One of my favorite cruises: Somewhere about 1990, my daughter (then about 20) and I went on a cruise out of Port Canaveral on a now-defunct cruise line (it might have been Premier Lines). It was one of the "smaller" ships and was nothing fancy, but we had a wonderful time.
We were seated with a couple who were the life of the party (we started out with six people at the table but the other couple appeared to be horrified by the "exuberance" of us other four and disappeared after one meal). We had the best waiter in the world; he did magic tricks, told jokes, and altogether made mealtime a blast.
When we went to the first magic show, the magician picked my daughter to be his assistant and proceeded to cut her head off a couple of times over the next couple of days. To this day, she won't tell me what he did.....she says she made a solemn promise to keep quiet. The acts were televised on the ship and everywhere we'd go, someone would yell "________, how's your head?"
We had a stop scheduled, at Port Lucaya, but the seas were so high (and I'm talking HIGH) the ship could neither dock nor moor. It just steamed around in a big circle all day and if you were brave enough (it was not recommended, but allowed...), you could take the shuttle boat to port. Of course, we did. The shuttle boat would pull up to the lee side of the ship and a gangplank would be extended. When the shuttle boat got as even as possible to the hatch in the side of the ship, a crew member would literally fling you onto the gangplank and you'd scurry onto the shuttle as fast as possible before it got too high or too low.
We successfully got on the shuttle and opted to sit in the open area atop. Big mistake. The shuttle bobbed around like a cork in a shaken bottle and we were holding on for dear life. We were afraid to let go and try to get below. The trip into shore was scary. Of course, after a few hours ashore we had no choice but to make the trip in reverse. It's not like we could walk back to the ship. So back we went, inside this time, and did the reverse scuttle up the gangway.
I was due to have gallbladder surgery the week after we got back, so I was really watching my diet (reluctantly, as the food was very good) but I had a lapse in good judgement and indulged in the midnight chocolate buffet that night. That brought on an attack and all I could do was walk around the ship for hours. The ship was pitching like a drunken sailor and so was I. The pool hadn't been drained and it was sloshing huge quantities of water every time the ship heeled. The best part of going down the main staircase when the ship was sinking (not sinking as in "sinking", just going down with the waves. I felt like I was floating down the stairs. It was such a great feeling that I had to do it several times.
There was an entertainer who held funny meetings where he'd have us do strange things. At the Bahamas stop, everyone had to buy something that cost less than $2 and he judged what the worst thing was and you got a prize. Another time, he handed out ship's postcards and told us to address the cards to someone but not to write anything in the message part. Then he collected them, handed them out to other people and told them to write messages. He collected them and had them mailed. Heaven knows what people wrote.
Another comedian picked out a few guys from the audience and sent them off with teams of women who were instructed to dress them up. It was hilarious the rigs they came back in.
It was a fun cruise.