My eyes are sore from the water in the pool, so I stop by my cabin to take out my contacts. I pat around the bathroom shelf where I left my glasses – but they aren’t there!
I’m pretty much blind without my contacts or glasses, so I expand my patting to the floor of the bathroom, then out onto the floor of the cabin, then along the edges of the closet, coffee table, porthole … until I see something loom up from the bed.
It’s Leopold Mozart – in the black mask and cape he wears in “Amadeus.” At least it looks like Mozart’s dad in my blur.
I start to wonder how Leopold Mozart got onto my bed on a Disney cruise when I notice something shiny just below the brim of his tricornered “Amadeus” hat.
My glasses!
I start to wonder how my glasses got onto Leopold Mozart’s face when I notice what appears to be three gold coins above the brim of his headgear. After a while, I work up the nerve to reach out and snatch my glasses off Mozart’s dad’s face and put them onto mine.
I can see right away that these are not gold coins – nor a tricornered hat. Not a black cape or mask, either, coming out of the blur. And it’s definitely not Mozart’s dad on my bed. (Whew!!)
It is a pile of towels and blankets made up to look like a pirate. Possibly Hector Barbossa, the noted pirate from Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Or possibly Davy Jones. (Not the one from The Monkees, I think; but did I mention I’m nearsighted?)
Peter Mountain / Associated Press
Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa, left, and Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.”
This begins to make sense because tonight is “Pirates in the Caribbean” night aboard the Disney ship, and everybody is supposed to dress up as a pirate. Except me because I couldn’t read the memo without my glasses.
The pile of ruffled towels and blankets on my bed is a work of linens art from my stateroom host, Mae, who has crowned it with three chocolates – not gold coins – wrapped in pirate-dubloon themed gold foil. The kind hotels leave on your pillow with a note that reads “nighty-nighty!’’
I’m not necessarily against this. The chocolates are nice. And I enjoy the relief that Leopold Mozart is not on my bed.
But I wonder, when did everybody start sculpting linens into fanciful characters in hotels and on cruise ships? It’s a clever linen-character arms race out there in the hospitality industry right now.
I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve been some places this year, and almost all of them have tried to liven up my bedroom with a linen sculpture or two. Or 22.
Mark Gauert
Kissing swans towel sculpture at a hotel in Mexico.
There was a swan swaddling a bowl of fruit in one hotel room in Mexico. There was a tender heart towel at Pier Sixty-Six in Fort Lauderdale. One airbnb in New Mexico put a crown of paper towels atop the paper-towel roll in the kitchen. Another hotel in Mexico sculpted two towel swans locked in a beak kiss over an elaborate towel rose, surrounded by washcloth hearts. Awww!
This was the same hotel – and this is maybe more disturbing than Leopold Mozart on my bed – that printed out a picture of my wife and I from the internet, put it into a nice frame and set it up alongside the bed, with “Welcome Home’’ spelled out in little stones on the bedspread. I mean, as a gesture, well intentioned, but … hmmm, too far?
I had the same feeling about my glasses on Mozart-becomes-Barbossa. I mean, I left my glasses where I could find them in the bathroom because I have trouble finding things – let alone discerning what they are – without my glasses or contacts.
As much as I liked my stateroom host’s creativity (and the chocolates), I spent time searching for my glasses that I could have spent reading the important memo about dressing up for pirate night. Which I missed.
I just wanted to take out my contacts, find my glasses and wipe my eyes with a nice clean towel – but all of them were piled up on my bed waiting for their cue with the chorus of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Or possibly “Amadeus.” Or possibly “Last Train to Clarksville.” (Monkees reference, just in case).
But it was a Disney cruise and, like Queen Elsa, I let it go™.
Mark Gauert
Heart-shaped towels at the Pier Sixty-Six in Fort Lauderdale.
Until this past summer, on a Windstar Cruise around Iceland. My eyes were sore from the cold wind off the Norwegian Sea, so I stopped by my cabin to take out my contact lenses. I patted around the bathroom for a wash cloth, but there were none there.
I started patting on the floor of the bathroom, then out onto the floor of the cabin, then along the edges of the bed, coffee table, porthole … until I saw something loom up from the bed. Oh, I thought, the letter I’m going to write. I am not letting it go this time!
Mark Gauert
A towel shaped like a puffin, with a red bow, aboard a Windstar cruise near the Arctic Circle off Iceland.
Until I saw what was on the bed. A washcloth sculpted into an adorable puffin, with a red ribbon tied around its “neck’’ and droopy googly eyes. Adorable.
“The Icelandic name for puffins is Lundi,” read a note my stateroom host/towel sculptor, Widodo, left on the bed, “but the bird has many nicknames, such ‘little monk in the north’ and ‘little brother in the north.’” Awww!
If only I had something to dab my eye.
Originally Published: October 12, 2025 at 7:00 AM EDT