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Friday, June 5, 2015

June 5th 2015

Hi, it’s Christina –

My view - Beautiful
Bayonne, NJ - NOT
Good Morning! It’s been ages, I know, and I’m sorry! Fair warning, this is going to be an unusually LONG post, because I will not have internet access to be able to post this until June 5th.

I’m am currently sitting on my HUGE balcony, overlooking the stern of the Liberty of the Sea. Well, technically I’m not overlooking the stern because other than the few cabins below us, all I see is water. (I may have told you, but I cannot recall at the moment, but for our 25th wedding anniversary, my mother got my husband and I a cruise to Bermuda.)

So much has happened since the last time we chatted, I hardly know where to begin. Let’s see…

Dani's driving instructor
I went up to Vermont and picked up Lys from college. She made Dean’s list, so we are very proud of her. Dani Rose has completed her 6 hour driving course and will now be driving on a permit until February when she gets her license – good God, my BABY is driving!

2015 Indie Book Awards
Corporate Blues was a finalist in both the Romance & ChickLit categories for the 2015 Indie Next Generation Book Awards – yup, that’s right, I had to go into NYC again, by myself, on the train. Obviously because I writing you right now, you know I survived, and I will even admit, it was marginally better than the last time. I’m still not a fan of going into the city, but at least I can handle it now without having a full blown panic attack. LOL

The Twitter campaign is still in full swing, and still taking 4 – 5 hours a day even though I am now up to roughly 7,500 followers. I did figure out how to set up my book tweets so they go out automatically at noon and three every day. That did still take several hours to set up, but now I don’t have to worry about it until the end of June.

So there’s the Reader’s Digest version of what’s been going on for the past few weeks. The remainder will be my cruise log.

One of the things that did
fit him.
Stardate 2015.05.27 – Passenger’s Log - Cruise Day -3:

I’m going to choke him yet. It’s been a month since my husband’s birthday, A MONTH, and now he finally decides to try on the clothes he got (with the intention of bringing them on the cruise). Wouldn’t you know it, half of it doesn’t fit – including the suit I got him, so now, three days before the cruise, I have to run around like a chicken with her head chopped off. How high are the rails on a ship?




Stardate 2015.05.28 – Passenger’s Log - Cruise Day -2:

Laundry, laundry everywhere. We’ve still had some cool days so the winter stuff has not yet been packed away, and not all the summer stuff has been unpacked. I’m seriously starting to feel overwhelmed. Is it Saturday yet?

Stardate 2015.05.29 – Passenger’s Log - Cruise Day -1:
5 checked bags, a carry-on, my computer & my purse
SIMPLY RIDICULOUS!

For the love of God, the amount of clothes you have to take on a cruise is INSANE! Normally, for a week’s vacation, I can get my hubby and I packed into one suitcase and one travel bag, but oh no, you can’t do that for a cruise. Basically, you are changing clothes a minimum of three times a day, so for a five day cruise, that’s fifteen changes of clothes, times two people. Now granted, one of the changes is for pool/beachwear so that is only two bathing suits per person plus a cover up – for my husband that means a tank top – oh bother, that still adds up to a lot, plus after adding in sleepwear and accessories (ties, shawls, etc).

Stardate 2015.05.30 – Passenger’s Log - Cruise Day 1:

* I’m going to kill him! Bury him in the backyard, and no one will be any the wiser! Who cares that we’ve been married for 25 years! Can someone explain to me WHY if you can get on the cruise ship at 11 and enjoy ALL the amenities at that time, why would you not want to get on the ship at as close to 11 as possible? ARGH! Get me on the ship and start this vacation already, because after the packing nightmare, I am so ready to be out of here!

* Whoever the “they” are who says New Yorkers are rude and drive like maniacs must have actually had a run-in with a driver from Bayonne and not realized it. SHEESH! Repeat after me “ANGER MANAGEMENT”.

It's so big, I can't get it all in 1 picture
* Good grief, it’s a floating city!

* Warning – the big bottles of No AD sunscreen will set off a red flag at the security check in point, subjecting you to a search. Me – bewildered and flabbergasted at what I could possibly have in my bag. Security Officer – bewildered and flabbergasted that I so readily handed over my bag for inspection.

* Pretty sure this cruise is sold out. There are SO many people.

This was the only time I saw the characters on the ship
* I am so hopelessly lost. It’s going to take me a week to figure out how to get around this ship, and I only have five days!

* Mandatory evacuation drill – how fun. At least we did not have to wear our life jackets!

* We found the pool, so that’s a start. The cast of Madagascar preformed a skit and got everyone in a festive mood. The ship’s horn cause several heart attacks, but we are FINALLY on our way! YEAH!!

Betchya the horn scared them too - LOL
* Within minutes of clearing the Verrazano Bridge, the wind picked up so much we could no longer stay on Deck – I’m talking Deck chair tumbleweeds, so we decided to head in and get showered and changed for dinner. Well, that turned out to be a little harder than we had hoped. The one suitcase which held all out undergarments was MIA. After making a few inquiries, we were told we needed to go down to Deck 2.

Thank God I'm not heavier than
I am or I would have NEVER
fit in there!
After showering in the smallest shower known to man, I opted not to go commando, and put on the same clothes I wore onto the ship, then headed in search of my missing bag. Should have been an easy enough quest – take the stern elevator from Deck 10 to Deck 2 and walk to the conference room at the bow. NOPE. You can’t get there from here. Here’s to wandering around aimlessly for the next several days…

Before dinner we decided to check out the free booze tasting on Deck 5. On our way there, we passed a jewelry display. They handed us a raffle ticket and said at 8:00 there was a drawing for a free piece of jewelry. Okay, great. We need to be back by 8 for the drawing, no big deal, our dinner reservations weren’t until 8:30.

Sheridan's - Not available in the US
The next stop was the booze tasting, where they gave you a coffee creamer cup of one of the featured sales. Although I’m not a drinker, there was one there which intrigued me so much, I just had to try it. It was this blue swirled bottle, made in Ireland, half vanilla and half coffee flavored liqueurs, each pouring out of their own spout. Oh my, it was DELICIOUS! The sale was 2 bottles for $37 dollars, but you could mix and match, so back in line we went to sample a different choice. I tried this one from South Africa, and I did not care for it. The other choices were Crowne Royal and a peach vodka. We ended up getting two of the one from Ireland. Then, as we paid, the clerk tells us that we were entered into a drawing for $50 – cool, if we won, the ship would be paying us $13 to take the booze off the ship. The drawing was to be held at 9:45. Okay – jewelry drawing at 8:00 on Deck 5, dinner at 8:30 on Deck 3, booze drawing at 9:45 on Deck 5 – we can do this.


1st Sunset at sea
With still over an hour to kill before we need to be back for the 8:00 drawing, we decided to go exploring on Deck 4 – the casino, the art gallery, the skating rink. In the art gallery a painting catches my eye. I had never seen anything like it, and had never heard of the artist, but it intrigued me. I was standing there long enough, admiring the painting, that the art director came over to talk with me. Now, although I loved it, I don’t have a spare $1,500 laying around to purchase it (plus, if you acquired the one painting, you kind of would need to get the second one by the artist as well to have a balanced set). Perhaps in my next lifetime I will be able to indulge. The art director hands me – yup you guessed it – another raffle ticket, but thankfully, this drawing doesn’t go off until noon tomorrow.

My lifesaver!
* 8:00, I didn’t win, so it’s off to dinner. With the exception of dessert, I wasn’t impressed, and let’s leave it at that.

* 9:45, I didn’t win. Paulie wants to go check out Karaoke at 10:00 on Deck 4. Sure, why not – I’ll never see these people again as long as I live.

* 10:10, not feeling too good. Pop some Meclizine. Leave Paulie at karaoke which hasn’t started yet, and head back to my room for the night. Only three wrong turns, I may figure out this ship yet.


Stardate 2015.05.31 – Passenger’s Log - Cruise Day 2:

* Well I started today with a heart attack. I get up and check the time on my phone and it says 11:20. Seriously? I haven’t slept past 7:00 in over 20 years. Good grief! I left Paulie sleeping and headed out to get some coffee, grumbling that I missed several things I had wanted to do already. The first thing I do when I get to the buffet is ask, “What time is it?” “Ten minutes to eight.” So basically I woke up an hour later than I usually do, thanks to the Meclizine and the hour time change.

* These guys can’t make coffee… just sayin’…

Wish I could remember the artist's name...
* Paulie finally woke up. It’s really 11:00 this time. We’re headed for breakfast, then he’s going to go sit by the pool and I’m going to check out the art auction.

* Well, I only lasted about half an hour at the art auction. I left before it actually started. Being inside without windows for any length of time screws with my equilibrium, and I wasn’t going to risk feeling ill for the day over something I wasn’t really going to purchase anyway. I was naughty though and snapped a photo of the two paintings I fell in love with. Aren’t they amazing?

* The highlight of the day was the belly flop contest. A dude from Quebec won. Supposedly this was his 3rd win in the past 6 years. I give all seven guys credit though, because the water in the pool was so cold, all I managed to do was get my feet in it. Although I have been in it, hot tubs are not my favorite, but I guess they are going to be my only option on this cruise.
Paulie LOVES the hot tub!

* I’m bored. We got to the pool too late to be able to snag lounge chairs, and I’m not one to be sitting in the sun, baking, when I can’t jump in the water to cool off. I’m going to take a nap.

* Tonight’s the formal night for dinner. It’s nice to be able to get all dressed up once in a while.

Do I have to wear shoes?
* Dinner was actually pretty good tonight. The lobster bisque was nasty and I sent it back for a shrimp cocktail, but other than that, the beef fillet was wonderful and I got the chocolate dessert to go.

* Headed out to check out the “Finish the next line of the lyrics” game show. I hope I get picked to participate.

* Well, we missed the game show. I thought it started at 10:30, but it started at 10:00, so we didn’t even bother. Instead we headed up to one of the lounges on the top deck to listen to a country band. The music was good, but I don’t know if the sound system wasn’t working properly or if it was just their singing, but I couldn’t understand a dang thing they were singing.
Found out later it wasn't the sound
system. These guys barely spoke
English - LOL

After half an hour, when they started singing a Stones song, we decided to check out Karaoke instead. We listened to five or six acts. It was hysterical, but then it was midnight, and it was over. The rigidity on a cruise kinda stinks. Karaoke is exactly from 10:30 – 12:00, not a minute more. It didn’t matter that there were at least another dozen folks signed up to sing who never got the chance, there was a huge crowd, and everyone was having a good time. I’m really starting to think this whole cruise thing is not for me.

* It’s 12:45. I left Paulie at some bar, laughing and having a good old time with this group of people – the only names I caught were Gina & Dom. Although I’m not overly tired yet, I was starting to get a little queasy from being inside so long, so I came back to the cabin where I could sit on my balcony. I can’t stay out here for too long. Breakfast is coming at 7:30. I thought it would be smart to have room service on the day we were leaving the ship. This way they wake Paulie up and not me, and we can get an early start.

Stardate 2015.06.01 – Passenger’s Log - Cruise Day 3:

Yup, that's rain you're seeing. It did clear up by the afternoon,
so the day wasn't a total washout.
* It’s 6:30, two hour before we dock on Bermuda, and it’s grey and cloudy. Oh joy. I guess we’ll be doing our sightseeing today and our beach excursion tomorrow. It’s really going to suck if tomorrow’s cloudy too. Oh well, whatchya gunna do? I didn’t even think to pack an umbrella. The weather forecast said beautiful, sunny and 77°. UGH!

* What’s the point in having a drink package if you can’t have the drinks offered in the package at room service? Fresh squeezed orange juice is part of our package, so I ordered it for breakfast, only to find out they wanted to charge us extra to have it delivered. Seriously?

* So basically, we rode the bus around the island today. We disembarked, purchased our 2-Day Bus/Ferry pass for $31.50 a person, which wasn’t terrible, then decided to check out the museum which was right here by where we were docked. Even though we couldn’t get into all the buildings of the museum because some had been damaged by last year’s hurricanes (they were hit by two in a week), it was pretty cool.

We were able to see several exhibits, learn some history of the island, and I may have even seen some of the bottles my father had pulled up from one of the wreckages. Obviously I cannot be sure if they were pulled up by him – it’s not like they had a label “recovered by Bob”, but since he told me to look for them, I am going to assume, those were his.
See, he's laughing...

The dolphin exhibit was really neat. I think there were nine full grown dolphins and two babies. I took a slew of pictures, but those little buggers were quick, so I mostly got pictures of water. LOL. At one point, one of the dolphins came up to the top and was looking straight at me. I went to snap his picture, but I hit the wrong button and the camera turned off. At that point, the dolphin actually started laughing at me. I got the camera turned on again, and as soon as I did, he ducked back under the water, probably laughing himself silly on his way down.

It's hard to tell, and there was
no way I was getting closer to
the edge to take a better picture,
but that's cactus growing up the
side of the cliff.
After the dolphins, we took a walk around the ramparts. Although the views were fantastic, and I did get to see cactus that grew up the side of a cliff (had no clue it could do that), the walk was a bit precarious and rather nasty. Who knew sheep could poop so much. I initially thought there had been an invasion of Canadian geese, but then someone told us, it was sheep. Shortly after finding out this tidbit of information, I discovered evidence that one of these beasties had just recently given birth, right there, where we were walking. EEEEWWWW! I will not go into any more details than that…

High Cave
After a dash through the rain, a quick peek at the “High Cave” and one more display, we left the museum and hitched bus 7 to Hamilton. I have to say, Oh Boy! Riding a bus in Bermuda is an experience. The roads are narrow, windy, crowded, and disorienting because they do it all on the wrong side of the road! When we hit the first of many traffic circles, I had to look away.

I did chat with one of the locals during the ride, and she told us that Long Beach was the one with the most pink sand, and that if it was history we were interested in, then we needed to go and visit St. George.

We survived the 55 minute harrowing experience, and went on a quest to find the Hog Penny, a restaurant my father claimed “has the best fish chowder on the island.” After the 4th time asking folks where we could find it, we found it. Now each of the people we asked did get us closer to the place, it was just our unfamiliarity with the area which sent us awry.

We didn't eat here, but I just
loved the name
Destination found, we settled in for a ridiculously over-priced lunch. Paulie had a local beer and an appetizer of pulled pork potato skins (which was simply delicious), and I had an iced tea and, of course, fish chowder, and the bill was $50! Just goes to show, even though I would simply love it, I’d never be able to afford to live on an island.

Now, I’ve never been one for spicy food, and I am fairly certain my father is aware of this, so I was very surprised after my first spoonful. It was a strange type of burn. It didn’t affect my lips, my gums, my tongue or even my mouth in general; nope, it burned the back of my throat. I was not about to send it back, because I did not know if it would be considered to be in bad form in Bermuda, and I was not going to waste a $12 bowl of soup (more like cup of soup by US standards), so I begged the waitress for some bread, and I soldiered on. It was an unusual tasting soup, it may have been because of the dark rum and sherry they add to it as it was being served, or it may have been the fish they used or the spices. It wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I’ll be ordering it again.

From the Hog Penny, we wandered around a bit trying to find the bus terminal. The chatty local on the bus said if we liked history, we should head on over to St. George, so on her word, we were off. This time on the bus, I had a normal seat – forward facing, near a window. Oh dear Lord! I guess I did not quite comprehend how narrow those streets really were until we were careening two inches away from a wall and branches were hitting me as we passed. YIKES!

Mark & Judy
St. George is exactly what I pictured a Bermuda town to be; quiet, quaint, cobblestoned streets, each building a different pastel color. It was lovely. I wish we had more time to explore, but the last ferry from St. George back to the dockyard was at 5:30, and I was not willing to take the bus back which would have been an hour and forty minute ride plus whatever time we would have had to wait for while switching busses in Hamilton. No thanks, the 30 minute ferry ride did just fine.

Around 4:45 we realized we would not be able to see historical site on St. George and be able to get back to the ferry in time, so we decided to pop into a pub next to the ferry terminal. Paulie sampled a local beer, and I has something sweet. That’s where we met Mark and Judy from New Hampshire. They were on the Norwegian Dawn, the ship that pulled into port right behind us (yes, the same ship that you heard about on the news two weeks ago when it got hung up on a sandbar).

It seems their poor captain’s luck hasn’t improved since that cruise. Six hours into this cruise they had a sever medical emergency, but because of the dense fog coming out of Boston, the medivac helicopter was unable to land on the ship, and they had to turn around. The passengers were rather confused when they woke up on day two of their cruise to find themselves back in Boston.
Paulie & Me

When I was getting ready this morning, I noticed some activity on their ship, which is parked right behind us, but Mark and Judy did not know what had happened. Perhaps we will run into some passengers from the Norwegian tomorrow and they’ll be able to tell us why the ambulances met their ship when they came into port.

So, is it a bear or an
elephant?
When we got back to our room, there was a towel animal on our couch. Paulie thinks it’s a bear, I think it’s an elephant. What do you think?

After we rolled ourselves out of the dining room tonight, good Lord, we ate so much, we decided we needed to take a walk. We headed over to Deck 11 with the intention of taking the stairs by the bar up to Deck 12 where the jogging track is. As we neared the stairs, I hear, “Mamma!” in a voice I recognize. I look around, and sure enough, my son’s friend Josh is headed over to me with his arms outstretched for a hug. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I have known Josh since he was roughly 18 months old. He was there with two more of my son’s friends who I have also known for eons. So our record stands, everywhere Paulie and I have gone, no matter where in the world, there is someone there we know.
Yes, that's an angel costume

For three nights now our dinner companions, Doug and Sally, have been telling us about this Hawaiian piano player named Matt Yee, who does a sing along in the Schooner Lounge, so we decided to check him out. Dang it, we should have listened to them after the first night. Matt’s flippin’ hysterical. Oh my goodness we had such a great time tonight! We will definitely be going back tomorrow.

* Okay, I’m headed off to bed, because I want to get to the beach early tomorrow. It should be interesting trying to get Paulie up early. Wish me luck!

Stardate 2015.06.02 – Passenger’s Log - Cruise Day 4:

Sunrise
* Well, the sun’s out, so that’s a good sign. If I don’t get my toes in the water soon, I very well might explode. Our plan for the day is to start off at Long Bay, then walk down to Horseshoe Bay, stopping at the various beaches in between. It’s around three miles, but according to the locals, we can walk from one beach to the next, then we’ll hope on the bus at Horseshoe back to the ship. We have to be back onboard by 4:30, which means we don’t have a whole lot of time today, so even though it’s only 7:30, I have to roust the sleeping bear – pray for me – lol.

Long Warwick Bay
* After an hour long wait for the bus, and then a half hour ride, we finally made it to Long Bay. The sand was definitely pink, which is why we chose Long Bay, but I was very surprised at how cold and rough the water was. We only stayed for twenty minutes or so, and then decided to start making our trek toward Horseshoe. We went through the path to the next little beach, which turned out to be an alcove. It was completely sheltered from the breaking waves.

Blue Parrot Fish
I started to wade out so I could get wet – I needed to cool off even though we had only walked a short distance – and there, not two feet away from me, was a Parrot Fish. I quickly grabbed the camera, and waded out again. This fish was quite content for me to get up close and personal to take his picture. At one point he even rolled onto his side so I could get a better shot, but unfortunately the photo did not come out as good as I had hoped (I couldn’t check until I got back to the room because it was just too sunny to see it on the beach).

Off in my own little world
We made it down several beaches before we realized our helpful native neglected to mention that you can only travel the seven mile stretch of beaches during low tide, so Paulie and I had to turn around and go back the way we came to catch the bus to Horseshoe.

When we pulled up to the bus stop for Horseshoe Bay we could see the beach was nothing but wall to wall umbrellas – no thank you - so we stayed on the bus for one more stop and got off at Church Bay. Like Horseshoe, the descent from the road to the beach was extremely steep, but at Church, it was a set of stairs, so it wasn’t too terrible. There were roughly 20 people on Church Bay, much more to our liking. I rented snorkel equipment, Paulie passed because the water was too cold for him.

Church Bay
After my comedy routine of getting my flippers on, and a few misfires with the goggles and snorkel, I found my rhythm and I was off. At one point, I had 8 – 10 Parrot Fish and 50 or so other fish all swimming around me at one time while I was frantically snapping pictures with my disposable underwater camera. There was this one fish in particular who was quite insistent on getting his picture taken. There I was, in rough surf, trying not to drown, and trying to get the camera to advance to the next frame, all while he kept swimming up and butting the camera. I finally get the camera advanced, and I raise it to my goggles, the little fish swims back about a foot, and I swear he smiles at me as I take the picture, then he swims off. It was the most peculiar experience.

One of the beaches between Long
& Horseshoe Bay
I PRAY the pictures came out. The water was a little cloudy, which wasn’t too terrible when the sun was shining bright, but when the sun ducked behind a cloud, the visibility underwater was poor. There are still ten pictures left on the roll and I don’t want to waste them, so I won’t get to see how they turned out until after our vacation in August. Not sure where we’re going yet, but it will most likely be around water, so I will use them up there.

2 of the I think 6 hot tubs on the ship
Even though it was only 2:30, we had had enough fun in the sun for one day, so we headed back to the ship. We grabbed a quick bite from the buffet, and headed up to the pool deck to eat our lunch. When we finished eating we sat in the hot tub for a while – it was nice to be in warm water.

Selfie! It's a terrible picture of me, but
I was so impressed I managed to get us
fairly centered with no heads cut off, I
just had to share it.
* I’m showered and waiting for Paulie to get done with his shower so we can head down to dinner. I don’t know how long I’ll last tonight. After all that walking and the snorkeling, I’m pooped.

Quest - I'll let the picture speak
for itself
* After dinner, we caught Matt Yee’s show again, then we went to something called Quest, which was basically a scavenger hunt. Oh my! We had a BLAST! The ONLY thing I contributed to the Quest was a business card - I just wanted to put in that disclaimer if any of you out there have participated in Quest before. LOL

Monkey!
I left Paulie at one of the bars. I did stay for a little while to chat with Katherine, a really sweet lady I had met on day 2. She’s cool. She is part of the production crew on a Broadway play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. If you haven’t heard about this play, it’s about an autistic boy who solves the murder of his neighbor’s dog. It sounds awesome, and I may just have to suck it up and make another trip into the city to see it.

* Tonight’s towel animal was a monkey. Isn’t he cute?

* I’m toast, so I’m off to bed. I’ll chat with you tomorrow.

Stardate 2015.06.03 – Passenger’s Log - Cruise Day 5:

* I woke up this morning with a rash and hives all over my face. I grabbed some breakfast, and brought it up to my room to eat on the balcony. The rash really starting to bother me, so I took a Benadryl.

* The Benadryl knocked me out until 3. Paulie just woke up too. I guess the late nights caught up to him. He’s grabbing a quick shower, then we are going to breeze though the buffet, then it’s off to the ice show. The seas are really picking up. I hope I can stay in the arena for the show.
This was the clearest picture
I got

* Holy crow, the ice show was amazing. I did not expect such a production on a 40’x60’ patch of ice, but it was. Most excellent, I highly recommend it if you are ever on the Liberty of the Sea. I have to run and get changed for dinner. We are stopping by the Schooner before dinner for 80’s music trivia. I’ll let you know how we make out.

Matt Yee is a nut!
* HOLY CRAP the sea is getting rough. Doug & Sally were on deck before dinner and they got a picture of a water spout. The ship is rocking and rolling, and the spray from the whitecaps is so intense it’s making it look like it’s raining. Everyone’s walking around like they’re drunk – even the ones who aren’t – and we passed are several green faces. It’s going to be a long night.

* It’s 1:00am, I just got back to my room and realized I forgot to put out one of our bags for pick-up. I hope they take it, because I REALLY don’t want to carry it all morning tomorrow as we are waiting to get off the ship.

* We got a 35 out of 40 on the trivia– not too shabby, but one woman got a 40 out of 40, so no keychains for us.

Me & Matt Yee
* Dinner was yummy tonight. I had jumbo tiger shrimp which were the size of small lobster tails. From dinner we caught a little bit of Matt’s show, then headed to the Platinum Studio (our first time there this entire cruise) for the comedian.

I think the guy’s name was Kevin Flynn, and he was in a movie with Jim Carey and was one of the boyfriends of one of the girls on Sexy in the City, but since I didn’t see the movie, and I never watched SitC, I had no clue who he was. He did a good job though, and one line in particular had me in absolute hysterics. He was talking about the amount of food we consume on a cruise and how we get programmed to eat every 18 minutes, and as that 18 minutes approaches, we are actually hungry. Obviously the line was delivered far better, but you get the gist. What was funny was everyone in the arena was nodding because it was so true.

From there we went back up to catch the end of Matt’s show, and when that ended, we headed to the bar in the casino where everyone we had become friendly with during the cruise tended to congregate at midnight. The bar tenders, Nuno & Luis, saw us coming and handed Paulie a Miller Light as soon as we bellied up. Luis insisted I try a few drinks, my first of the cruise. He had actually given it a lot of thought, and made two he knew I wouldn’t be allergic to. One was orange and one was blue. I have no clue what they were, but they were yummy, and he only made me a mouthful of each, so it wasn’t enough to make me loopy.

Surprisingly, my stomach’s doing well, even without any Meclizine – dummy me packed it, so it’s somewhere on Deck 1 with all my luggage. Now if I can manage not to fall out of bed tonight – yeah, they seas are that rough – I’ll consider it a success. I’m wiped, and tomorrow is going to be another early day, so TTFN.

Stardate 2015.06.04 – Passenger’s Log – Disembark:


Back in Jersey
Who turned off the heat??
* The slowing of the engine woke me a little after 5:00 am. I shot off texts to the girls to let them know we were almost in port, and another to my niece who was picking us up. Now I’m sitting on the balcony, wishing I had a cup of coffee, but I’m not going to wake Paulie until the last possible second. I fell asleep sometime after 2:00 am, and Paulie wasn’t back in the room yet, so Lord only knows what time he got back. I have to wake him by 7:00 so we can get breakfast and then get to our meeting area by 8:45.

This was our room
* Okay, I’m back home, but I am going to take a nap and I probably won’t post this until tomorrow. It’s going to take time to download all the pictures and get everything arranged to go with this post, and quite frankly, I’m just too tired right now to do it.

For the first time on the cruise, we had breakfast in the formal dining room. I didn’t even know this was an option until Day 4. Then we went for a walk, and I realized I forgot my laptop in the dining room. I went FLYING back and they had already sent it up to lost and found on Deck 5. I waited in that ridiculous line, got my laptop back, and then we headed to our meeting area on Deck 3. As we got off the elevator, we saw the meeting area was emptying out, so we cheated and took the elevator back up to Deck 4 and got into line up there.


It took half an hour to get off the ship from there, and another twenty minutes to make it through customs, but we were in my niece’s car and headed home by 9:50, and we made it home just before 11:00.

Since I had less than 3 hours of sleep last night, I’m going to bed. I hope you have a fantastic day, and happy writing!
Panorama view from our room