There's no place like home...
Wow, I'm back... finally. It was fun, definitely interesting to say the least, but all in all, I'm SO happy to be home. Aren't vacations supposed to be relaxing? Sure they have their moments, but over all, the most I remember about vacations seem to be the stressful/irritating moments. Forgive the length of this one... I know it'll be long. We began our journey not this passed Saturday, but the one before that with the lovely task of packing which was where I last left you. We got up at 9 or so, began the whole day of last minute things to do, packing and what not, then went to a friends house who were going to take us to the airport for our flight. Well our flight didn't leave Nashville till 6am Sunday morning, but being about an hour away that meant leaving here about 3 since we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time. So we said fuck it, we'd just stay up. Well, we did.. and finally boarded at 6, flew to Charlotte where we had a layover that was only about an hour or so if I'm remembering correctly, then hopped onto a short but packed flight down to Fort Lauderdale. We got there and stood for what seemed like forever to get our luggage from the little spinny conveyor belt thingy (I'm so technical -- but I'm really exhausted and can't think of proper names or terms at the moment) and grabbed a shuttle from the airport to the cruise dock. There were about four or five other cruise ships boarding there too, so we handed over our luggage once again and made our way inside the building to check in before boarding. By this point, we were exhausted having been up since 9am the morning before and it is now 1 or 2 pm the next day. We both looked fierce, let me tell you. We had to stop before boarding to get our lovely pictures taken, and then proceeded on with it. We got on, went to our room, where our luggage still hadn't made it (which I oh-so loved since I was dying for a shower) and then proceeded to go up to the top deck at the back of the ship. It was quite a sight, and a pretty damn big boat for me anyway. We met up with the people we came with and that is when Chris and I took a collective glance around and noticed we were suddenly in a floating geriatric unit. I kid you not... 60 seemed young for this crowd. But I will give them that they were if nothing else, excitable.
Anyway... we departed out to sea at 6 pm, headed for the cruise line's privately owned island -- Half Moon Cay. We got there the next day and it was GORGEOUS. You had to take a ferry from the boat to land, but that was alright. Water as blue and crystal clear as you could imagine. I lathered up on enough sunscreen to kill a mule and proceeded on to the beach. While there we met another young couple who were around our age -- much to our amazement -- and hailed from Tampa and were extremly nice. They were also just as miffed as we were about the age gap between us and the rest of the ship. We hung out with them for most the time on the island at the beach, ate some of the island food, got hit on by a creepy lifeguard whom I could barely understand, and then bought a pair of sunglasses which my dumbass forgot to bring. We then proceeded to go back to the ship and take a much needed shower. The ship departed from there about 5 or 6 I want to say and we settled in since the next day (Tuesday) was going to be a sea day of nothing but travel.
The ship was clean, was very nicely decorated and extremly pretty to look at it, and the crew were great but as far as activities -- and this wasn't just me and Chris, we heard multitudes of other people saying the same thing -- there was not a DAMN thing to do on that ship. No joke, the most I did was read, sat and watch the ocean, took naps and drank. It was mostly all old farts so the only things going on during the days were pool games (which were lame), a miniature golf tee off thing, bingo games, trivia games, and then during the evenings when you weren't eating, you could go sing karaoke, watch a movie in the theatre, or go to a stand up show -- depending on which night it was. Chris and one of the people we went with spent most their time at the Casino went we weren't docked -- which was a majority of the time. And I don't gamble, so if reading or sitting in the room or at a bar weren't sounding entertaining enough for me, I went there and just watched. Needless to say, I was drunk nearly every night. And bored off my ass.
Sorry, got off track there with the scheduling, but anyway, Wednesday we hit Aruba. We docked at noon, and left at midnight. I HATED Aruba. Beach was nice, but everything else was ugly. Nothing to look at, dirty, loud, just... not my top pick of destination spots. The one fun part was the bus ride back from the beach to the ship (about 15 or 20 mins) and we took one of those brightly multi-colored old school buses (I got a picture somewhere) back to the ship that was driven by the locals while blaring the Carribbean or island rap music, or whatever it was. Not something I want to listen to often, but for the atmosphere it was nice. Anyway, bottomline is I doubt I'll soon be returning to Aruba. Plus, I wasn't staying on the island past daylight... not after that one chick that went missing and never was seen again, no thanks. Next morning (Thursday) we hit Curacao. LOVED it. We didn't go to the beach at all, but we instead browsed the town and streets and it was beautiful. The one thing that annoyed me was we docked at 8 am and left by 4 pm. I liked that place the most and we didn't get to stay there the hours or length of time I would have hoped to. The buildings were gorgeous and I just really liked the atmosphere of it.
So we got back on the ship, took our fifteen millionth shower of the week and proceeded to bum around the ship again since Friday and Saturday were going to both be sea days and Sunday we would be back in Florida. By noon Friday I just wanted to go home. I wanted to close my eyes, click my heels three times, and scream "there's no place like home" over and over again. So that covers the trip for the most part, there were a few other points and irritating factors I could mention, but that would just be too much to type and way too much to read for you I'm sure, so to spare you I won't.
Well, then the REAL adventure kicked in... I won't mention names but someone... *cough cough* Chris *cough* forgot to check over everything entirely before we got on this cruise and come Thursday evening, he looks at me and goes, "I wonder..." and began burrowing through our things for our flight back information. He finds it and reads it for a moment, then looks up and gives me this blank stare. Mind you, we're supposed to leave about 3 or 4 hours after we docked in Florida... well.... drum roll please... Chris didn't realize he booked our flights home for SAT-UR-DAY, not Sunday... *deep breath* And we're in the middle of the Atlantic somewhere, with no internet unless we want to pay out the ass to use it on the ship, or do a ship to shore call which costs -- $16 PER minute... SO. Luckily the ladies at the front desk were nice enough to let us use the phones for a complimentary ship to shore call and Chris proceeded to call the airlines to try and explain the situation. Well apparently they weren't as forgiving, and were going to charge us an ass load to cancel and rebook... *draws an even bigger breath* and we finally said fuck you to them and hung up. Well, as of this moment he's still not done with them, but I won't go into that. So, we decide when we get back, we'll just rent a car and drive home. He calls Hertz, or someone and makes an arrangement with them, asks them we only have cash, will that be okay, they say yes, bam, we're good. Right? Wrong.
Sunday -- we dock. Our friends whom we were on the ship with from Tennessee have parents that live in Florida and aren't going back for another week or so and they have a party bus to catch back up to her mom's which is about four hours away. Well, Chris and I hit the airport and go to the Hertz desk. We get up there, tell them we have a reservation and then comes the time where the lady says, "Well, we will need your license and a credit or debit card." We proceed to explain what happened, that we called and double checked and were told it would be okay that we have cash. She looks at us and says, "Well, I don't know who you talked to, but we can't do that." and began getting a very not so nice attitude with us. So, by this point I -- having the Irish temper I have -- am about to reach across the counter and strangle this woman and lose all control. As nicely as I could -- which wasn't very nice -- I asked for a supervisor. Well, then she came out and said the same thing, that her hands were tied, she couldn't do anything about it. BUT she at least went above and beyond in trying to help us figure something out which included her inviting us back into her office and letting us use her phones and what not to make some calls since our cell phones were almost dead. We finally two hours later got everything squared away and drove off.
A few hours later we were exhausted, called our friends, asked them where her mother lived at -- since the offer was made if we needed to we could crash there -- and got directions to them where we flaked out that night. Got up yesterday morning about 7, and left. Took us about 11 hours to get back, which wasn't bad time since her parents lived in Florida.
BOTTOM LINE... ____________________________ Yeah that was cheesy, shut up... I'm SO GLAD TO BE HOME.
Oh yeah, completely forgot to mention the rough seas we had half the time. I'm glad I'm don't get sea sick, because I would've been puking everywhere. We even hit a storm one night and I swear, the people above us fell out of the bed. No lie. It's really interesting while drunk.