It had taken forever before left the rusty dock to get onto the boat. For hours I had stood with my grandma, grandpa, and uncle waiting for the giant metal sliding doors to open to let us get in. I sat looking at all of the tourists in their too casual clothes; I waited looking at the dingy but cavernous room. When the doors opened we all went in single file. I looked down at the crashing waves and the slick side of the boat which I saw through the rusted metal bridge that looked too weak to support me.
But when I stepped inside onto the ship all of my thoughts changed. This was no trashy little boat; this was a ship worthy of royalty. Everything was dressed in red and gold, there was giant gold fountain spewing water in the middle of the floor. Everything seemed to transform and the tourists seemed to melt out of the picture. It was like a picture, a piece of art. From the spotless marble floors to the glass elevators, all the way up to the domed white ceiling.
We found a place out of all of the inner chaos and watched as a man in an ironed uniform came to the middle of the floor where he said, “Thank you for sailing with Carnival cruise lines today. Now, your luggage has been delivered to your rooms, you can find the maps of the floor levels over here.” He gave us the full introduction telling us about all that would be available during our voyage. When he finally stopped talking we all started walking to our cabins. Grandpa pushed through the crowd and we all piled onto the elevator. We went down, not in the nice glass elevators but in the dull silver elevators.
The elevator “dinged” and I was the first to jump out into the hall. It looked like we were in a hotel with no windows. I walked down the hall searching for our room. When we found it I found out this room would belong to my grandma and I. The boys would be staying in a room down the hall. When we walked into the room the first thing I noticed was the window. It was half submerged in water. I could see the daylight above but I could also see the dark blue ocean below. The room wasn’t anything special, actually it was pretty standard. It had beds, showers, and all that but it was all in browns and reds making it seem pretty dull. Luckily we didn’t stay in the room for long. As soon as we got everything situated grandma had her nose in a handout. “Oh Savannah there’s a show coming on tonight!” She didn’t have to say anything else for me to know we were going.
We met the boys out in the hall a few minutes later and Nana immediately said, “You know there’s a show coming on it’s on the upper decks at 9 o’clock.”
We explored the ship and eventually came back to our cabins afterwards we all piled back into the elevator; once we were up on the main floor we saw everyone else had the same idea to see this show. Everyone had cleaned up and they looked like they belonged. We went onto the glass elevators and up we went, the ground looked so far away, I felt dizzy! I gratefully climbed off of the elevator and we walked in through plush red double doors. The inside of the theater was more than I had expected anything to be. Rows and rows of tables, balcony seats, I would’ve been fine just looking at the painted ceilings.
All day I had heard about ‘the show’ and I was expecting a play, a stand-up routine, a game show, instead what I got was a mix of all of the above. He started out dramatically introducing himself, dressed in a suit and tie. He then moved on to pull the tied rags out of his sleeves, after a few tricks and bad puns he left the stage open for dancing. Before I knew it my grandma had dragged me up to the stage and we were in a crowd of people doing all sorts of weird dances. Eventually Mr. Magic showed back up and started throwing out names saying “Bunny Hop, Salsa, Square Dance!”
I was sure he himself didn’t know how to do half of the dances he was naming. I was extremely embarrassed but I stayed for my grandma though I knew I was bright red. When Mr. Magic ran out of names to call out he announced, “Now for the game show!”
Grandma was leaving the stage and I was trying to follow her, the farther I got from the stage the more I felt my blush lightening to a slight flush. I was about to walk up the aisle when grandma turned around and said, “Now don’t you wanna do the game show? Come on it’ll be fun! Do it for me, please.”
I couldn’t say no then and I reluctantly climbed back onto the stage. I don’t think it would’ve been so bad if some little boy picked our team name. He was about 6 and he looked awkward and alone. Mr. Magic went over to him apparently thinking he was doing him a favor asking; “Now this young man will pick a team name! Remember it has to do something with water, we are on a ship after all!”
I felt bad for him; there was perspiration all over his face, he had a full face blush, and he was looking anywhere but at the crowd or Mr. Magic. He started stuttering looking around the stage as if trying to find the answer. “Uh… um… I think th-that… our t-team name should b-be… the… the water… the water bottles.”
Mr. Magic was smiling in his face the whole time and I was sick of it so I stepped out and started the crowd in cheering our team name. Turns out I’m pretty good at getting people’s attention. That smile wiped right off of Mr. Magic’s face and he backed off of the boy. While Mr. Magic restored’ order the boy looked at me and smiled a thank you.
Our team was pretty bad and I was the first one to get voted off though I think that might have been Mr. Magic’s doing… I’ll never know. Either was pretty fun and I was glad for the chance to defend someone.