Comping Dilemma!

We haven’t always been into “Comping”.  Before we saw "the light", the only comper we were aware of was my father, who had been entering competitions for as long as I could remember.  We used to find it all rather "quaint" and slightly pointless, especially as all he ever seemed to win were T-shirts and T-towels!  That was until that fateful Christmas some fourteen years ago when my mum bought him the comping game "Diamond Dilemma".  Whilst substantial prizes were up for grabs, they required the derivation of solutions to some fairly complicated puzzles, and then the provision of an appropriate "slogan" as the tie-breaker.  As my dad had no real interest in puzzles, my husband agreed to solve them and my dad would provide the necessary tie-break. 

Safe Crossing

The prize was for 2 superior double occupancy, external cabins.  My parents took one of these cabins, but at this stage we had two young boys (2 and 4 years old), so we swapped our cabin for two inferior internal cabins with a linking doorway.  The cruise was for 32 days, taking in half a dozen Caribbean islands, as well as one stop in Venezuela.  However, what soon became apparent was that rather than fly out there, we were to sail both there (via Amsterdam and the Azores) and back (via the Canaries and Lisbon) from London.  This wouldn’t have been too bad, but unfortunately the ship was a Russian owned, flat bottomed, converted ferry.  This meant it wasn’t particularly stable in high seas, and as luck would have it we hit a rather bad storm on the way out and a 60-foot freak wave took out most of the windows of the external cabins next to us.  My father was lying on his bed at the time!!!  He was literally showered with glass and sea water. The water that gushed in also went under their cabin door and into our adjacent cabin. This soaked our carpet, and we all eventually moved for a few days into the bowels of the ship. The cabins we occupied for these few short days were those of the dancing girls – lord knows where they had to move to!

Caribbean Missile Crisis

Rather embarrassingly, I spent most of these first few days in bed with seasickness.  While I lay dying in my cabin, in common with most of the rest of the ship I might add, my two young sons were out and about with my husband causing mayhem around the ship. What of course I have neglected to mention up to this point is the fact, that apart from an 8-month-old baby, ours were the only children on a ship of some 700 passengers. Not only that, the average age was the wrong side of 70 (or at least it seemed that way!). Of course, to begin with, everyone found our two-year-old quite adorable.  Fresh out of nappies, with a mop of curly blond hair, a limited vocabulary (“Mum”, “More” and “No!”) and an impish grin, he knocked them all dead.  But then he started doing that literally, as he insisted on creeping up behind fellow passengers and kicking away their walking sticks!  He was forever running off, and

Of course, having the only children on board did have some advantages.  On the night of the fancy dress they walked away with equal first prize in the children’s category!  We dressed Sam up as a Missile (Sam Missile), which seemed quite appropriate at the time. 

The brochure had said that there were excellent children facilities on board to which you could send your children for the bulk of the day. However, the cruise company were not prepared to open this facility just for our two kids.  In response we told them that every day we would take our children down to the area in front of their Information Desk, and let them play there.  After, just half an hour of them experiencing Sam, they caved in and agreed to open the playroom and supervise our children for 2 hours every day!

Taken for a ride

After six days (6 days of hell as my husband put it) spent crossing the Atlantic we arrived at our first Caribbean island.  It was while biting into his first meal ashore (a lobster) that my husband had the first painful twinge in one of his teeth. Two days later he was in some discomfort.  However, he was somewhat put off by treatment on board by the fact that the ships dental surgery and implements would have looked more at home in Bedrock and the non-English speaking female dentist bore an uncanny resemblance to Fred Flintstone!  He therefore decided to wait until we arrived at the next port in Venezuela. 

Later that day we docked at the port of Caracas.  As ever, the disembarkation point was milling with local taxis drivers touting for business.  So we grabbed one of them, and the six of us set off crammed into his beat-up American Cadillac on our journey up to the main city.  As we drove he gestured to the left and right to buildings of interest, pronouncing just their names in pigeon English.  On this particular day, El Presidenté was giving a speech.  Consequently, the streets were bustling with people, and there were uniformed soldiers everywhere - all carrying firearms. 

Then as we rounded a corner, there was a huge bang.  Our driver just laughed, and carried on calling out the names of buildings.  As we looked worriedly at one another, we noted a flapping noise coming from the back of the car, and were aware that our ride had suddenly become rather bumpy.  Soon the noise became very loud indeed, and all the pedestrians were all turning to gawk at us as we passed.  But our driver kept on laughing, and telling us the name of each passing landmark.  Then thankfully he pulled into a run down garage.  The car was jacked up (with us all still in it!) and we looked out the window to see that most of the rear nearside tyre had gone, and we had essentially been driving on the wheel rim. The bang had been a ‘blow-out’ after all!

Relieved we drove on to the centre of the city, where the driver parked his car and accompanied us on a walk-about.   By this stage my husband’s tooth ache had returned with a vengeance, and he was in excruciating pain.  So we spent the next hour or so charging around Caracas looking for a dentist.  Unfortunately, El Presidenté’s speech was being celebrated by a public holiday and everywhere was closed.  Eventually, with the help of our demented taxi driver and a street vendor selling pigeon food, we found a children’s dentist.  This kindly lady then proceeded to drill out my husband’s tooth while he perched precariously on a dental chair that was 10 sizes too small.  Throughout this process, the taxi driver sat grinning inanely on a stool by my husband’s side, while my father filmed the grizzly events from the doorway! When the dentist had finished, she announced my husband would need to return for more treatment on 3 further occasions, to which my husband replied “I’m sailing at 4.00 pm”, paid her, and left!

Happy Days!

This was by no means the only disaster that befell us on that cruise.  On every island we visited there was always some minor catastrophe waiting, but I will never forget the experience of visiting all of those islands, and the friendly inhabitants that we met.  Much of our time was spent eating and drinking rum cocktails, and trying to keep Sam under control.  

An experience never to be forgotten!

DOT