Cruise Flashback: 1st Day at Sea

Sunday, February 26th, we awoke suddenly to the phone ringing. It was 6:30am. I freaked out--something's wrong at home! Who else would be calling us--and at this hour? I said, "Uh oh" before answering it. The voice on the other end said, "Your breakfast is ready, may I bring it up?" Oh, sure. Phew...

The cabin had been so dark when we went to bed the night before. We were obviously "rocked and lulled" to sleep because we slept like babies. However, once I was up, I could tell we were no longer on the river and that we were in choppy waters. I went out on the balcony and saw that we were in a little bit of a storm. We later heard from others on lower decks that the waves were cresting at about 20 feet. Whoa!

The boat was really rocking. So much so that I decided to finally put on my "sea patch." Jared had put his on the night before because he didn't want to take any chances. I decided to wait. But Sunday morning did it for me. I don't know if I get seasick or not, but didn't want to find out on the first and very possibly the last cruise we'd be on.

For breakfast, I had cereal, a super thin piece of toast (just slightly thicker than a piece of paper--I didn't know bread could be that thin) and a banana. Jared had granola, fruit and yogurt. And then he got ready for his spinning class up on the 12th or 13th deck. While he did that, I decided to go to the LaScala Theater on deck 3 for the shopping show. I got to sit right up on the front row. I had heard that you feel the rocking of the boat less, the lower you go on the ship. However, the curtain on the stage was swaying back and forth, right about my eye level. That alone made me super dizzy and I had to force myself to look away and not think about it.

Ross was our shopping guide. Most of the presentation was on jewelry and watches and the crazy deals you can get because all of the middle men are eliminated. I didn't realize some people go on cruises JUST for the shopping. That's so crazy to me since shopping is not my thing. Obviously I didn't come to buy jewelry but the fact that I could get pearl earrings and a necklace for $30-$60 was very intriguing. I was also interested in buying some diamond stud earrings because one of my children accidentally lost one of my studs that my parents gave me for my 22nd birthday.

I made out like a bandit while sitting on the front row (the best place to be to catch the prizes tossed into the audience apparently.) I got a bamboo necklace from Cariloha and a t-shirt that is super soft (made from bamboo). It had a pirate skull and skeleton on it. It looked to be the perfect size for Calvin :) I also got some chili chocolate tossed my way (that I later shared with my Sunday School class back home). We were given maps of each port and I did walk away with a better idea of how to navigate the shops for maximized souvenir shopping.

After the show was over, I went back to the room to meet Jared. I went out to the balcony again to check the weather. It was starting to clear up. Yay!

 

 

We left to go get tickets to the ice show for Monday but they weren't going to be available until 4:30pm. So we went to the Carmen Room (deck 3 of the dining room) at noon for lunch.

I was feeling off. Not like I was going to throw up or anything. Just off. We had to walk the entire length of the boat to get to the dining room. I walked as if I were drunk. I figured I was probably hungry too, which didn't help my head.

We were seated off to the side, near the window and were joined by another older couple from Wisconsin. He was here for the big poker tournament which I had no clue was even happening on the ship! Apparently people come on cruises JUST for poker tournaments as well.

Jared had a steak sandwich, I had spaghetti and meatballs. Although mine should have been called spaghetti and meat-boulders. The 2 meatballs were the size of my fist! I could only eat half of one. I felt a little better after eating, but felt tired too. Thanks to our vantage point by the window we saw lightning and heard thunder! That was enough to get me to my feet. We excused ourselves from lunch and went to go watch the weather, but the door to go out on the open deck was locked :(

So we went back to our stateroom and napped for a few hours. Divine!! I also had a little guilt about it being Sunday and not attending church, so I studied my next Sunday School lesson I had brought with me.

Jared left at 4:30 to try and secure tickets to the ice show (and he did) while I got ready for our first formal dinner.

We both had the shrimp cocktail and shaved cantaloupe for our appetizer. I had the prime rib and baked potato. Jared had the roasted duck. And we all had lots of yummy bread. We didn't see Mike and Buddy that night, but the six of us had very lively conversations. Every one of  us got the strawberry cheesecake for dessert. It was delicious. I don't normally like cheesecake but this wasn't heavy or dense. It was super light.

After dinner, we headed down to the photography place to find the several pictures of us that had been taken of us already. We couldn't find our "Welcome Aboard" picture (it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack...walls and walls of pictures with the same backdrop) but we did find our first dinner picture. Not bad. But not worth $60 either (or even $20 for an 8x10).

When we got back to our stateroom this is what we found on our neatly made bed.

Omygosh!! Is that the cutest little towel elephant you've ever seen?? It made me so giddy, I had to have a picture taken with it!

The main paper on the bed is the Cruise Compass which outlines every event happening on the boat from sun up to sun down the following day. It tells of important things to know like where we are at the beginning of the day, times of the sunrise and sunset, the forecast, our coordinates, how many miles we anticipate traveling, dinner dress suggesting for dining, etc.

We changed for the night and tried to turn in early. Plus, we had to move our watches ahead 1 hour due to the crossing of time zones.

We noticed there was voicemail message waiting for us. What now? We hadn't ordered room service. Turns out our zipline/kayaking excursion in Jamaica on Tuesday was cancelled due to operational issues. But our money was credited back. That was actually our most expensive excursion at $125 a piece. The ship had a channel on TV that only highlighted the different excursions you could do in each port. So we watched that to see what sparked our interest, but nothing jumped out at us. The one thing that looked the most appealing was the "beach excursion and gourmet lunch" for $49 each. So that's what we decided we would do. We couldn't wait to hit that white sandy beach!