The Characters of the Cruise

There were so many hilarious characters, and caricatures, on the cruise. So, in what will be a fairly short post, I just wanted to list some of the interesting people that I encountered while on the Grandeur of the Seas... that was the name of our boat.

Sven the Captain- this guy was the Scorpio of the boat. He seemed like a harmless Norwegian ship captain, piloting us to the blue watered Caribbean. But I know deep down the man had a dark side. You could hear it in his voice, which was sweet and adorable with his little accent, but it masked a greater evil. I knew that somewhere in this boat, was a hidden speed boat or zeppelin. Two ways for him to escape if James Bond would happen to show up.

Tehsin, the Head Waiter- he was obviously the right hand man to Sven. A tall muscular man from Turkey. He took a particular liking to my family, and at dinner he would always come over to have weird conversations with us. Normally he would misunderstand something we said, and continue to tell us a long story about whatever he thought we had said, but really had nothing to do with anything. He always raised his eyebrow and folded his hand together, showing to me that he was definitely a devious dude.

JR (Just Relax)- as mentioned in a previous post, this was our uber-friendly waiter who was in charge of us every dinner. He was a really cool dude from the Philippines. His real name is something much longer, but he insisted that we call him JR. He learned all of our names the first night, and then began each dinner by greeting us, "Hello, Mr. Dan. Hello, Mr. Mike. Hello Mr. Michael." And he really liked the phrase "Yummy yummy." But I have to give the guy alot of credit, he adapted well to my dad's finicky eating habits (no vegetables, no spicey stuff, no chunky tomato sauce, etc..)

Csaba Rigo- as also mentioned in a previous post, this was our rather shy assistant waiter who was in charge of getting us drinks and rolls. He seemed like a nice dude, except that he was really shy and a tad clumsy. He is Hungarian, so he is probably one of Sven's strong-men. Csaba would usually get confused with what kind of drinks we wanted, giving my dad some iced tea and Danny a coke every night (which of course we got charged for).

Albert- This is a mysterious man from Honduras who was in charge of making our room twice a day. He was a pretty quiet guy, probably a witch doctor like Baron Samedi from Bond... His calling card were these adorable towels that he folded into even cuter animals (yeah, that's right... an adorable towel.)

Tom the Cruise Director- the comic relief of the whole cruise. This guy is so freaking funny, and is almost a clone of Fred Willard (A Mighty Wind, Best in Show, Anchorman). He was there at the beginning of every major entertainment event on the cruise, giving us advice, guidance, and making people get on stage and do stupid stuff.

Carl the Kayak Instructor- if I had to liken this guy to a Bond character, he would be one of those dudes that works for America and helps James get to where he needs to go. Like the guy who flew the plane in Goldeneye. Carl was a total hippie, lecturing me and the rest of the kayakers to great length on how we are destroying the Everglades and how outsourcing is bad. Shut up and row.

There were all sorts of other interesting people I met on the cruise, however not all of them are as instrumental to my illusion of a James Bondian adventure. Farewell Just Relax... where ever you are.

Posted by MikeRubino at August 4, 2004 11:20 PM