I awoke very early this morning not sure if it was from stress of no passport, or just excitement. I knew there was no way I was going back to sleep, so I grabbed a few things and headed out
to the balacony to enjoy the sun rise (when I say early...I mean it!). So there I sat enjoying the perfect weather, sun rise and quiet. I spent the time catching up on my journal. Now that I sit writing out my posts, I'm really glad that I did keep a journal. We crambed so much into each day that it sometimes seemed as if it were 2 days instead. Tim was up not long after I finished in my journal and we quickly changed and headed over to the beach to enjoy the rest of the sun rise from the water front. It was nice there. The beach was freshly cleaned, and there was only a few people out there (some looked like left overs from the night before). We strolled along the beach for a mile or so before heading back to the hotel for breakfast (still no Texas shapped waffles though). After breakfast we walked down the road a bit to a Jack In the Box. If you look close at some of the pics, you'll see Jack making his appearance, however by the time we reached Montigo Bay, he had had way too much to drink and didn't leave the stateroom again! So we grabbed out Jack antenna topper and some Subway for back at our room later. Then went back to pack. W
e called for our taxi around 12:00 to head on out of here. I was getting sicker and sicker the closer we got...I was still having that fear of them laughing at me for using my b/c telling me not a chance. Once we got at the processing terminal a porter grabbed our bags right up and we went to stand in line. We walked in the door and couldn't believe the size of the line. It went all the way over to the doors that we had just walked in! Tim had one beer left from the room and he didn't want to pack it, as taking booze on the ship is a big no no (tell this to everyone in our group!) anyway, he figured now was a
s good time as any to get rid of it, so there he stood in line to process onto the ship, with beer in hand. If I didn't have my hands full, I would have gotten a pic of that classy scean. Almost as good as him walking into the restraunt last night for dinner with one in his hand from the room, we thought we were going to have to wait and he wanted to be ready...the waitress had a hard time with that one. Anyways I have to say this, processing so so fast and so easy! I think that we maybe waited 30 minutes to get through everything. Next thing I knew we were walking down the gang way to our ship! We headed straight for our room, grabbed the camera and went exploring. After checking everything out we went back to our room and changed to join everyone at the pool. We had a manditory life boat drill at 4:3
0 so arrangements were made to meet at the upper most part of the ship as soon as it was over for the set sail party. The boat drill seemed to take forever to finish, but finally we were heading to the meet up location. Finally a bit after 5 we cast off. Everyone was yelling and smiling and having a great time. After we past the last of the breakwalls we headed down to the pool deck again to dance to the music of "gentelmen" somehting or other...these guys were great though. Before long the drinks were a flowing and the naturally good mood everyone was in, was quickly elevated. Before dinner the deck was about empty as the first seating was already gone, and others were getting ready for second seating. Not us though! We took that casual dinning seriously. Soon a few of us had hopped into the hot tub, and quickly the rest of the group joined in (keep in mind that there ended up being 28 in our group), so there we were with almost 30 people in the hot tub some way or another when we saw these boys wearing speed
os in another tub...after a bit of yelling we managed to coax them into our tub as well!
Finally it was time to leave to rise off quickly for dinner. We had also made up "team" shirts so we had everyone stopping by for their shirts before dinner with orders from the "captian" to wear them at dinner that night. So there we are a group of high spirited people in pirate shirts walking into the dinning lounge. Well there are 2 floors to the dinning hall. Apparently the upper floor is for the snobs as when we walked in we honestly were looked at by the staff there at the door, down their noses. I had heard of this
many times, but was funny to see it happen to us. As they looked down their noses they looked at our sea cards and we were stiffly told that we wanted the 4th floor entrance. "well smell you" is all that I could think off as we laughed our way to the floor below.
We were simply blown away by dinner. We're talking gourmet food with elegant settings and very professional waiting staff. It was so cool, I did feel a bit under dressed then with my jean shorts and Sea Monkey shirt on! After dinner we all headed for the night club on board. The Viking lounge would become the sceen of many moments for our group. As time will tell. Finally well after midnight we tumbled into our room exghusted.
The next day (M
onday) was our 1st full day at sea. Tim and I were up early so we went to check out the gym on board. I stayed there to do a bit of bike riding, and Tim went ahead and jogged the outside track. Then we went to the Windjammer cafe for breakfast. This was the secondary dinning room on the ship, and a lot more laid back with the dress code. Our dinner restraunt did offer breakfast and lunch, but the idea of getting all dressed up to eat didn't thrill us much, so we were quite happy with the buffet that Windjammers had t
o offer. After breakfast we headed back to our rooms to change and go poolside. Tim went off with Alyan, Phil, and Peter to a ping pong competion while I stayed at the pool to watch the mens sexy leg competion, and womens bicepts. Rod and Alex joined in (or were conned into) the mens competion. All the girls in the group were right there with cameras posed and laughing so hard we could barely get clear pics. Alex danced his way across the deck and had the girls all going wild for his dance moves and then up came Rod using his "famous" Borax voice he started to dance his way past the judges and somehow managed to slip a dollar bill to one of the judges to put into his speedo, so as he danced he half dropped his shorts to reviel the speedo for her to "tip" him! After was the womans biceps contest. We all convinced Michele to join in on this one as she is quite the buff one. The women did a good job, but I have to say that the men were just hystarical! Michele did win "biceps you least want to mess with"
or some title like that! Not long after the end of that Tim came back and told me that the Sloss twins took first and second place, and that he would have done a bit better had he had his glasses with him. I guess that glasses would help for something like that! Around 3 or so Tim and I left to go and play alittle bingo. We had gotten a free jackpot card earlier when we attended a shopping show that they had, so figured we'd give it a try. They hadn't called by 5 numbers when we found ourselves with a bingo. I figured that we had won maybe 25 or so...but the first game was actually worth $126. Not bad. Helped to pay for some of our pictures we bought onboard. After we finished up the rest of the games and cashed out it was time to get ready for our first formal night. Everyone was so dressed up and looking sharp, and the compliments were flowing like crazy. Tonights dinner offered escargo that Tim got, so I gave it a try. Not great, but not bad. Kind of like a chewy garlic butter really. Somehow a conversation was started about how much Rod hates when restraunt staff sing birthday songs. Well that set Tim into action, and while Rod was talking with us, T
im asked our waiter to do a birthday deal for Rod. So here come our desserts, and a few minutes later the staff came out singing Happy Birthday to Rod....he was so ticked off, but the effect was great! After dinner was over a bunch of us headed to the theater for the prefomance of "Panio Man". Once we sat down, all dressed up, the guys all deceided that they wanted a drink so ordered a "bucket of beer" to have. Talk about a classy group! All of us had great expectations on it, only to have Simon Cawl echoing in our heads..."that was so cruise lineish" it really was kind of bad, like watching a kind of tale
nted high school production. After that show was done there was a quick break where most of our group went ot the casino, but we stayed to watch the comic that was coming on. He was so good that I feel sound asleep not 5 minutes into it!
Tuesday was our 2nd full day at sea. We were all getting a bit anxious to see land again. For the most part it was more pool side fun (to include a belly flop contest) and Swing dance lessons. After the lessons Tim and I wandered the shops a bit to get ideas, then a few of us sat around one of the lou
nges waiting for dinner time. Right before dinner we went to another dance class to learn a few 70's style line dances for the disco night at the club that night. At dinner we had a new guest, horse number 1. They did this auction at pool side while a bunch of us were in the swing dance class to take owner ship of these horses till the end of the trip when they would have a big race, the horse that one would take the money raised from the auction. This horse would soon been seen EVERYWHERE! After dinner it went to the disco with us where it lined danced to the hussel and was the center of our dance group. They also had camera crews all around to document the trip for us and they loved our horse! We kept changing the lyrics to the songs to sing them to the horse. Like "Shes a brick horse" Love shack had a line that went "bang bang on the horse baby" and then "Tin horse rusted". I don't remember what other songs we changed, but if we could, we did! Finally
it was time to turn in as in the morning we were going to be on land for our first stop in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
. Tim and I were really impressed with the service there. We ordered food, and honestly like 2 minutes later there it was. As we didn't get the chance to eat dinner until about 10:30 local time we were pretty much the only ones in there.
ings that we needed (and didn't need). What was really nice about the day is that we had no where to be and no where to go, we were compleatly on our own time. Afterwards we stopped by Sonic for a slushie and walked the Sea Wall back towards our hotel. It was nice as our hotel was centerally located so it was a nice walk their and back. We even broke from the wall and walked along the beach front for a bit. Finally we headed back to the hotel stopping by McDonalds for a salad to take to the room with us. Once back there we just waiting to hear from the rest of our group. Our room had a killer view from the walk out balacony that it had. So it was nice to sit in the shade and enjoy the day. While we sat there though I was looking down into the parking lot to see some car just bash ass end into an SUV that was parked there! Tim and I couldn't be
lieve it. The car then drove all around the parking lot doing odd manuvers before finally leaving. Tim with his bionic eyes though was able to get the liscense number and would later turn it in at the front desk. Later that evening we all got together back at Tortuga's fo
r dinner. There were many familiar faces that we hadn't seen in like 3 years, and a few new ones that we would soon get to know and be friends with. Everyone that knew me was a bit shocked by my blue hair, but hey you have to do something crazy once and awhile! Dinner was so much fun with everyone catching up and getting to know one another. Before dinner even started we managed to push all the boys (men) down to one end of the ta
ble so that the girls could all chat. I don't think that we really ate much that night, but the conversation was flowing just like the beers and margarittas were! Everyone was so hyped for the big trip. After dinner Rod and Matt took off and walked over to the WalMart looking for containers to transfer their CBB (cheep bastard bar) into and from their they were going to just walk
back to their hotel ( a good few miles to get there). Finally everyone said good night and made plans for meeting up the next afternoon.
they returned and had us all fired up the email came out about this years trip. Tim and I both said that there wasn't a chance we were going to miss out this time! So for almost a year we have been looking forward to this trip. About the time that Tim moved up to CO I started to have nightmears about getting to the boat and not having our passports and Tim talking our way on board. So after a bit of digging and the help of Tim's mom we got all the documentation together to summit for them. I turned mine in back in the very begining of Feburary, and then Tim turned his in a few weeks later, paying the extra money to make sure he got it in time as processing times had jumped way up. Well Tim got his with in about 2 weeks after applying. Me on the other hand had to keep checking the web site to see where the hell mine was. Unfortunatly though you can't actually call them until within two weeks of your trip. So you can believe that I was on the phone 3 weeks before my trip lying about the date I was leaving to figure this out. After about 10 calls over 2 weeks I found out that the place I'm calling isn't even associated with the passport agency! It's just some customer service that has been hired to screan their calls. On top of that they aren't aloud to even call the passport agency, only emails, and only 1 email every 72 hours on a given claim. So all my calls really were for nothing. Thank goodness that somewhere along the line I aquired about a half dozen copies of my birth certificate. As I found out later into this real nightmear, I would be able to travel by birth certificate if I did not have a passport, however I feel bad for those that don't have extras around
, as you have to send in an original to get the damn passport. Well to wrap up the story, mine was sent out on Wednesday by Fed Ex so that I would have it on Thursday, however Fed Ex didn't feel the same urgency that I did to get it because they opted not to deliver it on Thursday...It arrived Friday afternoon, after I had landed in Denver! Oh well....at least I have it for next year right?
let them know that she had changed her mind and wouldn't be coming in the next day after all! AAAAGGGG, I couldn't deal with that kind of unprofessionalisim, so I just left after making sure that everything was all set for who ever came in, and sent an email to my team saying how sorry I was if any specials were cancelled because of this. I went home to enjoy an evening with Dot and Leighanna (who bless her was taking me to the airport the next morning!)
t 40 minutes prior to take off only to find that....you guessed it...my flight was delayed. I guess I shouldn't have been suprised by this as so many other things had glitched, this just seem to fit in there. So after letting Tim know, I called Rod up and asked if him and Tara could please do that pinky vudoo thing that they do to help my day, trip, improve. Well it must have worked because Tim was able to rescheadule his flight out of Denver so that we could still be together, and after having a quick lunch in the Denver USO lounge we took off right on time. After the plane got up in the air I was flipping through their channels of XM stations only to find Sponge Bob singing "Best Day Ever"....I knew then that things were looking up for me!!!