CHILLIN’ THE MOST – KID ROCK CRUISE 2015 (we’re in that crowd somewhere…)
Me & Margaret on the 1st day:
Me after the cruise upon finally arriving back home (I’m old…it really took its toll):
Link to all, categorized pictures. Yeah, some are dups, some are blurry…deal with it: Slideshow
Clip of opening tune as ship left port (Sea Cruise):
Clip of ‘Cowboy’ from Wednesday show (“I’m on a boat motherf*cker!”)
That’s it…the end. Anyone up for helpin’ me pay my credit card bill next month?
Got up, took taxi to airport, paid $100 ‘Overweight Baggage Charge’ for 63lb suitcase (limit 50lb for ‘normal’ $25 fee; hmm, think it was the 4 litres of booze and 5 cartons of cigarettes that mighta pushed us over the limit?), cursed American Airlines, sat in front of sick guy spewing mucus all over us (literally), got in car, drove home, thanked God I survived, went to bed.
Greyhound of the skies:
Shit, now we gotta get off this rowboat. Stand in line like cattle, go through Customs (they were pretty apathetic about the whole process…thank God) and into the taxi to take us to the Eden Roc in Miami Beach to cool down and hang out for the night before going through the hellish ‘Greyhound w/ Wings’ experience of flying back to Cleveland.
Not a bad place, this Eden Roc. Nice corner oceanfront suite, lotsa pools, hot tubs (without sweaty, drunken yahoo’s in them). Should be nice, right?
F*cking WRONG! If ya notice the last picture, it appears they are setting up for an event of some sort, yes? That’s because they are…of course they neglected to mention this when we checked in and paid a $21 per person ‘Resort Fee’. All pools, pool areas and outside locations were off limits from 4pm onward. Now, I understand they have events and stuff but to still charge the resort fee when essentially you’re trapped in your room (think ‘Gilded Cage’) unless you leave the property, just what the ^%$#@ is the Resort Fee for? They’ll be getting a call this week, the asshats. On the plus side, before they roped everything off we did squeeze in a lunch of:
1 Chicken sandwich
1 Cuban sandwich
1 small glass of Pinot Grigio
1 Diet Coke
All for the bargain price of $88…but that did include the mandatory 18% gratuity for the shitty service so that’s something. Then again, maybe not.
But all is not lost, we’re right close to South Beach so I got on the phone, made an appointment at http://salvationtattoolounge.com/ and this was the result:
Great place, Maria was quite entertaining through the whole (3hr) process. For anyone reading this that works with me, you’ll see that I’m promoting the company brand via logo’d clothing even when I’m on vacation. Or maybe it was because all my other shit was in a suitcase wrapped around bottles of duty-free liquor as padding. Or perhaps because, aside from company and vendor supplied clothing, I have no other clothes. It was one of the those reasons…
That’s about it except Margaret started feeling sick; we’re hoping it’s not Malaria or the Dengue Fever. She’ll be immediately quarantined in the bedroom upon arrival home. Which means I have to do all the laundry so expect me to be wearing wrinkled, slightly pinkish clothing on Monday; I don’t particularly like to take the time to separate colors when I do a load of laundry ‘by volume’.
OK…so now it’s Thursday. Gotta admit that this shit is getting a little tiresome. Kid Rock played his last show yesterday night. There was a Q&A with him with pre-screened questions on the main stage but the questions were mostly bullshit softballs lobbed his way. One item of interest was when he was asked where/what the song Bawitdada came from; his answer: “Abso-fucking-lutely nothing; just a made up word/lyric.” Well, that certainly explains that.
Fuck it, time to pack up and get off this ship of fools tomorrow. Yah, I’m tired, sunburned (sunscreen is for little girls).
Biggest challenge of the night? Fitting 4 liters of booze, 5 cartons of cigarettes, and various shipboard giveaways/souvenirs into luggage that was already bursting at the seams when we arrived.
Oh, and also stuffing in the 14 shoes Margaret felt the need to bring along. Just counting to 14 means I had to remove 1 of the 4 shoes I brought when I ran outta fingers counting her shoes.
Made it to Cozumal today, of to some beach park to eat, drink and for many, likely puke in the sand. Because nothing goes better with warm shots of Tequila than 87 degree heat and blazing hot sun shine. Mexico does have the distinct advantage of cheap cigarettes and booze. Nothing says nicotine addiction more than 5 cartons for $100.
Picked up some liquor for friends…that’s gonna be one heavy carry-on bag to stuff in the overhead bin on the flight home. Hope that shit don’t shift in flight and kill someone when they open the bin at the end of the flight.
Saw this at the Cozumel water park:
“Hey kids, go play under that tree that looks like a pissing monkey is sitting on top of”. Chlorine is a wonderful disinfectant.
Was thinking if getting tattoo on this trip:
But maybe Mexico ain’t the best place to have anything done that is involves needles and bleeding. Maybe Miami if I got the time…
Kid Rock did a kickin’ show when we got back, all the old and new favorites. Place went bat-shit crazy when he broke into Bawitdaba…
Having a blast…just gotta figure out how to tell work I ain’t coming home and am dedicating my remaining days to selling overpriced trinkets to tourists on the beach. Suggestions welcome.
Uh-oh…patience is waning with 2500 drunk mother – f*ckers rubbing and bumping into me.
If I ever found the d-bag who started that whole “Whooo…” scream shit, I’d ventilate their trachea with a fork. When the waiter drops off a fresh basket of bread at your table, it’s really not worthy of a concert-scream you weathered old assbag.
Now, admittedly, I used to study the finer points of the alcoholic arts but, while I certainly did dumb-ass shit, from what i recall, I did it quietly. Party drunk, outdoor drunk, no worries. But in a public dining roon? Shut yer fuckin blowhole you weathered old bitch.
Day 2
Rest of the non pre-party folks boarded. It seems as this by bunch, while a bit rowdier, had a less ‘used’ look to them. Kid Rock keep kicked off the trip with a kick ass show as the ship left port. Some diehards slept on deck last night to secure their place in n front of stage.
So on a more mainstream note, the ‘letting it all hang out’ contingent made their appearance today:
And here we have a 10′ hot tub jammed with about 20 people; more chlorine, anyone?
Packing took about 5 minutes; I excel in this area:
Aww…how cute; Margaret made little notes on what she was gonna wear for each Theme Night and packed accordingly. Amateur.
Lineup:
John Stone Band
DJ Soulman
Kelley James
The Band of Heathens
John Eddie
Whitey Morgan
The Big Rock Show
DJ Mark EP
Uncle Kracker
Comedian Chris Porter
Nikki Lane
Aside from John Eddie, have no idea who these people are…which I suppose is fair ‘cuz I’m guessing they have no idea who I am.
02/28/2015, 9:30pm:
OOPS…just got recorded message from airline that our flight tomorrow was cancelled and re-booking is getting us to MIA at 6:25pm. Well, that certainly won’t work, boat will have left by then. Call airline, get recording “We’re real busy…you can expect a call back in at 2 hours.”
They call us back at 11:30pm (at least they were accurate in the ‘call ya back in 2hrs’ thing), at first say they have NO other flights to get us to MIA in time, a little desperation (and a ‘supervisor’) then finds a flight through Chicago that WILL get us there by noon. Hooray…except the flight leaves in 5hrs…airport is 1hr away. Guess we won’t be sleeping much tonite.
My head hurts. Already.
Vacationing is OK; Traveling sucks.
03/01/2015
Left the house at 3:30am for 5:58am flight to Miami via Chicago. Drive to airport was 45mph over snow covered roads. Thanks ODOT, hope you all enjoyed your donuts this morning.
Made it to airport, flight delayed 1hr for de-icing, made it to connecting flight in Chicago just as they were screaming “Faymon…last call for Faymon!”. Thank God we channeled our inner Avis-era O.J. running through airport.
Highlights of Day:
1. Woman asking Margaret to ‘taste her’ by licking her neck.
2. Same woman not batting an eye when new, male acquaintance proceeded to yank her top off.
3. Numerous run-in’s with ship staff squirting hand sanitizer on our hands while saying ” Washy-Washy”…truly strange, every time ya turn around…”Washy-Washy…” – SQUIRT!
Lessons learned:
1. There are three kinds of drunkenness:
– Good time, fun party drunk
– Silly, funny drunk.
– “STFU you no-class, loudmouth…” drunk.
Guess which was most prevalent today?
On the plus side, Duty Free liquor and tobacco on ship is very appealing in terms of price.
Couple of pics of band playing as ship sailed:
Heading to airport…2:30am.
Airline called 5 hrs ago to tell us original flight canceled; took an hour on phone to work out new arrangements to get to Miami in time. Airlines suck. Nice
phone reps, though.
2300+ hard-core fans, rumored 3X the alcohol load-in/consumption of a ‘normal’ cruise, dress up theme-nights such as ‘Redneck Prom Night’ and ‘Overalls Night’…I’m gonna need a vacation from this so-called vacation.
2013 Synopsis: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/celebrities/201306/kid-rock-annual-cruise-gq-june-2013
Images: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/travel-features/201306/photos-kid-rocks-rock-n-roll-cruise#slide=1
As much as I’m not really a fan of large groups of people, kinda looking forward to this…should be quite interesting and ya always get to be whoever you want when ya leave home. Maybe I should dye my hair blond or some other oddball color just for shits and giggles. That stuff will wash out after 7 days, right?
Anyone skeptical that I’ll survive this without my head literally fuckin’ exploding?:
At least all age groups will be represented; this ‘mature’ woman is right in there with the rest of those young, rowdy malcontents:
(and yes, Dion…I’ll try to take many pictures like this just for you…I’m pretty sure there will be ‘ample’ opportunity to do so)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words…I’m guessing this sums it up pretty well:
The Ship:
The luxurious ‘Obstructed View’ stateroom:
The luxurious ‘Obstructed View’ stateroom…if you’re packing 4 people into it; I think not. I guess the roll-away bed in the middle is for the person closest to alcohol-poisoning each night; easy to roll right down the the infirmary…they just think of everything, no?
More to come…
Life's tough, wear a helmet. 