Well, where to begin!?

Let me start off by saying this: that was definitely the best vacation that I’ve ever taken! This had to have been the first vacation I can think of where not ONE thing went wrong the entire trip! Seriously! On every vacation I’ve been on before this one usually something goes wrong – from running late for a flight, to a plane being delayed, to getting rained out, to an argument…SOMETHING! But, seriously, I must say that cruising must be the way to go – and I would highly recommend Carnival to anyone!

Ok, on to the nitty-gritty and PICS! In my typical, drag-it-out fashion, I’ll break up the trip into several posts to make the fun last (or to torture you endlessly, your choice!)

We arrived to Fort Worth on Thursday night, the 30th of April (gosh that seems like yesterday!). My parents were so excited, which was so fun to watch. Let me insert here in case I haven’t mentioned it before, that my family has never been on a vacation with all of us before. Growing up there wasn’t really money around, so a “vacation” was maybe going to see family in Houston for a weekend, and it was never all of us – it was usually my dad, brother and me, and my mom would stay home. Or it was me and both my parents without my brother (who is 10 years older, so he was moved out by the time I was 8!). So, I was super excited to finally have ALL of us going together, and I could tell my folks were too. We had Brad for good measure, of course!

We had decided to drive down to Galveston that Friday morning, since we were supposed to board the ship on Saturday around noon and we didn’t feel like rushing around. The drive went great, after some fun packing adventures, and it seemed like we got there in no time! We stayed at a Motel 6 for that night, with my parents in one room, and Brad, Jeff and me in the other room. As soon as we got there, the boys decided that it was time to shed the jeans and break out the shorts and flip-flops:

It's Officially Summer!

After getting to Galveston, we were all pretty hungry, and my dad was eager to go down to the Sea Wall and see what was still around after Hurricane Ike hit Galveston last year. According to my parents, who had been to Galveston a few years back (and who apparently used to hang out there a lot in their younger days!), there was so much missing from the Sea Wall area…if you know the area, then you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say that everything on the sea-side of that street is just gone. We saw a few buildings that were still there with walls and roofs missing.

So we made it down and drove up the Sea Wall to take it all in, and we finally landed at Landry’s Seafood. As you might remember from my previous post, I’ve been watching Deadliest Catch, so I decided to be brave and try the Alaskian king crab on the menu. Lol, it was pretty good, although unfortunately I can’t say that I really tasted a difference between it and regular crab…I guess I just don’t have a refined enough seafood palate!

Anyway, here are my parents outside of Landry’s:

My Dad is Channeling Gilligan here...

And here is Brad, trying to “smile big” for me outside of Landry’s, with the ocean behind him!

What is the water stuff? It doesn't look quite like red Abilene dirt!

That evening after dinner we drove around Galveston, literally up one side of the island and down the other, just checking out Ike damage and seeing where the port was for the ship.

Just a sampling of the damage...

So, we went back to the hotel after that where the guys spent a considerable amount of time trying to break into the motel’s TV…it was actually kind of frustrating – the hotel had just remodeled and had these lovely tempting ports on the wall that led us to believe that you could hook up a laptop or a game system (which my brother had brought his Xbox 360!). But, we found out later that the ports had not “been programmed” with the TV’s for use yet. So…the guys spent more time than necessary trying to figure out this little puzzle. I was amused enough to post this picture on Twitter. That’s my brother, in case you can’t tell! (Oh and in case you are just really curious, they finally gave up and resigned to watching DVD’s on the laptop screen instead)

Hehe, so, enough of this landlubber crap! The next morning we met my Aunt and Uncle for breakfast, got our gear and headed for the port! I must say here I was worried that it would be much like trying to go through an airport – lugging luggage, and just a general headache. But, it was actually a very simple process! Within probably an hour of driving up to the pier, we were getting on to the boat and settled in. After making sure my parents knew where their room was, we went down to explore our rooms – Jeff and we had adjoining rooms, with a door in between, so we could open that up to make our little tiny baby rooms look bigger. My parents had a balcony room, which was really cool. Lol, it was kind of funny, cause the “kids” were on the bottom deck, my aunt and uncle were 2 decks above us, and my parents were I think 5 decks above us.

After the safety drill, in which the ship went ahead and took off, we finally met back up with my parents and set about exploring the ship. We were heading into some crazy winds those first few days, so everyone’s hair is looking a bit scary…(that’s my uncle in the background, btw).

"Is it going to be like this the whole time? I need more hairspray..."

Weird hair...

My brother spots all the satellites and radar equipment on top of the ship

My parents decided to get out of the wind and start unpacking, I thought this was a cute pic I caught while they were walking back:

Cute Parents!

Now, if any of you have taken a cruise, then you know that there is always ONE constant going on on the ship – it always seems like it’s time to EAT! Luckily I think I was pretty good…for the most part That night we had our first experience in the formal dining area (there’s a buffet available all day as well!). Our waiter’s name was Mohammed and he was so funny! What was amazing was that he memorized our names that first night – of course I’m horrible with names so I thought this surely was a PhD level skill! He really was a great guy, and a good dancer! (more on that later…)

May 8th was my parent’s 44th wedding anniversary, which was part of the reason of the cruise (can you say Christmas, Valentines, Anniversary, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc…) So, that first night Mohammed got a bunch of the waiters to come over and sing Happy Anniversary to them (which is just Happy Birthday with a small change in lyrics ) He told them that they had to kiss the whole time they were singing or they would start over. Hehe, photo op!

Happy 44 Years!

After dinner we were all getting pretty tired, so we headed back to our rooms and saw the first of many cute towel animals that the Carnival staff left for us each night:

I think it's a rabbit...maybe a dog?

That night Brad went to bed pretty early, I think he had just a tiny case of sea-sickness that first night…it did take a while to get used to the floor constantly moving beneath you! And my parents and aunt and uncle were pretty exhausted from all the unpacking and walking, so my brother and I just walked around and talked. We finally found a place and sat at the back of the boat and just had a good time talking and looking out at how dark it was! We did see another cruise ship, unfortuately this was the best pic I could grab:

Hellooo out there!

So that is cruise part one! Lol, I really don’t mean to drag it out so much, but I figure I want to chronicle everything in detail before I forget! Hopefully I’ll have part two up tomorrow.