Despite having a migraine and consequently feeling sick to my stomach, I decided to write a post about the cruise while I have the time. I'm planning on hitting the hay after this because I'm feeling so sick, but of course my loyal readers come first :)
Overall, the cruise was fabulous. I had such a good time and feel very refreshed. I've had a lot of personal problems lately and had become so absorbed in them that my health and well-being were beginning to suffer, so I'm lucky that I had the opportunity to get away for a little while.
We left from Galveston, TX on Monday afternoon - the drive down wasn't bad at all. My dad drove Josh and I to Memphis where we stayed on Saturday night. Sunday morning we toured Graceland, Elvis's estate. I definitely choked back some serious tears - it's unforgivably corny, but I was raised on Elvis and his house was preserved so beautifully and I learned so many things about his generosity and community involvements that I got really emotional. I felt very close to The King :) I'm so glad I finally got a chance to go. Anyhow, my dad stayed in Memphis on business for the week and Josh and I finished up the drive to Texas. Luckily, the book on cd that we bought was perhaps the best investment of the trip; seriously, I wanted to KEEP driving so that we could finish the engaging story. I never thought it would be that effective, so it helped with the drive a lot. Monday was cloudy in Texas, so we spent the afternoon exploring the ship, the M/S Celebration, and unpacking and such. Unfortunately, and OF COURSE, I got really seasick and could barely get out of bed the first night. Let's just say that I wasn't looking forward to being at sea for 5 days. Because they're so big, few people get sick on cruise ships, but I wasn't surprised that I did - being a migraine sufferer and highly sensitive to changes in light, noise, and motion, the sea is just not for me. Luckily, a little seasickness medicine from the front desk made everything okay for the rest of the trip.
It would probably be waaaay too much writing to detail every day and evening of the cruise, so here are the highlights: in my opinion, the best part was the food. I mean seriously, we had the option to dine at either a 5-star formal sit-down "restaurant" (in quotations because no check to pay at the end of the night!) for every meal AND/OR eat at the casual buffet upstairs, not to mention a 24 hour pizzeria, frozen yogurt and nightly midnight buffet. I kid you not, I gained about 5 pounds in 5 days on the cruise; I have to start my post-cruise detox just to get back on a regular eating schedule! So...I enjoyed the good food. The service was fantastic, too - everyone made you feel so special and taken care of. The stewards cleaned our cabin about 3 times a day, turned down our beds at night, and made towel animals on our beds (pictures to come)! Everyone was SO friendly. All this and not to mention that Mexico, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen being our ports of call, was fantastic. The weather was perfect both days and I got to practice mi espanol mucho! I bartered with the street vendors who definitely gave me a break for speaking in spanish with them - well, at least trying to! Playa was probably my favorite because the beach was amazing - not because most of the women were sunbathing topless, but because it was simply beautiful :) *sigh* The cruise was packed with activities to do when not in port, ranging from Vegas-style shows to a full casino to bingo (to which, unfortunately, Josh and I became addicted and spent way too much money - hey, the jackpots got as high as $2250!) to comedy shows and dancing. Overall, the cruise was the best value for the money spent on any vacation I've taken so far. We are so lucky that we got good weather, help with the drive down, a fun group seating at dinner, some wicked duty-free deals on alcohol, and also got to make some new U of M friends on the boat as well as meet up with some old ones.
I can't think of much else to say right now, but I'm sure a few stories will surface in the next few days - I turned in one roll of my film today, so I should have those pics by Thursday, and I'll probably finish the other roll sometime next week, so keep an eye out for those soon to be posted! For now, I'll leave with a picture of our dinner table for the week. We had such fun conversations and enjoyed dining with them; they're all from Texas, so they got a kick out of our "Northern" ways. Tamra sent this picture to us from the Captain's Formal Night:
Three cheers for a fun spring break! Now...if only it would be sunny and 85 degrees in Ann Arbor. If I wasn't a born and raised Michigander, I'd be inclined to believe that spring is on it's way after today's bout of "warmness." However, I know the way of the mitten state - we'll see at least one more snow storm this year. Who knows. At least my tan lines will remind me of a sunny beach on the Yucatan peninsula for a few more weeks. Sweet dreams :)
p.s. ~ "Too bad we don't know the word for 'shark!' in Spanish." ~ Josh, to me, while swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.
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