Norwegian Cruise (part 1/2)

Norwegian Cruise September 16th – 23rd:

Day 1 (Sunday) – Uneventful.

Nothing of super noteworthy happens on Day 1. Simply put, I board the cruise ship hungover after meeting Laura in line (nice lady, but that’s about the extent she plays for this story), and attend a mandatory safety presentation where they show you how to put on a life jacket in case the boat is sinking. If, during a life or death situation, you can’t properly and successfully put on a life jacket to save your life, I’m just gonna assume that was natural selection taking its course.

I head up to my room, sleep my hangover off, get a late night buffet, and a beer before going back upstairs to get fully restored and rested for Day 2. Now we go,

Day 2 (Monday) – Claire.

Completely whiffing on the plan of waking up early to work out and get a fresh start, I sleep in late, shower, hit up the buffet, and head to play in some $100 NL super satellite tournament where the winner gets an entry into a $2200 tournament and a free cruise for two. We fire away five bullets with no success with most all of the money going to Sandra – an older lady who’s breasts worked as her card protectors as they nearly sagged to the floor. Yes, of course I hit on her multiple times. Poker was not a success but by noon I had a steady stream of jack and cokes.

Continuing the day drinking, I head over to pool area. Basically, the main pool is located on the top of the ship and is surrounded by hot tubs, a stage area, and of course, bars. I load up with some more Jack and walk around to check out the scenery. Not long into my exploration I see a skinny blonde in a black swimsuit with a tattoo covering her thigh stand up to walk over to a different beach chair. I awkwardly stare and loudly say to myself “God Damn”. I walk past her subtlety flexing my calves before I make my way back into the cruise ship. 

Doubling up on Mango Meltdowns (it’s hot outside, I wanted a cool drink ya know), I hear an announcement come over the loud speaker informing us that Bingo will be starting soon. I purchase nine bingo boards and bink the first game for $257. Back into the ship I go.

I come across what would end up being my go to spot – an outside mojito bar with the absolute best drink on the entire ship: a raspberry mojito – tastes like sex but without any of the consequences. Switching back over from Mango Meltdowns and Jack and Cokes but maintaining a brisk pace, I approach the dozen drink mark as the clock nears 2pm. 

Quickly pit stopping in my room, I head back up to the pool area. While doing some talent scouting, I come across the first round draft pick who I had watched game tape on earlier that season – the blonde in the black swimsuit – sitting by herself at the bar.

Allow me to explain something. I had spent hours the previous night and went over simulations that morning on what a successful opener would be for a cruise. I wanted something simple, to the point, and one that could be used on any type of girl/group in any setting. I settled on the following and put it to use as I approach her at the bar.

“Hey, have you had your afternoon shot of tequila yet?”

“I haven’t, but I’ll do a shot of Crown with you.”

Wham bam 22 ISO right up the gut. It’s a great opener in the sense that it can easily be edited to work for any time of day:

“Hey, have you had your morning shot of tequila yet?”
“Hey, have you had your nightly shot of tequila yet?”
You could tell a day one programming student to write a code putting this opener to use and the only infinite loop he’s gonna get caught in is the immense amounts of puss and craziness that it attracts.

“Well shit, sounds like we’re each gonna get our afternoon shot of crown in then.”

From Jack and Coke, to Mango Meltdowns, to mojitos, to now doing endless shots of room temperature Crown, things begin to get a little blurry. The less details I give, the less details I remember. There’s three ways in life that you can have an unforgettable night and two of them are getting black out drunk or having coitus with me.

As we get our shots, a dude approaches, stands next to her, and without hesitation starts griping at her. You guessed it – boyfriend. After a short argument, she pushes her shot towards me, and in a pissed off mocking tone tells me that she’s “not allowed” to do her shot and follows her boyfriend who’s a good forty feet away by this point.

Not the worse outcome I’ve had in life. I did, after all, get to double down on my shots. I even got her name – Claire. Not even a full day into the cruise and I’m collecting first names. Guess life does get better.

The next hour or so I titty bump around before I once again end up near the pool where I see her sitting at a different bar. I head over with the intent of asking her to finally finish our shots but she’s surrounded by a few guys talking to her and no empty seat next to her. It’s like Black Friday – if you’re not first in line hours before the doors open, your product’s gonna be off the shelf. As it would turn out, the only reason this shelf was still stalked was because the product was defective and wrapped in caution tape. I take a seat at the end of the bar. Shortly after, the seat next to her opens up and I throw it directly down the seam just over the linebackers and beneath the safeties getting me into enemy territory.

“So are you (fingers in quotes) allowed to do a shot yet?” 

I’m not sure of her exact response but it involved the word ‘yes’ and multiple shots to follow. Fighting off a constant flurry of cock blocks, I advance a level as we head into the ship to continue drinking. We eventually head to the Ice Bar. It’s exactly what it sounds like – it’s a bar made entirely of ice. She insists on taking a thousand pictures. They would add to the countless amounts of stupid selfies that she would constantly snap – at least now though a face can be put to her craziness. 

Finally finding a wingman, the bartender aids us in exceeding our two drink limit inside the bar (getting into this bar is a separate cost and you get two free drinks with the paid admission). 

This is where things begin to get blurry and so I’ll just give a quick rundown until the point in the story where my memory kicks back in.

11:00 AM – Begin drinking.
1:00 PM – Bingo.
2:00 PM – First failed attempt on Claire.
4:00 PM – Too many men on the field results in a trip inside of the red zone settling for a chip shot field goal.
5:30 PM – Head inside and to the Ice Bar with Claire.

7:00 PM – 2:00 AM (This all happened in a super blur and during the climax of blacking out.)

Expanding on the dispute Claire and her ‘boyfriend’ initially got in at the bar, things would get worse. Pretty sure sometime after we left the Ice Bar, she went back to her room. I think to change or something. Shortly after, I’d run into her again near guest services talking to security. Allegedly, when she returned to her room, she got into another argument with her boyfriend and he hit her. Approaching their conversation, and after each of us explained how we knew each other, security brings me into a secluded room to give them my side of the story and anything I know about Claire and her dude.  Not the first time I’ve talked to authorities black out drunk. I can only imagine what I rambled out. 

As far as I remember, I agree to let Claire stay in my room for the night until she figures her situation out. Pretty sure security escorted her back to her room so that she could safely grab her things. We agree to meet back in the lobby in about an hour. Not sure why but we don’t – almost certain I got more drunk and wandered off. 

At one point, and I don’t know why or when, I had a conversation with her ‘boyfriend’ when I saw him near the lobby. I forget exactly what was said, but it was surprisingly a very cordial and controlled conversation. (Yeah, I thought the same thing too – this guy obviously has a self-esteem rating lower than Claire’s).

Blacked out, I head to the ‘club’ (it opens at 11:00 pm and is basically where everyone goes late at night. They always have a DJ and it’s, how do the kids say, lit). I probably pitch double digit strike outs before coach calls in the bullpen. 

I leave and end up at the poker table – I’d wake up the next morning missing poker chips and a receipt for $1,000 charged to my credit card. I must have ran bad.

Walking from the poker table back to my room, I see Claire sitting at a restaurant eating alone. I join in.

While talking, she explains that she’s bisexual. Mostly only because she says that girls are better at eating out. Loosely reciting a four page text my buddy would send to girls, I describe the things that I’m gonna do to her to where she’d want my tongue insured. She doesn’t bother finishing the rest of her food and we go back to my room for night cap.

Day 3 (Tuesday) – Claire is Fucking Crazy.

I wake up early in the morning with my fireman’s ladder leaning up against the smoking building. My room was comprised of two separate twin beds, and so after getting up, we each agree to head to her room where she had a queen sized bed (they gave her a free room for a night because of her incident I guess). We order a six pack of water and go back to sleep until 2pm. Being as though they only gave her this room for one night, I agree to let her stay in my room. I mean like legitimately stay in my room – we moved all of her shit (which was alarming to see) in and I took her down to get an extra card for my room.

Now this is where you could safely accuse me of being blinded by the puss, but allow me to explain. I came on this ship all by myself with nothing but an unlimited drinking package looking to fill my back up roster for the week. Claire was hot and liked to drink – I’d invest in that stock any day. Plus, yes, my room had a safe where I put everything in it that even resembled value – this included my vintage iPod with Dan’s 20 Rules to Poker Success taped onto the back of it. 

We head to the bar to get our afternoon shots of crown. I ask her if she’s hungry and she says that she’d rather get drunk first. I ask if she’s sure, that we can go and eat now if she’s hungry and she responds with “it’s okay, trust me, I know how to starve myself.” This may be the one and only time where she made me legitimately laugh. Of course, it’s not truly funny that this already skinny blonde girl who now weighs 115 pounds, once weighed 85 pounds, but the fact that she could joke about it brought her personality rating out of the negative rankings.

We end up at the best bar on the entire ship – the mojito bar. Getting to spend our first true one on one time together, it didn’t take long for her ditzy craziness to surface. Let me go over some highlights.

First off, she used her talk to text CONSTANTLY. I’m not talking about short, basic, to the point texts. I’m talking about paragraph long rants to her, I’m just gonna refer to him as, boyfriend. I wish I had taken some recordings but imagine a slutty looking blonde girl infused with a deep southern valley girl accent sitting at a bar ranting to her phone – “…like, you left me alllll alone. On a ship in the middle of the ocean. I have no idea where I am, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the ocean and you just leave me. My car’s at your house, you have my plane ticket to get home, how could you do that to someone…like…”

She would end each and every rant with the word ‘like’. Like, what the fuck?! Plus her voice is just naturally loud and ear piercing. Honestly, if you have a female friend with an annoying southern valley girl accent, have her read that to you while envisioning a drunk, distressed, girl sitting at the bar wearing a bra as the top part of her bathing suit. 

Each and every person we would meet, she would have to, again, explain her situation. I would just walk away to go get another drink. Just a few hours into the day and her personality was overwriting her hotness. 

Claire was also, let’s say, not smart. Each ship passenger has a card. You use this card to open your room, it gets swiped for food, drinks, etc. She asked if when we port, if she’s supposed to use her card at the gift shops and stores on the island. Yes Claire, each store has a sign – “We accept MasterCard, Visa, and Norwegian Cruise Line room keys.” It also had to be explained to her what a pier was. “Yeah, this long walkway that brings you to shore…that’s a pier.”

As Claire’s depression and intoxication mounts, so does her craziness. As we’re sitting on a couch overlooking the ocean, she continues complaining about her situation – how her car’s at her boyfriend’s, how he has her plane ticket to get home, how she doesn’t have a credit card for excursions (I’ll expand more on this at some point), and how she was “deserted in the middle of the ocean.” Nonstop talking about just wanting to “jump over the side of the boat and end it.” (Hopefully you read all Claire quotes in her voice. I’d advise it.)

The entire time I’m essentially trying to get her mind off of her situation, which let’s be honest, she needs to settle the fuck down. I tell her time and time again that there’s still five days left on the cruise and that I’m sure everything will work out. That there’s no point of stressing about it now because it’s gonna take a few days for tempers to flare down and so she might as well enjoy her time until then. Unfortunately, getting Claire to understand any rational thought, I’d imagine is a lot like trying to get a death row inmate to feel remorse.

Digging through her purse, she takes out her bottle of subscription Xanax, and dumps them into her hand. Counting them on her palm, she asks me what ’19×2′ is. I avoid all jokes – “Well Claire, 19×2 is 38.”

“Good. That should be enough to end it.”

Now listen, maybe what I’m about to say to her is a total dick move, but again, allow me to explain. Actually, for my explanation here, I’m gonna do a Claire impersonation and this sums up exactly what I said to her. Of course, I delivered it to her in a much calmer, more polite way:

(Dan’s Southern Valley Girl Accent)
“Hey Claire, I understand that you’re sad, like, fucking crazy, and that your first few days on this ship haven’t went according to plan. But like, I’m just on this ship to like, get drunk and have a fun time. You need to like, settle down and just enjoy the moment. I’m not spending my time on this ship babysitting you and caving in to your craziness. Like, how could you just throw this upon someone who you just met in the middle of the ocean? It’s not my job to deal with your emotions, that’s your boyfriend’s. If you like, wanna hang out and drink and stuff, I’d love to. Like…”

After my Academy Award winning, life-saving, penis felt speech, she puts the bottle back into her purse. I suggest we get a shot for new beginnings. This is where another dumbfounding, nonsensical, ‘Claire-ism’ comes into place. She would ALWAYS insist on getting us drinks on her card, but here’s the thing, we each had the UBP (Ultimate Beverage Package) and so all of our drinks were FREE. Whether we use my card, her card, or each of ours, the drinks we get are at no charge. For whatever reason, whenever we’d go do a shot together, she’d take her card out, push my hand down as I’m waving my card in the air and say “No let me get it!”

(I just sat here for a few minutes staring into space trying to make any sense of this. I got nothing and feel stupid. Another dumbfounding preference of hers, even though it wouldn’t surface until later on in the cruise, is that she eventually crowned her favorite bartender because he would “make her drinks soooooo good”. Sounds normal right? Except for the fact that Claire almost exclusively drank shots of Crown. Whenever her dude was working, she’d scream across the entire bar to wherever he was to “noooo!!!! Have him make my shot!!!! He’s the best!!!!”
“Claire, you do realize that all he’s doing is pouring a shot, right??”
“I knowwwwwwww but he makes it soooooo good!!!!”)

Hanging at the mojito bar for a little while, and after countless failed attempts to get Claire to go back to the room and bang, she musters up the self-esteem to agree to go and eat. She kept calling me ‘babe’ (She actually asked me for permission. She came back with drinks at one point and was like “here are our drinks babe. Is it okay if I call you babe??”) and so I just assumed that we were on a level that involved day fucking. Obviously our scales are different and she’s too afraid to step on hers.

As we’re at the buffet, and she’s scooping watermelon onto her plate, she yells to me at the neighboring food station “Oh my god! I love watermelon! I swear I’m black at heart!”

While eating, I try and plan the rest of the day out for us.

“So what I’m thinking is, we should eat, head back to my room, bang, change and shower or whatever else we need to do, go get black out drunk, and then go back to my room, bang again, wake up, and repeat.”

After some convincing, and her holding a conversation with our waiter where he had to explain what a ‘knot’ is, we get back to my room, she showers, we bang, and now with my nut sack empty and stomach full, we head back out to the bars for some drinking before heading to the club. But this isn’t until, of course, after she changes her outfit a good six or nine times. She also couldn’t decide between flip flops or high heels. She went with the flip flops but tossed her heals in her purse to lug around.

We end up back at the mojito bar. At this time, it’s probably around eight o clock. I’m sitting on our casting couch from earlier and again, Claire goes up to ‘get us drinks’. She comes back with two mojitos but is frantically searching for her card. It’s legitimately a seventeen foot walk from this couch to the bar. This would end up being another reoccurring “Claire-ism’. She would constantly ‘lose her card’, make a scene, and either ‘find her card’ or go and get another one made. Now, whether she’s crazy enough to fake losing a card to make a scene and taking it as far as actually going to get a new card made, is up to you. But if she’s not that crazy, she’s that, like, dumb, to lose her card this often.

She hands me my drink and asks if I want to go with her to get her new card made. Quickly deciding on this easy decision, off she goes on her own. Forty-minutes later she comes back equipped with a new card and a female companion. What’s the saying? Gotta make it through Hell to get to Heaven? Assuming crazy attracts crazy, I’m expecting the worse as they walk up to the couch. She introduces me to her ’friend’, Julia (prefers Jewls). She’s wearing a gorgeous dress with dark red lipstick perfectly offsetting the vibrant blue color of her gown.  After some small talk, we walk inside to order a few drinks before heading to the club. Sitting right next to us at the bar is Laura, you know, the nice lady from Day 1. She must have already been doused in Claire’s craziness in one way or another because as I say hello to her with the intent of introducing her, she blatantly looks Claire up and down with a disgusted face. It was as if a gay child was coming out to their die hard religious family. For real, she just kept motioning her hands up and down Claire’s entire frame like a pissed off Price Is Right model. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. She shakes her head, grabs her friend’s arm, and bolts the fuck away from the bar. 

Once at the club, we sit down at a table near the entrance, quite far from the dance floor, but right next to the bar. 

[The club is called Bliss. It opens each night at 11:00PM and is 18 and over from that point until close (usually around 2-3AM). As I said earlier, they have a DJ in there each night, and a bar that runs almost the entire length of the room. The room is rectangular shaped with the dance floor being in the far left. The top of the rectangle has the bar, while the bottom has comfortable circular chairs spread out along the entire wall. In between the top and bottom are the tables – tall square shaped tables seating four at a time on over height chairs. To the right, is a small open carpeted area with padded seating similar to in a strip club.]

Shortly after taking my seat, a random dude approaches me and asks if I was the one who won Bingo earlier. (Bingo was held in the theatre of the ship. After you won, they called you down while playing music, and the workers and the crowd cheered you on to dance in order to win your money. I took this moment to back it up on the cute Asian worker. If only she was more involved in this story…)

Continuing conversation with him, he turned out to be a solid dude. Having passed the test of the gate keeper, I invite Landon in to join the table. As the situation unfolds, Landon gets quite busy talking, drinking and dancing with Claire. Which I’m thrilled about. It gets her crazy ass away from me and allows me to start talking to Jewls. 

Jewls turns out to be an absolute breath of fresh air. She’s twenty-nine years old and originally from Brazil. She went to college at Kansas where she began her pursuit of becoming an actress. After college, she made her way to LA where she worked as a TV host (not sure on what scale) before moving to New York City. Come to find out, she actually works on the cruise ship in the jewelry store and has been doing so for two years. As we’re engaging in nonstop conversation, Claire comes back to see us now seated much closer to each other and jabs in with a bitchy toned “Well it looks like you two are love birds.”

I defend my woman! – “Well not yet, but we might be. She’s a nice lady, Claire!”

Tiny bits of drama ensue but I get my dude Landon to entertain Claire – it’s a win win for each of us. Talking more with Julia, we each give our rendition of how we met Claire. I give her a quick PG 13 version of what you just read, while she tells me that earlier (when Claire went down to get a new card made) she saw Claire (again, I guess she saw her at one point on Monday making a scene and crying too) crying by herself and seemed to be in need. Well, welcome to the circle, Jewls!!  

Not being much of a drinker, and after a few mojitos and not feeling well, Julia heads back to sleep as it nears 1am. I hug her goodbye and get her room number so that I can call her tomorrow to hang out some more. 

Shortly after Julia leaves, I’m still just sitting there by myself. I honestly coasted most of the day not drinking all that much. I was far too hungover from the night before. Claire comes back to the table with some sexy black girl, Adrianna. I introduce myself, make small talk, and shortly after doing so, her sister, Alana, walks in and comes to our table. These two, again, would turn out to be incredible people and a complete life saver as the night wraps up. 

Alana and Claire begin dancing on each other and every old head nearby at the bar stare as they get their free stripper show. Both Claire and Alana are in tight short skirts and are clearly comfortable grinding the bark off of a tree. Alana goes and grabs another one of her friends and within a few minutes there’s a train of girls dancing at my table. By this time, a few old heads have completely swung their chairs around at the bar, and spectate as they sip on their Bud Lights. Being my tamed, non-blackout self, I chill at the table while they head out back onto the dance floor. 

I need to add a few scenes and details. Both because they’re funny and it’ll make the rest of the night make more sense. 

First off – I met a LOT of people throughout this night. Most notably, Julia, Adrianna, Alana, and Landon. But there were at least another half dozen people who I met. A few dudes, a gay couple, and other girls. Each at different times, if even just for a brief moment, chilled at our table bullshitting. Seemed as though in some way or another, everyone was a friend or a friend of a friend.

At one point, Claire hears Cardi B is about to come on. Remember how I said she tossed her heels in her purse to carry around? Yeah, as soon as she hears this, she lets out a cheerleading like “WHOOOOOOOOOO” as if her high school sweetheart just scored a game winning touchdown. Taking her heels out she screams “Oh My God! I gotta get these on!!! I dance soooooo much better in heels!!!!!” Failing miserably to get her heels on, she sits on one chair extending her leg onto another, as one of the gay dudes rush to her rescue to assist her. I’ve seriously been so blessed in these past few hours to be lucky enough to find others to help me deal with Claire. She would take them off and put them back on one other time for a different song before switching over to her flip flops full time. It’s funny too, all during the night, she would refuse to let others use their card for drinks. They’d go up to get a shot and she would screech out “NOOO, — USE MY CARD!!”

At random times, any one of them would come back to the table to just talk for a few minutes or take a break and get a drink. As it nears closing time, I walk to the dance floor to see what the after plans are. Before I explain what happens, again, I need to explain something else.

Throughout the night, Claire would come back to the table to ask me if I was gonna leave without her. I told her absolutely not. If she wanted to go back with me, that’s fine. If she wanted to go back with some dude, you know, like Landon, hey, your gain homie. Being as though I told Claire that I wouldn’t leave without her, doubled with the facts that we were now sharing a room and we came here together, I at least felt the responsibility to make sure she got to wherever she wanted to go, safely. 

Approaching my new group of friends, it’s clear that Claire is almost incoherent. By this time, the place is nearly empty. There’s a few dudes left, and one tries to pull some super fucked up creeper shit. This honestly makes me uncomfortable just writing about it. Alana and Adrianna are holding Claire up and asking her where her room is. She points to me. 

“You’re staying with him?”

“We’re sharing a room, yeah.”

“Claire, are you sharing a room with him?”

Claire nods her head in agreement. 

This entire time, a few dudes are watching Claire being held up and hardly able to talk. Most of them just say goodbye and leave. Getting Claire outside of Bliss, we stand there for a few minutes. I talk with Alana (I had talked with Alana and Adrianna throughout the entire night and so at this point I’m fairly acclimated with them). I tell her what floor my room is on and the group of us approach the elevator. As we go to get onto the elevator, I’m expecting it to be myself, Claire, Adriana, Alana, Landon, and one other girl who was friends of Alana. Turning around, this creep who had followed closely behind us since the dance floor is urgently waiting to get on with us. Let me make this clear – this dude hung around when Claire was getting help on the dance floor, and followed us outside and is trying to follow Claire to her room, not knowing that she already has a room to stay in with someone else. When I say that he was following us, I mean that as Adrianna and Alana carried Claire, he was directly behind the three of them by just a few feet hovering their every move. Before getting onto the elevator, I lean towards Adriana to ask her if she knows or realizes this guy is following us. “He’s not really coming with us is he? He’s been following Claire around all night and it’s fucking weird.” 

With no hesitation, Adriana politely but to the point, tells him to fuck off. Once on the 11th Floor, the group disperses. It’s myself, Claire, Adriana, and Alana, while the rest continued on with the night. When walking to my room, some messed up dialogue happens. This is just part of the reason I made the decision I did the next day (you’ll find out about all of that soon). 

Claire starts saying that she’s scared and feels unsafe. Actively talking to her, Adriana and Alana drill her with questions why. I honestly think that Claire was so fucked up that she thought she was heading back to the room with her ex or some shit and was scared of being hit again. 

“Why are you scared? What are you scared of?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve already stayed in his room with him, right?”

(Nodding yes)

“And you feel safe around him, right?”

(Nodding less)

“Well then you’re staying with him tonight. Let’s go.”

At this point, Claire tries to stall, but Alana just throws her up on her back and says in a serious tone “I didn’t ask you, I was telling you” and piggy backs Claire to my room. Alana is the older sister and is a complete boss ass bitch. I immediately declared her group leader that night. She wouldn’t take shit from anyone, but always acted in a well thought out, respectful, effective situation solving way. The reason I said earlier that meeting these two would turn out to be a life saver is because picture this situation that I would have been caught in without them. Claire is absolutely wasted to where she had to be carried to the room. At one point, she says how she feels unsafe. What if I was helping her to my room myself? Even if we did go down earlier in the day to get her a key for my room, and the day before I talked with security, this isn’t a good situation to be caught in. Plus, Alana just tossed Claire on her back and carried her to my room. What the hell was I gonna do? The night would have been even more fucked up. 

Alana carries Claire into my room, lays her down in one of the twin beds, and within seconds is passed out. I’m not even gonna make jokes. 

Part 2 and Days 4-7 Coming soon!

Preview:

…”It’s nearing midnight and I head back to my room real quick to change into my normal attire – Tank top and shorts. Noticing my phone is blinking, I have four unheard voicemails. All from Claire.” ….”In a sobbing voice, “Hey Dan…I really miss you…why can’t things just go back to the way they were.” I just met this girl three days ago and she’s talking about “the way things were”?!?!?!…”

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