John - Perhaps there is a board somewhere where people are indeed complaining about the preferential treatment the LCTers received. If so, then what can I say, but "Tough luck, suckers!! If you had any sense, you'd be LCTers, too!!"

The dynamics of "groups" on a ship certainly are capable of causing misunderstandings. One day on our PIP week, a lady stopped me in the corridor and asked whether I was one of those people with the cute signs on their doors. I responded that I was and that it was just a small group who shared a common interest in a marvelous cruise-oriented message board. She sniffed and stated that it didn't seem fair to allow some people to put signs on their doors and further observed that she didn't really understand "you people in the entertainment industry". Now, where that last comment came from is still a mystery to me. Was it a reference perhaps to my dashing matinee-idol good looks (or my more than passing resemblance to the profile of Alfred Hitchcock)? Or was she perhaps referring to having witnessed Suzette's antics in La Palette, in which case she was likely referring to the "adult" entertainment industry. I was waiting for her to comment on how horrified she was to learn that a certain balding hunk cop was traveling in the same cabin as a raven-haired starlet. In any event, the bizarre interaction reminds us that anyone who is not part of a group might feel excluded.

Despite that fact, the group problem on the PG last week was not that they were a group but rather that management (whether that was RSSC, GCT, or both) gave the group in some instances preferential treatment to that offered the other passengers. In fact, most of the time, the group was mercifully distant from the rest of us, including one evening when they all dined on the island, leaving all of the ship's restaurants
delightfully half-empty and quiet. And it worked out better that they had their two nights of blocking Apicius and Le Grill, since they thereafter did not compete for either (although, all things considered, they were pretty much welcome to Le Grill if they wanted it - not so with Apicius, however, where we had two excellent dinners each week - that wild mushroom risotto makes an excellent starter, second course, main dish, or all three!!).

We do not in any manner blame the group for the idiotic decisions made by management. (Although I cannot help but believe that their super-peppy activities coordinator is the lame-brain who talked the tender-master into that preposterous attempt to leave us at the dock in Moorea while he took an empty tender back to the ship to pick up the two dozen groupers who had not fit on the first tender and might therefore be late for their silly road rally game. Fortunately, the little Mutiny on the Tender occurred and we boarded the tender rather than wait another thirty minutes in the intense heat. Seeing the groupers pout impatiently when we got off the tender at the ship was just an added bonus!!) Good grief, my parenthetical comments are longer than my principal ones - seems like a good subject for a therapy session, if I can find a therapist who knows about cruising, single malt scotch, and can manage a nice turn or two on the dance floor at midnight.

And we certainly do not blame the groupers for that fiasco of a transfer on Saturday morning. We were just annoyed that we had to leave the ship 30 minutes (a significant period of time in those pre-dawn hours) earlier than they did and then watch them all get in line before us. Note to self: never again take a bus or van transfer to or from the ship - use a taxi. Whenever we have done the former, we have regretted it; while whenever we have done the latter, we have congratulated ourselves on our good use of time and money, not to mention gaining extra drinking time at each end of the transfer. I always say that time not spent in a bus can be spent at a bar.

Enough of this stream of consciousness for now. I must save some of my writing energy for my letter of reasoned and righteous outrage to the top management of RSSC. I must be careful not to come across as a crackpot (I may have to drop the reference to Alfred Hitchcock) but must still make my point forcefully. Frankly, we are not looking for anything from RSSC other than a genuine (to the extent the word can apply to a corporation) apology and a clear assurance that they will make great efforts (or reasonable ones, or at least a bit of an effort, or at least pretend for ten minutes to feign concern) to insure that all passengers are treated equally. Of course, if they want to throw in a free candle snuffer, who could refuse such a gift??

Cheers, Fred