A story making the rounds in the United States is a bit close to home…

Search suspended for missing cruise ship passenger

The beloved and I were on the Norwegian Pearl a month ago. Close enough, but the beloved was looking around for more information last night and found out that… she was staying in Room 11122. This was two doors down from the room we stayed in.

Several theories for the disappearance.

Suicide.

Pushed.

Hard to believe it was an accident as the rail is quite high.

Motives for suicide.

• Depression
• Fed up with being pimped tamzanite by the on-board sales guru
• Fed up with hearing the bingo-caller saying tonight’s jackpot was extra large
• Didn’t like salty food
• Why am I paying an additional service charge on top of the service charge for a beer I poured myself?
• Roatan.

Cruising wasn’t really my bag, although I would not write off doing it again, but I had a fun time while I was there. What irked me is the nature of the people on board. Some clearly live for this as the only way to travel, and it mystifies me as to why. The food, if you did not pay extra, had more salt than the Dead Sea. The alcohol is ludicrously over-priced. The bombardment of sales people selling anything not nailed down wears on you. The bingo bloke would have been lined up against the wall and shot at the first opportunity. The entertainment director was less Paul Shane (Hi-De-Hi) than Shane Warne (he was an Aussie). But the man who irked Mrs Dmitri and the unirkable was Jason, the Tamzanite pimp. We attended a session advertised as “information on your cruise stops”, and instead turned into this pillock telling us how well tamzanite had held its value and all the great value shops he could get us discounts in. I didn’t want to know about tax law, I wanted to know about where to go, what to see, and how to acquire local currency etc.

The mini-suite from which this poor woman fell to her death was lovely and I had absolutely no complaints about that.

I hope Jason can sleep at night.