My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
The best places to socialize on the ship are at meal times and at the Crew Bar. Unfortunately, the Crew Bar has a time vortex where once you enter, no matter what your intentions are, you end up staying until 3am (even though it closes at 1am). I have learned my lesson so I stay away on days I have work in the morning, especially when I am teaching Zumba. In Broome I had the morning off, so I had stumbled into the vortex the night before. Luckily, I have friends who want to have as many adventures as I do, so they called my cabin to wake me up early.
We caught an early shuttle to beat the rush of guests and made our way into town. It was HOT! Where Darwin was humid, Broome was HOT and DRY. I tried so hard to have a good attitude but I was absolutely miserable. Georgie (Singer UK), Bri (Guest Entertainer US), Vicky (Singer China) and I found breakfast and a shopping center and tried to figure out what we wanted to do. The night before it had seemed that the tour to ride camels on the beach was sold out, but Bri put us on the waiting list and now there were spaces available at 2:30 in the afternoon. It was 9am and it was already close to 100 degrees F (like 40 C). I pictured being on a beach in the hot sun sitting on a warm animal and nothing sounded worse. Plus I had to get back to do the afternoon trivia at 4:30 and I thought doing the camel ride would be cutting it too close to get back on time. I opted out. When everyone had stopped in the shops that they needed, getting t shirts for people at home, vitamins, snacks and shampoo for crew who couldn’t get off the ship, we tried to figure out how to get the bus to the beach but it was too hot and complicated, so we flagged down a cab. After about 20 minutes, we were at the beach and it was a different day. There was a cool breeze and the beach was spectacular. The water was turquoise the sand white fine and silky. We sat down in the shade at the open air restaurant and basked in our change of circumstances. I could now understand why someone would want to ride a camel (though I still didn’t want to spend a camel ride worried about how long it would take). After a pineapple beer and fruity gin cocktails, more crew showed up and sat all around us, so we stayed, and then we found that we were the last ones left. We went down to the beach and played in the water. It turned out to be such a spectacular day.
The distance of sand to the water was so far. Bri and I ran doing impressions of everyone from Joseph to Jack Sparrow. We were laughing by the time we reached the water.
When it was time for the camel ride, Vicky and I made our way back to the ship. From the taxi we saw the camels walking to the beach so the driver spun around so we could get pictures. It turned out that most of the other crew from the beach decided to ride the camels too.
When I asked people how it was they replied with the same tone of voice as they would describe a trip to the grocery store. I was confused – I was expecting them to recount an amazing adventure. They said it was more uncomfortable and awkward than they had guessed it would be which made me feel even better about opting out. Plus I’ve already ridden camels in Qatar, so I’m all set. I love when I have no regrets.