
Thankyou… and viva la old movies!
As a frequent cruiser who by the way has been on the “love boat”, my motto is you get out of your vaccination what you put in it. If you want a chill vibe and relax by the pool with some yummy drinks? Enjoy! If you want to have a party vibe get your groove on. My absolute favourite thing to do is the trivia and game shows! They are a hoot!. The ship your on also makes a difference. Some are plain and just a sail, some have dodgem cars, waterslide and ice bars! So like any holiday each place has its own flavour!
I haven’t been on a carnival cruise myself but it seems to be awesome. The best cruise line experience for me so far is the Disney cruise I went on a couple of weeks ago. Yes it has a price tag but the enjoyment and magical experience is life long memories.
Your next destination should be heading to the islands or New Zealand, both you can get for a reasonable price and have some great experiences.
Motto is cruising is certainly a lifestyle for some, you can never have to many cruises booked.
P.S I think I have 5 booked already this year
Not sure if you caught this story back in November of last year ‘Anon’ but A CURRENT AFFAIR did a story on the Disney Cruise Liner –
https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/disney-fan-voyage-aboard-disney-wonder-cruise-liner-australia/df36cff2-f9f3-4333-ab48-bb81f8bb69c7