The Saga of the Fan

I'm taking a quick break from the play-by-play of the cruise to tell you this story. It was my only "bad experience" of the entire cruise, but it just so baffled me, that I MUST tell you.

Okay, so here's the thing. I can't sleep without a fan. I must have my white noise. And so before the cruise, Ryan looked online to see if fans were on the prohibited list. Not finding them listed, we made room {precious, precious room} in our one single large, checked suitcase we were taking on our flight for a fan so I could sleep.

I was never more in love with him.

When our suitcase was delivered to our stateroom on the ship, I unzipped it and found a giant hole where the fan used to be, and this letter on top:

Y'ALL, CARNIVAL TOOK MY FAN.

I wasn't sure how to keep breathing. How would I sleep without my fan??? Later, I found out there are apps you can download for white noise, but I didn't know it or think of it at that time, while we were still in port and could have gotten it.

Why take a fan? I got to keep my flat iron! That's way more dangerous than a fan!!! And while there was temperature control in the room that kept it very cool {yay!!!}, there wasn't a regular fan device on it that would make enough noise to let me sleep. I was even more perplexed because as we were boarding the ship, I passed a woman carrying a box fan. Not a little one like I brought, but a full size box fan! She got to keep hers and I didn't?????

I should also mention that we were next door to one of the seven dwarfs: SNEEZY. Oh my WORD could that guy ever sneeze!

For the first three nights of the cruise, I woke up with every noise. I mean it's a cruise ship with 4000 guests on board. People are going to yell in the hall and slam doors and such. It's going to happen. I was desperate for a full night of sleep.

So I called the number on the phone for my stateroom steward {a huge act of bravery for me in and of itself} and got some guy who was NOT my steward. The two of us had a significant language barrier and he could NOT comprehend from me that I needed a fan to sleep. Finally he told me he would give a message to Guest Services and they would call me.

Yeah. Never got that call.

So then Ryan went to Guest Services to ask about the fan. He explained I needed the noise to sleep. The guy at the desk looked very puzzled and said to him, "What is this noise? Do you know where it's coming from?"

No no no. We don't hear a noise. We NEED a noise.

Finally Ryan got the guy to understand we simply needed a FAN....and the guy said the stateroom steward would deliver one.

She did not.

We did, however, receive a message on our phone asking if we were still hearing the noise. They really wanted to get to the bottom of that noise and needed to know where it was coming from.

{You know the face I'm making here, don't you?}

Thursday afternoon, as I was getting ready for our second formal night, there was a knock on the door. I threw on a bathrobe and answered it.

There stood a sweet man holding MY FAN!! I don't think he was ready for the look of utter delight that fell over my entire being....as I grabbed it and squealed "YOU BROUGHT MY FAN!!!!!!!" He half-bowed, half-backed-quickly-away-from-the-crazy-lady-holding-the-fan and I ran inside to show Ryan my treasure:

And that evening we got a message on our phone asking if we could please let them know if the disturbing noise was still happening - so they could find out what it was.

So as a first time cruiser, my only bit of complaint-advice to Carnival is this: If your guest says she needs white noise to sleep, bring the lady a fan??????? She'll have so much more fun on her cruise if she's RESTED. And not CRANKY!!