On day one of our cruising with the Royal Caribbean’s line Voyager of the Seas cruise, I follow dad straight to his favorite sitting, the bar along the poolside. With cool refreshing breeze of the sea, eleven floors up, interlocking my hair strands and tangling them up for a harder evening to be spent in combing, I admired my home for the next 3 days.
Where is my mom, you ask? She is busy clicking my candids with the DSLR we finally planned to use for travel. She won’t ever let me click hers. Out of us three, she is the most photogenic. She wouldn’t agree. Sigh.
Cruising and Acquainting
“Hi Sir!” and the bartender has our attention. We settle in at the bar and ordered beverages for ourselves. My dad went on with his cocktails. My mom and I were enticed by the mocktails on the menu. With the taste for different beverages to try, we both gaze on the preparation of our drinks, Island Fusion, and Slushy Coco Loco, planning to try the recipe back home. The other side witnessed the development of acquaintance as the discussion on the choice of cocktails progressed.
I also got acquainted with Kopi Luwak, the most expensive and high-quality coffee available. Before I could dream about brewing it at home or gifting it to my caffeinated best-friend, I was informed about its origin. For those who don’t know, this civet coffee is produced from coffee beans partially digested by palm civet cat. Hence, it’s also known as cat poop coffee.
On our 3 night cruise, we tried all other variations of mocktails possible, Strawberry Lemonade, Red Delight, and yes not to forget the Surprise Me ones when I got to taste variations by Fernandez. Oops, that’s not his name. But, that’s what my parents called him after watching tons of Bollywood movies. These movies almost always name a Goa inhabitant as Fernandez. The friendly interactions with this Indo-Argentinian guy revealed about his anniversary in a recent date and told about his love marriage with his wife whom he met on one of the Royal Caribbean cruises as well.
There were occurrences of a few awkward and astounding instances while the difference in values and culture highlighted. Thankfully, all readily accepted them. That’s what I believe is a quality of a true traveler, or rather any human.
The value of accepting each other for who they are!
Francis (Yes, his real name!), actually all the staff on the cruise were extremely friendly and humble to let you feel like home. It has been great interacting with them, especially when you get to know them as locals of their hometown!
PS: His tip for those traveling to Goa, North Goa is for parties while South Goa is for a relaxing, soothing trip. ;) Though, I’m still not sure where I’ll prefer to head to.. Probably both?!
