Trivia, Newlywed Game and Karaoke

At some point, maybe our second day at sea (we were at sea 7 days out of 14,) I realized that the cruise ship was a microcosm of the world in general and that I could see, specifically, a view of giftedness.

The days we were at sea there wasn't much to do. I could only watch Zoe swim in the pool for so long. So, between eating, eating and eating we found ourselves attending almost every trivia session, most of the other games like Pictionary and Taboo, and doing Karaoke.

The trivia and games were most illustrative regarding attitudes towards gifted adults. Pere, Tante Juliet and I are all gifted and, with Zoe, the four of us formed a team together most days. Sometimes Grandmere and Grandpere or Mrs. Puff joined us.


(Mary Jo, who does the voice of Mrs. Puff on Spongebob Squarepants and acted in many tv, movie and Broadway productions, and her sister Pat were often our team mates for morning trivia)

We did not win at trivia every time. But early on, maybe our third day at sea, we won all four games played that day so we got a reputation early on. We weren't that great at trivia. Overall we only won trivia about 4 times. But we won all the other non-trivia games. We got so many prizes! We gave some away but still came home with 12 hats, 8 recyclable shopping bags, 6 canvas bags, 4 gold medals, 15 passport wallets, 9 decks of cards, and three bottles of champagne (one for having the best team name "The No-Brainers", one for Pere and I winning The Newlywed and Not So Newlywed Games and one for Pere winning the Pop Star singing contest.)

Some people treated us pretty shabbily for winning. One accused us of cheating. One argued with the Cruise Director angrily after he awarded us points and not them. Some glared. Some were a bit too happy when we didn't win.

And, most of the games we were at a disadvantage. Teams were allowed six people and usually we only had Pere, Tante Juliet and me to answer, as Zoe doesn't really know anything that we don't know.

I was bothered at first by the reactions. That was when I first started thinking about the cruise as a microcosm for the worlds attitudes towards gifted people. It was interesting to see it that way. It made me uncomfortable and Pere and I both felt like we should sit out games because when we won we often won by a lot and it was kind of embarrassing.

But then there was karaoke. Pere is a very good singer, he used to sing in an acappella group. His sister Juliet also has a very pretty soprano voice. But Zoe was the star. She sung at every karaoke - she sung The Beatles, lots of Queen, Fergie, Wham, Duran Duran, Nickleback, and once from Mary Poppins. She became really famous on the ship of 3000 people. Everyone knew her name, people clapped when she went by, they asked her to sing, everyone talked to her and complimented her. Our waiters would play with her all throughout dinner, making up riddles, drawing pictures, doing magic tricks, etc.


(Zoe and cruise director Nat)

One of the cruise directors really loved her. He would come to watch her sing even if his shift was over. He did a duet of Heart and Soul with her at the piano bar. On our last day he brought her a gift of candy and on the last night he slipped me a personal note telling me how much it meant to him that our family was on board.

(Zoe and cruise director Andrew)

Tante Juliet and Pere also got famous for singing karaoke and also getting into the finals of the on board Pop Star singing contest. Pere won with a great rendition of Little Wonders by Rob Thomas. He was fantastic!

So, what I noticed was that people loved our family for our (not my!) singing talents. And, eventually, we did get positive comments about our winning so many of the games. People said we were "so smart", "geniuses," "really in tune with each other" etc. And I started to notice that it was only a handful of people that had bad attitudes and they were all the really competitive people, who were not able to be gracious losers.

At first I let their bad attitude make me feel grumpy. But, as time went on, I saw that just as many people had complimentary things to say. I think it helped that we were good sports who always clapped loudly for our competitors and never grumbled when we lost.

I have to say there were other really smart people on board, there were two other teams that won at trivia more than we did. They knew really obscure stuff about cricket and flags. I am not a huge fan of trivia but now Zoe is addicted and she wants to have neighborhood trivia parties. :P

Zoe had a great time, of course. I didn't really appreciate the days at sea until late in the trip after we had made friends and I realized we wouldn't see them again. My favorites were our shore excursions at Costa Rica (river rafting) and in Cabo (we rented a waverunner for all three of us.)