Friday, January 04, 2008

My Christmas Cruise: A look at Pros and Cons (WARNING: ridiculously long tale of my trip)

Cons (I’ll start with these because they are few):


1. Actually getting on the boat
It was a complete and utter disaster. My parents have been on several cruises and my grandparents have been on more cruises than they can count and said that they’d never seen anything like it. It was the maiden voyage of our ship the Voyager of the Seas out of Galveston and the Galveston port was NOT prepared for the chaos of almost 4,000 (not to mention the 1700 crew) people all trying to board the boat. PLUS, my Grandpa Ike has a scooter and while my Nana went to go park the car and while everyone else waited for Bob to come back from parking the car, it was my job to stand in line, try to put Grandpa Ike’s scooter together, move when the line moved while juggling 7 pieces of luggage. Plus Grandpa Ike’s scooter wouldn’t work, so I was trying to get that figured out while manually pushing him on his scooter and these horrible people behind me kept sighing loudly and saying that all they wanted to do was get on the ship (gee, I was really looking forward to just standing in line…). Nobody would help me until a really great family saw my struggles and found a porter to take the luggage away. This resulted in me crying (literally) and thanking them. When my mom, Bob, Shelby, and Nana finally found Grandpa Ike and I, I was a wreck. Not the GREATEST way to start our vacation…

2. 6,000 people on a boat

Ugh. The boat is big, but not THAT big. We were crammed onto the boat and festering in the middle of the ocean.

3. Resting Lauren usually equals sick Lauren
For some reason, every time I take a break, I end up getting a sinus infection. So about the third day of the cruise, my throat started to hurt and I didn’t feel great. Thankfully, the next day I started taking some ibuprofen, so I feel great, but I’m just all sniffly and sneezy.

4. Christmas on the boat

Not really a fan. Much as we all tried, nobody felt like Christmas Day was actually Christmas Day.

Pros (HOORAY!!)

1. Our room
Nana and Grandpa Ike are pretty well off, so Shelby and I not only got our own room, but a BIG (well relatively), balconied room! The Shelbster and I had a great time. We watched Shrek the Third 8 times and the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest 5 times. We got a kick out of the fact that we can pretty much recite both pretty well (“It’s for the poopies!” is our favorite line from Shrek the Third). Plus, room service is WAY fun.

2. Dinners
I like to get dressed up, so the dinners were also a lot of fun. Plus my grandparents are really interesting and have been EVERYWHERE (even Antarctica!) and so they have great stories. Plus you get to try new foods and you get appetizers and dessert at every meal so HOORAY!

3. Excursions
They were all great. My dream since like Junior High has been to visit Mayan Ruins, and when we were in Cozumel we took a ferry boat and then a bus to Tulum to see the ruins. They were way cool. Our tour guide wasn’t great, but I’ve done enough research on the Mayan culture that I was okay. How great to get to actually see something that I’ve read so much about.
Jamaica wasn’t too thrilling. We went to a beach and I’m not exactly the biggest beach fan, so I spent the entire time sitting on a really comfy chair reading the book I got for Christmas. My parents called me a wimp because I wouldn’t go near the water, but I was perfectly content.
The coolest thing we did was go snorkeling in Grand Cayman. I was a little nervous about the whole snorkeling thing but once we got out there I was SO excited! We went to a sunken ship and then a coral reef. This was the best place I’ve snorkeled (I’ve done it in Honduras and then in St. Thomas), there were really cool fish and the reef was really interesting. At one point when we were at the ship wreck, I got so enamored by this really beautiful fish that I ran into the boat… oops! I have a small bruise on my calf to show for it. I really enjoy snorkeling and I think I might like to get my scuba license at some point in my life.

4. The Boat (Voyager of the Seas)
There was SO much to do on our boat. A Christmas ice skating show (that was really fun!) and comedians, lots of shows and shops and pools and stuff. I spent a lot of time on the boat reading and relaxing and eating (wow, I ate a LOT). We went to almost all of the shows that they offered. The most humorous one was called Music and Motion and it was all these songs from movies that the performers sang and danced to. But the highlight of this show was that one of the songs they sang and danced to was Into the West from Return of the King. Deanna and I used to sing this song at the TOP of our lungs in college. We thought it was hysterical. It’s such a great song, but it was super cheesy the way the performed it. Oh, and THEN they sang “My Heart Will Go On” and showed clips from Titanic. I was hysterical. Why on EARTH would you show clips from a movie where a giant boat sinks… on a giant boat? I found it very ironic. I wish I had thought to have my camera so I could have taped it and showed it to Deanna. She would have found it much more humorous than my parents or Shelby…
There is something absolutely wonderful about not having to prepare any of your meals or clean up after yourself. The staff on the ship was so nice and always bent over backwards to be helpful. For instance, my parents decided to splurge for unlimited sodas for Shelby and I (mainly I think it was for Shelby and so they felt like they needed to include me as well). Well those things are really expensive, so I was making sure I was getting their moneys worth. Which meant that I would order a Diet Coke every night at dinner and the assistant waiter was so nice because after like the second night, he would just start bringing them to me! Without me even asking!

5. The relaxing
Okay, so I didn’t explore the ship quite as much as I thought I would like to, but I read two books (nice, fun chick-flick books) and napped a lot and watched movies with Shelby. At one point during the cruise I admonished myself for not going rock-climbing on the rock wall, but then I realized that I can do that at home and I don’t ever get to just sit out on my private balcony, reading a book, with the sun on my face and a beautiful sea to look out upon and so I got over it. It was great. And as much food as I ate (and we all ate a LOT of food), I ate fruits and vegetables with everything, so I felt like I did better than I could have. I enjoyed all the relaxing I did a whole lot. I feel very refreshed and excited to start my next semester!

6. The sea-sickness
I placed this under a Pro because I didn’t get sea-sick hardly at all! I took a Dramamine every morning at breakfast and actually, the ship was pretty okay. The last cruise I took, I could feel every single toss of the sea, but this ship was much bigger than the Disney Magic and the seas were much calmer than they were in the Eastern Caribbean, so I didn’t even need it as much. The only time I got nauseous was on our ferry ride from Cozumel and Playa Del Carmen. Boy was I glad I took Dramamine. Because if I hadn’t… I would have been really REALLY sad. And probably pretty sick too.


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