Thanksgiving at sea

We decided to spend Thanksgiving and our 5 year wedding anniversary where we spent our honeymoon, on a cruise ship.  We had talked about doing another cruise for a while, so we bit the bullet and signed up for a 7 night western Caribbean cruise on the Royal Caribbean Voyager of the Seas.  We booked the trip at the end of May, it seemed like such a long time until the cruse.

The cruise sailed out of New Orleans, LA on Saturday morning, so we flew down to NO on Friday night and spent the night.  We rolled out of bed early and walked down to the famous Cafe Du Monde for some Beignets.  Fried dough covered in powered sugar = breakfast of champions.  Mmm, mmm, good.

After breakfast, we roamed around the french quarter, walked back to the hotel to get our bags and then walked the 0.9 miles to the cruise terminal.  Karen wanted to take a taxi, I thought we could walk it (and I had read online that traffic gets bad at the terminal).  Walking turned out to be a good thing, as the cars were beginning to get backed up.  We strolled past all the traffic, dropped our bags with the luggage guys and were walking onto the ship 15 minutes later.  I got a laugh when we had to fill out and sign a health questionnaire.  Have you recently had a fever, sore throat, etc, etc?  Heck no...  who, in their right mind, would admit if they did???

We grabbed a quick bite at the buffet and then went to the theatre for a special Martina McBride concert that was given for those of us who had cruised with RC before (officially known as the crown and anchor society).  It was a great show (very private with only about 500 people in attendance) and a nice way kick off to the trip.  here is a photo I took of Martina (check out those shoes!):

After the concert, we headed up to the top deck to watch the ship push away from the dock and into the middle of the Mississippi river.  It is amazing how a 1000 ft. long ship can maneuver it self directly sideways away from the dock, spin 180 degrees in the middle of the river and then head towards open water. I had always thought that New Orleans was right by the Gulf of Mexico, however ships have to navigate over 90 miles of the river until they get to the gulf from New Orleans.  The trip down the river took about 9 hours, unfortunately it was dark so we couldn't see much.  After going to sea, we spent two days cruising in the gulf on the way to Jamaica. 
Here is a summary of our two days at sea:
Wake up, go to the main dining room for breakfast,  hang out by the pool, either eat at the pool (they grilled something pool side every day) or go to the dining room for lunch, take a nap at the pool or in the room, roam around the ship, eat a 5 o'clock snack at the snack bar (dinner wasn't until 8pm), roam around some more, shower and prepare for dinner, pose for pictures with the ship photographers (Karen's addiction), eat dinner at the main dining room, go to a show at the theatre, and then go to bed.  Wake up and repeat...  Tough life, eh?

As you might have noticed, our routine on board revolved around FOOD... which, of course, happens to be one of our favorite part of cruising.  Karen can have seafood when ever she wants and when we are done, we get up from the table and do not have to pay the bill!   On the ship, you have a few options for dining: you can either order room service, go to the buffet, the cafe, one of the specialty restaurants (more $$$) or go to the dining room.  We have found that the best food and service is at the dining room, so we go there for most meals.  At breakfast and lunch, you get sat with whoever walks in the same time you did, so it is always a different group of people.  Everyone that we met at a meal was really nice, and it was fun to "run into them" on the ship later on and hear how their trip was going.  For dinner, we were sat at a table with 2 other couples; the group hit it off right away and we had a great time together.
When it comes to the food at dinner, they will keep feeding you until you ask them to stop.  Seriously, order what ever you want.  Do you want two appetizers because the both sound good?  No problem.  Two entries because you can't decide between the two?  Sure thing.  Do you want one entree instead of an appetizer and then another entree for your meal?  No questions asked.  (I did that one night, the chicken entree for appetizer and prime rib for the "meal") Was something so good that you want another?  Coming right up.  On lobster tail night, everyone at our table, except me, had a second round of lobster tail.

The first night at dinner when I placed my order, I requested extra veggies instead of the potatoes (I don't like potatoes).  When the food came out, I had a plate with my entree on it PLUS a full size plate of veggies.  This became a routine, our waiter knew that I didn't want the potatoes and he always brought an extra plate of veggies.  I always got a laugh out of it, because it was a big plate of veggies.  At dinner, you always have the same waiter, so you develop a relationship with them during the trip.  It is like Cheers where they always know your name.  If you waiter sees you in the dining room during breakfast or lunch, he'll come over and chat with you.  We really enjoy that aspect of being on the ship. 

One night we all ordered the "trio" dessert plates, which, per the name, had three different items on it.  We all liked the chocolate cake the best, so they brought out another plate of the chocolate cake for us...

I don't want to think about how much weight I gained on this trip... 

We arrived at Jamaica and pulled into a new port that RC built in Falmouth.  We didn't book an excursion for this port and that ended up being our biggest mistake on the trip.  We thought that we would roam around the town some, but after exiting the fenced in port area, we walked about one block and then turned around and headed back to the safety/comfort of the port area.  We didn't feel exactly threatened, but people kept coming up to us wanting to braid Karen's hair, or show us something over there, or take us somewhere in their cab.  It was pretty overwhelming and I can see why RC has fenced in the port area.  There were a select group of stores in the port area, which we walked through and then went back to the ship to pick up the routine listed above.

Here is a picture of the ship towering over the buildings at the port there:

This post has gotten long, I'll post the remainder of the trip later... who's ready to go on a cruise with us???