Perpetual Motion: Day 2

This is a six-part series about my time aboard CrimeWave at Sea 2025. If you want to join us on CrimeWave at Sea 2027, book your cabin now at crimewaveatsea.com/sinister or use SINISTER at checkout.

BREAKFAST WITH DICK

Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025 – 8:10 AM – Dining Room 3 – Breakfast Service

Oh my goodness. Lots happening on LOTS this morning.

The ship docked in Nassau before I woke up. By the time the light peeking through the gaussian curtains tapped me on the eyelids, we were already sitting still, butted up to port, with the larger Utopia of the Seas (UOTS? UTS?) on one side and Disney’s Titanic on the other. Our room overlooks a barrier island – idk what you call it – but they’re chain-sawing some stuff, and understandably so. They just had a hurricane nearby.

Christie and I are scheduled to kick off the festivities later this afternoon with Henry and Ed in a Side Stories / Sinisterhood crossover recording. This morning, I woke up to a text from Ed Larson reading: “Dick Cheney died!”

I replied, “The lord provides. Also I love that this is forever how I found out tyvm.”

Walking out of the room to breakfast, I was looking down and noticed a duck on a low shelf at the end of the hallway. It’s a small yellow rubber ducky dressed like a clown. It has a tag around its neck reading CRZ DKS. If I were reading those letters on a vanity plate, I would say Crazy Dicks. The tag also has a QR code for a Florida-based real estate agent. It squeaks when you squeeze it. I put it in my pocket, so I have to be careful when bending at the waist so my CRZ DK doesn’t squeak.

All the dining except the main one or a muffin shop are closed, so I am in main dining room, table 229.

On the subject of crazy dicks, I spent breakfast reading up on Cheney’s life and cause of death – pneumonia and heart disease. Dick had five heart attacks by the time he was aged 62. Every time he had a heart attack, the press would ask how he was doing. Every time he said, “Fine.” His heart couldn’t be reached for comment, though I bet its reply would be “Foiled again!”

I spent my whole breakfast reading biographical information on the former vice president. The torture stuff and the Darth Vader stuff and the war stuff (dealer’s choice on which war). In the end, I guess, the enhanced interrogation techniques were the athero sclerosis we found along the way.

The description of this dining room in the app calls it, “A throwback to the golden era of cruising” and describes a multi-course meal and dedicated waitstaff. In DFW’s essay, he describes a large table with strangers (kill me) talking over clanging silverware (throw me overboard) and a mandatory arrival time (fun?!)

The usage dictionaries all define “golden era” as “a time of great success, happiness, prosperity, etc.” Use of such phrase implies that that time has passed, especially when you add “throwback” in there.

So if we’re not in the Golden Era of Cruising, where the fuck are we?

Having read DFW’s essay, I am noticing the differences in how his “luxury” Celebrity cruise in 1995 was marketed as opposed to how Royal Caribbean markets this one. DFW notes how much of the marketing of his cruise was about pampering, being pampered, cared for, catered to, and served. RC is more focused on experiences and doing. There so much to DO, truly. Once you’ve done all this, you can haul yourself down to the NextCruise storefront and book your next thing to do.

I wonder whether it’s a matter of changing customer interests: are people in 2025 more interest in doing stuff than being pampered?

Comparing the two, I think the golden days are now. A few luxury amenities DFW’s cruise didn’t have — a murder-themed casino party or a game show, or a live comedy show about a high seas kidnapping, to name a few. 

On the ship, things have thinned out since we’re at port. It’s Tuesday but does not feel like a Tuesday. Being in a large group setting on vacation does feel like a repeated reminder that you are on vacation.

I am going to try to get a tour of the ship.

EXCUSE ME, WHERE IS YOUR DONUT WINDOW?

Cafe Promenade, Deck 5, 9:15 AM

Once I had my fill of Dick Cheney (does one ever?), I walked the ship looking for the bridge. DFW mentioned a meeting where you could get a lecture from the Captain about the goings on of the ship, and that very much would interest me.

But this is, after all, a work trip, so I need to minimize red flags on my quest. Can’t very well perform a comedy show with my best friend if I am locked in the brig or whatever they do to cordon off unruly passengers before making them walk the plank. They have my check-in selfie and my check-box permission to track my whereabouts on the ship, so even if I didn’t give my name, they could figure me out. Plus, I already walk around scribbling in a tiny Moleskine notebook, which has generated at least four questions so far.

I need to play it cool.

I stopped at Cafe Promenade for coffee. Seated at a table in the walkway, I saw all that I expected in the foot traffic of a day at port – shoeless kids, older couples holding hands, a white guy with newly braided cornrows.

The NYC mayor race is today (she writes from a cafe while docked at a beautiful beach town in the Caribbean). It’s Zohran Mamdani versus Andrew Cuomo and some other guy. No offense to that third man, but I do not know him. Opinion polls have Zohran in the lead.

The cruise ship just interrupted a stretching announcement to say they’re fixing to blow a safety whistle or something? I missed the details. There is a lady in a RC polo and khaki shorts directing stretching from the moveable bridge in the Deck 5 promenade that last night hosted the decades party.

Alarms or no, the stretch instructor is still going. She is stuffed into her mandatory polo shirt, flipping her high ponytail to “Buttons” by Pussycat Dolls with a single participant following along. There are staterooms whose windows face out onto the promenade. I marvel at how thick that window glass is because this is loud.

Time to find the steering wheel.

Maybe, I hope, they have a little window I could look through and watch them steer, like Krispy Kreme donuts where you can see the donuts roll beneath the sugar waterfall.

Dear reader, there is no such window as I had imagined. They keep the bridge locked behind a door on Deck 10, and the engine control room is in a secured area several decks down below that.

I didn’t know that when I wandered up, glasses off, to a man in a naval-ish white uniform. I had spotted him from afar around a corner near the elevator landing. Before I could register “Victor/Head Waiter” on his name tag, I asked, “Where do they drive the ship from?”

That early in the morning, I’d really only said a handful of words thus far. Often times, my untested voice in the morning comes out decidedly more Bobby Hillish than I prefer. This made my inquiry, I hoped, disarming and curious rather than as a threat of future mutiny that may, again, get me flagged in RC’s facial recognition database.

I had also opted for the more ignorant-sounding phrasing over what I’d wanted to say, which was, “Where can I find the bridge and engine control room?”

My preferred phrasing would’ve shown Victor/Head Waiter I was knowledgeable about ships and saved us both time. However, in a post-9/11 world where onboard skeet shooting has been eradicated for fear of mutiny, it can be dicey to demand where a bridge or cockpit or command center is, especially when wandering around alone scribbling in the aforementioned notebook.

I may be giving myself way too much credit at being “intimidating” in my frilly black bathing suit, jean shorts, and Crocs. Less likely to be profiled a terrorist, I am more likely to be profiled as someone’s drunk aunt who escaped the family reunion.

Victor/Head Waiter told me the bridge was on Deck 10 but said I could not see in. No dice on the donut waterfall window. I walked up the staircase to Deck 10 where two RC employees stood in yellow vests, participating in an employee fire drill. Another announcement let us know this was going on and passengers “didn’t have to” participate. But could we? I didn’t find out. I just distracted these two from manning their posts to once again ask, “Where do they drive the ship from?”

Joyce, a soft-faced woman with a waterfall of jet-black hair, confirmed it was driven here, from the tenth deck. Her male counterpart, whose nametag I couldn’t see added, “But you aren’t allowed in there.”

Normally I’d be offended by this phrasing: you aren’t allowed in, except he was 100% right and maybe speaking out of a little fear, or at the very least confusion. While I know I’m not going to grab hold of the wheel and steer us for open waters, they don’t know that Aunt Jackie in the Jimmy Buffet Crocs is harmless, and I guess that’s fair.

Back down on Deck 5 at Guest Services, a nice woman whose name tag read “Marijana” (yeah, I know, I had to ask, and she said “Mary Anna”) told me about the Behind the Waves tour, an under-ship tour similar to what I had read about in DFW’s piece. Well well well well well, what once was a bit of onboard entertainment offered on a day-at-sea is now $134 plus 18% gratuity per person. To be fair, it also takes TWO HOURS (!!!) when I thought it was only a 30-minute chat. After Guest Services gave me the rundown, they told me to book it myself in the app. Now I must decide whether I’m plunking down $134+ bucks on this.

I wandered up to deck 11 near the kids’ pool area and found a soft serve machine. They have an employee whose whole job is to make ice cream cones for kids in the sunshine. This indicates to me that the cost/benefit analysis is that it is more cost efficient to have a person do that than waste the ice cream/risk public health letting filthy hordes of people, including myself, touch a machine that mass dispenses dairy products.

Being a private equity lawyer breaks your brain.

In the bathroom on eleven near the Solarium Bar, I was pulling up/flushing when the goddamn fire alarm started screaming and flashing its lights again. I was comforted that, at the very least, I know we know we won’t sleep through a disaster.

Emerging from the stall, I saw a woman with soft brown hair in a ponytail washing her hands, wearing a Sinisterhood T-shirt. Given that my voice is recognized more often than my face, I said, “Boy, if you weren’t awake already, you would be now.” This startled the woman, and we shared a laugh. We walked outside and exchanged names. There, Mandy from Pennsylvania introduced me her friend, Corey.

Nearby, RC staff members attended to a white-haired woman lying on the floor whose knee went out, coincidentally around the time of the fire alarm. The passenger told the cruise employee her knee just gave out on its own, but as my ears rang with the blaring sirens, I had to wonder what might have been the predicating act.

I headed up to the Windjammer buffet for second breakfast. Paris was up on twelve at the FlowRider, enjoying the on-board surf simulator. I took a seat in the WJ along the wall of windows on the stern. There, on the wood separating the table from the glass, I found another rubber duck. This was small, red, and not a CRZ DK. It had a couple’s name – Jerry and Lisa – on the tag attached and said to tag them on Facebook when I found it. I did not tag them. I know cruising is this fun world of connection, but I’m not connecting with randos. Sorry y’all. But I did keep the duck before mailing it as an apology gift to a person I hit later (standby, I swear I can explain).

As I was cracking my hardboiled egg and eating the deli cheese slices of my second breakfast, I caught the eye of Austin, rave baby owner, from across the room. He mouthed, “Can I join you?” and I was so pleased he did. A few minutes in, Tommy joined us, fresh from a morning walk. We had such a lovely breakfast, trading travel stories and catching up on the first night of the cruise.

Austin headed off to enjoy the day, and Tommy went to grab a refill. As I sat alone, I admired both Nassau Bay and the enormous Utopia of the Seas docked beside us. Do we call that one UTS, like GUTS without a G? Behind me, I heard a woman lament, “This cruise is fine, don’t get me wrong, but look at that cruise. It’s huge!” She was referring to the adjacent UTS.

Ship envy: a sad frame of mind to occupy when you’re momentarily living in a floating resort. She was correct in her observation. The UTS is humongous. More than twice the size of this one. I lamented the eternal dissatisfaction of a ship size queen. There’s always going to be somebody bigger. It’s a matter of perspective and, looking in rather than out, LOTS was plenty big enough.

Walking out, I bumped into Josh and Kat, a couple of listeners originally from Virginia who’d recently moved up to New England. We chatted about the cruise so far, what we were planning that day, and excitement about the upcoming events.

That afternoon, Christie and I met up with Henry and Ed in a service corridor on the second deck, ready to record our crossover episode with Side Stories. Soon, the four of us bounded out of the double doors and yapped for sixty minutes straight on Dick Cheney, the ship tour costing $134 (!!), Amy Bradley’s disappearance, lizards eating people, Florida babies, and more. I could not think of a better way to kick off the inaugural cruise than sixty unbridled minutes riffing with my best friend and two of the kindest, funniest dudes I’ve ever met. Listen here: (LINK).

That evening, we adjourned to the main dining room on five and enjoyed our dinner with Ryan from IRL, who is just a delightful guy. To our absolute glee, our other tablemate was Richard from Unexplained. We exchanged the usual shop talk – recent convictions in the news, UFOs, heinous crimes of history, AI psychosis. The conversation was perfectly timed for our server to hear some of the worst details of Lost Prophets’ singer Ian Watkins’ heinous crimes and prison death, right as she was dropping off the soup and salad course to Richard.

We collectively chuckled as Christie correctly noted, “We’re laughing because that’s something Heather would do.”

Less than 24-hours later, I’d prove her right.

TRANSMISSIONS TO LAND

Actual text to the HS group chat from inside the dining room

I sent an image of the humoungous chandelier inside the main dining area. It’s about 20-feet long and hangs suspended over hundreds of diners.

I am not hoping that it smashes but if it did it would be 😚🤌

HOLLY JOLLY PROFILING

We all hopped into our PJs after that for the CrimeWave at Sea PJ Pub Crawl. I wore a black set of bamboo-fabric PJs patterned with little white dancing skeletons. Before we headed together to the festivities, I ran down alone to refill my ValidFill-patented soda cup. The overall cruise’s theme night, I should mention, was not PJ Pub Crawl. So, of the 3,300+ passengers, only the 550 or so of us attending the festival were running around in our jammies. Everyone else was dressed for Caribbean night. At around 15% of the cruise’s total passengers, there were enough of us running around in our bedclothes to be noticeable.  

My cup full, I headed back up to meet back up with the gang. While waiting for the elevator, I saw a man dressed in a red sports coat and black slacks. He was an imposing figure with a long white beard and a cane in one hand. His head was covered by a red felt driving cap. On the side of the cap, a small tag was embroidered with the word “Believe” and a small holly berry. I checked the date.

Nine more weeks till Christmas. Could he be on vacation?

“Is there some kind of pajama party going on?” Santa Claus asked. I explained the festival and pub crawl. At the mention of true crime, his eyes twinkled more than if I’d told him what I wanted for Christmas.

“You know a true crime podcast you should listen to,” he said. “Real Crime Profiles. The host was a consultant for the TV show Criminal Minds. They go into behavioral analysis.”

If the crux of your job is to determine whether folks have been naughty or nice, information on that podcast would be pretty valuable. At the very least, you relate to sussing out which list someone belongs on.

Kringle told me how the hosts analyze interrogation footage of perpetrators: “Things they say; the things they don’t say. All the big ones, sexual predators.” He then rattled off an All-Time Naughty List: “Epstein, Diddy, R.Kelly.” I told him I’d have to check it out. Then off with a flash, he rode the elevator out of sight, and I had to go upstairs and convince my husband and our best friends that I wasn’t hallucinating.

The pub crawl was a ton of fun. We made plans to meet up with Richard at the English pub to get his take on whether it was true to life. The conclusion? About as real as Texas Roadhouse is to Texas, which is to say a reasonably comforting facsimile. After enjoying the live music and saying hi to a few listeners in the loud pub (sorry for missing your names!), we headed down to deck two to turn in our booklets from the pub crawl to get a prize – a CrimeWave at Sea enamel pin, which made me feel like I got a detective badge.

Downstairs in the conference area, we met two pairs of besties who’d made the trip: Kylie and Jaycee from Cleveland and Becky and Christine from Atlanta. Kylie had on cute purple PJs, and Jaycee had some wicked awesome Wicked Crocs. Jaycee also revealed she had a Sinisterhood tattoo of the ghost I draw, so Christie got a pic of us together. We were on the floor in the photo due to Becky.

Within moments of meeting, the conversation revealed that Becky had endured a harrowing saga while serving jury duty. The story was so gripping and so hilarious that the six of us blocked the door to the conference room for a period. Herded out of the way, we then circled up on the floor right outside the door like we were in a cabin at summer camp swapping ghost stories. Except this was better than a ghost story because it was real and unbelievably funny. We were all sat, literally. I swear I am not trying to tease you or be coy by not sharing her story. It is simply not my tale to tell, but I did encourage Becky to start a blog or something where she can share that and, I am sure, many other adventures she has embarked upon. Some people start talking and you never ever want them to stop. That’s how it felt sitting in the circle.

After story time, Christie and I ended up back on the interior balcony area of deck nine looking through the crowd for Tommy. He had gone back to five to get a refill, and we saw him as we were looking down from the landing. We waved so madly and with such vigor that we caught the eye of Kat and Josh, our listeners who I’d met at breakfast that morning. They came up and said hello as another listener, Raquel, stopped and chatted with us. We all got a photo together, taken by a lovely, well-meaning older cruiser who was unrelated to the festival. She struggled with the camera phone, and her earnest commentary had all of us hanging onto one another longer than usual for picture-taking-time and muffling our laughs.

At 11PM, we all headed down to the Platinum Theater on deck two for an all-time great performance from Scared to Death. Finding our seats, we ran into Anna from Reno, whose bestie, Alana, made our ghostie necklaces. Anna noticed we were wearing the pendants and exclaimed. We thanked her because they looked great with the PJs!

Lynze read spooky listener tales about haunted ships. I was entranced to the point of wonder about the spirits of our fine vessel. I shivered at it only being day two of a five-day journey at sea. Truly scared to death. Dan then blew our minds with a Nightmare Fuel, where he writes and narrates a fiction piece with a live score and sound effects. Between the soundtrack, his booming voice, and the hair-raising narration, it was like a radio show that you could climb inside and explore. The ship was swaying. The lights were low. At one point, a crack of thunder and the boom of Dan’s voice sent me up outta my seat. I was altogether convinced the ghost of a pissed off sailor was going to get all of us.

Back in the room, I pulled up the RC app, remembering Marijana’s instructions. On the agenda for the next day, I saw the singular excursion available to book – Beyond the Waves. Then I saw in red: “One Seat Left.” I clicked Add to Cart, then Check Out.

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Stay tuned for Day 3

Learn more and join us at CrimeWave 2.0

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