James

Yes. They are crap!

It’s everyone’s responsibility to stamp out crap, to prevent the kids in our community from accessing the low taste and desensitivity they promote, and to encourage wholesome activities among our youth.

I would say I’m more of a humanist than a Christian so I really can’t speak to Mr. PacMan’s beliefs. I have no taste for video games in general and violent video games in particular, I do think they create sort of a callousness and inurement to violence, as do violent movies. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that I have less of a stomach for the graphic violence in movies (Graphic sex and nudity? Bring it on! Graphic violence however makes me hide my eyes and plug my ears.) But that is just my opinion.

Having said that, I believe it’s the parent’s responsibility to monitor the child’s activities not the cruise lines. As Heidi-Beth said earlier, all you can do is teach your child right from wrong and hope that you’ve given them the tools to deal with life and situations that they encounter.

I’ve been through the arcade on the Carnival Valor twice and saw many games I would never play, but nothing that is not commonly available in any mall arcade. Frankly the biggest disappointment for my niece and nephew in the arcade was no “Dance Dance Revolution” or “Guitar Hero”.

So, yes I do think Mr. PacMan was out of line holding you responsible. It’s the easy way out avoiding taking responsibility for your child and expecting that everyone else should conform to your beliefs, values and opinions.

Anyway, enough soap box. I also wanted to let you know that since Big Ed and Alan seem to be ganging up on you, that if you need help with any practical jokes on them, I’m your girl!

Cheers mate!

Laura

My best to you and Heidi
Heidi-Beth

I need to echo the comments you made about Mark and his abilities as a CD. We cruised with him in April and after the first 24 hours we knew he was a star among stars. (obviously good breeding by his mentors doesn’t hurt either).

We sent a card halfway through the cruise (along with some fine KY bourbon) mentioning that he is giving you a run for your money. The bar has been set high by your legacy, but he is certainly providing a “Fun Ship” experience for everyone who sails with him.

It was indeed the smoke free nature of the Paradise that attracted Kathy & I to the ship, but it is the memories that the ship generated that have us missing her.

First, the story of how we came to sail the Paradise: despite my 8 1/2 years as a proud member of the US Navy, I was never (as they say) haze grey and underway. My sea duty consisted of a year in Keflavik, Iceland. [BTW - why do no cruise ships sail to Iceland?]

Anyway, we always wanted to cruise, but were always concerned how Kathy would react with her allergy to second-hand smoke. One day at work in late 1998, I got a phone call from Kathy, who was all excited – “we can go on a cruise, we can go on a cruise”.

She had, while channel surfing, come across the very tail end of a CNN (or some news channel’s) story on the inaugural sailing of the smoke free Paradise. The lack of branding by Carnival on this class of ships led my wife to sit in front of a newscast for the next two hours waiting for this story to come around again. Mind you, watching the news or reading a newspaper is not one of Kathy’s everyday activities, so this event in itself was extraordinary.

Anyway, after discovering the line was Carnival, she called me all excited – I took note of the news and said goodbye. My hospital’s CEO was a big cruiser, so I got the name of her travel agent and began looking into the idea, without making any commitment.

Now, at the time, the biggest issue that faced us was the fact that we had a child who was not yet old enough to be left alone for a week, so the timing was not perfect. However, as often happens, opportunity presented itself. Stacy was invited to visit Europe with a group of high school students for three weeks, so I was able to plan a cruise during this period – as I tell people, we sent our daughter to Europe and then left the country.

Our first cruise on the Paradise was a Western itinerary (Conzumel, Grand Cayman & Ocho Rios). We fell in love with the ship and its smoke free environment – the nickel slots, the piano bar (Mark Guttenplan was the pianist on all five of our Paradise cruises), the Queen Mary lounge with Joe Elvis – there was nothing on the ship not to love.

Subsequently, we took four more cruises on the paradise, including three cruises in 14 months (St. Patrick’s Day, 2002; Halloween 2002 & Kathy’s birthday in 2003.

When we heard that the Paradise was being moved to LA and its smoke free designation removed, we were devastated. We made plans and took the last smoke free cruise ever in the Caribbean. The cruise was supposed to be an Eastern itinerary, but Hurricane Francis rearranged the itinerary, gave us an extra day and allowed us to again visit Cozumel and Ocho Rios, replicating, in part, our first cruise.

One thing that was truly remarkable about the Paradise was the fact that, if you sailed on it much, you continually ran into familiar faces – Cupid, our waiter on the second cruise, was on two other cruises with us. John & Diane were on the last four cruises. Mark was on all five – and was a tremendous foil for so many of my jokes.

My fondest memory of the Paradise? On our first cruise, Kathy & I started a tradition of watching the sunset from the hot tub on the way out of Miami, so on our second cruise, we went to the tub to continue the tradition.

We were joined in the tub by a young couple – after a couple of minutes, the young lady’s left hand came out of the tub with her looking at the back of her hand.

After this happened the third time, I asked “Newlyweds”? “Yes.” “When?” “Yesterday.” Needless to say, I immediately bought them both a drink to celebrate, we talked for a while and then left to go to our late sitting for dinner.

That night, Kathy & I were alone in our booth for dinner. The next night was the first formal night, so, as we walked in, I inquired of the Maitre D’ if we had company at our table. He assured me that we did and so we went walking towards our table.

As we were walking down the aisle, we noticed the young couple from the hot tub walking down the adjacent aisle – we waved and they waved back.

When we got to our booth, lo and behold, the young couple were our table mates. To this day, Ryan and Amanda remain friends, have two children and, this year, took a “land cruise” to celebrate their fifth anniversary.

So now you know the story of the missingthesmokefreeparadise moniker. Yet, I remain lookingforwardtothenearlysmokefreecarnivalfreedom.

Jon

PS – to the other bloggers, sorry for boring you.

About the other thing, the cruise line job thing – I am absolutely serious. I have 10ish years of AGM experience with 3 & 4 star hotels…what do I need to do to get myself on a Europe based ship? I would love to share my enthusiasm for travel and knowledge with others, the same way you do. (Okay, that was blatant, even for me, but you know I meant it )

You still missing Entertainment Weekly? I’ve got about 3 months saved up, if you’d read them…

-Nancy