Many years ago there was a premium sports and movie channel in Philadelphia. Called Philadelphia Regional In Home Sports and Movies (PRISM), it carried a weekly sports talk show and most of those talking heads can still be found on WIP 610 Sports Talk Radio, from whence they came.
The weekly show always ended with a segment called “Winners and Weasels,” in which each member of the panel nominated a person in sports as a winner or weasel for something he or she did. Of course, being Philly, the Dallas Cowboys (always referred to as the Stinkin’ Dallas Cowboys) were always weasels. But I digress.
So, without further ado, here are my Winners and Weasels from the 2008 TCA Legacy Cruise.
Winners
First and foremost is the entire TCA Group. It was a true delight to be one of their escorts and they were little or no trouble. In fact, it might have been far too easy to be their escort.
The entire crew of the M/S Carnival Victory. All of us have gone to work at one time or another knowing we were not at our best. These people work long hours 7 days a week for six months. My cabin steward knew the name of every passenger in his section by the time we cleared New York Harbor. Our waiters at dinner knew the name of each person at their tables by the end of our first dinner at sea. Every member of the crew, even those engaged in “ship’s work” (making repairs while underway), were friendly. It takes special people to be that cheerful for that long a period of time.
Weasels
Unfortunately, there were some, two were female but gender really had nothing to do with it. One was the woman who complained about having to wait for the elevators and of not getting enough to eat. I last saw her Monday morning. I can only assume that she passed out from hunger in her cabin. How you can say something like on a floating restaurant with 24/7 service and no restrictions of what and how much you can order at regular meals is beyond me.
The other weasel would be the woman who kept pushing her way into various food serving lines. At one point, she said she wanted to get something before they ran out of it. The only time I saw them run out of something was when they were going to get more.
The U. S. Customs people. Years ago, I returned home from a long trip to Kenya. The customs agent at JFK looked at my paperwork, stamped my passport and said, “Welcome Home.” I thought that was a nice touch, one U. S. Citizen greeting another and acknowledging that we have something in common: living in the greatest nation the world has ever seen. The folks at the cruise ship piers could take a lesson from that guy.
