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.