I was able to speak to a source of mine who is big in the Mexican resort industry, and she was able to track down the man, Royce Hanigan, who sat next to Ted Cruz on his flight to Cancun. Royce was gracious enough to spend a few minutes answering some of my questions.
Q: Hi Royce, are you confident that It was Senator Cruz on the flight next to you?
Royce: Well to be honest, I wasn’t at first, because of the mask you know? But after we got off the TARMAC he said “Who needs these things anyway?” and dramatically took his mask off. After that, I was confident it was him.
Q: Was his family with him?
Royce: His daughters were supposed to be in our row on the other side of the aisle from us, but before they sat down they asked everyone around if they’d be willing to change seats so they didn’t have to sit by their dad. They ended up switching with someone several rows back. Ted seemed pretty used to it.
Q: Did you two interact much?
Royce: We exchanged pleasantries when we took off, but after several minutes I decided I was going to watch a movie. Before I even picked one he started going on a 10 minute tangent about how much he hates Seth Rogen and all of Hollywood. So that was weird.
Q: Was that the only thing he did that seemed odd? Did he seem uneasy about the trip?
Royce: Oh no, things definitely got weirder after the Seth Rogen rant. When the stewardess came by he asked her for coffee and a cup of ice. He then held up the cup of ice to me and said “This is what Texas is like now” and then held up the hot coffee and said “this is what Cancun will be like when we get there”. He did that to several other people too. I think he thought it was a joke, but no one really laughed. He wasn’t wrong, I guess, but it was unusual for sure. He definitely seemed excited.
Q: Did he say anything about how long he was staying? He said he was only going for the day to drop his daughters off, but records showed he was planning to stay all week.
Royce: Ummm, oh yeah, he did actually. He said he had a massage scheduled at the resort spa on Friday, so it seemed like he was planning to stay for the week. He kept saying how he hoped the masseuse was “a white”.
Q: Anything else you guys mentioned before you parted ways?
Royce: Nothing really while we were on the flight. I tried to just watch my movie in peace and make sure we didn’t start talking about Seth Rogen some more. He told me to have a nice time before he got off the plane, and that was the end of our interaction there. I saw him at baggage claim from a distance though, and it sounded like he was yelling at someone about not having ID tags on their luggage. Guy seems a bit strange.
Q: Alright, thanks for your time, Royce. I hope you’re having a nice and safe time in Cancun.
Royce: Anytime. I’ll make sure to let you know what other Texas politicians I see down here.