Even though the wedding ceremony took place before the cruise, the wedding couple generously offered to pay for my cabin. I had never been on a cruise before so accepted their offer. I had only a vague idea what the experience would entail.<\/span><\/p>\n The gentleman who cuts my hair is a frequent patron of the cruise industry. When I told him I would be taking a three-night trip to Mexico he laughed and said \u201cOoooh! The booze cruise!\u201d Truer words were never spoken. I already assumed that food and alcohol were important elements of the cruise experience. Based on my experience, it may be more accurate to say that food and a boat trip are important elements of the drinking experience.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t mean to suggest that the cruise wasn\u2019t fun. My mini-vacation on the sea was a blast to the extent that I can remember it. The ocean liner, called the Radiance, was celebrating her fiftieth year afloat, not that her passengers needed a reason to celebrate. Boarding of the ship began at 9:30am for a 5pm cruise but the bars were open as soon as anyone was willing to order a drink.<\/p>\n Well before we set sail the ship was already a raging party. A neophyte to the culture, some people called me a \u201ccruise virgin\u201d. As such, I was not aware that to score a spot in the upper deck hot tub I would have had to claim my spot by about noon. Many guests sat on immovable barstools from early afternoon until the bars closed at midnight or 2am depending upon which bar was chosen.<\/p>\n While we were still docked, sales tax was added to the drink price whether you were paying as you drank or, much more commonly, you bought the \u201cCheers\u201d drink package which afforded you up to fifteen drinks per day for about $70 ($57 plus built-in gratuity).\u00a0 Cash was not used.\u00a0 Instead, the plastic key card to your room doubled as your drink and food card.\u00a0 Despite the prepaid gratuity for the wait staff it was customary, but not required, to add a dollar when you signed your tab.\u00a0 All additional gratuities and sales tax were charged in the aggregate to my debit card after the cruise ended.<\/p>\n My room\/drink card was blue to signify my cruise-virgin status. Most passengers had been on multiple cruises and had a red card.\u00a0 No matter the color, some fellow travelers made it their mission to consume all fifteen of their permitted drinks. To ensure that nobody got too inebriated, a least five minutes had to pass between one\u2019s drink orders. Given that restriction, it would take someone just 75 minutes use up their drink rations for the day.<\/p>\n The ship was like a floating city with a population of about three thousand guests and more bars per capita than Bourbon Street. Among the numerous restaurants and buffets were many with nautical names like Cucina del Capitano, which should not to be confused with Pizzeria del Capitano. The menu at the main dining hall had two \u201cnew\u201d items that were offered in honor of the Radiance\u2019s half century of service: Mushroom soup and spaghetti carbonara. I am not sure how those dishes related to her birthday but I enjoyed both offerings.<\/p>\n Of course, I was not limited to just two items. Unless you eat at one of the \u201cprime\u201d restaurants, at which only a portion of your meal is subsidized by the basic mail plan, you can eat as much or as many entrees as you can swallow.\u00a0 At the main dining hall you also were treated to a \u201cfloor show\u201d\u00a0 at some point when the wait staff broke into a song and did a hokey-pokey type of dance.<\/p>\n Despite the huge number of fellow travelers, I saw many people over and over. Perhaps it was because we gravitated to the same bars or cafes.\u00a0 The lobby bar on Deck 5 in the middle of the ship was where I tended to see the bride and groom and the groom\u2019s siblings. All are very nice people and most were visiting from Utah and Nevada but, alas, one family member could not board the Radiance because she left her wallet and I.D. in a restaurant on her way to Long Beach. A lot of eye rolling by the siblings who made it onto the ship led me to believe that the missing family member started her drinking well before the wedding. Their very elderly parents also joined the cruise but spent most of their time in their cabin watching the array of available movie channels.<\/p>\n A spa, a weightroom and a sauna were available until the evening but I did not meet anyone who had used them. The evening entertainment options were much more popular. At the karaoke bar I saw some surprisingly good singers including a guy wearing a Mexican poncho who performed a wonderful version of \u201cHallelujah.\u201d A DJ at the lobby bar offered 50\u2019s, 60\u2019s and 80\u2019s themed musical shows with a couple who of lip-synched the songs on stage. The comedy club and bar had an early PG-rated show and a later R-rated show both performed by the same comedian. The disco was popular among the younger crowd.<\/p>\n One of the first things I noticed on the main deck was the huge waterslide which highlighted the water park. Alas, it rained much of the second day so only diehards took advantage of the slide.<\/p>\n Late on the first night I encountered a man who was falling down drunk next to the gate to the waterpark. At midnight it would be his 25th<\/sup> birthday and he had proudly consumed his allotted fifteen drinks in anticipation of riding the slide as the clock struck twelve.\u00a0 Alas, the waterslide closed hours earlier and he was beside himself with frustration. So drunk that it was hard to tell if he was crying, he kept yelling \u201cJust once! Just once!\u201d<\/p>\n The second day was a bit tamer than the first. I think a lot of people were recovering from their wild night before. During the day many of guests dressed in their teams\u2019 colors sat in bars and watched NFL playoff games. That evening was \u201cdress up night\u201d but, other than the fact that a lot of women wore low cut and very bright colored dresses it was no different than the night before.\u00a0 The casino was very busy that night and, of course, so were the bars but in a more sedate way than the prior night.<\/p>\n On the last full day of the cruise we docked in Ensenada for about seven hours.\u00a0 It took about twenty minutes for the shuttle to take us into town.\u00a0 I went on an excursion to La Bufadora (The Blow Hole) mostly because my family had gone there several times when I was a kid.<\/p>\n The road is much safer and the shopping area near La Bufadora is much more upscale than when I was younger and most of the vendors simply sold churros. I had some very good food during my visit.\u00a0 However, the blow hole is still just a spot where water shoots into the air when a wave reaches the end of the cove.<\/p>\n We had to be back to the Radiance by 4:30pm because the 5pm departure time is set in stone.\u00a0 I asked a porter if any ever misses the boat and he told me that it is a rare cruise when nobody does.\u00a0 That is not surprising when you consider that most of the passengers who visited Ensenada spent their time at Papa\u2019s and Beer or at Hussong\u2019s Cantina drinking. The shuttle driver said that there is always someone who gets sick during the ride back to the ship because they drank too many tequila shots in the city.<\/p>\n I was impressed by the crew and the waitstaff and bar staff. Few if any were Americans and all wore name tags with names that hinted where they were from. They all seemed eerily happy but their good moods did not seem disingenuous. I imagine that either they are very well paid or the personnel administrators run an unforgiving ship.<\/p>\n The stateroom attendant who took care of my cabin was friendly and happily introduced himself every time I saw him. Each evening when I returned to my cabin, I found on my bed an animal made of folded and rolled towels and with black felt eyes.\u00a0 An elephant greeted me the first evening and rabbits the second and third.\u00a0 I am not good at towel origami so when I left I just rolled up a towel to make a snake with black eyes and left a cash tip in the snake\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n All in all, I had a good time on the Radiance Booze Cruise. Cruise ship weddings, more so than other \u00a0typed of weddings, are amplified by the experience. Three days at a moderate level of inebriation and all the food I could eat was not good for my physique but I didn\u2019t spend much time worrying about any work or tasks. I am not sure I will do it again but it is one more thing to check of my bucket list.<\/p>\n Well. Since you made it to the end, I guess you might be interested in getting married on a cruise too. As an Southern California wedding who is now experienced in cruise ship weddings, I\u2019d be delighted to be a part of your marriage ceremony. Luckily you don\u2019t have to pay for me to go on the cruise – as long as it\u2019s still in port when I can get off and wish you a bon voyage after the ceremony is over.<\/p>\n If you were here just to read my (hopefully) entertaining experience but are also getting married in Southern California, I can help with that even if cruise ship weddings aren\u2019t what you have in mind. I can issue your California confidential marriage license and perform your wedding ceremony anywhere you want. Give me a call at 562-547-3255 or send me an inquiry<\/a> to look into cruise ship weddings or other destination weddings<\/a> today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a first for everything. Despite how popular cruises are, I had never been asked to do cruise ship weddings and I had never been on one before. But the time finally came. Last Friday I officiated a ceremony on a massive Carnival cruise ship (you can read more about weddings on Carnival cruises here) …Click Here to Read More…<\/strong><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,48,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chris","category-destination-weddings","category-los-angeles-wedding-location-ideas","category-wedding-places"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2386"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2413,"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions\/2413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Cruise](\"https:\/\/officiantguy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/9747658F-A9BF-42D5-B156-D04674BFF01E-480x600.jpeg\")
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<\/a>
\nCruise Ship Weddings<\/h3>\n