honey, I'm home!!!
And so very happy to be! (and so is my kazoobie!! purrrr)I officially dislike cruises and vow to never go on one again. I don't recommend them, unless; 1. You have a crew of friends that you *know* you can have a great time with, no matter what 2. You don't care that all there is to do is go see some 2nd rate entertainment, play (expensive) bingo, EAT, or compete for a plastic trophy for being the best at limbo out on the lido deck. and/or 3. You have lots of kids and you just don't want to have to *think* and therefore you pile all of em on a boat and do the family thing for a couple days.
So besides the fact that I wasn't with any party peeps, nor do I have kids... here's a few other reasons cruises are not for me:
I'm from a kick ass city where there's so many different INCREDIBLE restaurants, so for me, eating on one boat, in the same restaurants for a span of several days was a big huge SNORE. One of them was a nice sit down restaurant, with admittably amazing food for the most part, and the other an all you can eat buffet extravaganza. They were good and all, but really I'd much rather have a choice in a town to hop around different restaurants and get a feel for the culture of a city, ya know?
It's like Vegas, but worse. As I mentioned, there's the 2nd rate entertainment... but on top of that it's like a pep rally where the cruise ship personnel are trying to get everyone all pumped up. They use the crowd to entertain the rest of the crowd, and it's slightly retarded. The worst however is that they're constantly trying to sell you something left & right. $20 for a bingo card because you (insert fake excitement here) just might win $500! or $7 for this, $10 for that.... but it's ON SALE! oy.
I had the impression we'd kind of be in hotel rooms, but on a ship. Little did I know the cabins were so small! No biggie really, since they cleaned the room like a hotel, but I was amazed at how horribly un-functional the bathroom was in terms of giving you space to put your stuff. No shelves anywhere! They gave us pop and water (to buy) and new ice - but no cups! weird. And the small twin beds injured all 3 of us over the span of the 4 days, because any time we went to turn over in the middle of the night we'd smack an elbow or a knee on the wall. ouch! Overall it was very cramped quarters for 3 girls. However, I will say the best part of the room service was the towel animals they made and left on my bed when they came in at night to turn down the covers - and the tasty after dinner minty chocolates. :)
Final gripe: There was not one person on that ship that I wanted to meet. There were a lot of old people, fat people, families, and even a few prize winning mullets. The cutest boy I saw was a sophmore in college. Probably no more than 22. Oh the thoughts I was having... shame on me! hahaa Anyway, I met him in the hot tub and we talked for awhile. He'll go far with those dreamy blue eyes. I got out after about 10 minutes before all the Miami Vice's* I'd been drinking took influence on the situation. :p
*A Miami Vice is a Strawberry Daiquiri w/ Pina Colada. mmmmm! My sister got one first (no alcohol, obviously, because she's only 13) and got me hooked.
Other (self-medicating) drinkies enjoyed on the ship were: my ol' standby "Gin & Ginger", and a yummy new blender drink discovery, that they called a "BBC": Banana, Baileys (awww yaa!) and Colada. It was SUPER YUMM!!!!!
We did however meet the sweetest old couple... married for almost 50 years, I just fell in love with them! :)
So ya, cruises: not my thang. Plus, unfortunately the weather was pretty windy & cold for the first couple days, and then we finally got sun on the last day that made it nice to lay out on the deck (something I was hoping to do a lot more of!). I got a bit of sun, but you'd have to see my faint tan lines to notice. Except hilariously I got a bit of a burn on my chest, however it wasn't even red! All the torture of a sunburn but you couldn't even tell by looking at it. haha! I guess that's a good thing, though.
The highlight of the trip was our visit to Atlantis, which is this huge beautiful expensive resort in Nassau, Bahamas. Under the resort it has the largest marine habitat in the world! (read more here). It was really incredible!!! I'll upload photos & videos in the next couple of days.
So, after our 4 day excursion, we got back onto land on Thursday and headed to Orlando's Millenia Mall for some last minute holiday shopping. My momma got me this AWESOME sweater pullover from Rampage (a store I fell in love with for the first time) and my little sister got me these super cute Lotta Jansdotter sticky notes & labels from Anthropologie (a store I've liked, but just rekindled and fell in love with EVEN MORE on this trip!)
Other wonderful gifts I was sooo fortunate to receive from my incredibly generous and loving Momma, were the Altec Lansing iPod Speakers that I'd been wanting! yay! And my new home phone, which ROCKS! I needed a new one for a long time, and did a TON of research before deciding on this one. I didn't think she was going to get it for me so it was a great surprise!!! I love it!
I truly got everything I could have asked for, and more! My Mom is so giving, and incredibly loving and patient with my sister and I. They're going through a whole new experience being out there in Jacksonville, and it hasn't been easy. It was the first time in both Haley & I's lives to not be in the wintery Steamboat we grew up in, and it was all too clear my Mom was a little shook up Christmas morning, too. :( xoxoxo As hard as some *very family moments* were, it was good for us to be together. I would have to say some of the funnest family time we spent was after we got back to their condo, we worked feverishly on this 1000 piece puzzle and got pretty far! I am going to have to buy myself a puzzle - they're so fun!
Oh, I almost forgot, in my gripes about cruises... I never realized how weird it would be to get used to that queasy boat rocking. At first I was thinking it was me, but then realized it's not the soy latte that's making me lose balance (i.e. I'm not used to feeling tipsy at 9am!), but even WORSE is that they never tell you that after you get off the boat you still have that swaying queasy feeling for days afterwards!! uuugg!! I have it a little right now, even. But then again - with all this insane rain we've been getting here, it's quite possible that my little house has uprooted and I'm floating down the street.
