Port Canaveral – Home of the Mariner of the Seas

I notice that I'm writing mostly about the people I'm working with, and what happens here on the ship. That's fun, but I should really include some more about the places I'm visiting. So today I've decided to start with Port Canaveral, our home port. I'll cover each port we visit over the next little while.

The cruise ship docks are located in an inlet off Cape Canaveral. The inlet is part of a complex of waterways – canals and rivers – that stretches quite a distance to the north and south. Merrit Island is the nearest 'town', although it's really just a collection of malls and big box stores.

Several cruise lines take ships out of Port Canaveral, including Royal Caribbean, Disney, Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and a couple of others.

The towns and suburbs around here grew up to service the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral. Nobody lives at the Kennedy Space Center itself, which has been designated a national park. So it's all suburb, with no urb to speak of. A typical property contains a bungalow on a modest sized lot, with the road in front, and a canal in back. Everyone, it seems, lives on a canal and has a boat.

Yes, there are lots of alligators in these here parts. I've seen and photographed several from the bus and over at the Kennedy Space Center. No shortage of 'gators. Also lots and lots of birds.

We have to hop on a special crew bus to get anywhere from the docks, like to the Wall Mart or Merrit Island Mall. Florida is not meant for walking or riding a bike. Those activities may even be illegal for all I know. Two bus companies service ships' crews – Fun Bus, and Crew Bus – and the competition between them is fierce.

Last year there was only one company – Fun Bus. They charged $6.00 for an all-day ticket that allowed you to jump on or off the bus as often as you wanted. Not a bad deal. But then one day a new player appeared, Crew Bus, charging $4.00 for the same service. However, there were only a couple of Crew Buses compared to several Fun Buses, so you probably had to wait a little longer if you opted for the cheaper Crew Bus.

Pretty soon Fun Bus started offering extras, like free soft drinks, and they encouraged their drivers to develop personalities, with several attempting to become comedians (I think). Others portray homespun, backwoods, Floridian types to give the service a local flavor. For a while, over the holidays, Fun Bus even hired a sexy blonde dressed like one of Santa's elves to greet people at the door, hand out candies and things, and generally flirt with the male customers. They'll stop at nothing!

Recently Fun Bus reduced their fares to match Crew Bus, and Crew Bus has added new vehicles to reduce the waiting time. Now the main competition between them is to attract the funniest or most colorful drivers, or to think up the cleverest promotions. Oh, the joys of unbridled capitalism!

Both buses drop you off at 'European Corner' at Merrit Island Mall. European Corner is a phone/internet cafe run by Czechs or Slovaks (I can't tell the difference, but they can). It caters specifically to crew. The locals seem to be a little wary of the place, avoiding it in general (although they slow down to peer at us aliens sitting or standing out front as they pass by in their SUVs).

In the European Corner the coffee is strong, the pastries sweet, and a good selection of imorted Pilsners awaits you in a help-yourself cooler on the way in. The food is unpretentious but quite good – things like cabbage rolls, sausages, dumplings, etc. They make a really good bean soup. European Corner is pretty dark and funky, thank God, but also friendly. I wouldn't even leave the ship if it weren't for European Corner.

Overall Port Canaveral is the least scenic, most suburbanly blighted port we visit. There is some interesting history there because of the Kennedy Space Centre. And there's a lot of wildlife. But it leaves me cold – multi-lane highways, flatness, big box stores, fat people in fat cars.

That't Port Canaveral, the way I see it, anyway.