What's the strangest thing you've ever seen on a cruise?

[Laurie S.]

No, they don't have any obligation to miss a smaller ship. Yes, they should, obviously, but maritime law is that the smaller ship (unless a sail boat or other wind dependent boat) must yield in that situation. And, anyone cruising in an area where the big ships come out should know that or they should get the heck out of the water.

 

We don't know that the Freedom wasn't blowing its horn, turning (if there even was room), or was on the radio to the police who were there.

 

I play it safe when running my 38-foot-long cigarette boat in Mexico and always give the pangas a wide berth because I could easily swamp them, but then I can turn on a dime even at speed (think Miami Vice). They're also watching the other larger boats when they are moving. For my part, I have to watch the path of a sailboat from a distance and be sure not to cross its path, even at a distance. A cruise ship can't turn that quickly and unless it's in open ocean, doesn't have the luxury to move aside easily, depending on the depth of the channel.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Laurie S.

[CanadaDeb]

I am loving this thread! I have a story to share, although it's a flight story.

 

I was flying Montreal to London and before take off the captain told us it would be a rough take off due to a thunder storm. Across the aisle was a lady who all of a sudden looked like she was going to lose it. I wanted to calm her so I started talking to her about the book she had in her hands. All of a sudden, she asks if she can hold my hand, which she did half way to London...and then never looked or spoke to me again.

 

As we were coming into Heathrow, the landing cards were distributed and the guy sitting next to me on the other side asked to borrow my pen. He was from Jordan and told me he was going home to an arranged marriage. He asked if I was married, I said yes, and he then asked me if sex was hard.

 

I didn't wait for the seat belt sign to be turned off, I got up, got my bag and got off that flight!

[mr green]

I am loving this thread! I have a story to share, although it's a flight story.

 

 

As we were coming into Heathrow, the landing cards were distributed and the guy sitting next to me on the other side asked to borrow my pen. He was from Jordan and told me he was going home to an arranged marriage. He asked if I was married, I said yes, and he then asked me if sex was hard.

 

I didn't wait for the seat belt sign to be turned off, I got up, got my bag and got off that flight!

 

I seldom LOL on these boards but I did this time.!

 

john

[wonderpig]

Not strange per se'......but we had a service dog on one our cruises. A blonde lab.

 

 

Saw a blonde lab technician once, but no dog........:rolleyes:

[Burpelson]

I am loving this thread! I have a story to share, although it's a flight story.

 

I was flying Montreal to London and before take off the captain told us it would be a rough take off due to a thunder storm. Across the aisle was a lady who all of a sudden looked like she was going to lose it. I wanted to calm her so I started talking to her about the book she had in her hands. All of a sudden, she asks if she can hold my hand, which she did half way to London...and then never looked or spoke to me again.

 

As we were coming into Heathrow, the landing cards were distributed and the guy sitting next to me on the other side asked to borrow my pen. He was from Jordan and told me he was going home to an arranged marriage. He asked if I was married, I said yes, and he then asked me if sex was hard.

 

I didn't wait for the seat belt sign to be turned off, I got up, got my bag and got off that flight!

 

Perhaps you missed an opportunity to help both him and his soon to be wife! I applaud his openness.

[momofmeg]

On Mariner in 2005, about 30 people and their families from the show, "Little People, Big World" were onboard. It was a month or so before the show premiered. It wasn't strange at all, just a new and interesting experience for us. :)

 

The people we met were very nice, and mentioned that they were going to be on TV in the near future. :D

 

Yes! I was on that cruise! Don't forget the Red Hat Ladies! and that was before their show started but they had done a documentary type show so I had seen them on TV-I kept telling myhusband that and he thoguht I was nutso-we had a atruim view cabin on deck 7 and they were in a balcony down from us so we kept seeing them. I finally asked them and Matt Rollof told me about their upcomng show. Hubby thought he was "pulling my leg" that they were not the couple I had seen on TV-unitl March 2006 when their show started and I made him watch it and ADMIT that was the same guy-lol!

 

The funny thing is we have a vacation video myhusband took at the Nassau Zoo at the "Flamingo March" and there is Amy and our daughter-our daughter is small and looks young but she is gorwn ws aobut 20 this cruise. They were chosen with several children to march with the flamingos-lol! but both of them were good sports and did it!

 

That same cruise we saw a young man (about 25?), a dwarf with their group who had cut himself and he was terrified,he asked us what he should do. I asked him if he was a "free bleeder" or prone to infections and he said "no." Hubby asked if he wanted hm to take him down to the first aid/DR. area. He said no-so hubby suggested he go tothe bathroom and clean the cut-which he did. We decided his parents had coddled him so much and probably would get overly excited when something happened to him but had not helped him to make decisions for himself but yet they did not take the cruise with him. I felt so sorry for him.

 

Then there was the tiny little blond woman maybe 3 feet tall and her SO was about a foot taller, but also a drawf. They also had a balcony room near our room and we had been in the hot tub together so I alwsy said hello when I passed them. I remembered them because she was so cute-tiny but her head in proportion to her body-she looked like a live doll.

 

Anyway a few years later when that show "the Little couple," came on I thought that was them and I got out our vacation video from that cruise and I am almost positive it was! so I guess I met 4 "TV stars" that cruise.

[RDMOREU]

We were on a HAL cruise that was leaving Ft. Lauderdale while everyone was on deck for the muster drill. A speedboat came flying by and one of the men nearer the rail noticed that the young 'lady' in the boat had dropped her bikini top and was flashing all of us on board. Naturally, he voiced what he saw and I think the poor crew member doing the drill was almost trampled as everyone ran to the rail for the view!

[ldubs]

We were on a HAL cruise that was leaving Ft. Lauderdale while everyone was on deck for the muster drill. A speedboat came flying by and one of the men nearer the rail noticed that the young 'lady' in the boat had dropped her bikini top and was flashing all of us on board. Naturally, he voiced what he saw and I think the poor crew member doing the drill was almost trampled as everyone ran to the rail for the view!

 

I was just thinking it is time we gave HAL a try.

[av8tr21]

Family and I were on the Maasdam from Montreal to Boston in June of 2009. There are always "those cruisers" on every cruise. You know, the ones that you see at embarkation and think to yourself, "Have they ever traveled? Are they for real?". Well, unfortunately we saw and heard plenty of them the entire cruise. Specifically one family in particular, father, mother, and son (17 or 18).

 

Now please understand, I have nothing against people from Long Island or New York, but in order for everyone to understand this is how I'm describing them. Loud, obnoxious, nasty attitude, and quite possibly the thickest Long Island accent I have ever heard. (I know PLENTY of nice people from Long Island and New York )

 

I saw them plenty throughout the week, as the Maasdam is quite small compared to the other ships I have sailed on. They seemed to be having an absolutely miserable time. Everytime the three of them were together, the son did nothing but complain. And she would walk around with this awful scowl on her face, huffing and puffing...heavy, heavy breathing.

 

One night in the MDR (3rd night of 7), we were unfortunately seated next to this family. They had come up behind us while waiting for our table and apparently the son had been complaining (not the first time I had seen it either). He didn't want to come to dinner, but rather stay in the cabin and watch TV. The mother had a horribly nasty scowl on her face and was shaking her head before yelling at her son, "FINE! GO WATCH THE F****** TELEVISION!!!" Son leaves and we are then seated, as well as the couple. Nothing really happens until we get our main courses. Long Island couple gets their main's about the same time. Now if I recall correctly, there was some type of potato either baked or mashed that came as a side item. On HAL, they had the butter in these tall, silver goblet type serving dishes. Mrs. Scowl proceeds to take the goblet and scrape ALL of the butter cubes onto her potatoes. We almost lost it! After this occurred we decided to keep an eye on the table for anymore potential entertainment! Not to long after, her head starts to tip forward and she falls asleep in her chair!!! At this point we are doing trying to stifle our laughter, but not having much success. She is only out for a few seconds before waking up and continuing to shovel humongous helpings of food into her mouth. She probably fell asleep 4 times throughout the meal.

 

Anyway, we make it through dinner and order dessert. The dishes have been cleared from Long Island couples table and they proceed to get up and leave. It seemed like they had some sort of argument... We laughed, as they probably could have gone without dessert (she was quite large). About 10 minutes later, they come back, sit down and order dessert. Adjacent to their table was a server station. A server came by and placed a tray of 4 desserts (I think it was strawberry shortcake or something similar, can't remember exactly) in similar dishes that the butter came in. Their server brings two desserts to their table and walks away. She proceeds to get up and grab the other two desserts OFF THE TRAY, CARRIES THEM BACK TO THE TABLE AND CONTINUES STUFFING HER FACE! She was eating out of all four dessert dishes! I'm laughing thinking about it....We are almost on the floor at this point and doing all we can to hold it together and be polite. Kind of hard when there are 7 at the table.

 

You might be wondering about the husband as I haven't really mentioned him. Well, nothing really to mention. He never really said a word whenever they were together and this meal was no exception. He acted like her behavior was normal, and actually had decent manners. No questioning who wears the pants in that marriage!

[denmarks]

We had 12 service dogs on my last cruise.

[Smokeyham]

Family and I were on the Maasdam from Montreal to Boston in June of 2009. There are always "those cruisers" on every cruise. You know, the ones that you see at embarkation and think to yourself, "Have they ever traveled? Are they for real?". Well, unfortunately we saw and heard plenty of them the entire cruise. Specifically one family in particular, father, mother, and son (17 or 18). .....

 

They seemed to be having an absolutely miserable time. ......

 

Wow!! Makes you wonder why they spent all of the money to go on a cruise?

 

Over the years I've talked with some people who fit the description you gave, and it's interesting that they all seemed to have very unrealistic expectations of what the cruise was going to be like.

 

One couple complained that they did not realize that there would be "all of these other people on board." I don't know if they just looked at the pictures in the brochure, and it showed a sparsely populated deck, but I'm sad these folks don't seem to enjoy the cruise.

[Cruz-OR]

While getting on the ship, the guy in front of me was very tall, or at least he would have been except he was one of those persons

 

who is bent about 90 degree at the waist. The security photo person told him to stand with his toes on the line they use to focus

 

their camera. When he did his nose was about 2 inches from the camera. They had to stop the line and reposition him about 3 to 4 feet

 

behind the line to get a photo of him. He was very good natured and took it all in stride (one stride behind the line that is).

Edited April 20, 2013 by Cruz-OR

[Taxguy77]

Not sure I am crazy about the fact that it sounds like anyone can buy a copy of any photo that is taken. Or am I misunderstanding?

 

No. You are not misunderstanding. Anyone may buy any picture taken by the photagrapher, it's his property.

It's probably hidden in the fine print, along with a LOT of things they don't want you to know!

 

Sorry for the late response.

[montekat]

Getting off the ship in Tobago, observed a man leaving proudly wearing his tighty whiteys and nothing else.

 

We had a crane as a stowaway on the back deck traveling between Bermuda and Tortola on the Horizon.

 

Hey, we were on that same cruise on the Horizon! Funny thing was that so many people were scared of it because of it's long beak (the crane, not the guy in the tighty whiteys, he was on another cruise).

Edited April 20, 2013 by montekat

[Gilligan777]

My husbands face while coming down the steps from a topless deck, not the topless he thought....:D

[Sea Hag]

On some cruise or another, we saw a group of four who wore their lifejackets everywhere. This went on for at least several days, possibly the entire cruise. We wondered if they slept in them as well.

[tbmrt]

We met a delightful couple on one of our cruise excursions in the islands. The hubby was about 40...girlfriend in late 20's. My husband and I were 68 and 61 at the time.

 

We really hit it off that day and decided to go an another excursion together that was rather adventuresome. The 40 year old tells my husband that he'll help us if it would be too physically difficult for us to navigate the underground swimming hole, walk on slippery rocks, rough boat ride, etc.

 

The next day my husband was actually the "helper".....

 

1. The guy couldn't swim well so my husband had to help him out of the underground swim hole. (DH, now age 70, was a lifeguard in his younger days and still works out every other day.)

 

2. The girlfriend who originally told us that she didn't drink much, drank too many painkiller drinks that day and then couldn't pick herself up enough to enter the small boat. Her husband wasn't strong enough to lift her, so my DH came to the rescue!

[MrsNancyG]

We were in a Promenade cabin on AOS. It is very easy to forget to close your curtain while dressing. One formal night, I looked over across the way and there was a guy who was apparently in the process of getting dressed and all he had on were his socks...LOL

 

I woulda gotten a piece of paper a put a number between 1-10 on it and held it up so he could see his score.

[momofmeg]

No. You are not misunderstanding. Anyone may buy any picture taken by the photagrapher, it's his property.

It's probably hidden in the fine print, along with a LOT of things they don't want you to know!

 

Sorry for the late response.

 

Some nitwit bought a pic of ours-why? who knows? they had the negative or whatever you call it to make us another though. Hubby and I are not exaclty gorgeous so why would anyone want a pic of us?

[momofmeg]

While getting on the ship, the guy in front of me was very tall, or at least he would have been except he was one of those persons

 

who is bent about 90 degree at the waist. The security photo person told him to stand with his toes on the line they use to focus

 

their camera. When he did his nose was about 2 inches from the camera. They had to stop the line and reposition him about 3 to 4 feet

 

behind the line to get a photo of him. He was very good natured and took it all in stride (one stride behind the line that is).

 

That is not strange-just sad- and face it unless we die young we are all goingto age and most of us not that gracefully. I find this post in bad taste. Just think, someone may poke fun at you one day. Just because the poor guy was a good sport about his disablity is no reason for you to find this so "strange."

[Suitcasefull]

Some nitwit bought a pic of ours-why? who knows? they had the negative or whatever you call it to make us another though. Hubby and I are not exaclty gorgeous so why would anyone want a pic of us?

 

Maybe you're now posted on his family wall as favorite cousins who love to cruise. Jesting but unfortunately creepy things like this have been known to happen.

[momofmeg]

Maybe you're now posted on his family wall as favorite cousins who love to cruise. Jesting but unfortunately creepy things like this have been known to happen.

 

Like the people who saw their FB pic as an ad on a billboard in Europe for some store? You hear aobut that?

 

I suppose it i spossible but it sure looks like they would have picked some hottie instead of us. I guess they needed a pic of their "parents" for their penpal girlfrind/boyfriend?

[Coralc]

Maybe you're now posted on his family wall as favorite cousins who love to cruise. Jesting but unfortunately creepy things like this have been known to happen.

 

I borrow other peoples photos of places that we went, especially if theirs are better than mine. I still make hard copy photo albums. So...if we are photo sharing on a roll call, I might ask to use (place) photos of others.

 

I think it would be difficult to determine if a portrait photo had been purchased by someone else. I would guess more of a bar code error, or it was stuck to another photo, or it was accidentally discarded by someone.

[momofmeg]

I borrow other peoples photos of places that we went, especially if theirs are better than mine. I still make hard copy photo albums. So...if we are photo sharing on a roll call, I might ask to use (place) photos of others.

 

I think it would be difficult to determine if a portrait photo had been purchased by someone else. I would guess more of a bar code error, or it was stuck to another photo, or it was accidentally discarded by someone.

 

They had the receipt but would not tell us who bought it-only that it had been bought. They were able to make us another.

[Suitcasefull]

Like the people who saw their FB pic as an ad on a billboard in Europe for some store? You hear aobut that?

 

I suppose it i spossible but it sure looks like they would have picked some hottie instead of us. I guess they needed a pic of their "parents" for their penpal girlfrind/boyfriend?

 

Wouldn't that be a kick to see yourself on a billboard!!!

There are a lot of strange people out there and now they just have access to more. Some are just creepily lonely and make up family and friends, manufactured to suit them. Years ago, pre-internet, there was a con artist who had created a whole familial past, complete with a photo wall at home of his parents, grand- and great-grandparents........all courtesy of antique stores. Women who came to visit thought he was a sensitive considerate soul. :rolleyes: