Carnival Vista

In some ways every cruise is different, but in other ways they are pretty much the same. The ship sets sail. Some days are spent at sea and others in port, there’s lots of food and plenty of entertainment. On most cruises the entertainment comes from the ship and its staff, but Carnival Vista had some randomly entertaining passengers as well.

Faros 1 hotel

We boarded the Vista in what they call Athens, but the port is actually in nearby Piraeus. We stayed several nights in Piraeus just a few blocks from the dock. We actually walked much farther than the dock while staying there, but took a taxi to the ship on boarding day because of luggage and rain. We got a nice room for a low price at the Faros 1 Hotel. It would have been great if it weren’t for the bar across the street that blasted loud music outside starting about midnight and getting louder and louder throughout the night, not closing down until morning. All activity stayed inside the bar, they just blasted their loud music out at the 3 hotels across the street for no reason other than to be incredibly rude and obnoxious. It’s not like it would attract passers by to become customers. It was on a narrow side street where nobody would go unless they already had a destination there. Not to mention in the middle of the night where nobody was out walking about anyway. The other strip joint 2 doors down stayed politely quiet on the outside with just a sign above the door indicating their existence, proving there was no need for all that racket. You would think there would be some sort of city ordinance disallowing loud music blasting all night long, but apparently not.

balcony on the Vista

Enough about odd things on land and back to the ship. As the Vista set sail from Athens we went out on our balcony to watch it pull away from the dock. So did passengers from many other rooms. People all up and down the ship stood out on their balconies peacefully watching the ship leave the dock when all of a sudden a very loud orgasmic OH, OH, OH pierced the air. We could see all sorts of people leaning this way and that, looking up and down trying to figure out which balcony the sound came from. We figured one or two doors down from us, probably on our deck, but possibly one above or below. Except for the participants, nobody will know for sure – except anyone watching from shore since we were on the land side of the ship. Or if anyone on the bridge happened to be out in the docking wing because from there they can see all the balconies…and since we were leaving the dock if they use that area for leaving port as well as for docking there would have been.

Athens cruise port – actually in Piraeus

Later in the cruise we were walking down the hallway to our cabin late one night. One of the inside rooms had the door propped open. Normally the only people who ever prop open stateroom doors are the cleaning crew, who do so while they are in a room cleaning. It was way past the time they normally finish their evening cleaning. Somehow an open door just draws the eyes in, especially at an abnormal time wondering why anyone is cleaning a cabin so late at night. Except they weren’t. No stewards in that cabin. Just a man and a lady in the bed, mostly covered by the sheet, but with her bare shoulders and his bare upper body visible. They both waved as we were quickly turning our heads the other way and picking up the pace moving down that suddenly endless hall.

inside cabin

The ship also had some odd happenings that were not so entertaining. Some passengers on cruise ships like to decorate their cabin doors. With Halloween fast approaching, this cruise had more door decorations than normal, some pretty elaborate. At least for a time it did. Though there was no magician on board, somebody had a habit of making door decorations disappear. Some here and there all about the ship, and pretty much all of them in the hallways closest to our cabin. We’re not door decorators, but met some people on board who are. Like so many others, some of their things vanished without a trace. Someone somewhere may have had quite the Halloween display inside their cabin.

passenger cabin door decorated for Halloween

Meanwhile while decorations kept disappearing from cabin doors, inside the cabins very much unwanted smoke kept appearing. Not that the decorations vanished in a puff of smoke like in a magic show. These incidents were unrelated. Cabins from multiple decks in the rear port quarter complained of smoke in the rooms. Okay maybe not the cabins, but the occupants. The best the crew ever did was bring in an ionizer, which kept busy moving from room to room, but only cleared the air until the next time the undiscovered offender decided to have another smoke. Some cabin stewards can sniff out a smoker almost instantly, but apparently whoever had this one was either unwilling or unable to find them despite smoking in cabins being clearly against the rules as well as a fire hazard, and people from numerous cabins complaining about the smoke.

Most cruises go by without any odd things happening so this one was quite unusual with so many strange events, though far stranger things than these do happen on cruise ships.