The Cruise: Day 1 - Embarkation

Last Monday, D and I celebrated our five-year anniversary, and to mark the occasion we did something we've never done together before.  We went on a cruise.  I went on one right after I graduated high school (14 years ago!), and he went on one for his first honeymoon a lifetime ago, but we had never done one together.  While we did have a great time, saw some beautiful sights, and ate some way too much delicious food, I can honestly say a cruise just really ain't my thang.  I always felt like I was on too much of a schedule.  You had to be here at a certain time, there by this time, be back on the boat at that time, eat at this time... when we go on vacation, we stay in a condo and do things at our leisure.  We stay in one place for an entire week and we see and do and experience everything that one place has to offer.  I felt like with the cruise we were only allowed enough time for a quick snapshot of the four ports.

We flew to Miami on Saturday even though we weren't to leave until the next day at 4:00 pm.  We didn't want to run any risk of anything crazy happening with delayed flights or anything and missing embarkation.  I was super glad not to have that stressor, even though everything turned out okay.  I got up and went to work for a couple hours Saturday morning, we left for the Nashville airport shortly after, landed in Miami that evening, checked into the hotel, ate a pizza, and went to bed stress free and excited to wake up and really start our vacation that next morning.

What we woke up to the next morning was the sound of thunder.  But it was all good.  It could rain, but it couldn't rain on my parade.  I was going on a cruise!  We took advantage of the free shuttle from our hotel to the port.

First glimpse of the boat.  It was raining just a smidge.
When we got to the port, checking in our luggage and getting cleared through customs was an absolute breeze, then we were left to entertain ourselves in the waiting area for a couple of hours before we were allowed to get on board.  Thank God for Fruit Ninja.  And I can always entertain myself with a camera.


Once we were finally allowed on the boat, we still kind of felt like we were just waiting around for something to happen.  We didn't have our luggage and we couldn't go into our rooms yet.  The shops and the casino weren't going to open until we were at sea.  We couldn't go out on the deck or to the pool because it was coming a monsoon.  So we just sat in the main lobby for a little bit and had a couple drinks and listened to the chick singing/the guy playing the piano.


Then we spent some time just exploring the inside of the boat, finding where the different restaurants and lounges were, where the gym was (I actually sucked it up and ran on the treadmill 5 of the 7 days we were on the boat.  You do what you have to do!), and when we finally made it around to finding our room, it was clean and our luggage was there, so we went on in and unpacked.

I was so excited to walk in and find a king bed.  The description of the state room said it had two twin beds.  Technically it WAS two twin beds, but at least they were smooshed together!
At one point while we were unpacking, I was like, "Did you feel that?  Are we moving?"  We only had an interior room with no window, so we went up to see, and sure enough we had pulled out of port and were sailing.



I was kind of disappointed that it was so anticlimactic.  When I cruised with Royal Caribbean several years ago, there was a big bon voyage party on the deck.  I mean I know we obviously couldn't be out on the deck in that weather, but I just guess I expected SOMETHING.

When we got out of port and into the deeper water, that's when the boat really got to rockin'.  In both the figurative and literal senses.  You couldn't tell which people were wasted and which ones were sober because NOBODY could walk in a straight line.  I don't get motion sick at all, so I was rather entertained by the challenge of remaining upright, but there were LOTS of people that didn't find it fun at all.  D was one of them.  He went to the gift shop and got some Dramamine, but it just didn't cut it.  We had just taken our seats in the dining room that night when I would swear that our boat rolled over.  It was then that he broke out in a cold sweat and told me he had to lie down.  I sent him on his way and ate THE MOST FABULOUS vegetarian Indian dish in the company of my equally fabulous tablemates.  (How crazy is it that they assigned us to a table with a couple that lives about an hour from here?  I made quick friends with the wife as we had plenty to talk about.  She's a raw vegan chef!)

After stuffing myself full of more food than I even thought possible, we pretty well closed the dining room down.  I stayed and chatted forever with my new local friends as well as our new friends from California and Ohio that were also seated with us.  We finally called it a night and I headed back to the room to find D completely stoned on Dramamine.  I tried to wake him up to see if he still wanted to go to the 11:45 comedy show that was about to start, and all I got in response was some kind of undiscernible primal grunt.  I took it as a no, joined him in bed, and turned the lights out on Day 1.

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