Thursday, June 12, 2008

Day 1- Getting to our Ship

Our cruise left out of Puerto Rico so needless to say we needed to fly out really early. Our flight was at 5:40AM so we decided not to subject anyone to that brutal time of the morning so we had a Towne Car pick us up at 3:45AM to take us to the airport. I was trying to stay awake and started harassing Brian with my camera.

He got silly once they called our flight




We had a nice quiet flight and once they dimmed the lights, we both fell asleep. We had to run to make our flight in Atlanta but we made it and got settled. Our flight wasn't full and it took everything I had not to ask to move seats. The couple in front of us were the epitome of a Newlywed couple and I wanted to yell at them to get a room after awhile. I adored my husband when we got married 10 years ago but people I promise I never sat and stared into his eyes and rubbed his face and then wrote about it in my diary- I am not joking. And if that didn't send me over the edge- the man who didn't wear shoes the whole flight almost did. He sat there with his bare feet pressed up on the wall in front of him with his freakishly long toes- THE ENTIRE FLIGHT right in my eyeline. I normally do not have issues with people’s feet but come on we are in a confined area without normal air flow and you are going to keep your feet laid out for all to see- YUCK. It didn’t help when I realized that his coffee cup was a spittoon for dip slobber. Three hours and forty-five minutes later we finally made it to Puerto Rico only for our plane to have to stop on the runway for the Gila Monsters to cross the runway. We got our luggage and then made it to the Royal Caribbean transportation area and guess who was there in line waiting also- You guessed it- Our Newlywed couple and if I thought they were bad in a confined area of a plane, they were worse in wide open spaces. After we sat there for awhile we were joined by the naked foot man and his family. Things weren't looking so great.

We got on the bus and saw our first glimpses of Puerto Rico. We got taken a lot of back routes because the Clintons were in town to campaign and Heineken was having a Jazz Fest. We were not impressed with what we saw but we had to remind ourselves it was the backroads. I did get tickled when I saw this building- I might as well have been at home with Curves and Blockbuster

We got to the port and were shocked at the size of the ship. Brian took this picture while were in line and didn't know we were looking at our room- note the red arrow.


There were hundreds of people in line and we thought we might be there all day and we were starving. We left the house before 4AM and it was now almost 2PM and we still had eaten nothing more than airplane snacks. We were lucky though because we didn’t have to check any luggage since they had taken it at the airport and we were able to bypass the majority of the line. We signed our life away, showed our passports 5 different times, got our Seapass cards and we finally made it on the ship. This is where my beloved husband started singing the theme to “The Love Boat.” He then serenaded me with this song for the majority of the evening.


We got to our room and were pleasantly surprised it was a little bigger than our closet at home- we were expecting worse. We then went to eat lunch at the buffet and were happy campers. We wandered around the boat for awhile, checked on the kids (I owe Nana and Emily big for driving to overly tired kids back to Shreveport for us), and then read the Daily Compass for all of the events on the boat. We then had to go to Muster which is where they make you put on your life preservers and go stand in a bar with everyone else. Brian threatened my life if I took a picture so no luck there. We went to the dining room for supper and met our Waiter- John and Assistant Waiter- Andre. We were at a table for 4 but our table mates weren't there. Over halfway through the meal they showed up. They were a newlywed couple from North Carolina and they were Country comes to town. Brian and I worried that he wasn't going to make it a week. We wandered around the ship some more and then went back to our room where they had finally delivered our luggage. We unpacked and watched the ship sail from Puerto Rico. I tried to get a good picture but because it was dark, my shutter had to be open a little longer and since the ship was moving- it's a little blurry.

By the time we got all unpacked, met our room attendant- Sammy and got everything put away it was late and we were too tired to go to the comedy show but we did want a snack and since room service was free, you know we enjoyed it. I declared I was having breakfast in bed so I filled out our order, put it outside the door and dared Brian to wake me when he went to work out. The ship was a little more rocky than we expected but we were exhausted and had no trouble falling asleep.

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