I doh think that words can really do this cruise justice. What the event planners pulled off last year (and I’m sure every year), is nothing short of amazing. My opinion is that every soca & carnival lover needs to experience it at least once. It’s the carnival experience on a cruise ship, the only thing we don’t get is a parade in the streets – but it’s all inclusive, major fetes, performers in each fete, pop up limes, the Avenue and the entire ship is branded “Uber Soca Cruise”…it is a MUST do! As much as I enjoyed it last year, I’m not going again this year though, I’m going home for the real thing in a few weeks. They sent a recap after we came back and if memory serves me correctly, the number of attendees was around 7,500 (split between 2 ships) so u get the picture of how many people were there around boarding time which leads me to the point of this post.
Over the years, I’ve become quite shameless. I ask for help whenever I need it from whomever is around at the time because after I weigh the pros and cons, receiving the help will generally end better. Of late, I’ve noticed that I’ve started playing the “I’m disabled” card more than not, especially if I’m on the phone and I think it might result in a favourable result. Is that a good or bad thing? I dunno, but I do it…and guess what? sometimes it works. I don’t enjoy being disabled; not in the least but I am and I have to deal with it. I eh go lie though, the “best” thing to have to do as a disabled person is travel. If I have to go to a ticket counter in the airport terminal, I usually have my own line and I tend to be the only one in it. I love my TSA security line, even though it could get long-ish sometimes. I love boarding the plane first – that way I can take my time to get situated in my seat without the pressure of everybody else looking at me and waiting (because that is exactly when my left hand will curl into a ball and NOTHING will get done). It does suck that I have to wait for everyone to deplane tho, so I always need to take that into consideration if I have a layover. I always tell my friends that they want to travel with me so that all lines can be skipped. Asal and I did just that to head down to the cruise.
We had to use Uber from Orlando airport to the port and when we pulled up, there was soca blasting in the parking lot and a crowd of people liming, dancing, singing along and enjoying it because they weren’t ready for us as yet. I knew from then that I was going to have a good time – it was surreal hearing soca blasting in the parking lot of a cruise ship port on a random Friday morning in Orlando, FL. Eventually the door opened and we could enter. Well. I wish I had a picture of the line (it was waaaaaay more than the crowd outside, remember there were bout 3,000 on our ship) but…we didn’t have to be concerned because as soon as a port worker saw me, they pointed out my line and we cruised on thru to the top and the security person who was waiting for me. After passing thru security, it was onto Immigration which was actually empty of course, because everyone else was still outside. We handed the lady our passports and such and as she handed them back, she told us that she had to take our pictures. I decided to stand for it and it was at that moment that Asal realised that she didn’t have my walker – it was nowhere! Uh oh…I cannot hold the walker and drive the scooter through the airport (in fact i usually don’t travel with the walker) so she’d been on walker duty. Luckily, she remembered that she’d had it when we went thru security, so the immigration lady went to look for it. Allyuh! I cannot begin to explain the sense of relief I felt, when she eventually returned with walker in hand. I didn’t know what was in store for me in the room, but I was 100% sure that I wasn’t going to be scooting around it – things would have been horrible without the walker.
Did I mention that there were DJs (and soca) in every room, at every step of the process until we boarded? It was amazing! anyhoo…stay tuned…a few more stories to come. I gone so!
