15 minutes early is late

In the armed services and elsewhere, if you're not 5 minutes early, you're late. Well, thanks to our friend Kathy from Colorado, I've got an interesting and insightful twist on that saying as it relates to "time" on board a cruise. In previous blogs, I've written that "timing is everything", and that's still true. That refers to the uncontrollable nature of so many elements that affect the enjoyment of a cruise like this. Weather, civil unrest, pandemics, etc. And there's a ripple effect as well, like when we had to skip the port of Darwin due to weather, which caused us to have 6 consecutive sea days without replenishing supplies. We far from starved, but we ran out of quite a few favorites till we reached Singapore. All things considered, the timing gods have been very kind to us.

But this post is about time.....or at least the controllable aspect of time. Kathy pointed out that we have to be at least 15 minutes early (sometimes 30) to most events to get the full benefit. This is true for so many aspects of cruising. Disembarking at ports, dinner, the show (7:30, not 9:30), art classes, zumba classes and the list goes on. If you think about it, we have 2000 captive passengers all vieing for the same events, food, treatment and resources. If you don't show up early, you'll stand in line or miss the event completely.

Not that we don't get people who arrive at 7:35 for the 7:30 show and then rummage around the audience looking for a seat in the dark. Yeah, we have those...at least 20 or more per show. But in general, the rule of thumb is 15 minutes early, unless it's really special, then 30. We're lucky because by nature we're always early. If an invitation says 5pm, we're there by 4:45 and we wait in the car till it's time to arrive. If the host isn't ready, we roll up our sleeves and pitch in.

But then there's the concept of "fashionably late" - the fairygodboss.com says "the concept of being fashionably late is all about being cool and making an entrance to a captive audience. It's wrapped up in images of movie stars and world travelers swanning into swanky affairs". That's ironic since we're on a world cruise, we're ALL world travelers. Google says that "Mathematician says showing up 38 minutes late to a party is ideal for “fashionably late”. A stigma exists around being the first one to show up to a party; heaven forbid you're on time for an event you were invited to. May 25, 2022". And Esquire.com says in their article entitled "When Should I Show Up?" A Lesson in Modern Punctuality", start times on party invitations are like speed limit signs on highways. They are there because you have to tell people something, but if you actually obey them, you ruin everything.

If you're on a cruise where the average age is 70 or more, none if that applies. Fashionably late means you missed it.

So no matter which end of the punctuality continuum you gravitate to, please know that on a cruise like this, if you're not 15 minutes early, you're late!.