Homeward Bound (January 16th, 2016)

Yesterday was our last day at sea, so we slept in, with no intention of setting an alarm. When we finally woke up, the seas were calm. It was definitely getting cooler, as we headed back north, and back into winter. So we enjoyed our final day at sea, and our final cruising companion.

Today we will end of our Caribbean Cruise with our daughter in the port of Galveston, where we started. We woke up this morning to foggy skies again as we made our way back into the port. The temperatures are probably in the 50's and it's cloudy.

Last night they gave us two options for disembarking. The first is called self assist, which is definitely the easiest option if you drove to the cruise terminal and aren't waiting on any particular transportation. It requires you to carry all of your bags off the ship yourself. The only problem with this option is that the elevators are usually pretty busy on the last day of the cruise and it's hard to handle luggage on the stairs. Self assist passengers are usually the first to leave the ship. 

The other option is to leave your bags outside your door the night before, and they will move them to the cruise terminal for you. With this option, they prioritize passengers by when their flights leave, to ensure that everyone gets to the airport in plenty of time. They give you a group number, and when your group is called, you can disembark. Since we were using Carnivals transportation to get to and from the airport, we chose to leave our bags out the night before, and have them transported to the terminal for us.

We got up at about 7:30, in order to be out of our room by 8:30, which is what they require in order to get the rooms ready for the next guests that will be coming in later in the day. We left our carry-on bags in our room and headed to breakfast. They had all of the usual breakfast options available, so we sat out on the back pool deck and enjoyed a nice quiet breakfast. 

The dining room on the Lido deck was really busy, but the back pool deck was nice and quiet. When we finished breakfast, we went back to the room and gathered up our carry-on bags, then returned to our table to wait for our group to be called. They called most of the self assist groups, and then our group was one of the first "assisted" groups to be called to disembark, so we made our way to the front of the ship. We scanned our Sail-n-Sign cards for the final time and headed off the ship and into the cruise terminal. Once in the terminal, we located our bags, which are sorted by debarkation group number, and got into the long line to go through customs.

They were forming two customs lines, so as we got in line, I looked at the other line to see who we were next to, and when we got to the front of the line, we were still next to the same people. The lines moved very evenly. 

We got through customs very quickly, but some of the people had to do finger prints, thumb prints and a lot of other stuff that we didn't have to do. The only thing I could think of is that they weren't U.S. citizens. I don't really know fully! It took about an hour to get through customs, then we were free to head out of the cruise terminal to our transportation. We were using the Carnival provided buses, so we picked up our bus tickets and crawled on our bus. We had to wait for about half an hour for the bus to fill up before we headed to the airport. 

We had a nice long wait at the airport since our flight didn't leave until 2:55, but everything went as planned, and before we knew it, we were on our way home. As we descended into Denver, there was still a lot of snow on the ground. Apparently it has been cold while we were away.

I want to take a minute to recap the gluten free dining on the ship, because it was such a positive experience.  Our daughter was never limited on her selections.  She was offered the same menu each night as we were, the only difference was that she reviewed the menu the night before so they would have time to specially prepare her appetizers, entrees and desserts. 

Houston always handed her the menu with a smile on his face, and never made her feel uncomfortable for needing special food.  And, I have to say, it was fun to see what the chef would do to make her request gluten free.  She said that it wasn't always what she expected, but it was always very tasty, and very much appreciated by all of us.

First Day at Sea Gulf of Mexico (Sunday, January 10th, 2016)

We slept in this morning to try and regenerate our batteries. Our daughter was still asleep when Steve and I woke up, so he went and grabbed us some coffee and I sat down to blog. It is in the mid 70’s this morning, so much nicer than yesterday but still a little cool. It is cloud covered, so no sunshine to warm our bones. We have our curtains open in our room as we sail along, and we keep seeing oil rigs off in the distance. It’s amazing how many there are. 

We're making progress on our little voyage

Our daughter woke up about the time I had finished writing, so we all got dressed and headed to breakfast. We did breakfast in the dining room rather than going to the buffet. They serve the same food at both, so the difference is just the atmosphere. We all shared a fruit tray, Our daughter had two eggs and bacon, Steve had salmon eggs benedict and I had an omelet. It was all very good.

After breakfast we came back to the room and changed into our swimwear. Even though it’s chilly outside, we decided it would be nice to sit by the pool and maybe use the hot tub. There were quite a few people out on deck, but it certainly wasn’t crowded.  As we walked by the lido deck grill, I told Steve to take a look at all the hash browns they were cooking, and he quickly corrected me to let me know it was bacon.  Yikes!  That's a lot of bacon!  And I'm sure it was one batch of many they would prepare today.

We spent the morning at the back pool (18 and older) on the lido deck talking to people and took a few dips in the hot tub. The nice warm water felt great, until you had to get out, then it was a little chilly. 

Certainly not sun bathing weather yet, bet we're getting there!

This felt great, until we got out!

We ate lunch from the buffet, Steve had a hamburger and our daughter and I both went to the Mongolian BBQ. They have noodles and an assortment of vegetables to choose from, then you tell them what type of meat and sauce you want and they cook it up for you. It was very tasty and pretty healthy too, I think.

After lunch we toured the ship a little more. 

We walked through the spa and into the gym and the locker rooms. It was pretty busy and was a really nice facility. They had saunas and steam rooms, tons of equipment and a pool/hot tub combo in the gym area. I think everyone was getting their work out’s in while the weather was marginal so that they could enjoy the great weather later!

I have a lot of respect for them.  I have never worked out on a cruise ship in my life, and hopefully never will.  Workouts at home are enough for me!

After our little self-guided tour, we found a little table with comfy chairs and sat down for a few games of Yahtzee. It was definitely not my day for gambling it Yahtzee was any indicator!  Our daughter beat us at all but the last game.

As we make our way south, we can definitely feel the temperatures rising. So even though the sun isn’t out, at least we’re in a part of the world where the temperatures are warmer than they would be at home and we can run around with just a light jacket.  It's winter everywhere, even in the northern Caribbean.

Carnival usually has one or two “elegant” nights, depending on the length of the cruise. These a usually on a “sea day”, and are a night when everyone gets dressed up for dinner. They usually offer a special menu for the occasion. Tonight will be our first elegant night for this cruise.

Showering with three people in the room is always interesting, but over the years we’ve worked out a good system. Steve and I usually shower first, and then get out of the room and tell the girls where to meet us when they are ready. Our daughter hasn’t felt that well since we got on the boat, so she took a nap while we got ready.

When we were ready, we decided to let her sleep a little longer, so we walked up to the bar on the back of the Lido deck and ordered a beer. We were lucky because the bar wasn’t crowded, so we had a really nice chance to talk to the bar tender, Suriya, when he wasn't busy. 

Suriya is 28 and is from India. His English is very good, and he really enjoys talking to the guests. He has worked for Carnival for 5 years and loves his job. He says that he feels sorry for the food service people because their job is much harder than his, but that he loves bar tending.  He is a single man, and when he first left home he was really homesick, but as time has gone on, he has become accustomed to being away and really loves being on a cruise ship.   As he watches other cruise ship employees, they either leave after a few contracts, or make it their life.  He has two bank accounts back in India, one for himself and one for his family. When he gets paid part of each paycheck goes into each account. He says that now that he’s used to living on a cruise ship, he rarely calls home any more. It sounds like he will be a life long cruise ship employee.

When our daughter was ready for dinner, she came up and found us at the bar. We had to go back to the room and change into our elegant wear for dinner. We then headed back up to the promenade deck where they were holding a meet and greet with the captain and his officers. We had one burning question that we really wanted to ask them, and that was how much fuel this ship uses. There answer was it uses about 80 gallons per mile. Yikes, that’s a lot of fuel! We now understand why we were a little bit late leaving port yesterday. It takes some time to put that much fuel in a ship.

We were a little late for dinner last night because we chose to go to the welcome aboard show, so we wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. We got down to dinner a few minutes early and stood waiting for the doors to open with some other people that also got there early. We looked behind us, and the other three people from our table were standing there, so we walked over and joined them. They are very nice and fun to talk to. When they opened the doors to dinner we all walked in together and found our table. Since our daughter had pre-ordered her meal last night, she didn’t need a menu, and best of all, knew that her meal would be all gluten free. Carnival handles this so nicely! The rest of us ordered our meals, our whole family ordered the lobster dinner, and then Steve order a prime rib in addition for all of us to share. It was really good! As we waited for our dessert, our wait staff entertained us for a few minutes.  Houston, our head waiter is from St. Vincent, in the southern Caribbean.  He has worked for Carnival for 10 years and loves entertaining!  How he dances with that glass of water on his head, I'll never know.  

Ivan, part of Houston's support staff, was more reserved, and preferred to entertain behind a mask and glasses.  He is from the Ukraine and has a brother that also works for Carnival, but on a different ship. He has a masters degree in International Economics, but says that he can make 7-8 times more working for Carnival than he can at home.  He is currently on his second contract with Carnival.

We really enjoy taking the time to get to know these wonderful people from all over the world.  They are all so interesting!  After our wonderful entertainment, we had coffee and chocolate melting cake for dessert since it is our silent addiction. 

We then headed to the comedy club for some more laughs before it was time to head for bed, so we could wake in the morning and see what tomorrow has in store for us.  Of course the night would not be complete without a visit from one of the carnival creatures to tuck us in.