![\"Geoffrey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/PUWSEIVP75CGTG5QM52J34RQEE.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMy 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 \u2013 but they aren\u2019t there!<\/p>\n
I\u2019m 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 \u2026 until I see something loom up from the bed.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Leopold Mozart \u2013 in the black mask and cape he wears in \u201cAmadeus.\u201d At least it looks like Mozart\u2019s dad in my blur.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cAmadeus\u201d hat.<\/p>\n
My glasses!<\/p>\n
I start to wonder how my glasses got onto Leopold Mozart\u2019s 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\u2019s dad\u2019s face and put them onto mine.<\/p>\n
I can see right away that these are not gold coins \u2013 nor a tricornered hat. Not a black cape or mask, either, coming out of the blur. And it\u2019s definitely not Mozart\u2019s dad on my bed. (Whew!!)<\/p>\n
It is a pile of towels and blankets made up to look like a pirate. Possibly Hector Barbossa, the noted pirate from Disney\u2019s \u201cPirates of the Caribbean.\u201d Or possibly Davy Jones. (Not the one from The Monkees, I think; but did I mention I\u2019m nearsighted?)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Peter Mountain \/ Associated Press<\/p>\n
Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa, left, and Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.”<\/p>\n
This begins to make sense because tonight is \u201cPirates in the Caribbean\u201d night aboard the Disney ship, and everybody is supposed to dress up as a pirate. Except me because I couldn\u2019t read the memo without my glasses.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 not gold coins \u2013 wrapped in pirate-dubloon themed gold foil. The kind hotels leave on your pillow with a note that reads \u201cnighty-nighty!\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not necessarily against this. The chocolates are nice. And I enjoy the relief that Leopold Mozart is not on my bed.<\/p>\n
But I wonder, when did everybody start sculpting linens into fanciful characters in hotels and on cruise ships? It\u2019s a clever linen-character arms race out there in the hospitality industry right now.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mean to brag, but I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
![\"Kissing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Kissing-swans-in-Mexico.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Mark Gauert<\/p>\n
Kissing swans towel sculpture at a hotel in Mexico.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
This was the same hotel \u2013 and this is maybe more disturbing than Leopold Mozart on my bed \u2013 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 \u201cWelcome Home\u2019\u2019 spelled out in little stones on the bedspread. I mean, as a gesture, well intentioned, but \u2026 hmmm, too far?<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 let alone discerning what they are \u2013 without my glasses or contacts.<\/p>\n
As much as I liked my stateroom host\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
I just wanted to take out my contacts, find my glasses and wipe my eyes with a nice clean towel \u2013 but all of them were piled up on my bed waiting for their cue with the chorus of \u201cPirates of the Caribbean.\u201d Or possibly \u201cAmadeus.\u201d Or possibly \u201cLast Train to Clarksville.\u201d (Monkees reference, just in case).<\/p>\n
But it was a Disney cruise and, like Queen Elsa, I let it go\u2122.<\/p>\n
![\"Heart-shaped](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pier-Sixty-Six-in-Fort-Lauderdale-rotated.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Mark Gauert<\/p>\n
Heart-shaped towels at the Pier Sixty-Six in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2026 until I saw something loom up from the bed. Oh, I thought, the letter I\u2019m going to write. I am not letting it go this time!<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Puffin-aboard-Windstars-Star-Pride.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Mark Gauert<\/p>\n
A towel shaped like a puffin, with a red bow, aboard a Windstar cruise near the Arctic Circle off Iceland.<\/p>\n
Until I saw what was on the bed. A washcloth sculpted into an adorable puffin, with a red ribbon tied around its \u201cneck\u2019\u2019 and droopy googly eyes. Adorable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Icelandic name for puffins is Lundi,\u201d read a note my stateroom host\/towel sculptor, Widodo, left on the bed, \u201cbut the bird has many nicknames, such \u2018little monk in the north\u2019 and \u2018little brother in the north.\u2019\u201d Awww!\u00a0<\/p>\n
If only I had something to dab my eye.<\/p>\n