Back Story:
My Aunt's 50th birthday was coming up and she had been chewing over a few ideas of how she wanted to celebrate. She decided that the best way to celebrate would be with all of our family spending time together on a vacation somewhere. My Dad and my Uncle thought it was a fabulous idea and decided they would try to get our whole family together for a once in a life-time vacation. There were 22 of us... so this does not happen very often.
Of course, J and I were on board immediately! We only get to see my dad's brother and his fam about once a year so we were thrilled at the idea of spending time with them ... AND get a sweet vacation!
Plus... I had racked up a bunch of miles on Southwest for work so we got our flights for free. Yahtzee! ;)
J and I had never been on a cruise so we were a little unsure about what to expect. We left from Miami and headed on our way....
- Expectation: Classy Claustrophobia
- Reality: Tiny Perfection
I tend to feel claustrophobic in tight spaces that don't have an easy escape route... so the idea of sleeping in a tiny room on a giant vessel in the middle of the ocean was a little nerve-racking. How did it turn out? Awesome! We had a nice King bed with ample space on either side, a desk/vanity, an surprisingly roomy bathroom and 3 closets. Score!
Yes, silly pictures were a must....
- Expectation: Booze-Cruise
- Reality: Dang it.
I happen to ADORE all-inclusive resorts so the fact that we had to pay for drinks on the boat was a little disappointing. I also bought a "coke-card" which everyone said was a must for a Dr.Pepper drinker like myself. But it ended up being a waste. It was $50 which ended up equating to 25 Dr. Peppers. How many did I drink on the ship? 5. LAME! *Sucker*
But we did have some fabulous drinks regardless...
- Expectation: Lazy Days
- Reality: Mini-Vegas
The ship had 3 pools and a water slide! They also had an "Adults Only" area that I kind of relished in. I had assumed that the cruise would mostly be pools and naps but they had stuff going on CONSTANTLY! One night they played Lion King on the huge screen above the pool. We opened a bottle of wine and had a heck of a time. I love Disney. They also had all sorts of shows, a casino ... and Karaoke every night!
My family had SO much fun at karaoke... I even have the videos to prove it ;)
I burn EASY and we don't care for gambling so J and I spent a lot of the trip just relaxing in our room, watching movies. A Perfect Vacation is a Relaxing one :)
- Expectation: Scattered
- Reality: Family Fun, All the Time
I was expecting it to be hard to keep track of all 22 of us and really wanted to make a point of spending time with everyone. Especially with my parents, my sis & bro-in-law and their 4 yr old daughter. BUT, it was surprisingly easy. Each room was given a walkie-talkie so we could meet up for the various events around the ship, for dinner, etc. It was nice to be able to go relax and nap in the room but then be able to find everyone when we needed to. And it was especially fun getting to see these 3 little ladies and how pumped they were about everything:
- Expectation: Roughin' It
- Reality: Booty-Lovin' Buffet
With J and I's eating style, I was pretty nervous about the food selection. We had a scheduled dining time of 6PM in the main dining room each evening. Before the trip, we had the travel agent inform the ship of our dietary needs and then my sis contacted the ship again to make sure. We were told that there would be no vegan friendly food on board so I was assuming that I would be eating a lot of granola bars. Truth - the food was rough. It is incredibly hard to find dairy-free items in such a mass-produced setting. Even the "steamed" veggies were dunked in lots of booty-lovin' butter. (Fun Fact: The average cruise-goer gains 7 to 14 lbs during the week... for real!) After a few stomach aches, we decided to stick to what we knew were fail proof... AKA... - PB & J
- Baked Potato with lemon juice
- Fruit
- Veggie patty with veggie fixin's
... and J enjoyed some Alligator... it was dang tasty.
- Expectation: Random Critters
- Reality: Da Vinci aint got nothin' on this!
You can't go on a cruise without automatically assuming you will get some fine art each night in the form of a towel. Hmmm... well that just sounded weird. Anyway - Carnival did not let down! We received some fine animals!
All except the last
night. They had apparently run out of the black eyes, because it just
had red paper eyes. After a quick debate, we decided that it looked
more like a demon than an animal and promptly threw it off the bed.... thus no photo.
The Sting Ray
The Rabbit
The Elephant
The Dog
... I may or may not have insisted it should sleep on the bed in place of Cleo
.... Yes, I am a freak.
The Dino
and .. The Monkey!
Next up: Cruizin - Cozumel ..... stay tuned ;)
1 comment:
Oh I love this post. The expectations vs reality is exactly what a never-gone-on-a-cruiser like me needed to know. Looking forward to the rest in your series of posts :)
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