A Winter Escape: Was there any Magic?

[Rosy1013]

Enjoying your review!

[Jerseygirl1416]

Great review! Thanks for sharing.

[DJ56]

I am really enjoying your review. Thank you! [emoji106]

 

 

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[Clarasgrandma]

I was on this cruise too! Love hearing other perspectives, and all about your adventures!

[BLE_1]

For anyone who has slept on the couch on the Magic, is it comfortable, and would it be suitable for an adult ?

[Gopherpharm]

Your review is cracking me up. The family antics are relatable! Great job!

 

 

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[Umbrae Noctem]

@BLE_1

 

I didn't have any issues with sleeping on the couch, although I am a heavy sleeper though.

[E@syPe@zy]

You really handled the family dynamics incredibly well! Family can be loads of fun and loads of hair pulling anxieties...always a mixed bag of who knows what!

You had a real gem for a dining room waiter. It was amazing how he read your Dad and his wants and needs.

Really looking forward to reading more of your journey! You are doing a spectacular job!!

[Indytraveler83]

You really handled the family dynamics incredibly well! Family can be loads of fun and loads of hair pulling anxieties...always a mixed bag of who knows what!

You had a real gem for a dining room waiter. It was amazing how he read your Dad and his wants and needs.

Really looking forward to reading more of your journey! You are doing a spectacular job!!

 

Haha, thanks! What I’m not sharing is the couple of heated exchanges Jake and I had during the trip as we dealt with family stress. While I love these family trips, I can’t wait to go somewhere just the two of us!

 

Will get my next entry in on Monday. I’m on call this weekend and haven’t had a chance to get an entry going.

[E@syPe@zy]

Haha, thanks! What I’m not sharing is the couple of heated exchanges Jake and I had during the trip as we dealt with family stress. While I love these family trips, I can’t wait to go somewhere just the two of us!

 

Will get my next entry in on Monday. I’m on call this weekend and haven’t had a chance to get an entry going.

You wouldn't be human if you didn't have a few family induced out lashs! Geez...they will drive you crazy if you let them. We love my Mom, who is 90 years old, but we never know which cat we will get out of that bag full of cats in her head!! But you're doing fine....just smile at them and then do want you want....it's not your job to please them all the time.

[Mr. Blonde]

San Juan Part 2:

 

The drinks tasted extremely weak, but that was likely due to Zoey’s obsession with making us alcoholics than anything they did wrong.

 

 

:'):'):'):'):') I'm dying

[mgasaway]

Great review! I'm on the Magic May 12th!

[Indytraveler83]

Grand Turk Pt 1

 

Sleep the night before was frequently interrupted by the metallic vibration that sounded like someone had jammed an electric toothbrush in my brain. I woke up groggy and not particularly well rested, but thankfully our port stop in Grand Turk was from 10 am to 4 pm, so we had time to wake up slowly. We had again agreed to meet outside our rooms 30 minutes after we had permission to debark, so we enjoyed a lazy room service breakfast on the balcony.

 

The water had gotten choppy overnight, and we were told that pretty much all water based excursions had been cancelled. It is my understanding that at this point, quite a few people pretty much lost their minds, seeing how Amber Cove had been cancelled, most Grand Turk excursions had been cancelled, and many in St. Thomas were as well. Lucky for us, we’d mostly decided to make this a “see as you go” type of cruise, and knowing the nature of the beast, we weren’t too bothered.

 

Around 10:30 we all met outside our rooms in swim trunks and full beach gear. We’d planned a beach day, and nothing was going to stop us! Jake and I donned surf shirts we’d picked up in Hawaii a few years ago (we’ve learned the hard way how badly you can burned getting in and out of saltwater as the sunscreen washes off) as well as brand new water shoes. The rest of the family manages swimsuits, but little else.

 

Getting off the ship goes quickly for once, as the tablets seem to be now operating nearly half as fast as the old machines! We get off the ship into what I’ve come to think of as a great “ship hallway” since another ship was docked directly across from us on the narrow dock. Despite the poor light and the crowds, ship photographers stuffed themselves against the gangways and down the dock to try and get another pointless picture of a stressed out face amongst a sea of faces.

 

What was funny, is as we walked down the dock and cleared the ships, the dock bends and suddenly Grand Turk comes to view. The perfect debarkation picture sits at that bend, with a wind swept rocky beach in the background and translucent light blue waters crashing against the shoreline.

 

Is there a photographer there? Nope. Know who is there? A guy. A guy with a whistle. There are yellow lines on the edges of the dock that say “Do Not Cross.” And this guy, well this guy takes that very seriously. Cross that line, and he runs at you turning red faced, blowing the whistle and scolding you like the most terrorizing playground attendant you can imagine. What should be a peaceful walk into a beautiful port is instead broken by the shrill scream of a whistle and an angry looking man running up and down the side of the pier.

 

We get down the pier and at first turn right to the less crowded beach, but wading out into the water, we quickly realize how rocky it is. The surf is strong on this part of the beach, and at one point I fell and cut my hand on rocks when a wave crashed against me. Not wanting the 12 year old to get hurt too, we decided to move to the other side of the pier, where the water at least looked calmer.

 

As we walk the other side of the beach, we finally find some empty chairs, but as soon as we go to sit in them, one of the locals patrolling the beach tell us that’ll be $50. I’m not entirely sure what happened there, but I can only assume that at some point the “free beach” becomes the property of someone else that charges for chairs. Either that, or the locals are enterprising enough to know people will pay it. We attempt to move on, but sick of searching for a space on the beach, the MIL quickly hands the man $50 and brow beats us into accepting the outcome.

 

Finally seated and ready to go, Jake, myself and the 12 year old start to carefully wade into the water. It’s still pretty rocky here, but at least it’s possible to walk until the water gets deeper. We see the BIL wading out quickly with snorkeling equipment, and he would proceed to stay face down in the water through almost the entire day.

 

For a while we play in the surf, but soon get hungry and get out of the water in search of some food. Leaving the 12 year old behind, we see quite a few people offering beers and homemade looking food on the beach, but not really trusting it we head to Margaritaville. We ordered a few drinks, and a single order of nachos to share between myself, Jake and my mother (no one else was hungry). We debated on ordering another appetizer, but decided we wanted to keep things fairly light.

 

Letting the bartender know we wanted to take things back to the beach, they quickly got us our drinks, and the nachos followed very soon after. I was pretty impressed with how quickly they got us our nachos, but I was even more shocked at what they actually gave us. I must have held 3 pounds of cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips, chicken and salsa. The mountain of nachos they handed us overflowed the foam container. Bringing it all back to the spot on the beach was a bit of a chore, but definitely worth it.

 

In the end, it took five of us to defeat Nacho Mountain, washed down with plenty of beers and margaritas. Only my sleeping father, the snorkeling BIL and the SIL sat out the battle. The 12 year old wanted back in the water, so we sent him to find the BIL while we all stretched out on beach chairs and contemplated our victory under the hot caribbean sun.

 

Just as I begin to drift off to a glorious nap, the perfect sounds of the beach are interrupted by the shrill bleating of that whistle. Turns out The Guy is back at it again, scolding anyone who so much as looks at that yellow line the wrong way. I try to drift off again, but the whistle just gets louder.

 

Frustrated with the whistling, Jake and I stir from our chairs and wade out into the water, hoping to find a little more peace amongst the increasingly heavy surf…

 

Next up:

 

Grand Turk Part 2 Do we, or don’t we feed The Guy to the sharks?

[Hogladyrider]

Yikes $50 for chairs, I was wondering who was "managing" all those chairs on the beach. The chairs were certainly packed on the beach close enough together.

 

We weren't lucky enough to find any available chairs so we plopped down on our towels in the sand and spent most of our time in the water.

 

We return to Grand Turk on the Vista in March but we won't be getting off the ship.

1. too crowded with 2 ships in port 2. our port time is 7-2.

We will spend our shore time in Aruba and Curacao and skip Grand Turk.

 

The rocks were quite a pain in the knees weren't they!

[teknoge3k]

Grand Turk is one of my favorite places. Once you get out into the island and away from the cattle farm at the cruise port it's calm and relaxing. If you get a golf cart and ride up to Governor's Beach you'll be there with less than probably 5 people. You can also walk up to Jack's Shack where it's not as crowded and no rocks in the beach.

 

I love your review!!!

[Indytraveler83]

Grand Turk is one of my favorite places. Once you get out into the island and away from the cattle farm at the cruise port it's calm and relaxing. If you get a golf cart and ride up to Governor's Beach you'll be there with less than probably 5 people. You can also walk up to Jack's Shack where it's not as crowded and no rocks in the beach.

 

I love your review!!!

 

I'll have to remember Governor's Beach for next time!

[Indytraveler83]

Grant Turk Pt 2:

 

More than just a little tipsy, Jake and I venture into the water. We first came across the BIL who was still snorkeling, and mesmerized by the fish. Given the flowing alcohol on the beach, he must have really enjoyed himself in the water, because he literally had not come back in yet!

 

He told us to look in the water, and after borrowing his mask, came across a very cool old cannon in the water, and saw a few fish. He went back to his snorkeling and we came across the 12 year old. At some point someone had fed him sugar, and he was about as hyper as we were tipsy.

 

The 12 year old started mocking The Guy with the whistle, and we joined in, all making some obnoxious noise after another (sorry if you were on the beach with us…). Every now and then, the SIL would look at us, shake her head, salute us with her beer, and go back to her nap.

 

Looking in from the water we realized how badly crowded everything was. With two ships in port, the beach was so packed you couldn’t see the sand, vendors wove up and down pathways trying to sell what they could (and their dogs roamed the beach, begging for food). The pier had quite a bit of two way traffic, all the shops and restaurants were slam packed. The rough and cooling water was about the only place you could go to get away from flailing elbows.

 

We spent quite a bit of time in the water being loud and obnoxious before a man on a jet ski came by and cleared the water. The BIL was the very last person out of the water, having to be tapped on the shoulder several times before he realized it was time to leave. Shortly after, the wind picked up and dark clouds rolled in. The weather quickly turned sour and as we gathered our stuff up, hard rain and wind hit the beach. We rushed to the ship (as well as everyone else) and I noticed that many in the party were limping. Turns out, the lack of water shoes was a particularly painful experience on Grand Turk. My mother had turned red as a tomato under the sun, despite spending the day under an umbrella, and many others were pretty badly burnt as well.

 

The line to get on the ship moved very slowly again. The tablets must have sensed the rain, and decided now was the time to run as slow as possible. Thankfully the two ships in port were so close together that much of the wind and rain didn’t penetrate the space between the ships. The Guy with The Whistle delighted in the crowded pier, and sent out shrill shrieks to his heart’s content. True bliss for a guy with a whistle. True, real bliss.

 

Back on the ship and covered in sunscreen, bug spray, sand, rain and probably tortilla chip crumbs, we each spent quite a bit of time in the shower. Dinner came soon after, and despite being close to 6 pm, we noticed we had not left the dock. We got an overly polite and overly excited head waitress, and all being quite tipsy had a little struggle with ordering.

“Can I have the shrimp cocktail as an appetizer…”

“Oh, yes, yes.”

“And the Salmon as an entree…”

“Yes, oh very good, yes yes!”

“Um… ok, and I’d like a side of fries.”

“YES! Yes! Oh yes!.”

“Uh… ok thanks… um… can I get a glass of wine too?”

“OH YES, YOU GET WINE!”

“Ok…”

 

Dinner was very good, and the service was extremely polite. We just feared that when we ordered dessert, she may quiver with excitement and pass out. After that, we all headed to the final playlist show, which was a rock show (but I can’t remember the name).

 

We allowed Zoey to find us, seat us, and inebriate us again. We enjoyed the show, but could tell the cast wasn’t very familiar with it as the singing was awful in parts while wonderful in others. After the show, Zoey came over and talked to us, and we asked about her family and her career. It was quite interesting hearing her personal story, and she introduced her friends on the ship. She seemed to truly enjoy her job and her co-workers.

 

Afterwards we headed straight to our room and to bed. Sick of being stuffed shoulder to shoulder with our fellow passengers for the entire day and evening, we lay in bed and watched a little TV. We noticed that despite the increasing rocking, the buzzing/rattling noise coming from outside was gone. Couldn’t help but wonder if the delay in departure wasn’t related to some sort of repairs.

 

We put in our final room service breakfast order (since you can’t order on debarkation morning any longer) and went to bed fairly early. The water was chopping and a little rough overnight, but we slept better with that awful noise outside the cabin finally stopped.

 

Next up: Final Sea Day, or more Sea Sickness?

[TennesseeTater]

Sea Day 1: Things get interesting

 

 

 

Let me first correct what I said the prior post: Our family members saw "Flick" tonight, not on the embarkation day. Let's just say I was not exactly in a position to remember good portions of both nights, and needed a bit of correction on my accounting of events...

 

 

 

Ok, Here we go:

 

 

 

We woke up on the sea day and all headed to lido for breakfast at different times. Jake and I got eggs, bacon and some yogurt, while his sister and BIL found the omelet station and came back with some amazing looking breakfast. The day was bright and sunny and we looked forward to a very nice day at sea.

 

 

 

Shortly after breakfast, the Captain came onto the loudspeakers and announced we would not be calling upon Amber Cove. With his strong accent, it was tough to hear exactly what he was saying, but many of us were quite upset that they were cancelling a non-tender port more than 24 hours before we were scheduled to be there.

 

 

 

After a little while, Dr. E came onto the loudspeaker to specify that the reason we were not making Amber Cove was due to an approaching storm, and that we could expect seas to get very rough later in the day, and calling on Amber Cove would have put the ship in 18 foot or higher seas, and that docking would have been impossible.

 

 

 

I was very disappointing, and found it hard to ignore the conspiracy theories that Carnival misses ports on purpose (Don't flame me, over the next few days we would learn firsthand why these conspiracy theories make no sense). We'd all scheduled excursions here, since Amber Cove was one of the few East Caribbean ports unaffected by the hurricanes. We spent a good chunk of time looking at excursions and other options. Jake's sister and BIL decided to book a snorkeling excursion for St. Thomas, his mother decided to book a spa appointment and the rest of us decided to simply accept the cancellations and go from there.

 

 

 

Come lunch time, we all met up again, and margaritas flowed freely courtesy of Zoey. Jake and I may have gone a little crazy with tacos at this point, I think I may have eaten 7...

 

 

 

We spent a good deal of the afternoon talking, and many of our group got to know each other. My parents have barely interacted with Jake's sister and BIL, and many of us got to know each other better. There's not too much interesting to say about the bulk of this afternoon, other than it was meaningful family time.

 

 

 

Come the evening we went to dinner, which would be the first formal night. The dining room didn't seem to strict on the letter of the dress code, as long as people looked fairly decent (and I fully support this). Our table was fairly evenly split between ordering lobster and steak. We ordered bottles of wine for the table, and quickly stuffed our faces with good food and drink.

 

 

 

I had sworn not to overeat on formal night, being one of those fools that can't get enough lobster. I ordered a single dish of lobster and felt very proud of myself. And then... our wait staff proudly placed 3 extra lobster dishes on our table, telling us they though our family would appreciate some extra. We thanked them, as we've never been offered extra like that before.

 

 

 

I scowled as I ate my 2nd lobster tail and a whole bunch more shrimp. Dining staff: 1, Self Control 0.

 

 

 

After dinner my parents, Jake and I took the 12 year old to the Sports square and we played a game of putt putt golf that got increasingly wacky as the wind blew the ship around and the waves rocked the decks around. We attempted to play ping poing, but the ball hilariously flew in opposite directions from where it was being hit. After a little while, the 12 year old headed off with his parents, and my parents Jake and I headed to the piano bar.

 

 

 

At the piano bar, we met Jeff "True" Jones, whose voice and talent was quickly apparent. Equally apparent was the very limited song choice the rest of the passengers desired. Jeff repeatedly begged for someone to request something other than "Piano Man." We also met Suzy, the primary bartender at the piano bar.

 

 

 

The regular barstaff on the Magic was making stronger drinks, probably to help the spirits of the passengers. Zoey seemed determined to get us drunk. Suzy... well she wanted to kill us. I swear my margaritas were simply tequilla with some lime juice. Not fully sober when I entered and with the ship really starting to rock and roll around us, simply sitting up on the barstool became an epic struggle after just a couple of drinks.

 

 

 

I remember leaning on my Dad most of the way to the room, feeling like the ship was just rolling and shaking around me, trying to figure out how I'd gotten so intoxicated off of just a few drinks. After stepping into my room, I went for the bed, and remember the floor rising up to meet me on my second step, causing me to faceplant into the floor next to the bed.

 

 

 

I had a fairly rough night as you can quite imagine, still fairly certain the spinning room and rising floor was Suzy's fault.

 

 

 

It wasn't. At least not completely...

 

 

 

Next up: Sea day 2- Rock N Roll and not in a good way...

 

 

 

I’ve cruised with Suzette three times in the piano bar. She’s one of my favorites but the first time we cruised with her our running joke was also “she’s trying to kill us.” Was on Magic last week and as soon as she saw my wife and I she came up, called us by name, hugged us and already knew our drink order. If you survive her drinks she is great to know!

 

 

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[ChicagoHockey1118]

Loving this review. I’m on the Magic on March 10th. I’m 28 and will be with a group of people who love to drink...so I think I’m going to have to find Zoey on the first day haha

[Indytraveler83]

I’m surprised I have enough memory intact to remember either Zoey or Suzy!

 

They are the two best bar staff I’ve ever had on a cruise. The only other time I’ve had a truly good bar staff member was on the Elation, and we actually saw him on the Magic as well (don’t remember his name, but Zoey said he is one of her friends).

 

Overall, the bar staff on the Magic is amazing. Unless you don’t want to drink, then I think you’d find them highly annoying.

 

How good are they? More on this in my next review update tonight!

[Clarea]

Very enjoyable review!

[Hogladyrider]

You crack me up! Oh how I remember those days in my younger years, now it takes too darn many hours to recover.

 

Glad you had a great cruise, looking forward to more of your review.

[Indytraveler83]

The Final Sea Day Pt 1:

 

We awoke to room service knocking at our door. Jake got out of bed, looking for clothes. I stood up, tried to find a shirt, stuck my head in the sleeve and fell over. By the time I got up, Jake had managed to find some mismatched dirty clothes to put on. I managed to scuttle back under the covers to pretend I was asleep, rather than admit my total failure at dressing.

 

We ate our breakfast and showered, but remained hungry. Not seeing anyone else in the family anywhere, we headed to Lido to try and spot someone, while also grabbing a danish and some more coffee. On our way up, we commented on how we still hadn’t figured out how to get over the “last day blues.” We really wanted to enjoy our last sea day, something we have mostly failed to do in the past.

 

Danish and coffee in hand, but family still out of sight, we headed to the aft deck and found a table. We scarfed down our food and coffee and sat at the table contemplating our next move. As usual, someone came and took away our dirty dishes, leaving the two of us sitting at the table looking bored. At this point it was 10 am on a sea day, and we were a bit lost.

 

The weather was absolutely beautiful today, with slightly choppy seas, but little wind and the sun came out like it never had before. As we admired the day, we heard a voice:

“Drinky Drinky? Yum Yum!” One of Zoey’s friends had spotted us. We usually don’t drink this early in the morning. But we also usually have sad final sea days. After some friendly convincing, we placed drink orders, and he came quickly back with some strong drinks.

 

The only problem now, was that we were sitting a table, partially covered and behind a window. We decided the drinks were best taken in the sun. However, by now the whole aft seating area was either taken, or chair hogged. And on this sailing, that single sandel on a lounge chair was as good as law. We didn’t want to head back to the loud lido deck, so we headed up the stairs to see what we could find.

 

Literally… right up the stairs, is the best place on that ship. On deck 11 aft, there is a whole mess of Serenity style seating (just with red cushions instead of the teal). The seating was about ¾ full, but everyone there was either quietly talking or reading a book. Holy crap… we found the secret serenity deck. We set up in a few chairs, and Jake ran down to the room to grab sunscreen and some beach towels (to use as pillows) while I stayed seated, enjoying the late morning sun.

 

When he came back, I ran down to Lido and picked up tacos from BlueIguana and we had an early lunch. While eating, a pair of chairs and footstools on the corner, facing aft opened up. We absolutely love watching the ship’s wake, so we quickly slid over to those chairs. This is how we’d spend our sea day; sitting in the sun watching the ocean go by. Forget family, forget everything else, it was time to just relax. We napped a little bit, and then awoke hungry again. Jake decided to head down to Lido to get one last hit from the taco bar. I kicked back and relaxed, thinking about tacos and drifting off into a sun induced sleep.

 

“MR SHAUN!!!” woke me abruptly from my slumber. I jumped up to see Jake holding a plate of tacos, and Zoey following right behind him with a pitcher of margaritas and two glasses with salt and ice. Jake told me later that he’d intended to order one last round from Zoey, so he could give her a nice tip. But rather than just take his order and let him carry our drinks, she insisted on crossing the ship with him and serving us our drinks, even though she was stationed on Lido.

 

We gave her a big hug, and thanked her for everything she’d done during the week, while joking we may not remember her after this much alcohol. She said she would soon be switching from Lido to another area (can’t remember, but it wasn’t somewhere we intended to visit) so we said our goodbyes and she left us as she’d met us: drinking.

 

We soaked up the sunny bliss and the tacos and the margaritas, and at some point I went down to lido and retrieved some brownies and chocolate cheesecake. Sounds like the perfect afternoon right? Well we aren’t done…

 

Turns out, one of the waiters who’d just gotten on shift must have seen our exchange with Zoey, and we think he assumed we would be good customers. This area of the ship doesn’t have very attentive bar service, but we’d seen him walking by a few times. As soon as the pitcher got down to about ⅓ full, he arrived with fresh glasses with ice and salt, telling us he didn’t want to see us drinking warm drinks.

 

Well of course these new glasses were bigger, and they held the remains of the pitcher. Oh no, the pitcher was empty! Whatever would we do? Well, he could help us on that end too…

 

At this point it was around 1:30 pm or so, and we hadn’t entirely decided if this is how we wanted to spend the rest of our afternoon. Well our friendly new server made up our minds. Every time he walked by, he would pour our glasses full, and when the ice melted, he’d retrieve more. Of course, when the pitcher ran dry, he happily retrieved a fresh one of those. Again… and again…

 

We spent the remainder of the afternoon in some sort of half drunk, half conscious bliss. Our glasses never ran dry, our pitcher always had more and we didn’t really care who signed for another or when. We must have been tipping well (I seriously can’t remember) because this near butler level of service continued through the afternoon as we absorbed the sun, the drink and the sea breeze. It wasn’t until we saw the sun tucking down toward the horizon and shadows began covering the ship that we realized it was 5:45 pm, and we’d agreed to meet for dinner in 10 minutes.

 

Up next: What… a… night...

[Indytraveler83]

Final Sea Day (and night) Pt. 2:

 

We had sat in the sun, drinking for nearly 8 hours. I’ve never in my life just sat there and drank for 8 hours. The only reason we likely didn’t have severe alcohol poisoning is the napping that took place in between the drinking. Our day had been fantastic, but now it was time to pry ourselves out of the chairs and try to remember how to get to our cabins.

 

Our mission went fairly well, except when a man dressed as an elephant towel animal stepped directly into my path to try and get a photo op. Now let’s think about this. What in the world would a grown man, weaving down the walkway with bloodshot eyes and flammable breath want with a kids photo op? I didn’t expect this interaction, nor did I have any reaction time, causing me to accidentally slam into the poor fellow as I stumbled past. I saw the photographer’s eyes go wide as if I’d insulted them, but I was more concerned about the approaching atrium railing, and not attempting an accidental dive onto the floor below.

 

We arrived at our cabins just as everyone else was meeting up in the hallway, but excused ourselves to at least put on a fresh change of clothes, and drop our towels in the room. We headed up to dinner service, all the while listening to jokes about how the ship wasn’t moving, but we still were. Funny. Very funny.

 

At dinner we were seated in the center of the dining room, and when presented with menus, I quickly ordered the Cajun style tiger shrimp. Disappointed by the shrimp curry, I was ready to have a redeeming shrimp dish set in front of me. Everyone placed their orders, and then the baked alaska parade started, which startled me more than anything (Nothing about people walking around with flaming cake makes sense when your brain is made of margarita).

 

My dinner arrived and I was excited to find… shrimp curry? What the…??? I poked around my meal, and the thick sauce it sat in was a little more red, and there was no pineapple. But this was not cajun anything, and the thick ball of sticky rice sitting next to my soupy shrimp goo confirmed that whomever made this dish had never set foot in New Orleans.

 

Too inebriated to politely ask for a different dish, but too aware to make a scene, I instead glared at my dish like a 4 year old glares at broccoli, poking it with a fork as if that would suddenly make it better. I looked at the SIL who had ordered the prime rib, and it looked amazing with juices seeping from the meat, and a dish of steaming veggies sitting next to it.

 

Again, thankfully the waiter saw that I wasn’t eating my food, and asked what was wrong. I told him that my dish wasn’t really what I was expecting (massive understatement) and that I’d like the prime rib instead, if that wasn’t too much to ask. He very politely and swiftly removed the offending pile of sacrifice shrimp from my sight and promised he would return shortly.

 

In just a few minutes, a steaming prime rib appeared in front of me, and all was right with the world again. All of us then ordered the baked alaska, with several people also ordering melting cake.

 

Turns out that’s just a little too much dessert, and quite a few people left dinner with stomach aches. Also several photographers took photos of us that evening, and I really didn’t realize how bad I get crazy eyes when I’m intoxicated…

 

After dinner we headed with our mothers to the casino, where Jake and I won back all the money we lost on the penny slots. I’d sat down next to a guy who was taking the penny slots as seriously as some people take the high stakes poker table, and he looked like he’d been stabbed in the eye every time I won (even if my winnings were less than the bet). At one point I won a twenty dollar jackpot on a thirty cent bet, and I thought this guy was going to stab me.

 

After that we headed to the photo gallery to buy pictures. We never did this on our cruises just the two of us, but these family cruises offer a rare opportunity to get some really good photos of us all together. After sorting through all of them (and laughing at how crazy we looked in many of them) we then headed out on the open decks to try and walk off what was left of our buzz.

 

We tried to walk a few laps of the lanai, but the increasing wind made that laughable, causing us to head back down to our room to pack. After packing, the alcohol had caught up to us and we decided it was time for bed. We got ready and headed to bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep before a long day of traveling…

 

Three hours later:

 

Jake sleeps like the dead. But I awoke to the entire room shaking and shuddering around like I’ve never heard before. Each wave hit like a hammer blow against the side of the ship and the mirrors, fixtures and furniture jarred around the room. I looked out the door and the waves didn’t look much worse than in the prior bad weather, but I’ve honestly not heard any sound like that in my life. I put in earplugs and tried to go back to sleep, but each wave hit shook me in the bed, making sleep hard to come by.

 

A few hours later I awoke again to our items on the desk falling on the floor. The room still shook and rattled with every hammer hit to the side, and I suddenly didn’t think I’d miss the ship as much as I thought before. I drifted in and out of sleep, it felt like the gallon of margarita in my stomach was being put through a paint mixer… so the bathroom became my regular companion that night as well.

 

As the ship finally began drifting into the calm waters around Port Canaveral, I’d gotten maybe a couple of hours of sleep. Thankfully we were in no hurry to get off the ship, and I got in a few more hours of sleep after 6 am, when the ship entered shallow waters.

Up next: Disembarkment Misadventures

[Indytraveler83]

Disembarkation Day:

 

While I didn’t sleep much, we finally rose out of bed around 7 am. Now on our past cruises we were making a beeline for the doors the second we were allowed, as we had a 14 hour drive ahead. This time, the opposite was true. Our flight didn’t leave until 4 pm, so we were in no rush. We left our rooms right before 8 am, which is the latest they wanted us to stay.

 

Denied room service breakfast due to the new rules, we headed to the aft dining room for breakfast, determined to get a meal before we got off the ship. We were promptly seated, but it was a little awkward, as we’d elected to self-debark and our luggage didn’t fit very well in the dining room (Note to self, check bags if we want breakfast in the dining room in the future).

 

Despite the clunky luggage, the staff served us quite quickly (the menu states breakfast in 30 minutes or less). I had the yogurt parfait and a little oatmeal, trying to settle my very upset stomach. Everyone else had a wide selection from the menu, and we all quite enjoyed it. If you have a little time, dining room breakfast before you get off the ship is really worth it.

 

From there, we made our way down to the atrium in order to get off the ship, where there was quite a line, despite it being nearly 9 am. We finally got off the ship and into the terminal, only to find ourselves in another awful line. Turns out that the wonderful people at US Customs decided that only 2 agents were needed to clear the entire ship of passengers.

 

Yes. TWO AGENTS. FOR THE WHOLE SHIP.

 

We heard a lot of rustling and irritation, made worse when another 4 agents started milling about, looking bored, but not actually doing anything. I have no idea how security and border control work for these types of operations… but I feel like that’s not it.

 

After a little confusion (self imposed) we found our shuttle and got back to the airport. By now it was close to noon (seriously waited in the US Customs line for around 2 hours). The baggage check took almost 40 minutes, leaving us with about 3 hours before our flight. My parents were flying to a different location, so we split with them at baggage check (more on them later).

 

Inside the Orlando International Airport they have a Macaroni Grill, so we decided to have lunch there. The server was fantastic and made us feel like we hadn’t gotten off the ship. One little piece of advice though: serving sizes are huge, and pizzas are not personal pan pizzas, but about the size of a fast food medium pizza.

 

We got done eating and headed to the security line, which was pretty clogged up too. After another 45 minutes, we finally got to the folks at security. When the SIL had her bag scanned, they flagged it, then started watching her very closely. The rest of us moved into a waiting area as security got very close and personal with her, and additional security moved in. She was scared and freaking out, which made them even more alerted. We all waited anxiously to see what crime she was guilting of…

 

Turns out that a $3 souvenir made of shells was positioned just right in the security scanner that it looked like a gun. After quite a bit of anxiety and turned heads, the SIL nervously laughed off the whole thing, and we got to our gate to wait for our plane.

 

By now it was nearly 3 pm. Moral of the story: early flights are a terrible idea. We thought we’d be sitting in the airport forever, but at this point we’d spent most of the day waiting in lines.

 

The flight went fairly smoothly, but we groaned when it descended in Detroit and we saw snow all over everything. We spent that night sleeping at the MIL’s house, then drove home the next morning through a snowstorm.

 

In the end, Jake’s stepfather was ok and the SIL’s dogs and baby were okay. So Jake’s side of the family returned to life as normal. We returned to a bit of a mess, as half of the fish in my aquarium were dead, and one of our dogs lost about 25% of his body weight, leading to a few freaked out days of making sure he was okay (someone will never house sit for us again).

 

My mother and father had a much less fun trip home. Their flight out of Orlando was delayed by a half hour, so they only had 15 minutes to board their flight from Dallas to Illinois. They missed it, and ended up on another flight at 11 pm to a city an hour away from their final destination. From there, a friend drove them home in a snowstorm, and they didn’t get home until almost 3 am.

 

Up Next: Final Review and Thoughts