I'm not a big fan of New Year's Eve as a holiday. Haven't been for years, there are probably only a handful of New Year's Eve that i can remember as being a good time. I feel like there is always a lot of hype and not enough delivery. i suppose you can pose the arguement that the fun is what you make it, which i would agree to an extent but more often than not it seems some unexpected terrible thing happens that ruins the event for me anyway. So this year i decided to spend New Year's Eve with just one friend on a yacht in San Diego. My typical MO would have been to go to some lame church dance where everyone akwardly stands around when the clock strikes midnight wondering if they should attempt to kiss someone or just ignore the fact that is a common tradition for the holiday. In order to avoid the lameness of this cultural event i decided to search in the area and find something much cooler and when i saw i had the opportunity to fulfill my goal to ride on a yacht i thought there was no better way to do it than over New Year's Eve. My friend and i arrived a little early to make sure we made the check in time but didn't realize that actually meant an hour later than the ticket stated so we hung around the little cafe they had waiting to board the ship. Once they finally started boarding the passengers they turned us away at the door saying we had to trade our paper tickets in for real tickets and it was only when we went outside that we noticed the long line of passengers waiting to get on board. Annoyed that no one had told us in the last hour that we were supposed to check in for the night we quickly went through the ticket line and then snuck back into the cafe and filtered ourselves in with the mass of people to avoid waiting even longer to get on the boat. By then we were starving and anxious to get the appetizers that awaited us.
The boat was BIG, it was 3 decks, with 2 interior levels and the upper top level. There was music blasting and crowds of people making their way to the bars to get their first drinks. We stayed on the lower deck for a little while snagging every chance we could to grab food from the servers as they brought it up from the kitchen. Pot stickers, sliders, spanakopita, and chicken tender skewers, later i found out what i thought at first was a shrimp cocktail turned out to be a little round of grilled cheese with a shot of tomato soup. We made our way up to the top deck where we grabbed some New Year's Eve head bands, a lei and a noise maker. My friend went to the bar to grab a soda and as i waiting i noticed that the one bar tender handing out beers and champagne wasn't the girl i thought she was, it was actually a guy sporting eye liner and polished nails.
We spread our night out going up and down the levels, grabbing food as it went by and dancing when a good song came on. About an hour before midnight we went to the upper deck and found one of the tables only occupied by 2 guys and asked if we could sit down and join them. They assured us they weren't going to bite and introduced themselves as Izzy and Johnny, they had known each other since they were 13 and were best friends. I had originally thought they were a gay couple enjoying the night together but their mannerisms suggested otherwise. We chatted with them, danced with them and then rang in the New Year with them and to their credit they did give us each a piece of gum probably intending to receive a kiss but were probably sorely disappointed when their efforts were for not. We posed for a picture with them and they invited us to a comedy night where Izzy was performing and then Johnny stated, "Yeah, i just turned 21." "What? You just turned 21?" Little did i realize we had been partying with guys who were a decade younger than we were. He was born in Sept of '91 which put him still in elementary school while i was graduating high school. Inevitably the question of our age came up and when i said 32 there was a look of disbelief. But when my licensed confirmed my age, it wasn't long after that all of a sudden they both had to use the bathroom and somehow didn't make it back up to the deck. I realize it's common for women to lie about their age but i didn't think i was at that point in life yet. Guess i better stick to 25. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful. The boat docked we went back to the hotel and slept in till 9:30am and went down to get our free breakfast but found out the kitchen wasn't open on New Years and that they were supposed to comp us dinner on the 31st but forgot to tell us so instead we went down the street and grabbed a $4 breakfast special and convinced the front desk to comp us dinner on the 2nd, which incidentally ended up being (so far) the best meal of the New Year.
When we went back to the hotel we had to do some explaining to the front desk staff of what had happened and then when we went and sat down to eat the server had to consult with the front desk and while our wait staff was away the chef came out and started chatting with us and i asked him what was good and of course he said everything. He assured us that everything was made with fresh ingredients but he did tell us that they didn't have the New York steak and that instead he was given filet mignon by his butcher. So when the server came back and told us we could have anything on the menu it wasn't really a question of whether or not we ordered the filet but how we wanted it cooked.
Overall i'd give it and 8 out of 10 on the fun scale because although we scared off some boys we both ended up with a big hunk of meat in the end. Happy New Year everyone!
