Saturday, March 11, 2006

Cruise details...LONG!!

What a week we had! We got home from the cruise yesterday afternoon and I've had my sea legs ever since. I feel pretty icky. Can someone please stop the room from spinning?..and why does it do that? I took a long nap but it didn't help. Here is a run down of our trip.
Monday- We get the boys off to school and theres no time for no the chiropractor. We go and pick up Rodney and Cam and head to the airport. Mark's brother Rodney is very loud and very friendly. Just during our there'sn line we had met lots of new people. We got to California and had an adventurous cab ride to the ship. As soon as we got on board we headed straight for (you guessed it) the buffet where we met up with Mark's cousin Brandon and his wife Jennifer. They drove over from Kanosh, Utah. After we ate we explored the ship and took tons of pictures. Actually Mark had the camera the whole time so who knows what we have in there. I know he took a bunch of a battleship, cranes, tug boats, etc. Pretty much anything that was in the harbor docked around us. Just before we left California it started raining. It was so cold but we stayed out of deck because we were so excited to be there. After it got dark we went inside to watch the welcome aboard show, then headed to dinner in the formal dining room. The food was amazing and the service is spectacular! All of the employees are from all over the world. They all speak english and are extremely nice to everyone. They all work everyday for 6 months then have 2 months off. They work SOOO hard! I just can't imagine! After dinner we went up to the Jade room for Karaoke night then went to bed. We were in he very front of the ship in room 7000. Our bed was turned down with mints on the pillows, the next days agenda, and towels folded into the shape of an elephant...really cute!
Tuesday-We got up to find we were docking in San Diego and got ready for the day. I've decided that the showers are so tiny for our protection. With the movement of the ship, you need those walls to hold onto. Perhaps its just easier to lather up the walls and spin around to get clean. Mark went out on deck while I got ready. He came back with joy in his heart to find that we were docked right next to the USS Midway Air Craft Carrier. He was so excited when he found out you can tour it. I made him control his excitement so that we could go eat breakfast in the Windjammer Cafe'. We ate all the day time meals out on deck 12. After breakfast we headed out in a taxi to pacific beach. We walked through cute stores and some of us rode some rides. We enjoyed the beauty of the ocean and the beach. We headed back to the ship where I went in the state room for a little rest and cleaned up a bit. Mark and Brandon walked over (with camera in hand) to tour the USS Midway. They had a great time and took lots of pictures. Rodney and Cam played bingo and won the $500 jackpot. When they got back we all dressed up for formal night. We had pictures taken, then went to dinner. We had the second seating every night in Vincent's dining room at 8:00. After we rolled out of there we headed to the "Love and Marriage" game show that is really just the newlywed game. You have to "audition" to get on through applause from the audience. Of course Rodney and Cam made it on. One of the questions was "where is the strangest place you've ever made whoopie?" One girls said in the back seat of a durango and the other lady said her parents house. Cam said "you've heard of the mile high club? well there's a boat club" The cruise director was like what? You did it in a bathroom on board? She said "no...right here on stage last night" The crowd goes wild! When the men come back in, the crowd is laughing before he even gets to answer. Rodney answered "well either the Jade room or the elevator" The crowd is dying at this point. We all laughed so hard that our stomach hurt. All they questions were so funny. They taped the whole show and played it continuously on channel 14 in all the state rooms for the rest of the trip. Rodney and Cam were famous! The got a free copy of the show too. Mo, the cruise director said they were going to play it for months because it was the best show they had. After that we watched a real good comedy show by Mike Wilson. We headed to bed and tonight's towel animal was a bunny.
Wednesday- We woke up in Catalina Island. We had breakfast, got on a smaller boat that holds 300 people that takes you to the island. We rented a 6 passenger golf cart and took an adventurous ride with Rodney as the driver and tour guide of the island. After that we ate lunch and visited a bunch of really cute shops and took more pictures. It sure is beautiful there. By the end of this day I was pretty sun burnt. We went back to the ship and Mark took a small nap as I wondered around the ship watching dolphins by the ship and then watched the ice carvings...none of which did I have my camera with me. Dangit! At 7:00 we went to see a comedy magic act by Chad Chesmark. He was very funny. Then at 8:00 back to dinner. After dinner they have a game called quest that you have to be drunk to enjoy. Since we don't drink, it wasn't so great to watch people acting like idiots and taking their clothes off. Today was our anniversary and Rodney, Cam, Brandon and Jennifer had them decorate our room and gave us an anniversary cake. They also sang to us during dinner. It was so nice! By the end of the day we were beyond tired and headed to bed to find a cute towel puppy.
Thursday- Ensenada Mexico! After breakfast we took a shuttle into town. As soon as we stepped of we were bombarded by street vendors. Everywhere we went it was the same way. We ate lunch at Mangos. It was delicious, but again we were hit by vendors at least 2 dozen times during our meal. The parents who don't have their kids go to school so they can push their crap on tourists makes me sick. We decided that we do NOT care for Mexico. We did buy a few souvenirs from there and called it a day. At 7:00 we watched the farewell variety show and went to dinner. We got pictures of our head waiter, assistant waiter, and assistant waiter. They were all so nice to us that we didn't want to forget them. After dinner we went to another show called the battle of the sexes that is set up like family feud. Of course the women won that one. :o) By the time we got back to our room the ocean was so rough. I laid in bed moaning and wondering just how I'd make it through the night. Being in the front and up on deck 7 we had so much movement. It was impossible to get around without stumbling. For safety reasons they blocked off the from decks of the ship to people. Tonight we had a towel monkey.
Friday-I was so happy once we got back to California. We got off the ship and it was a breeze getting through customs. We got to the airport in good time and managed to bump up our flight from 1:00 to 11:00. As soon as we got up to a cruising altitude and we got our drinks the captain asked for the drinks to be collected and for everyone to buckle up. Arizona was getting very high winds and we were in for a bumpy ride. He wasn't kidding. We were so sick. In fact Mark sat there with a puke bag in his hand for fear he was going to lose it. Once we landed the flight attendant said whew! were here! get out! LOL!
We got home to find that Chad took out one of Mark's motorcycles on the first night we were gone and wrecked it. He moved out on Tuesday night for fear he wouldn't be forgiven. The boys say he has lots of road rash and a little hole in his head that he can fit the tip of his pinky in. We have no idea where he is, but I am worried about him. Mark really handled it better than I thought. If it was his Vulcan, I think it would have been real bad. Kyle said he saw him at school all week. Cole was sick and missed 3 days of school, the upstairs toilet broke and flooded Mark's corner office. Brittany actually had to poor water out of his computer. I'm a bit concerned about all our business info in there. The boys took care of the flood and moved out all of the office stuff into the family room floor. Mark is right now setting up his office in the corner of our bedroom. It's ALWAYS an adventure at the George house! Gotta go help Mark with the new bedroom office. I will upload the others soon. I DO NOT feel guilty for anything I ate while on vacation because that ship is HUGE and we walked miles and miles everyday on ship and on our land excursions. Not to mention all the stairs we climbed because it was faster than waiting for one of the 19 elevators. Every bit of food was worked off! :o)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a great time - good luck with getting rid of your sea legs! Isn't it typical that things go wrong when you're away? Look forward to seeing some of the photos.

Anonymous said...

good luck with chad, girl, i hope he comes home soon, poor kid. i can't imagine how guilty he must feel! yikes! also sorry to hear about the flood, good luck getting your data off & poor brittany, talk about trial by fire! sorry to hear your experience in mexico wasn't so good. most of the country really isn't like that but the touristy/border areas. glad you had a good time, you deserve it & hope you get to feeling better soon!
hugs! mar

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you had a great cruise! Can't wait to see more pictures.

Anonymous said...

So glad you had a wonderful time Jolene! Love the pictures, you look so pretty, can't wait to see more of them!