The Dr Who Cruise Part 1

About every 15 or 16 months, a friend of ours organizes a Dr Who Cruise. It generally is fairly small, maybe 40 people. This year’s was the largest so far, with 72 guests signing up for it, including about a dozen ‘talents’ and 26 members of one family! The next few blogs will follow Hubby and me as we enjoyed the cruise.

 

Sunday, Oct 22 – We’d been looking forward to this cruise, and now it was time to get to it. First, I got out of bed at 5:20 AM to load the dishwasher, because who wants to come home to a sink full of dirty dishes? Then I cleaned out 3 email boxes and packed my cpap for the trip. About 9:30, we tossed the suitcases into the Toyota, put my car in the garage, and we were off.

 

Getting to the parking lot at Port Canaveral was mostly uneventful, although there had been some confusion when I wanted to mapquest the directions to get there. Turns out there are 2 lots with very similar names, and I had made a reservation at Lot B when I thought I was making a reservation at Lot A. But that got straightened out before we left home, and the directions to get there were simple. However, we didn’t see the sign for the parking lot until we were driving past it, so we made a couple u-turns to get back to it. We arrived about 2 minutes late for our reservation, but we were the first ones on the 11:15 shuttle to the ship. By 11:25. The shuttle was full to the gills and took off.

 

This was a Western Caribbean cruise on the Wonder of the Seas, Royal Caribbean’s largest ship. We’d been to the Caribbean several times but traveling with our DW friends was always fun.

 

Once we got to the terminal, it was practically a walk-through to get to the ship. Of course, my artificial knees set off the security alarm, so that slowed us down a bit, but not for long.

 

The first thing to do is to go to our muster station, so we know what to do ‘in case of an emergency’, so we asked how to get there. Our muster station was through the spa area and deep in the fitness area, which seemed a strange place to put it, but we didn’t ask questions. Perhaps there was a nearby exit to the outside deck that I didn’t notice.

 

The buffet is always a madhouse on debarkation day, so we thought we’d try the main dining room, but that had a private event for those passengers who had bought the ‘key’ package, and we hadn’t, so we ended up in the buffet anyway. At least we got to claim our soft-drink package and didn’t have to rely on the buffet’s watered-down juices.

 

By the time we finished lunch, our cabin was ready for us. But we had packed everything in the suitcases except our travel documents and whatever I could stuff in my fanny pack, so there was little we could do there until our suitcases showed up. In the meantime, we explored various decks, looking for ‘quiet spots’ where we’d be able to work. John had brought some short stories to on and edit on the laptop, and I would be writing on my blog and current WiP using pen and paper.

 

We went to the fitness center about 4:30 to see if they drew our names for a spa raffle. We didn’t win anything in the raffle, but we decided to sign up for the Managers Special, which was a 75 minute massage. We made our appointments for Thursday at noon, without knowing what our DW schedule for that day might look like.

 

Our cabin was a surprise. It was pretty much a normal cabin, except it had an extra 7 or 8 feet to it. The ceiling sloped down in that area, and in the middle of the slope was a big picture window looking out over the bow of the ship. Next to the window was a button and a sign asking that we close the curtain in the evenings so as not to disturb those working on the bridge. It took us a minute to figure out that button, which was 3 buttons in one, but we did understood it before night fell.

 

Our group’s dining time was 7:45PM, and those who wanted to could meet at the Schooner Bar at 7:00 for a social hour. At about 7:45, we would all go down to the Main Dining Room and find the table we were assigned to. On the first day, I didn’t realize the Main Dining Room was located on 3 decks, so I went down to deck 4, because that was where I remembered seeing the sign for it. There was a long line to get in, but it moved pretty quickly. When I got to the maître d’ and gave my cabin number, he informed me I was on the wrong floor and sent me up to deck 5. When I got to the deck 5 maitre d’, he started to show me to my table, got distracted by his radio, and told me to ‘look around, your party is around here somewhere.’ I knew a moment of sensory overload; there was a sea of faces around me, and I couldn’t pick out 1 that looked familiar. Then I heard Hubby calling my name, and I was united with the friends who were sharing a table with us.

 

After dinner, those fans who were interested went to the conference center to discuss ‘creative endeavors’ for the cruise. Sometimes the fans write a short DW episode and film it during the cruise, but with only 7 days, that didn’t seem feasible. So it was decided to split the creative fans into groups and let them write stories 5-7 pages long. On the last night of the cruise, the professional talent would read the stories out loud to the group.

 

The gathering was turned over to the creative fans. I couldn’t participate this time because I had deadlines to meet. Hubby was placed in charge of one writing group, and he spent some time talking to the other members about story ideas. Eventually, we crawled off to our cabin and went to bed.

Report on Bartow Con

I knew Bartow Con was coming long before it got here. But for a long time, I didn’t think I would be going to it. They had no more vendor’s tables, and the word was that the Klingon table would be outside. I burn at the drop of a sunbeam and don’t handle heat well, so I saw no reason for me to go.

 

But then I was reminded that I was navigator for my husband’s shuttle. I couldn’t get my own costume done in time, so I borrowed a TOS (the original series) costume and got myself ready to navigate. By then, thank goodness, the ‘club’ tables had been moved to a room inside the building. So we loaded up the shuttle with cargo and a passenger and headed out.

 

The event was held on Saturday, Oct 14, at the Bartow Civic Center in Bartow FL. We had to have our area set up and ready by 9:30 AM on the 14^th, or we could arrive Friday afternoon and set it up. We opted to set up on Friday, so we left our home about noon, picked up our passenger about 1, and headed for Bartow using highways and some local roads. We thought about using I4 to get us about halfway there, but it was several miles north of our position, and would have taken us longer.

 

The trip was uneventful except we accidentally turned a little early before we actually reached Bartow City Limits. Luckily, that road dumped us onto Old Bartow Road, which we followed south and came right to the hotel we had booked. So we checked in, unloaded things not needed at our table, and had a very late lunch before we went to the Civic Center.

 

It took us maybe an hour to unload our shuttle and set up our area. Other Klingons were already there, helping the Federation set up their area, but they were mostly done with that and were very helpful in getting us set up. Having accomplished that, we went back to the hotel, had supper and settled in for the night.

 

In the morning on Saturday, hubby was a bit under the weather, so I drove our passenger to the Civic Center and dropped him off. On the way back, I stopped and got some basic meds to treat my hubby. He was mostly garbed when I got to the hotel room, so I helped him finish up, and we were off, arriving at the Civic Center a few minutes before 10, which was when the even began. I dropped Hubby off at the door, then parked the shuttle in the grass with the other shuttles.

 

Our space was in a room with 4 ‘clubs’ having space, and half the room was set up as a panel room. It took some time for people to find this room, but by the time the first panel took place about noon, visitors were pretty common. Two more Klingons showed up about 10:30, meaning we had 8 Klingons in uniform for this event.

 

I spent most of the day at the table space, handing out brochures, business cards and keychains. That allowed the others to wander about the con, seeing what was where and who was there. About 4 times, hubby came back with a cup of flavored shaved ice, which we shared between us. One time, he sent me to get a shaved ice, so I could get whatever flavor I wanted. On my way, I picked up a bag of popcorn, which turned out to be very salty. And another time, one of the Klingons was enjoying some Birthday Cake-flavored cotton candy. I had never heard of that flavor, so she offered me a taste. I pulled off a tiny fluff, and it very definitely tasted like birthday cake!

 

Three times, we gathered all the Klingons together to get some group photos taken at various photo opportunities. The photos were fun, but the process of getting everybody gathered together in one place was like herding cats!

 

Let me describe the venue. The civic center has 2 ‘main entrances’, both of which open into a large room with a stage. This room was filled with vendors selling books, patches, uniforms, foodstuffs, craft items, retro toys… Lots of stuff! There was a smaller room to the south of the west entrance, and this seemed to be full of artists selling their wares. If you turn north before you come in the west entrance, there is another room with more vendors and a guy with 4 or 5 backdrops for photo ops. Now, back through the main room. On the north side of the stage, there was a short hallway that led to the VIP room, where the media guests were selling photos and autographs. There were also other VIPs, such as best-selling authors and the like. If you go through this room and out the other side, you come to an open-air hallway and you find the room where we were located.

Several food trucks were in the parking lot outside the west entrance. If it sounds confusing, it was; there was at least one room I wasn’t aware of before we went to it to have photos taken.

I think we were all agreed that Bartow Con 2023 was not a bad effort for a first con. I don’t know what kind of meeting rooms the local hotels might offer, but they might deserve a look. If the committee finds the Civic Center is their only choice, they might make maps of the facility available, either on the wall near doorways or in a brochure that also lists the panels and where they are located. And if they can find another room, they might consider offering gaming, which is generally pretty popular at these types of gatherings. I wasn’t able to watch it, but I understand their costume call was popular, and in front of the stage was crowded as people waited to hear who won what prize in which category.

 

After the last panel in our room ended about 5:30, 5 or 6 of us started tearing down our display. I walked to the shuttle and brought it around to the closest entrance so we could load up.

 

Five of us were staying at the same hotel, so we all went to supper together and enjoyed ourselves before returning to our rooms for the night.

 

In the morning, we piled our suitcases in the shuttle and headed out a little after 9. I was a little foggy-headed this morning and found myself confused about what direction we would turn as we tried to follow the instructions backwards. Once I confessed that, our passenger got out his Google Maps and took over navigating, sending us cross country on county roads and local streets until we finally got to his house. We helped him unload his stuff, and then headed home, arriving about 11:30.

 

We feel the journey was a success.