Our First date. “That salad looks very good. May I have one also?”

I woke up the next morning after Kelvin’s Bushwacker Party without a hangover. It was now Saturday which meant the present cruise guests would be disembarking the ship and the new lot would start embarking at 11:00 AM. There were two Cruise Staff duties that day which everyone had to take part in. One was Bye-Bye Gangway and the other was Welcome Aboard Gangway.

For Bye-Bye Gangway one Cruise Staff member was assigned to the Forward gangway and another to the Aft gangway. We organized the guests into two lines and guided them through the customs line as the agents checked their paperwork prior to leaving the ship. This started at 8 AM and went until 9:30/10:00 AM.

Welcome Aboard Gangway comprised of Cruise Staff members standing at the gangway entrances both Forward and Aft and welcoming the guests on board. This meant standing in 90 to 100 degree Miami heat dressed in a sports jacket, shirt & tie and long pants for 3 hours in two shifts.

I preferred Bye-Bye Gangway as this duty was performed in shorts and a polo shirt which was much cooler. I had done Welcome Aboard Gangway in the heat and was not a fan of it. Also many of the guests who boarded the ship were cranky, tired, hungry and not in the best of moods. I had one guest stand at the entrance, shake his fist at me and yell out, “If I don’t get a private table for two at all my meals, I’m walking off this ship!” I looked at him and said, “Welcome aboard sir, have a great day and enjoy your cruise.”

No one wanted to do Bye-Bye Gangway because it meant that they had to get up early and most wanted to sleep in on Saturday morning. I am a morning person and was used to getting up early every day, so that suited my style.

But my quest this morning before going to my assignment was to find Sarah’s cabin and leave her a note. I was disembarking the ship for a medical leave that day and I wanted to let her know that I had had a great time the night before. I wrote the note and then went down to Biscayne Heights in search of Sarah’s cabin. When I got there, the place was a mess. All the cabin doors were closed, but the passageway told the story of the previous nights’ party. At that moment one of the theatre techs came out of his cabin and I asked him if he knew which Sarah’s was. He pointed to a cabin and stumbled off down the passageway. He obviously had been over-served the night before.

I went over to Sarah’s cabin, slid the note under the door and headed to the Aft Gangway for my assigned duty. Another reason I preferred doing Bye-Bye Gangway was that as soon as I was done and cleared to leave by the Customs Officials, I could get off the ship to do my personal banking. It also gave me time to go to Bayside Shopping Center and have a beer and burger at Hooters with friends. Other times I would go to the Middle Eastern restaurant for lunch and have some of my favorite Lebanese dishes. At 3:00 PM I would grab a taxi back to the ship and get things ready for Boat Drill & the Sail Away Party.

In the note that I left Sarah I asked her to call me on my beeper. At 5:00 PM Sarah called and I asked if she would like to go to Le Bistro for dinner that night. Le Bistro was an A La Carte restaurant. This was the only restaurant on the ship that had a cover charge, but it was well worth the very low cost. On embarkation night we were permitted to have dinner at Le Bistro as many of the guests had not discovered it yet.



Le Bistro, S/S Norway

Sarah said she would be pleased to have dinner with me and asked that I pick her up at 8:00 PM. That was a good time for me as I did not have any duties after that time, and left the evening open. At 7:50 PM I arrived at Sarah’s cabin and she let me in as she finished getting ready. Her roommate was Christina who was the lighting tech for the theatre company on board and was presently in the shower. Christina was a big girl, and had a great personality. Sarah told me that Christina had taken a fall earlier in the day when she was at the top of a 20 foot ladder changing a lamp in the lighting grid. I asked if she was OK, and Sarah said yes, but she had a big bruise on her backside. At that point in our conversation, Christina walked out of the bathroom dressed only in a towel. I turned to go out so that she may have privacy, but Christina said there was no need.

Saga Theatre, S/S Norway

I mentioned that I had heard she had a fall and asked if she was OK. Christina laughed and said she was OK and added, “Only because I landed on my big fat butt.” She said she had a screwdriver in her back pocket and that it had left its imprint on her bottom. At that point she hiked up her towel to expose her right butt cheek. I didn’t need to see that flash of white flesh, but she was correct. There was the perfect imprint of the screwdriver.

“Number three Phillips screw driver, was it?” I said. “Yes it was” Christina answered. “You sure know your tools!!

It was time to leave for dinner.

We headed up to Le Bistro on Pool Deck Aft. Because it was a specialty restaurant, I was required to wear a jacket and tie and Sarah wore a dress. The Maitre ‘D welcomed us and I asked if we could sit in Zoran’s section. Zoran was a great waiter and we had become good friends. He always made a big deal whenever I escorted a lady to Le Bistro. He greeted us at our table, always being the perfect gentleman. I ordered a Glavlax, a Norwegian Smoked Salmon dish as my appetizer; a Caesar’s Salad and the Beef Tenderloin and Sarah ordered the same. As soon as Zoran left the Wine Steward came to our table and I ordered a bottle of Jordan, Cabernet Sauvignon.

Our conversation turned to the previous night’s Bushwacker Party and we laughed at some of the high jinks which took place in Biscayne Heights. Our Glavlax arrived and we continued our conversation as we enjoyed the dish. When Zoran saw that we had finished our food, he came over to remove our dishes and said he would be bringing us our Caesar’s Salad. Upon his return, I did not see Zoran approach our table from behind me with the salads. I was demonstrating something to Sarah, which required me to wave my arms upward. As I made this upward move, Zoran was about to place my salad in front of me. There was a collision between my arm and Zoran’s hand. The salad flipped into the air, hit the edge of the table in front of me, landed upside down on my lap and slid to my feet. The dish hitting the table made enough noise for everyone in Le Bistro stop what they were doing and look over at our table. Both Zoran and I froze, but he quickly recovered and placed Sarah’s salad in front of her.

As he did this I said, “That salad looks very good. May I have one also?”

“As you wish sir, I will bring one right out for you” said Zoran as he left our table.

“My goodness”, said Sarah, “Where did your salad go?”

I leaned forward and whispered “It’s in my socks right now and I most certainly will have to shine my shoes tomorrow.” We both laughed hardily.

Here we were on our first date. As we later learned, this evening set the tone for many more dining adventures…….

*Names may have been changed to protect the innocent!