ceilidh1

It's getting real...

Sure - but you might need to remind me next week! I’m not 100% sure if we will get off the ship at all in Costa Maya but if we do, I’ll check it out. I can definitely check flowrider!

I'll be at Crown Plaza again in December for one night pre-cruise for NCL Bliss! As for Vancouver, there are some great places to eat and drink here - sadly, the prices prevent me from doing so as often as I would like!

Dad is my favourite!

Galveston weather Friday through Sunday. I’m not loving the rain cloud, and those temperatures are a little…high. 🤣

Last (half) day of work completed! USD cash acquired- for once the bank actually had a new batch of singles so I have $50 in shiny fresh dollar bills for tips, and around $400 for anything I don’t want to use a credit card for. Stopped at the dollar store and picked up a few last minute bits - trying out self laminating luggage tags because who carries a stapler on vacation to staple luggage tags? Next today is laundry and house cleaning, then haircut. Tomorrow will be the last of the packing and more cleaning and then we head out at stupid-o’clock on Friday! Woot!

This pulled up outside my house last week…got me a little excited!

The comedy reservation is just myself - I actually didn't even book the comedy originally, since it was adult-only and I wasn't sure if the kids would want to do something with me. I'm not sure I will go, but reserved in case. I hope we get to see an aquatheatre show - though, the thing I am most looking forward to is Grease!

We just have her booked for the roundtrip airport portion. We booked the hotel shuttle for the hotel to port. We used her last time, too, and she was fantastic - in fact, as soon as I mentioned Galveston, both kids asked if we could go with her again!

The Packing: I despise packing. It is my least favourite thing to do. Ordinarily, I am the most organized person, but when it comes to packing I suck! I put little bits into the case at a time and then forget what I've packed. I know things I need to pack, but I'm still using them so it feels like that is constantly hanging over me. I just really dislike packing. It's not going well so far. I had decided I needed a new checked bag/suitcase as ours was really on it's last legs (or wheels). I looked online at various places and was shocked at the price of these things nowadays. It's been a while since I was in the market for new luggage, but I don't recall them being upwards of $300...no way was I going to pay that for a bag that Air Canada would likely end up wrecking! I gave up and resigned myself to the fact that we would be using our old case. Then, one day, we were at London Drugs for something completely unrelated (think a CVS type of store) and what should I see on clearance but the perfect size SwissGear suitcase. It was marked down from $369.99 to $79.99...well, yes please, I don't mind if I do. Suitcase acquired! Our sailing has a few theme nights - initially I really wanted the three of us to be matching, but that was quickly beaten down by DD rolling her eyes and refusing to wear "old people" clothes. The theme nights are Western, Caribbean, and White. I think there may be some kind of 70s night, too, but I'm not doing anything for that one. I'm looking forward to Western night as I have my silver cowboy boots and I went to the Dollarstore with @YVRteacher last weekend and found a silver cowboy hat! Yahoo. For Caribbean night I have a flowery dress, and for White night I have a white dress. Easy peasy. DD hasn't told me what she plans on wearing. DS has a nice white polo shirt, a Caribbean/Hawaiian shirt, and a plaid shirt...so he is all set! I've not put a whole lot of thought into anything else in terms of clothing - shorts, tshirts, and swimsuits are about as far as I got. We are taking two carry on sized cases (we will check them on the way there, since we got free checked baggage with the seat we booked) and one checked bag sized case. We will each have a backpack. I was debating taking my laptop in case I need to do some work, but I have no idea how good wifi is on RC and, quite honestly, I don't feel like doing any work! DD will take her ipad and DS will likely take his Switch to use on the plane. We are a big card/board game family, and do spend time playing on vacation. For this trip, we are planning on taking the Uno No Mercy game (if you haven't played this, I highly recommend it - your family will end up at each other's throats), Fluxx (one of our all time faves), and Monopoly Deal (quick and easy). ,

Ten minutes ago, I got a call from a Galveston number. Ordinarily, I don't answer unknown numbers, but I figured that it likely had something to do with our trip, so I picked up. It was the hotel front desk calling to confirm the reservation and to ask if we were bringing a vehicle/needed parking. Nice touch. I told her no vehicle and she asked if we were cruising. Then she asked if we would like to book the shuttle to the ship - I think I mentioned that my original plan was to walk to the ship. but since then I found out that the new RC terminal is quite a bit further out. For the three of us on a shuttle it cost $20 - I'm sure an Uber would be around that price, and then you also have the hassle of competing with demand and price surging, so I just booked us on the 10:15am shuttle. Done. I appreciated the call, for sure!

Well, last night’s Tapped Out Tuesday was a blast. I told myself I was only going to have two drinks, since I still have a half day at work today. I dutifully paid my bill and got up to leave at 7:30pm…but then Bingo started! Now, Tapped Bingo is no ordinary game of Bingo. Firstly, it’s free. I mean, who can pass up free Bingo? Secondly, you don’t play for money. You play for Tequila shots. What could go wrong? Needless to say, I did not leave. I did play Bingo. I won a few games. At one point, the Tequila shots turned into pours from the bottle (back in my college days we called these Laybacks as you lay on your back in the bar and the alcohol gets poured into your mouth). There was much laughter, shenanigans a-plenty, and lots of fun! I finally stumbled out of there just before midnight and getting up for work this morning was…fun. I woke to pictures on my phone that I can never unsee. I had to immediately call my friend to find out who/what/why… In the meantime, I bring you bar snacks. Beer battered fries with garlic Parmesan and guacamole!

Since it’s Tuesday and almost vacation, I had to go to Tapped Out Tuesdays after work. This is an all night “happy hour” with beers on tap for $4! You’re lucky to get a beer under $10 in this city, so I take advantage when I can! Cheers!

DD went to get her hair done today. Her hair is blonder than blonde and curlier than curly. This was the result:

I'm looking forward to that first drink...

Last time we were there we tried to take the free trolley. We waited. And waited. And waited. Then called an Uber.

Galveston Plans: We land at IAH at 4pm, which means we likely won't get to the hotel in Galveston until the evening (remember, we are stopping at Buccee's en route). I plan on grabbing food, snacks, and adult beverages at Buccee's and hunkering down in the hotel for the night. We have a full day on Saturday so I set DS the task of planning what we should do. I gave him the location of our hotel and told him to find activities either within walking distance, or a maximum of one uber to get there and one to get back. I fully expected him to come up with the Pier and stuff over on the seawall/beach. However, he is obviously my child...as all of his "activities" revolved around bars, bakeries, and ice cream stores. He actually found some great looking places to eat/drink so I think we are going to roll with it and spend the day just pottering around the strand! These are on our shortlist, if anyone has any experience with them! https://www.playgroundgalveston.com/ https://galveston.stuttgardentavern.com/ https://www.hubcapgrillgalveston.com/ https://lakingsconfectionery.com/ https://thesunflowerbakeryandcafe.com/ If not, happy to take recommendations!

Planning on it but that one isn't booked yet - gotta wait to find out school schedule! My next booked VV is solo on Feb 22nd. My traditional shenanigan cruise.

The next FIVE cruises are without kiddos...so I will behave on this one!

The Website, The App, The Reservations: I'm not sure if I just got lucky with the RC website and app, or if it really is a decent piece of technology but I (so far) have had zero issues with it. I must admit, the majority of things I've done on the website, simply because I prefer the larger monitor (these eyes aren't getting any younger) over the small phone screen. The few things I have done on the app have worked seamlessly. Booking for shows opened on June 20th. Someone on our group gave us the heads up, so we were able to book into everything we wanted to see. Some of the times did clash with the dining that we had already reserved, so there was some shuffling around but it all worked out! Check-In opened on July 11th - our group chat was kind enough to let me know that this was midnight ship time (CST) so I set an alarm and checked in as soon as it opened up. I wanted to get an early arrival time in case I had to scramble to get reservations on the ship. Having no status or priority sucks - I feel like a brand new cruiser all over again. Right on the dot, check in opened and I breezed through it, getting a 10:30am arrival time. Woot. As I mentioned, I had toyed with the all-inclusive dining package but I decided against it when I found out I couldn't reserve restaurants ahead of time. These are the current prices for specialty dining - to say I'm experiencing sticker shock is an understatement. We would need to multiply this by 3 since both my kids are "adults" on this sailing.

I mean...who doesn't love sloths! Last time we were in Roatan, we took a ship (Princess) excursion to what I THOUGHT was the sloths. I obviously didn't pay attention, as this particular excursion went only to the park that had monkeys and macaws. I was so sad. This time I hope to see TWO of my favourite things - sloths and iguanas!

August 25. By tail end of hurricane season I meant tail end of peak hurricane season for this area (per the national weather service).

We’ve sailed from Galveston before and I said “never again” yet, here we are! The downside (for me) of this port was the distance and price from the airport to port. It took a long time after flying most of the day (that trip our non stop flight was canceled and we ended up on a connecting flight so it truly was an entire day of travel). We also did not choose the best location to stay for 3 nights - the hotel was nice, but it was at the very far end of the seawall. There was nothing within walking distance except the beach and a Walgreens. This meant we had to plan out everything and use Uber, even just to grab lunch. It became a hassle and costly. We were out pretty much the whole day as we couldn’t just pop back to the hotel for a rest so by the time we ended our 3 days in Galveston we were exhausted! This time we only have one full day (2 nights) and plan on just walking around the Strand and taking it easy!

Let the shenanigans commence!

The Final Countdown: I have one and a half days of work to get through before I can really call it vacation time. Between now and Friday I need to get a haircut, clean my house (I go into full Zombie Apocalypse mode whenever we go away and clean from top to bottom), finish the laundry and packing, get USD, and make sure all my work stuff has been handed off. We fly out first thing on Friday, which means an early trip out to the airport. We will take the Canada Line as we can do door to door in about 30 minutes, which is actually faster than a cab or uber! It's also "free" for us, since we have monthly transit passes. YVR Airport Station Guide • The Canada Line Vancouver is a pre-clearance airport for the US, so we will need to pass through both security and CBP prior to getting to our flight. This can be both good and bad - good, because you don't need to deal with it when you land; bad, because sometimes the lines are crazy and it's quite common to miss your flight as you are still in line at CBP! There are some ways to get around this - firstly, you can sign up for YVR Express, which is a free service that allows you to skip the line for security. This opens 3 days before your flight, so first thing tomorrow I shall be signing up for that! YVR EXPRESS | YVR Once you arrive at the airport, you can submit the CBP Mobile Passport Control (you need to download the app) and this allows you to skip the line for CBP processing (similar to global entry/Nexus) so I have that all ready to go. Mobile Passport Control (MPC) | U.S. Customs and Border Protection (cbp.gov) Hopefully, the airport will be quiet and drama free. I have a lounge pass but would need to pay $35USD each for the kids - if it was later in the day, I wouldn't hesitate (hello, free bar) but that early in the morning it isn't worth it for the three of us. We will just grab some coffee and donuts at Tim Hortons!