Cruise Ship Adventures with Olga and Sasha
We have finally settled into somewhat of a basic schedule on our cruise ship, traveling in Russia, which means, of course, that we start eating bacon at about 6:30 am. Today’s fare for JB consisted of a nicely poached sunny-side up egg, two small sausages, very crisp bacon, French bread with crunchy butter and bacon, and home-fried potatoes with bacon.
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After the appetizers I settled in for a quick round of mueslix con prunes to loosen up the bacon (still having trouble there…) and then bacon for dessert.
Our cruise ship table mate was Wes (not his real name), from Oaklahoma. There is a certain flavor to an Oaklahoman accent I have not quite figured out. Of course it is not Texan, and it is not southern, but it sounds like he would really like to be driving a piece of farm equipment.
An important thing I have come to realize about the people on this cruise is that none of them is a beginner. This is Wes’ fourth Uniworld cruise ship trip, and he has enjoyed all of them.
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While I have felt that this is a wonderful ship, and the equipment is crisply finished and clean, he finds it a little on the low end, and that other cruise ships were more plush. I can see I will sail with Uniworld again, and that Wes is from another planet, or has a small interior cabin near the engine room.
Note to self: why do my Exchange emails continue to come in, but I cannot connect to the Internet to post my blog? Something suspicious to the KGB (no longer exists under this name) about my blog name or URL?
While Carol was on the optional (translate: pay more) activity “tour of Yusupov Palace”, I traveled back to the ship and went to work on our accomodations. Two problems: the safe would not work, and the shower floods.
Room Safe: Carol closed the cruise ship room safe a little too quickly when programming it, and our normal combination for such things would not open the safe. I would tell you the combination, but then I would have to kill you. So she put in “xxxxx” and closed the door. Apparently you are supposed to press the button that says “Enter” first.
This caused a national emergency and the entire room safe system (in our room) went into shut-down mode. Essentially it became very “safe”. No one could open it.
Well, that is not true. Olga, (imagine the front desk person, about 25, 5’ 4”, 110 lbs, bleached blonde, etc) came to my room. My “Tom Cruise” persona activated and before I knew it, I had her at my mercy and she opened the room safe. With incredible stealth I perceived she had entered “2-2-2-2” and pressed “Enter”.
Ok, I can do that. I followed all the instructions, and to my embarrassment, the room safe security system reactivated, and the room safe was locked. All her subsequent efforts resulted in only a red light, and our afternoon delight relationship was over. It was time to call “Sasha” (his code name). Now, this time, imagine 6’ 2” KGB agent with leather jacket. Ok, no, he was just the hotel manager, and he had the REAL secret code.
I could not catch it because (I could not believe this!) he hid his fingers as he typed it in. Then he instructed me to enter my secret code, etc., and the thing worked. Olga would be punished. Wish I could have been there, but that’s another story.
The other issue was the cruise ship suite shower door. This device was apparently designed by the same guy who made it possible for me to drop my BMW keys into my trunk and shut the trunk while the car was locked, but let’s not go into that.
If you aim the shower just right and sort of actually turn the water on, it streams out the lower hinge corner of the door, flooding the bathroom. Unfortunately, this configuration is more or less identical to the one used to take a shower.
Sasha, now in his cruise ship engineer disguise for traveling in Russia, said, “Hmmm, dot’s not going to work.” I like this guy. “Dis is goink to take more than duct tape — we’ll have it fixed by Moscow.” Note: Moscow is the end of the cruise. “Stick a vashcloth down there.”
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Another thing I did today, while Carol was at the “Optional tour of Yusupov Palace”, was to go to the market to stock up on things that were less expensive than on the ship. Vodka, scotch, mixers, you know, the basics. On the cruise ship, as in any other cost-effective, efficient environment, a glass of wine, scientifically measured to be exactly 6 centiliters, costs 240 rubles, about 8 USD.
In the store, I got 500 ml vodka, Parliament Brand (indicating where it was distilled I suppose), a half bottle of British scotch, two bottles of Spanish wine, and some green fizzy mixer, all for 1,120 rubles, or about the cost of 5 glasses of wine on the ship. Also, in some move equally intelligent as most that Jerry Brown makes, they CHARGED me for the plastic bags (4 rubles = 12 cents). This liquor, plus the free wine at dinner, will probably keep us going for all 11 days.
This, in comparison to the poor people on the cruise ship who are afraid to venture onto the streets, where there are probably nearby Russian mafia types waiting to steal the photocopies of their passports, which is all the ship crew will allow you to take with you besides a few rubles and your “get back on board free” card. I will keep them in the room safe.
See you soon…
Carol and JB
Posted June 16, 2013 By JB Leep (Google Profile)
Original date June 23, 2012, Cruise Ship Room Safe Adventure Travel in Russia, JB Leep and Carol Martin