I have been slacking on my blog what with an amazing trip to New York and Lucy and Alex's wedding that happened on April 29th! (Which went amazingly by the way)! I need to get back on track here and keep blogging!
I had an amazing experience in New York with my boyfriend and his two college buddies. We did EVERYTHING POSSIBLE! We walked more than 6 miles one day! Let's just say that at the end of the night, I bought new shoes! I couldn't walk another inch in my boots. We explored the city for four days and only had one plan-a cruise on NY Harbor that we all purchased from a groupon special. We were sooooooo excited about it and when we finally arrived at the harbor after walking more than 100 blocks since there wasn't a metro stop close to the harbor and we needed to spend the day on that side of town, we got even more excited! It was going to be a blast! Dinner, drinks and dancing on New York Harbor at night! What an adventure!
We were told to come back to the dock at 7 exactly when we arrived at the check in spot at 6:00pm. So we watched the boats go by and watched a sea plane take a spot on the water. We walked back to the check-in and waited in line with the other excited people. As a wedding planner, I saw soooooo much potential for this company! They have great reviews already and I was planning on helping them out with my blogging about it and great pics of a great time. Instead, I'm writing a blog of warning to NEVER BOOK A CRUISE WITH MARCO POLO CRUISES.
Once we finally got on the ship, the ticket said the cruise would run from 7-10pm. We didn't take off until 7:45! When we boarded though, the music was a bit loud. I figured they were doing that to get us excited and pumped up. We all went to the second floor because there were no more first floor tables available. The only other tables at the point available on the second floor were right next to the DJ and his massive speakers. Not a great location but I figured the bumping music would be lowered as soon as we all boarded. It wasn't lowered...here began the problem. The lady sitting at the table in front of us, 3 tables away from the speaker and the DJ, pulled out kleenex and created earplugs for herself. I was starting to get a headache, so I went downstairs to ask the people who helped board the ship and direct people if the music would be lowered once we took off. The deckhand said, "Absolutely, there's just no one to turn it down right now, I'll run up in a second." This calmed my nerve a bit but made no sense to me. There was a DJ who was controlling the volume...so I went back upstairs and waited for the deckhand to do what he said he'd do in a second-turn the volume down on the ship. Nothing. I finally approached the DJ who was clearly in his own little world and I asked him in a screaming tone because that was what I had to use in order to be audible, if the music would be turned down. He said, "Eventually." I asked if it would be soon because I was getting a headached and I didn't bring any tylenol. He just shrugged his shoulders and twisted his lips up to give me a facial expression of, "too bad so sad," and he went back to mixing his music and dismissed me.
At this point, as an event planner, I got angry. The DJ is supposed to be respectable. The captain of the boat came up a few minutes later and told him to turn it down. He turned it down a bit so I didn't have to scream to be heard by my boyfriend who was sitting next to me. So I told my boyfriend what the DJ said to me. He got angry that he would do that. We decided to get our drinks and calm down a bit. We get to the bar and the bartender was the utmost rudest person I'd experienced working for tips. I asked for a vodka cranberry and she promptly said, "The tickets are only good for beer, wine or soda. I don't even have cranberry juice anyway." So I ordered wine. They gave it to me in a plastic cup practically the size of a dixie cup! We decided dinner was next on the agenda and it'd be quieter downstairs where the buffet was being served. Let me tell you about stingy servers! It's a buffet! They served us the smallest portions possible! When you asked for a little more, they looked at you like, "really?" My boyfriend asked for two stuffed pasta shells and the lady refused. We got back upstairs hoping the music was lowered for dinner time. Not a chance. In fact, after the captain asked him to turn the music down, he creeped it back up a bit louder while we were getting dinner.
Vegetables were freezing on my plate! Either the burners weren't going underneath the food or we just go the shaft. Halfway through dinner, my boyfriend could tell I was upset and he went to talk to another employee. He asked an employee for the manager and he said he could help him. He told our story and the employee said that the second deck is loud because it's the dancing floor and that if I had a headache, I shouldn't have sat next to the speaker. My boyfriend quickly snapped and said, "She didn't have the headache before she got on the boat." He changed his tune a bit but still wasn't offering any solutions. He came back just as angry as I did after talking to the DJ and we decided to leave our cold food and head up to the top deck where we could enjoy the scenery.
I approached the lady at the other table who created ear plugs out of kleenex and asked her what she said to the DJ a bit earlier. She said she just asked if he'd be playing salsa and nothing much other than that. I told her how upset I was and how much of a headache I had. She ended up giving me a handful of Tylenol 500mgs and she said she had already taken some.
On the top deck, I approached a deckhand. I asked where the manager was and he said, "Why? A complaint?" I said "Yes, in fact I DO have a complaint." He told me he was the head of security and could try and help. I told him that if he was the head of security that he should know that one of his passengers is considering jumping off the boat to get off this wretched boat! He said, "As the head of security, I really hope you decide not to do so." We chuckled and I told him that I was seriously upset with the DJ and the music. When guests are approaching you to tell you to turn the music down, you should respond accordingly to their request and that during dinner, the point of music is to be a background noise. He told me that the second floor was the dancing hall but he'd let his manager know of my complaint. Again, no resolution offered! AND I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO THE MANAGER IS!
We stayed at the top of the boat the entire rest of the cruise! The ship sailed the same location a couple times and didn't dock until 10:30. I couldn't wait to dock and it was a half hour later than it was supposed to be! What if someone had a babysitter? What if I had other things planned that night and we didn't dock on time because he wanted to give us the full 3 hours but just do circles in the harbor?! The crazy thing was it could have been a bit more on time if in fact we would have taken off at 7:15 when the boat was completely loaded and no one else was in line on the dock, but NO, we had to wait to leave until 7:45! It was obsurd!! It ruined our whole entire night.
I had to write this to get it off my chest. So spread the word, MARCO POLO CRUISES in NEW YORK-NOT SO GOOD AT ALL!
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