This is how you know I’m a first-time cruiser: I brought snacks onto the boat.

In the universe of worst-case scenarios I might have imagined — capsizing in a hurricane, Honduran pirates, forced Macarena — I jumped right to “Might be a bit peckish” as the most likely emergency to plan for. As it turns out, this cruise ship is basically a 24-hour floating all-you-can-eat buffet, so this is easily the longest that any quantity of beef jerky has survived in captivity in my luggage.

Day or night we can visit any of 17 restaurants here aboard the Norwegian Dawn to explore cuisines ranging from French to Brazilian to Japanese to Indian, all prepared and served by what I believe to be the entire population of the Philippines. Ironically, we had considered visiting the Philippines for this vacation, and I’m glad we didn’t because apparently everyone from there is on this boat. I think the last person to leave Manila was Shirley, our perky trivia host from last night.

I’d intended to blog daily while on this cruise, but we’ve been exceptionally busy keeping up with our rigorous schedule of eating. Also there’s been a lot of trivia. The capital of Nepal is Kathmandu. Glenn Frey sang “The Heat Is On.” You’re welcome. I don’t mean to brag, but there were audible groans from the other contestants when Hadas and I walked into the Pearly Kings Pub yesterday afternoon for 2 p.m. General Knowledge trivia. We tied for first, despite barely being able to understand the questions posted by Maria, our gawky, energetic and heavily-accented Romanian host who sounds like the bride of Dracula doing open mic comedy down at the local Chuckle Hut.

Meanwhile, we’ve been having probably 500% more fun than we expected to. When not eating we’ve been enjoying the nightly shows in the giant theatre near the bow of the boat — Singing! Dancing! Aerialists! — reading by the pool, listening to live music, watching cheesy onboard game shows or working out in the well-appointed onboard gym. We also did a day excursion into Cozumel called Salsa y Salsa where we learned how to make five kinds of salsa, how to salsa dance, how to make strawberry margaritas and how much alcohol it takes to turn Andrew into an extrovert (approximately 1/4 teaspoon).

We haven’t just been enjoying each other’s company, either. After a few days on the ship we’ve had a chance to develop some deep and meaningful loathing for a few recurring characters who keep showing up at meals, activities and events. There’s the belligerent woman with the walker who was at a 5 p.m. knitting social and then reappeared at trivia the next morning. There’s the odd coot in the plaid shirt who heard us practicing improv games on the ferry ride back from Belize City and decided it would be perfectly appropriate to approach us with his favorite dirty joke immediately upon returning to the ship. And there’s the gentleman who, upon learning we were also from the Pacific Northwest, decided to catalog for us the history of every sports team he has ever rooted for — college and pro — dating back to the Minneapolis Lakers.

We’ve decided that cruising is basically Very Short Attention Span Dating. In the course of an evening we can spend 15 minutes in a piano bar listening to Lisa York cover Neil Diamond tunes, then slide over to the local pub for 15 minutes of 80s trivia. Then a quick hop into Spinnaker lounge for bit of dancing to a 70s funk band and then a short stroll into the theater for a 45-minute magic show. There’s no cover charge, no lines, no pressure to buy drinks, no valet parking and no dress code. It’s like channel surfing your life.

The crazy thing about all of this is that we’re on a boat, and every morning we wind up in some new exotic port. Tuesday we had the aforementioned “Andrew Dangerously Operates a Mortar and Pestle While Drunk” experience. Wednesday we walked around Belize City and enjoyed its gritty charm, which is to say we hightailed it back to the ship when we discovered that the ratio of grit to charm was about 97-3. Today we alighted in Roatan, a long island in Honduras, where we had a fabulous snorkel tour to see amazing schools of fish, barracuda and stunning coral in warm, crystal clear waters. Easily the highlight of the trip so far, just ahead of learning that Mr. Minneapolis Lakers used to be an L.A. Raiders fan.

The other thing about being on a boat — sometimes it rocks back and forth like a boat. The first time this happened, on day three of the cruise, neither of us were sure if we were feeling the boat moving or the after effects of a morning of salsa-adjacent margaritas. We were sitting in the Stardust theatre awaiting the start of that evening’s aerial act, and the rope hanging down from the top of the stage was swinging to and fro like a pendulum in an earthquake. As entertainers ourselves, we appreciate the added degree of difficulty of performing on a stage that’s gimbaling wildly.

This trip has been unexpectedly fun, and Hadas is already on a reconnaissance mission, asking frequent cruisers aboard this ship which other cruise lines they recommend, by which I mean which ones let you eat all the things all the time. We’ve got two days left on this sailing, including one more land excursion, and then it’s back home. I expect that we’ll spend most of the time in the ship’s gym, not because we’re working out that intensely but because you are literally forced to walk through the all-you-can-eat buffet after the gym. Whoever designed this boat is a certified genius.

You can read Hadas’s blog about Cruisefest 2014 here.

For those who missed it, Monday night’s wild Packers-Seahawks game featured extremely sketchy officiating and a disputed 14-12 Seahawks win when Green Bay was called for too many men on the ice during the final play.

As the officials’ strike drags on past week three with no end in sight, it’s time to make the best of a bad situation. Here are three ways the NFL could immediately make the replacement officials situation not only palatable, but awesome:

1. Hire Donald Trump as the Supervisor of Officials

Sure, the officiating sucks, but that’s because we’re invested in the games, not in the officials. Let’s turn this season on its head by putting ourselves in the officials’ shoes. Who better than The Donald to shepherd them through the challenge of learning to ref real NFL games under the pressure cooker of screaming fans, angry players and frustrated owners. We’ll follow them through their weekly meetings, pre-game preparations, halftime adjustments and post-game debriefings. We’ll watch their families sitting anxiously at home during the games and we’ll learn all about the “real” jobs these officials have during the week. All the while, Donald Trump gives them helpful tips on how to make it in the brutal world of NFL officiating.

Then boom! It’s Tuesday morning. Judgement day. All the officials cram into Trump Tower, and after evaluating their performances The Donald lowers the hammer and fires the most inept official. Tell me you wouldn’t be glued to your television all week long.

2. Celebrity Officials

Did you hate that final play of the Monday Night game? The one where one official ran over and called it a touchdown and the other one ran over and called it an interception? Now imagine how much more awesome that would have been if the two officials were Charlie Sheen and Snooki.

Need I go on?

The storylines would practically write themselves:

• B and C-List celebrities would go crazy trying to get themselves onto an officiating crew. Imagine this phrase in Gilbert Gottfried’s voice: “After further review, the ball was grasped with two hands.”
• 80s. TV. Reunions. Bring together the cast of Love Boat as an officiating crew, with Gavin Mcleod as your head referee, Lauren Tewes as your back judge, US Representative Fred Grandy as your linesman and Ted Lange as Isaac, your umpire. Put the TV stars in their original costumes and I am guaranteeing that every person in America subscribes to the NFL Sunday Ticket package on DirecTV. 
• City-specific assignments: Do you want to see the cast of CSI: Miami ref the Miami-Jets game? You know you do.

3. Pick Fans From the Crowd

For anyone who has ever said “I could do a better job than these bozos,” now’s your chance. Before the game starts, the stadium PA announcer would call out seven names a la The Price is Right and you’ve got your officials for the game right there. They would come running out of the stands one by one, outfitted quickly in referee uniforms, handed a whistle and the game begins!

You’ve got a decent shot at your officials being some combination of:

• A 380-pound guy wearing a beer hat who has been drinking steadily since the tailgate party started at 8 a.m. and who keeps blotting at his forehead with his yellow referee’s flag.
• A 79-year-old grandmother wearing the home team’s jersey and waving a foam finger that is 1.5 times her actual weight.
• A kindergartener with face paint who spends the entire game sleeping.
• A French exchange student who does not understand how zee American Football works but finds it “passé.”
• A crazy college student with the team logo shaved into his head who tries to tackle the opposing team’s returner during the opening kickoff.
• Second Lady Jill Biden, who has been sitting in the owner’s luxury box for the requisite network camera cutaway.

Would they be any worse than the existing replacement officials? Would you not feel some empathy watching your friends and neighbors attempting to ref an NFL game? Would this not become the hottest ticket since Willy Wonka?  Tell me you wouldn’t enjoy watching this!

If we’re going to be saddled with replacement officials, let’s make it awesome. Call NFL headquarters and insist that they replace the replacements with one of the scenarios above. Thank you.