Dateline: Fort Lauderdale
The somewhat nebulous seafaring accommodations of a certain couple have finally been secured. An email arrived just yesterday informing them that they had been awarded an upgrade in their stateroom selection and it was at no extra charge!
The couple, Don Hall and Paula McCarthy, had been waiting patiently (?) for the fine folks at Princess Cruises to sort out the mess that was created when two almost fully booked voyages were combined due to the cancellation of the first Covid Containment Cruise.
They had been informed on many an occasion (whenever they called Princess) that they were not to worry, that they were in the “Guaranteed” status of bookings and that a stateroom assignment would be forthcoming as soon as possible. The ranges of “As soon as possible” varied greatly as the first Voyage Voyeur informed them that it would be by September (last) and as the timeline progressed, the prognostication was pushed to the breaking point of, “You’ll find out upon Embarkation,” which translates into something like arriving at the gangplank, suitcases in hand, and asking Captain Stubing, Julie the Cruise Director, and Gopher….. “Hi, we’re Paula and Don, could you please inform us as to where we will be living for the next four months?” and then having Isaac the Bartender show us the way to our stateroom.
In a momentous random checking of email yesterday, one fairly jumped off of the screen as it was entitled “Upgrade” and it was from Princess! Visions of palatial Suites ran rampantly through their feeble brains as they searched the diagrams of deck plans when they logged onto the Princess Cruises website.
A re-examination of the categories of compartments within the existing types of staterooms bears some further explanation here. Mind you, it involves just a tad of physics, albeit it of the “playground” variety, so here goes…..
These ships, even as good as the modern ones are, still have a certain amount of movement to them as they charge forward through all kinds of seas. Mill ponds to tempests, these modern marvels of hotels at sea, use every bit of technology available to them in order to further ensure a somewhat stable voyage for their passengers, which hopefully, negates the possibility of running to the rail in order to help “chum the waters” for any fishermen aboard, if you get my ‘drift’.
But physics being what it is, and boats being what they are, and water being the fluid medium that it is, makes for some uncertain bedfellows when it comes to guaranteeing a perfectly smooth sailing. So, back to our playground and the see-saw. If you want a fun ride, you clamper aboard one of the ends so that you can swing up and down with reckless abandon, laughing all the way. If you desire to have a smooth ride and still be part of the fun, you sit in the middle, the fulcrum as it were, and watch your playmates from a more stable platform. Now, let’s add another element to our see-saw and give it another axis from which to rotate on and that would be from side to side. Again, here you are still in the middle, but the effect of the side-to-side movement is enhanced when you try and stand up and get further away from your best friend, that center of gravity, the fulcrum, which coincidently, on a ship, is situated more towards the center of the ship or ‘midships’ in the vernacular of the maritime folks.
Now let’s reboard our big hotel-on-the-sea and assign categories to staterooms, throwing into this confusing algorithm other variables such as distance from the elevators, proximity to possible ‘noisier’ locations, and levels (or decks) of the ship itself. While some of this process is relatively straightforward, some of it is also obviously very subjective.
Let’s take the level or deck to which you may be assigned. The higher you go, the more ‘prestigious’ it may be considered? No one ever built the castle way down low when that very enticing hill was nearby, right? We never played ‘King of the Valley’ did we? It was always ‘King of the Hill’ or (Queen of the Hill in more modern times😊)
So, on a ship, the more desirable locations are the elevated ones, the ones furthest away from the Galley Slaves and their oars, further away from the Bilge Rats, and other stinky aspects of a seafaring life.
So, these variables all get tossed into the mix and we end up with levels within each type of stateroom. Suites are always the best and vary very little as they are always in a good location. Strangely these locations are often at the forward and rear ends on the ships where “Corner Views” may be had. “Damn the See-Saw” has been heard from many a veranda of these many-roomed, incredibly expensive, envy of all on board, accommodations.
So, let’s get to the more plentiful, average staterooms that Mr. and Mrs. Regular Peeps can afford, namely the Balcony, Ocean View, and Inside cabins. These are the ones that are the most plentiful and get most of the gradations by category. We were originally assigned an I (Inside) E. Now these gradations range from A to F and when located on board it was mostly difficult to ascertain why one stateroom enjoyed a status that its neighbor did not. But I guess that’s where that Algorithm comes in. It’s kind of like trying to understand exactly what goes into what makes up your credit score. Too much available credit is scary to lenders, too little is a sign that no one trusts you. Not having any balances to pay off doesn’t give them enough information to which evaluate you while having a lot of payments (all on time) makes you a bad guy. So, where’s the middle ground. No one knows! And so, it goes with these categories of staterooms.
Now for the exciting part!
We had been given an upgrade (at no extra charge) which means that they were not able to find an unoccupied cabin in our category (that someone was willing to give up) and therefore, they needed to find somewhere to stow us and all our baggage. We were luckily able to vault all the way up in category status to a…… (Drum roll please!)………
An I-C!
Which means we jumped all the way over the peons assigned the hovels in I-D! We frantically searched our assigned deck, Aloha (A), way up on top, looking down on all the other losers. Well, not really, because since we have an inside cabin, there is no way to look down on anything! We may as well be down rowing with the aforementioned Galley Slaves!
But at least we will be able to announce when boarding one of the elevators, “Aloha Deck please” and leave all the others behind as they exit before we do and sneak down the companionway to dive into A-423!
