Boston, Mass

Freedom Trail, originally uploaded by quimerizar.

Friday October 18

It was Friday and we were at our last port of the trip - it all seemed to have gone by too fast. Dad and I got off the ship and took a cab into the heart of Boston. I wanted to go to the office for my job there to meet some of the people I had never met before but had worked with on a daily basis. Plus, I got one of my friends to interoffice my laptop charger to me there.

After meeting up with my coworkers, Dad and I met up with the rest of our group at Quincy Market. I had been to Boston several times and really like the Freedom Trail and I wanted the others to see some parts of it. So, I was the tour guide for the day. We headed to Boston Commons (I got us lost along the way - true credit to the numerous times I had been to Boston!). We went to several cool spots on the trail and then got hungry. Denise had mentioned earlier that she wanted to go to Little Italy and have food. So, we headed over there. It began to rain and we chose to eat at a nice restaurant called Fiore. We ate outside, but then the rain became too much (even under the canvas) that we had to go inside. We had a few bottles of wine. Ron and Gloria wanted to check out. But we had another bottle of wine on the way. So, they left. The place was one of those restaurants where the front windows are in panels from the floor to the cieling. They were opened up into the street and there was sidewalk seating available. Ron and Gloria stopped at the rail and looked in...Ron grabbed his camera and pointed at me and said to Gloria "Look Honey, look who it is!" and started taking pictures as if I was someone famous. A bunch of people in the restaurant turned around and were looking at us. I grabbed my shades and threw them on, grabbed my glass of wine and pretended to be famous. It was absolutely fabulous. The older couple across from us kept staring at me for the next 10 minutes. I know they were trying to figure out who I was.

It was here that Deinse imparted her wisdom to us about hand washing in public bathrooms. She stated that when she washes her hands in public places, she sings the Happy Birthday song to herself while washing to make sure she washes long enough. Funny but ever since she told me that, I can't stop doing it myself. "Happy birthday to me, Happy birthday to me, Happy Birthday dear Rebecca, Happy Birthday to me". Grab towel, then dry.

After lunch, we wandered (slightly drunk) around little Italy and ended up getting cookies in an Italian bakery. Then we headed back to the ship to get ready for our formal dinner.

This was the mother of all formal dinners - the lobster dinner. However, most of our group was so turned off by lobster after the Lobster Shack Ron experience that no one really wanted to order it - well, I guess I should say Gloria and Denise didn't want it. I think the rest of us Masochists ordered it. We were all a little sad when Kenny and Denise didn't show up. After all, it was FORMAL night, and Lobster dinner - and Kenny HAD promised to show up wearing his Lobster hat. But, never fear, halfway into the dinner they showed up - hat on head and looking goofy. I guess he just needed a few drinks to get up the gumption to come in. All eyes were on Kenny and Denise when they came in.

I had several drinks and decided it would be a good idea to borrow Kenny's lobster hat and go get formal pictures taken at the photography studio. Very nice.

Later that night, it was pretty foggy and the fog horn kept going off. Ron and Gloria were in their room hanging out when all of the sudden their phone rang. Gloria picks up the phone and it is the ships captain. He asked them to turn off their light - their porthole faced the front of the ship and the captain explained that he couldn't see where he was going because of the glare from their light.

Portland, Maine

Buoys, originally uploaded by quimerizar.

Thursday October 18

Today we docked in Portland, Maine. We really didn't know what was in store for us that day and played it by ear. Kenny had rented a car for us the day before, so we had that one piece of the puzzle put together. I am not sure how we ended up decided to go to Kennebunkport, but everyone seemed to be in agreement. So, off we headed.

Once arriving in Kennebunkport, we proceded to park at an Honor System parking lot next to the democratic headquarters (which I found amusing considering Bush was famous for having a home there). A few of us had to find a bathroom which just happened to be the same place they had maps and tourist info... There was a pretty large and smelly lady sitting behind the desk in the tourist info office where the bathroom was. She talked my ear off while I held my breath - then I finally snaked a free map out of her and promptly left the building. Everyone thought it was the bathrooms that smelled, but I can attest to the fact that it was actually her - so greasy I think she probably hadn't showered in a week. It was pretty nasty but I was still nice to her.

Since I had the map, I took over as tour guide for the day - besides, everyone else had pretty much been tour guide already. I saw an advertisement for the "Worlds Largest Lighthouse" on the free map I had gotten and wanted us to head over there - to Wells, Maine. So, we did. What I didn't realize, is that I didn't read the entire advertisement. It was the Worlds Largest Lighthouse STORE... not lighthouse. One of the pluses was that the place had homemade fudge. I'm not kidding when I say that I think I 'tried' every kind. Marshmallow, pumpkin, peanut butter, walnut, snicker bar, halloween with m&ms, etc etc. So, we got there and shopped. We bought a ridiculous amount of homemade fudge and a REAL lighthouse map of Maine.

I wanted to see some lighthouses so everyone agreed to let me commandier the minivan. We saw Walkers Point, Cape Porpoise, Goat Island, Wood Island and the twin lighhouses at Cape Elizabeth. At Cape Elizabeth we decided to eat lunch at the Lobster Shack. Its a little old place where we can get together - Lobstah Shack, baby, lobster shack. Little play on Love Shack there.

So, Ron proceeds to order a whole lobster - we'll call him Ed. I was ordering my onion rings when I saw the guy at the oounter grab Ed from the water and chuck him in the to boiler. Poor Ed. It was pretty sad. A few minutes later, order 361 was called and Ron went to pick up Ed from the order sideboard. Ed was all in one piece, missing none of his parts (meaning, he still had his head, eyes, and everything else.) He looked at Ron, and looked pissed.

This didn't stop Ron from tearing him apart, limb by limb. Each time he tore, water and other things (I dont know what they were, or I would have identified them properly) oozed out of Ed. Finally, Ron got to the main part of the body where the green stuff (the Tamale as I am told it is called) was covering what I would consider the "good" part of the lobster. I am also so told that this green stuff is the best part of the lobster. Ron ate it and grossed us all out. Denise and Gloria couldn't finish their lunches after that.

After Lobstergate - we headed back into town and Dad, Denise, and Kenny dropped the rest of us off in town for some shopping. Gloria and Ron bought a $160 candy dish (on sale) with a Gecko that stood in the middle of it. She had eyed it early and wanted it badly - the clerk threw in the Gecko for free since it didn't technically come with the disk.

Back to the ship, I went to the place where you can post meetings for people on board the ship. I had been posting for the last two days for someone to meet me if they had a charger I could use for my laptop - but apparently none of the blue hairs on board even knew what a laptop was (ok, im kidding). No one met me again. I really wanted to upload my pictures and keep track of my writing so that I wouldn't have to write everything down after the fact (but alas, I am doing that anyway).

It was then time for dinner again. Every night we seemed to learn interesting things at dinner from our helpful waitstaff (waste disposal, what the hours and schedules are like working on a ship, etc etc). Tonight was no different and we learned about why a little boat follows our big boat into the harbor each time. Apparently, they don't really trust the captains of our ship to steer it properly.

After dinner, we went to the Schooner Piano bar- where our waitress showed us a few tricks. Jocelyn and Maureen came over to join us... the rest of us ditched dad to go to bed and he hung out with them the rest of the night. 330 am and dad finally arrives back at the cabin and SNORES the night away. At this point I am really deciding that I need some of those air traffic control ear plugs because mine aren't cutting it.

Bar Harbor, Maine

Lobster Dinner, originally uploaded by quimerizar.

Wednesday October 17

I think the coolest thing that I like about a cruise is waking up each day in a different spot. I don't have to pack my suitcase, take a plane, train or car, move to a different hotel....all I have to do is go to sleep and like magic I am in a new place. Today I woke up in Bar Harbor, Maine - self declared Drinking Village with a Fishing Problem. I have never been to Maine before - and I pride myself on the fact that I have been to most of the states. Maine was on my "to do" list, so now that one is out of the way. All I have left is Oregon, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Vermont, Hawaii, and Alaska. I think I can get Vermont and New Hampshire EASY (since I live RIGHT THERE!)

Bar Harbor was split up. Kenny, Denise, Ron and Gloria all had made plans to do a bike tour of Acadia National Park. Dad and I had plans to meet up with his friend Sue and do whatever striked our fancy. Sue met us at the Harbor and we wandered around through the stores. It was a pretty nice day - about 60 degrees and sunny and most of the stores in town were giving it thier last hurrah for sales for the season. Everything was on sale at low prices for the end of the season, and we were told that they kept the stores open this last day for the cruise ship. Most of the stores had "older than dirt" hats - which I thought was quite appropriate for our cruise crowd. I am willing to bet they sold out of those. After shopping for ahile, we decided to head to Acadia National Park ourselves. Upon arriving, we saw the bike crew just finishing up. They told us how great it was so we ventured in.

Personally, I really like lighthouses. I don't know why. I think it has something to do with my ex Bobby who always used to talk about the lighthouse at Cape May, NJ. I never have seen it - although it is pretty damn close to where I live so you would think I would just buck up and take the trip one day. Anyway, there were some lighthouses on the map we had and I wanted to go see them. The trip through the park along the way was really beautiful. The leaves had started changing there - not in full force, but enough to be noticable. We got hungry along the way and declared that the next place we came across that had lobster would be where we stopped. So we did.

We stopped at this little mom and pop joint in some small town - the food was good, the service was good, the Lobstah was good. We had a very delicious baked brie and blueberry appetizer. Dad and Sue had whole lobsters and I had a lobster roll. All very yummy. Our bellies were full so it was back to the road. We hit a few highlight spots and then I happened to notice an advertisement on the map for a winery. We decided we had time to add that to our trip, so off we went.

Next thing I knew we were at Sweet Pea's Winery. There was a small sign off the road that was barely noticeable and the place was hidden inside an old barn. The vines were all starting to wither from the fall weather but you could still see them - and you could see all of the Vineyard from the barn - so it was a small family owned winery. The wine they had was made mostly from different berries - blueberries and strawberries. Very fruity and sweet - not normally something I would choose. However, they explained that only certain type of grapes can grow in that area, so they can only make certain types of wine. From what I understand, the area is pretty well known for blueberries (hence the blueberry brie).

We headed back to town and met up with Denise, Kenny, Ron and Gloria at a restaurant in the harbor. Kenny had bought a Lobster Hat and was wearing it proudly - getting a lot of attention. He swore he was going to wear it to our formal dinner - Lobster night on the ship.

St. John, New Brunswick

King of the World - St. John, originally uploaded by quimerizar.

Tuesday October 16

Today we arrived in St. John, New Brunswick. New Brunswick was pretty cool when getting off the ship. At each port, there were always people standing around when you got off the ship to give you directions, set up excursions, and take your picture. But this one was different. All of the women were given roses - they had all kinds of different colors. And, all of the men were given a New Brunswick pin.

After arriving, we headed to the center of town to a shopping area. We really didn't know what we were doing - except that we wanted to get a car. At the shopping center we saw people from the ship - I immediately knew that they were from the cruise because a) I recognized some of them, b) the women had roses, and c) they were older than dirt. I found it amusing that they disembarked the ship, headed to the first shopping center with a food court and a cafe, and proceeded to sit down and have their daily over 70 coffee chat club. Here they are in some different place that they paid a lot of money to go to and they want to go and make conversation over coffee at the first place they come across.

The one rental car agency in town had already rented out all of there cars. So, 411 had one other option - Rent-A-Wreck. We know how it sounded, but it was our only chance at getting a car for the day. Of course, they had cars available and the man was on his way down to meet us with a minivan in no time.

After we met up with him, we had to drive him back to the Rent A Wreck site to fill out paperwork and drop him off. I believe it was on this trip that we started discussing one of our waitresses - Ishy. That was her name - it was short for something else but I can't remember what it was. Ishy had been working on the cruise ship for several years and was telling us about how she was ready to go back to Trinidad and open a restaurant. She had been doing the typical cruise ship work - 6 months on, two months off. And when I say six months on - its SIX MONTHS ON - 7 days a week. She wants to open a cafe or a bistro or something similar. Not sure exactly how we got on the subject, but Kenny, Dad and Ron had been making a play on words on her name ever since we learned it. It was - IS SHE our waitress? IS SHE bringing us more wine? IS SHE a nice girl? So naturally, in the car they were making the play on words again and were trying to help her come up with a name for her restaurant. They came up with "IS SHE the cook" - which we all agreed was pretty good. But then, I was remembering that she wanted to do a cafe. So, I thought a "cook" isnt the right name for the proprietor of a cafe and decided that "IS SHE the Barista" was a better name. We presented our idea later to her at dinner. She said she really liked it (but then again, maybe she just wanted a good tip - but she seemed genuine). Even if she didn't like it, she humored us and was very gracious.

After getting the car in order, we started heading up a road to some remote park that was going to take a long time to get to - we ended up thinking this through and decided that we wouldn't be able to see much of anything else if we made the 45 minute trip. So, we turned the car around and headed back to town Irving National Park was to be our next stop. HOWEVER, it was not our next stop. We stopped several times before finally getting to the park. I think we got lost and turned around about 10 times before finally stopping a local to ask for directions. He was a true Canadian - had the whole lingo down to a T. "Well, youe just goh up this road, 'eh. Then youe make a left, 'eh. Follow that down to the corner, 'eh." I think we were all so amused with his accent that we barely paid attention to what he was really telling us. So, we made a wrong turn two more times but then eventually found it.

Iriving National Park was wonderful. It had this nice little dirt road for the minivan since we didn't really have much time to hike around and see things. We made our first stop and hiked about 20 feet in, arriving at a rocky beach overlooking the harbor. The smell of the pine trees was infiltrating. So much so that Ron insisted on having a picture of himself sniffing one. He then broke off a piece and stole it out of the forest. FELONY. He's definitely going to jail. Dad became interested in all the shells and began picking them up. He stole some of those too. FEOLONY number two. What is with these criminals???

We posed for some nice pictures and then headed on our way. We made a few more stops - slightly disappointed that the leaves really hadn't changed as much as they should have due to the unseasonably warm fall. After the park, we decided to head over to the town's claim to fame - the Reversing Falls. The story goes something like this (and don't fault me if I get it part wrong, I am going only off of memory here and not actually making my lazy ass look it up on the internet so I can get it RIGHT). The tide comes in to the harbor area there through a small channel into the river. The river normally flows out to the ocean, but during the tide, the incoming current is so strong that it actually pushes the river backwards and creates a reversing falls. To be honest with you - you could kind of see it happening but the tide takes a long time to come in and it is pretty subtle - especially when standing from a viewing point a few hundred feet above sea level. About 15 minutes of watching it was really all I could handle - and it only was that long because there was a boat in the river that kept purposefully going into the falls and spinning around (otherwise I think about 2 minutes would have done it for me). Put this on the list of things I have seen in my life.

Later that day, our group learned about the waste on board the ship. Leave it to us to ask the really nitty gritty (shitty) questions at dinner. "So, what happens to all the shit? Does it go into the ocean?" For those of you who really want to know, the answer is no. It's pretty much like this - Brown goes down, yellow is mellow (I got that from Party of Five- the popular TV show in the 90s). Meaning, they kind of filter their septic tanks, then have the tough stuff cleaned out at each port. The rest goes into the water.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Cruise 032, originally uploaded by quimerizar.

Monday, October 15

I got up early again and headed to the gym just in time to witness the ship pulling into the dock at Halifax, Nova Scotia which was pretty cool for me to see. I was excited because I have never been to this part of Canada - on the east coast. And, actually, I never really thought I would ever go. I mean, with all the hubbub about Europe, Asia and South America, who really wants to go visit the country next door that is so much like the one you currently live in... unless it just falls into your lap, like it did for me. Today was the only day that I attended formal breakfast dining and had it with Gloria, Ron and my dad. It was definitely better than the cafeteria style of the Windjammer Cafe.

Halifax was fun - we wandered around downtown mostly and Gloria served as our Tour Guide. She had read up a little on things before we left. We went to the Public Gardens and the Citadel.

Later we got a recommendation to go to eat at the Five Fisherman - which was a very very good restaurant. I was recently talking to a friend of mine from Canada and as soon as I told him where we ate he got excited and said that it was the place he likes in Halifax too. So, the place definitely has a reputation and we were all pleasantly suprised at how good the food was. We had a nice bottle of wine called Jost made locally and only served at this particular restaurant. I wanted to order Hot Rum and Cider (because it was listed as a favorite drink of the area in one of the tourist things I had read) but no place around there seemed to have heard of it.

On the way back to the ship, the guys shopped for Cuban cigars. We also stopped at a museum along the way. The museum stands out in my mind - not because we actually went in to see what they had, but because of their signs. They had signs that depicted picture by picture how to walk down stairs and also how to open doors. It was probably the strangest thing I have ever seen.

Later that evening, after our usual dinner in the dining room, we spent some time at the champagne bar. Denise and I both showed our coin tricks to the group and entertained ourselves. After the champagne bar, we found ourselves yet again at the Schooner Piano Bar along with our new friends Jocelyn, Maureen and Angela from the UK.

Cruising at Sea

Me, Gloria, Denise and Dad at piano, originally uploaded by quimerizar.

Sunday October 14
Today was sea travel only - no ports. Despite going to bed early, I woke up late at 9:30. I guess 12 hours of sleep was what my body needed. I went to the gym and worked out and the coolest thing happened. Earlier that morning, the captain had made an annoucement that he had spotted whales close to the ship. I was still in bed when this happened, so I didn't get outside fast enought to see it. But, when I was working out in the gym, the big panoramic window faced the front of the ship. Midway through my workout I got to see a whale blow water. It was really neat!! Today I fully took advantage of the steam room and sauna after my work out. I spent a pretty good chunk of the morning at the gym and it was relaxing.

To completely ruin all that hardwork at the gym, my dad and I went to Johnny Rockets for lunch. I really like the burger joints that will substitute a veggie patty for any one of their specialty burgers. I don't eat burgers, but a veggie burger with all the trimmings will do me good any day. I also must have eaten 3/4ths of the basket of fries and onion rings. You would have thought that I hadn't eaten either of them in years.

Later that day, I attended my first ever art auction - partly because I wanted to see what they had on board, and partly because they were handing out free champagne and a free work of art for attending. I had no false ideas in my head that I would be able to afford anything there, and I was correct. There were Dali's, Rembrant, Picasso, Peter Max, Matisse, and Kincaid - along with several others. The highest bid that day was 38k - and many of the pieces went for what I would consider "larger" sums of money (over 5k). The rest of the crew played in a slot tournament while I became artsy fartsy.

After the show, I was a bit tipsy from the Champagne and had decided to look for my dad and Kenny. I had heard that they might be playing golf. Only problem was that I didn't know where the golf simulator was on the ship. I wandered around for a while looking for it, but got lost. I was wearing this cute plaid miniskirt that I had gotten in Atlantic City and wool tights. I was out on the ship deck when I saw one of the crew memebers talking to an older man. I walked up and asked if they knew where the golf course was. Right when I did that, a huge gust of wind came up and blew my skirt up to my chest. I shrieked, and then did my best to hold it down. The guy was midsentence telling me where the golf place was. I started holding my skirt down and walking away - he seemed offended that I wasn't listening to his directions but I had just had my skirt blown off of me and I wasn't sticking around for it to happen again.

Later, we had dinner in the dining room and the boat was really rocking. I felt dizzy and almost like I was drunk half the day. This was the night that we took notice of the Cackler and the Hackler. At the table to our left was a woman who hacked and hacked all through dinner. She continued to do this the rest of the cruise, sounding like she had smoked a pack and a half a day for the last 20 years. To my rear, there was another woman who had this horrendous laugh (and she was ALWAYS laughing) and we named them the cackler and the hackler.

After dinner we went to see the on ship entertainment - purposefully catered to the older crowd on board. "The Happenings" had a a few hit songs - like "See You in September". One of the singers looked like Marlon Brando, the other looked like the Geico Caveman. One looked normal but smiled way too much. The funniest thing was that there were two people to the right of us that were there together to see the show and they were sleeping. The best part of the show was when they played Sweet Caroline. We all chimed in on the chorus - adding our "so good, so good, so good" and I think we seriously annoyed some of the other people next to us.

After the show we headed again to the piano bar. Tonight they were playing a trivia game - our team was one of the winners and dad got a free luggage tag (woo hoo). We met up with Jocelyn and Maureen, two gals from England. We had a lot of fun chatting with them and ended up challenging them to a game of Scrabble after a discussion about which country uses English properly (US or UK).

New London, Connecticut

Steam Train, originally uploaded by quimerizar.

Saturday October 13
After finally falling asleep, I woke up in New London, Connecticut to a brisk morning. Completely motivated to not gain any weight on the trip, I headed to the gym at 730 (plus, it did help that I couldnt sleep due to the snoring). After the gym, we disembarked the ship and hooked up with our rental car and headed to Essex, Connecticut for our shore excursion.

The excursion consisted of taking a steam train through part of Connecticut, then a boat, then back to the train. Kenny and Denise had signed us up for the Parlor seats - advertised as "riding in 1920's spelndor". This was pretty cool - we each had our own comfy recliner type chair, except it doesn't recline. You know, the kind you find in Grandma's livingroom. Another highlight of the trip was that they served wine and beer for our trip. Naturally, we ordered.

After traveling through an unimpressive show of leaves in Connecticut, we got off the train to board a boat - the Becky Thatcher. I personally just liked the boat because of it's name, but who can blame me. Kenny and Ron were being a little crazy on the plank boarding the ship and they got yelled at by a shipmate named Al who told them not to horse around. Al was old and definitiely overly militant, which caused us to make fun of him the rest of the trip - declaring him a fun hater. While on the longer than it should have been boat ride, we got a little bored. We were sitting right next to the mens room and decided to take over granting permissions for entrance to the bathroom. We decided to ask the next person for their "pee pass" (which was a play on words from our SEA PASS cards we were required to carry on and off the ship). So, the next man comes up and I ask him if he has a pee pass card, we started laughing so much that I don't remember what his answer was. Probably had to be there but it was still funny.

After the boatride, we returned to the the train. Prior to leaving the train, the waitress had promised to save our same seats for us. We got back on, but someone had already inhabited the seats (a nice young couple with a baby). The waitress made the young couple move for ME (after I had already sat down in a different seat- telling them it was 'reserved') I felt pretty bad, but she had already made them move, so I went up to sit with them anyway.

We headed back to the ship and got ready for our first formal dinner. We hadn't showed up in the dining room the night before, so we got to meet our waiters this night. Wilma was our head waitress - she introduced herself as Wilma "like Fred Flintstone Yabba Dabba Do". Oliver was our waiter and Ishy was our assistant waitress. This night I had escargot for the first time in my life. It was good - kind of meaty, very garlic-y, and kind of reminded me of portabello mushrooms sauteed in butter and garlic. I liked it. Of course, we enjoyed a nice bottle of wine.

After dinner, I went for my free facial. It was really nice and very relaxing. I went to bed early and got a few hours jump on avoiding the snoring. The rest of the crew spent the night in the casino playing Texas Hold Em. Kenny took money from the table!

New England Cruise

The Ship, originally uploaded by quimerizar.

Day One

Thursday October 11

After an unusually short day at work, (meaning, I worked 10 hours instead of the usual 13 plus), my coworker Jackie and I grabbed a bottle of wine and headed to my house to wait for my father to arrive. He had rented a car with his friend Sue and they got lost on their way to Jersey City....But I DID warn them to get a GPS as Jersey is infamously known for people getting lost. After they arrived, Me, Ryan, Dad, and Sue all headed over to meet up with the other cruise passengers Kenny, Denise, Ron and Gloria. They were having dinner at the Sheraton so we decided to have dinner there too. The dinner was ridiculously long and the service was horrible, BUT the company was good. We enjoyed some wine and food.

Friday, October 12

Being the procrastinator that I am (partly due to real procrastination, and partly due to the fact that I work too many hours), I didn't start packing until the day we were set to leave. I was finally ready later in the day and we headed to the ship to board. For those who have never cruised before, I learned a little something. When you give your bags to the ship people, they don't show up in your state room for several hours. So, make sure to bring what you are going to need for a few hours! We checked out our stateroom, then cheked out Kenny and Denise's state room. Their room was way better - they had a balcony. But hey, any room is good enough for me to enjoy!

True to cruise protocol, our first major event upon arrival was to eat. We headed to the "Windjammer" cafe where a carribean man coaxed me into a pina colada right off the bat. Denise warned me that they would be pushy about this but I was oblivious.

Day one was also the day where they make you do an emergency drill. They force you to put on your life jacket and head to a certain area where you can be briefed about the emergency procedures of the ship. It was all sort of surreal and funny to me, and it kind of reminded me of titanic where everyone was walking around with the life jackets. There were SOOOO many elderly people on this cruise. They kept saying that in the event of a real emergency, the procedure was to gather warm clothes and any medications, then head to your assigned location. All I could think about was how much medication was on board that ship due to the large population of people over the age of 70.

About 30 minutes into the trip, right as we are approaching the Verrazano Bridge, the ship comes to a full stop and started heading back to port. This was the first medical emergency of the trip. I wasn't lying when I said there were a lot of very old people.

Later that night, we all headed to the "Shipshape Spa" for a drawing. They were giving away massages, facials, and other spa type things. My dad's name was called for a free mini facial - which was pretty funny. I thought for sure he would want to use it for his birthday (not), and he ended up giving it to me. I scheduled for the next day to have my facial.

We spent the rest of the evening checking out the ship and then ended up at the "Schooner Bar" for the remainder of the evening. It was a piano bar with a singer who claimed to be the man of 1000 songs. He was a good entertainer and indulged us with many requested songs while we belted them out at a table alongside the piano. A good end to our first day....UNTIL we got to our room. My dad snores and this night was no exception. I was told that it is worse after drinking. I got up halfway throught the night to get my earplugs and put them in. They didn't work, it was too loud. Needless to say, that helped me with my motivation to get up early the next morning.