Our trip, onboard 3

We had two days at sea, the first full day and the last full day. The first day we went to the shore shopping talk. The guy talked about the different shops in Cozumel that were guaranteed by the ship and what you could get at them. Lots of jewelry stores. We put in for the raffle. We never win anything so I didn’t get too excited. We sat up in the balcony. I will never go to that again. The next day in Cozumel I found out they recommended stores that were very high price. Only two store on the list did I actually buy something from. I will talk a little more about that in my Cozumel blog.

Anyway, they started raffling off stuff. Oh, and if you every go to the talk sit in the front row. A lady got a string of pearls that sat in the front row. Also he threw things out to the first few rows. The last two items they raffled off was two bottles of tequila. I turned to Ray and told him if we were to win anything that would be it since we didn’t drink. We didn’t win the smaller bottle but then the last item was a big bottle that everyone wanted (that drank at least) and he has someone come to pull out a name. The first one he pulled out was blank so he drew again. The guy like dug deep and looked like he was picking through him. The guy takes the name from him and says, “You better not be Ray Walden.” Ray won the bottle of tequila. We had a good laugh about that.

The ship also had a 9-hole mini gold course on the top deck. Glass windows surrounded it. The first and last day at sea we played a round. The first day I actually beat Ray by a couple of points. I never beat him at miniature golf. The last day was so windy that we stopped taking score. The balls would blow everywhere. I had just picked up some of our pictures and the caught the wind and blew up against the glass. If it were a normal rail I would have lost the two pictures. I anchored that to the table with my camera case strap.

The pictures they take on the ship are unbelievably expensive. An 8x10 is usually $20 and a 5x7 is $8. We did buy a few but not all of them. We got the one from our formal dinner, then the Halloween night one, and then one from Calica. I got a small package of the formal one so we can give our parents and have a nice picture for the kids’ books. I also bought a cute Scrapbook album that was made specifically for Carnival.

The ship also had three pools. One was a kids wave pool, the second was a three foot round pool (that usually was full of kids) on the back of the ship, and the last was a 4.5 foot pool with a twister slide. It was also not very large so when the slide was in use no one could really swim. Ray and I did go down the slide a bunch of times the two sea days. I was scared at first. I don’t do well with getting my head dunk but it was fun and so I willingly did it after Ray had to talk me into the first two times.

The ship also had a gym in it and Ray and I went and worked out one day for about 20 minutes. That was a good work out. I wanted to do it the last day too but the seas were rough and I was having trouble just walking.

One thing I wished we got to do was dance but all the dance floors were in the smoking lounges. Deck 9 & 10 were the only ones that allowed smoking and by the last two days those decks just reeked of cigarette smoke. We never went in the casino as well. The ship also had a library with the Internet but we would have had to pay $20 for 30 minutes.

The rooms did have TVs and since we did spend more time in there then we thought we did watch some of the shows we would have missed and we also watched “Hancock.”

The room stewards would fold towels into different shapes every night when they turned down the beds and leave them on our bed. The first night we didn’t know what it was so we didn’t take the picture. But then we got a dog, a stingray, an elephant, and a lobster/crab. They came in and cleaned in the morning and then came in the evening and turned down the beds, made the animals, and left our capers (programs for the next day) on our beds.

Because it is near Halloween they had a Frightful night. I brought our costumes from last year. It took me most of the evening into convincing Ray to really dress up. When we finally got up on deck the party was over and the talent show was starting. That is when we ran into Ulga and Javier. They didn’t know about it before they left so they just came up with funny outfits from their clothes. The costume contest was at 11:30. I debated about going to bed but decided to stay. The contest was lame. It was held in a smoky lounge and they way they decided on the winner was by applause. Those that got the most applause were the scantily clad women (since it was held in a lounge of drunks) and those with large groups of friends. We did get some applause and Ulga did cheer for us but we were out the first round. I didn’t think we should win but I was very disappointed in the Halloween thing (why did they have the talent show in the middle of it?) I wouldn’t have brought our costumes. But we did get a cute picture out of it. That night at dinner our dessert was also Halloween themed. I will at least get to do a cute Halloween theme page for our trip scrapbook. We went to bed after we were out (I was very tired) and found out from Ulga that the bee and flower one which out of all the costumes I thought was the best and the most original.

The last day was very rough seas and I started to get really tired of the rocking. A lot of people got seasick. I never got sick but I was tired of walking and stumbling. I was so ready to get home. I missed the kids terribly. We did call Noel Friday morning to see how they were doing.

We got into port at 8 a.m. yesterday. We had to wait for them to call our deck to disembark, which was about 8:30. We made it through customs rather quickly and left the parking lot just after 9. But then some walk for the cure parade blocked us. It took us 45 minutes to get 10 miles but once out of Mobile we made good time and got to Tallahassee at 2:30 (Eastern time.) The kids were excited to see us. T held onto me like no tomorrow. Noel showed us the pictures and videos she took of the kids. We left their house just about 3:30. We had brought home the kids bears, tee shirts, and maracas. T also tried on Daddy’s hat. It was good to be home and with the kids again.