Sunday, Bon Voyage!
This time last week… I wasn’t sick. This time last week, I was looking forward to starting a 7 day series about my vacation.
…today, right now- not so much. I haven’t been any type of sick since March 2008, so I’m guessing it was finally time. My throat hurts, I have a runny nose, and I’ve been fighting a fever for almost three days now. As tough as I am, being sick held me down. I spent two days of my cruise, in the bed. (Side notes about my throat hurting (1) there was a solid 24 hours in which I could only whisper b/c talking any louder than a whisper hurt like hell. (2) I spit in a cup b/c my throat was filled with tiny knives that would scratch my insides if I dared to swallow.)
…but this time last week- I felt fine. And actually, I’d had 3 REALLY strong margaritas and participated in some “Baby Got Back” tom-foolery w/gay Bobby.
Okay, so here goes… I’ll start by saying that (1) I had to take notes every day. (2) We did so much in one day, that even looking at my notes; I’m still genuinely confused about what happened on what day. (3) I’m sure I’m leaving something out.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Our party consisted of six ppl…
-Joe
-APD (Joe’s Mom)
-Josie (APD’s friend, AND Joe’s brother Jimmy is married to Josie’s daughter Ursula)
-Jackson/Kelly (Ursula has a sister, Ingrid… and Jackson/Kelly is Ingrid’s son.)
-Dustin (Jackson/Kelly’s friend, and Joe used to work w/Dustin’s dad at a ranch.)
-Me (Joe’s girlfriend)
…Jackson/Kelly from here on out will only be called, Kelly and although he and Dustin have graduated from HS, Kelly is 17… which is a HORRIBLE age to be when you’re on a cruise!
Getting to Galveston, parking and actually getting onto the cruise ship was almost effortless. Thank the Lord that the buffet lines were already open b/c we sure were hungry! We were on the boat by noon, but weren’t expected to pull out of port until 4 pm. Um, it was HOT… like for real… blazing hot, so I tried to spend as much time in the AC as I could before we pulled out of port.
We spent the next few hours touring the ship, updating statuses, and sending final text messages. From my ‘Day Zero’ list, it’s been my intention to go an entire week w/out FB and w/out my cell phone… and this was going to be the only time I’d be able to do it, and not die instantly. I took a deep breath- and turned my phone off. So far, so good.
….but then Joe got up from our table to get ice cream or something, and was genuinely gone for 20 minutes. Just as I was about to turn on my phone to call him, he showed up.
If you’ve never been on a cruise, there are 3 things you have to do on the first day. (Third one is optional.)
(1) Load your sail & sign card w/money.
-think of it as a pre-paid debit card. Any purchases made on the ship have to be made w/your sail & sign card… but of course, for your convenience, they’ll take your cash in the Casino. If you run out of money on your card, it’ll just start a running tab in which you have to later pay back to Carnival. AND, an AUTOMATIC $70 is taken from your card for gratuity! So… even though Joe and I had $500 each for a 7-day cruise in which all our food was paid for, in actuality- we only had $330….. which was later reduced to $145- but I’ll explain about that in a sec. (And if you did the math, you’d notice it was $100 short… we kept that in cash.)
(2) Participate in the safety drill.
-On my previous 2 cruises, these safety drills actually consisted of getting a life jacket from your room, putting it on and going to your muster station. Apparently the drill has changed, b/c this time we didn’t have to put on the life jackets. But yes, EVERYONE on the cruise has to participate, and it doesn’t actually start until ALL the guests are at the correct muster stations. Of course, Joe and I had already bought chilled refreshments… but they were ‘politely confiscated’ when the safety drill began….. and there they sat on the ledge- lonely- and losing their chill.
(3) Purchase (w/our sail & sign card) our Shore Excursions. At your ports of call, shore excursions allow you to participate in activities, such as snorkeling, scuba diving, etc. After having purchased two excursions each, our $430, was brought down to $245. We were going to the Irie Mon Beach Party in Jamaica, and Scuba diving in Cozumel. We didn’t have an excursion planned for the Caymans, so we were just going to walk around and shop w/our $100 cash. (we both actually lost the majority of that cash by the time we’d reached the Caymans on Thursday. Damn, Roulette table!)
We attended a seminar in the Spa so that we’d have a chance to participate in the free raffle. Neither of us won anything, but we signed up for the Biggest Loser. For the most part, I’m fairly good about maintaining my weight and I’m was more than encouraged when I found out that the winner from last week actually GAINED two pounds! The only thing we had to do, was go to the gym three times during the week and be at the final weigh-in on Saturday morning.
At dinner that night, we met Jose… our bartender! Jose made sure I had two STONG margaritas before leaving for karaoke. I’m going to go ahead and blame “Baby Got Back” on Jose…. and the third margarita I had when we got to the lounge.
….Sunday stops here b/c I don’t remember much else after that.
...wind blown...
