Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away...

ok, most of you prolly won't get the meaning in the title. lol it's from one of Enya's most well-known songs: Orinoco Flow. hehe click on the title to see the video. ;) anyways, back to the point....as the title implies, this post is all about my cruise! *dah dah dah!!!* i know, i know (*ahem*Faith*ahem*), i'm only 4 months late. sorry! jeez! lol

*ahem* SOOOO......it left Sunday (May 13) and got back the following Sunday (May 20). that Sunday we basically stood in line all day waiting to get on the ship. lol some computer was down and so we ended up sitting in the hallway leading to the ship for prolly 45 minutes to an hour. it sucked. LOL but it was worth it when we finally stepped onto the ship. WOOT!!!!!!! was i ever excited!!!!!!! :D mwahahahahahahahaha. omg, you couldn't even tell you were inside a ship. it was SOOOO beautiful. the lobby, where we boarded, had a grand piano, bar, these cool glass elevators....it was so pretty! i shared a room with my grandmother, and she paid extra money to get one with a balcony for me. ;) it was TOTALLY FREAKIN ' AWESOME!!!!!!!! to be honest, the balcony was one of my fave spots on the ship. hehe. we were on the 10th deck, so we had a pretty nice view. ;) let's see....the ship had two pools, three hot tubs, a water slide, and PLENTY of places to eat. LOL they have 24 hour pizza, so my uncle and i went to eat pizza at midnight every night just because we could. hahaha. also, you're assigned to a specific table in the fancy dining rooms, so you always have the same waiter/waitress. our waiter was hilarious!!! he was tons of fun and we really enjoyed him. ;) my fave food was......*drum roll* the "warm chocolate melting cake" OMG....it was to DIE for!!!!! i drool just thinking about it. lol here's a pic: http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f374/Hobbitgirl7/cake.jpg mmmmmm, yummy. ;) also, on the last night there i tried escargot for the very first time. lol weird, huh? actually, it's an interesting story: so, my grandmother was looking at the menu, and she said "hey, Steph, are you gonna try the escargot? you're on a cruise, you gotta try new things!" and that type of stuff. well, being the smart-butt that i am, i replied sarcastically "i will if YOU do!!!" thinking that she'd never try them cuz she's even less adventurous than me. lol she doesn't even eat most vegetables. :P so....OF COURSE.....she orders them. well then i sort of HAD to try one. lol and actually...they were really good!!!!!!! once you get past the texture of it. :P

hmmmm....what else? oh! i guess i could tell you about the excursions. :P so our ship stopped at Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. At Jamaica, I went on an excursion that took us to these really cool waterfalls that you get to climb! now it's not like straight up-and-down waterfalls. that would be scary. lol it's more like a river on a slight incline, if ya know what i mean. ;) it was a lot of fun. the next part was the best part: we got to SWIM WITH DOLPHINS!!!!!!!! *squeal* it was sooooo exciting. i even got to kiss one!!!!!!! hehehe it was sooooo much fun. i had never actually touched a dolphin before....they're very rubbery. it was cool. :p Jamaica is an interesting place....it definitely makes you appreciate America. that and it makes the drivers here look very tame. LOL i was very glad to get off that tour bus. seriously!!!! all the tour buses like race each other the whole time! and they pass eachother while going up hill in a no passing zone...it was scary. plus, it was weird getting used to riding on the left side of the road. ;)

Grand Cayman was the next stop. This was actually my favorite of the 3 stops. for my excursion here, guess what i did? *drum roll* i went on a pirate ship! BOO-YEAH! lol it was sooooo cool. they had ppl actually dressed up like pirates, and we sailed around the bay. to make it even better, they actually have REAL pirate accents! lol it was so cool. 1st, we sailed up to our cruise ship. this part was hilarious: we actually "attacked" our own cruise ship! they had all the little kids manning the cannons (which obviously just made a lot of noise. lol). and one of the pirates would yell random things at all the ppl still on board the ship. of course, none of them were expecting it, so the 1st time the cannons went off, you see everyone running out to their balconies all over the ship to see what's going on. and that's when he yelled stuff at them like "wake up!" "stop EATING!" "get off that ship and BUY STUFF!!!" "what are YOU lookin' at?" "SURRENDER!" it was hilarious. then after we finished that, they picked several ppl out of all of us, and i was one of them. so they lined us up and made us swab the deck. seriously. LOL i actually thought it was awesome. hehe. and they would come by and inspect our "swabbing," and then they'd say "not fast enought!" or "put some backbone into it!" etc, then pour a bucket full of water on you. lol of course, the pirate gave me this "rag," if ou can call it that...that was really like half a rag. lol and when we got back up, and i gave him my rag back, he was like "where's the rest of it?!" and i was like "....uhhhh....that's it." lol so he turned to the other pirates and said "this wench stole half of our rag!" then he turned back to me and said "pirate." ROFL. it was hilarious. so, after the swabbing we were officially sworn in as crewmemebers of the Valla Halla, their pirate ship. it was funny. we had to raise our LEFT hands and say stuff like "i will NEVER shave my armpits again," "I will NEVER brush my teeth again," "i will have skittles for breakfast, m&m's for lunch, and butterfingers for dinner." LOL it was great. then the pirate that swore us in walked down the line inspecting us. he stopped at me and said "YOU!" then he whispered "are your parents here?" and i was like "No." he was like "oh." so i whispered back "but my uncle is." lol i don't think Uncle Ronnie ever forgave me. i pointed him out, and one of the pirates forced him down the steps to the main deck where i was, and they tied him up with some rope. then they put him on "trial." and the pirate went thru this long thing about how he was charged with "not spoiling me enough, not buying me expensive presents, making me clean my room and go to bed." stuff like that. lol he then asked us if he was guilty or innocent, and of course we all shouted "GUILTY!" at the same time. not that it was true, of course...but everyone just wanted to see what they'd do. lol so they brought out a bucket of water. the only difference between his bucket and the buckets they had poured on us was that it had ICE in it and was FREEEEZING COLD. lol so they poured the water veeeeeeeeeeery slowly down the back of his neck. when about 1/2 the bucket gone, they stopped and asked if he was sorry, and he was like "no way." LOL so they poured the rest of it on his head. they did it again to another lady as well. of course, he got me back...cuz while we were all standing around talking, one of the pirates snuck up behind me and poure a paper cup filled with the freezing water down my back. hahaha. then came the part i had been waiting for for a couple months (lol): i got to walk of the plank! *squeal* it had always been one of my life-long dreams to walk the plank of a pirate ship. so when i found out that we would be doing that, i couldn't WAIT! so when the time came, i walked up to the plank and slowly walked off of it, like they always do in the movies--with my arms held out, and me taking very slow cautious steps like i'm walking to my death. LOL i savored that moment, and wil relish the memory for the rest of my life. lol :-p then we swam in the bay for the rest of the time. the water there is perfectly blue. you can see down FOREVER. it's sooo beautiful. oh! they also served rum punch. lol but why the rum? :-p cuz it's good! lol that was the best punch i've ever tasted. hehe also, one of the pirates dove from the part of the mast (yes he stood up there like they always do in movies. lol) into the ocean. it looked scary. right before he jumped off, he looked down and yelled "this never gets easy!" lol anyways, the 2nd expedition i went on at the Grand Cayman was a tour of the island. we visited the Tortuga Rum Factory store (yes, Tortuga. awesome, huh?) and then went to the sea turtle farm. i got to hold a baby turtle! which was still bigger than any turtle i've ever seen before. hahaha.

the 3rd and final stop was Cozumel, Mexico. we didn't have any excursions here, but just went shopping. the street that lines the beach where we docked was nothing but stores. lol it was pretty cool. i got some cool stuff, like a couple bracelets, a coffee mug for mom, and hat for dad, a bunch of free jewelry they gave away to ppl coming off cruise ships....lol. we also took a horse and carriage for a tour around the town. it was fun.

now, more about the ship itself......let's see, food: awesome, pools:very cool, oh yeah....every night they put on a different show in the auditorium. and they were usually pretty cool, despite the female dancers' *ahem* scant clothing. :-p they also had this Hawaiin lady that put on a magic show one night. that was awesome. at the beginning, for like the intro or whateva, she played the song from the movie "The Fifth Element," the part where Diva Plavalaguna is singing that freakin' awesome song. :-p that won me over immediately, cuz i loooooove that song. lol they also had a talent show the last night, where like 6 or 7 ppl that had won the karoake contests got to each sing a song, with costumes, lighting, dancers, the whole package. that was pretty cool. hmmmmm....oh! like the 2nd day or something like that they had this "Hairy chest competition" on the pool deck. that was.......interesting......LOL they had 2 lines of women volunteers (i was NOT one of them. lol), then they had several men that volunteered to enter the contest. each man would walk down the steps to the deck and "show off" his chest. lol then he would in between the women and they would feel his chest, then they would decide who the 3 finalists were. it was funny.....and yet disturbing.....at the same time. LOL the 3 finalists had to do a belly flop in the pool, and whoever was the best got the...as Mark the cruise director always called it.....the "plastic gold ship on a stick." LOL that was the "trophy." hehe anyways, the guy that won was this old man who called himself "Tarzan." hahahahaha. that was the weirdest thing i went to. lol

ok, now for the best part, which i saved for last on purpose. lol that would be.....Sam. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sam was one of the male dancers. he gave 2 dance classes, both of which i attended. he was ver cool. from New Zealand, so he had a really cool accent. ;) but anyways, i found out after the 1st dance class that he was a STUNT MAN IN ALL 3 LORD OF THE RINGS MOVIES!!!! yes, that's right. i met some one from LOTR. BOO-YEAH!!! sure, he wasn't like one of the main characters or anything, but it was still awesome! another dream of mine (not life-long, obviously, since the movies didn't come out til 2001 or something like that): to meet someone from the LOTR movies. so 2 of my dreams were fulfilled by this cruise. ;) he was my favorite dancer to say the least. and during the 2nd dance class, we had to have partners, and i was the ONLY one without a partner. so guess who got to be my partner? that's right...i got to dance with Sam. i was SO excited. lol and my grandmother and my uncle got pics to prove it. LOL anyways, i'm done ranting now. you can tell i still get excited about it. :-p lol anyways, i think i'm FINALLY done with my "summary" of the cruise. i hope i didn't bore y'all TOO much. lol i'll write about Italy soon. ;) and i'll post pics of the cruise when i'm at home and have the pics. ;) namarie,

Steph