Second Day at Sea Northern Caribbean (Monday, January 11th, 2016)

When I first woke up this morning, I looked out the window and there was dense fog. That certainly didn’t give me a reason to want to get up, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. At about 8:00, I tried it again. This time when I looked out, the fog had lifted, but now I can see water running down our window. 

I guess this means that it’s time to blog since I don’t need to rush to the poolside chairs to get a tan. My sweet husband ran up to the lido deck and grabbed us both some coffee to drink as I sat her and typed. He’s just that kind of guy! Whether we’re on a cruise ship or in a hotel, he always makes a coffee run for us while I’m getting ready. He’s so sweet!

It was a nice leisurely day, since the rain decided to stick with us. The back pool deck has a retractable roof, so during the night last night they closed the roof. 

The 18 and over pool,with the retractable roof closed

It makes the area a bit humid, but very comfortable in a rain storm. It is an 18 and over area, so we could just spend the day by the pool, in and out of the hot tub, relaxing. Our daughter is still not feeling great today. She feels good for a while and then goes back to feeling bad. We feel sorry for her, but it makes us happy that our days are relaxing and not crazy busy.  Hopefully she will feel better when we get to our first port.

For lunch today, Steve and I both went to the Guy Fiery Burger Bar. This is a relatively new option being offered on the Carnival Freedom ship.  They hand make your burger for you, and then have a topping bar with lots of yummy toppings.  It's way more food than I can eat, but a great treat!

And our daughter enjoyed another gluten free pizza, hand made just for her!

Although it's rainy, its really quite comfortable outside, so we spent some time on the outer decks just enjoying the day.

A view of the retractable roof from the outside.  We love this!

Plenty of people in the main pool area, even though it's raining

As we walked to the front of the ship, we could see the next big rain storm approaching, so we decided to once again head inside for awhile.

We opted for an afternoon game of blackjack

and a little afternoon snack of ceviche and bar-b-qued octopus

Again tonight, Steve and I got ready first, then left the room to go sit at the back bar while our daughter got ready. We have really enjoyed talking to Suriya the bar tender at the back lido bar. When our daughter was ready tonight, she met us at our usual spot, and we all headed up to the promenade deck to watch an acoustic guitar player. He was really good and brought in a pretty good crowd.

The great thing about rain during the day is beautiful skies at night!

We headed to another nice dinner in the dining room. After dinner instead of heading to comedy, we went with our dinner table mates to the theater to watch the nightly show. It was called 88 Keys, and started out as a piano bar, but then turned into a complete singing and dancing show, based on the piano. It was a really good show. 

When the show was over, we headed to the headliner for a little more Sheila Kay comedy before turning in for the night.  When we got to the room tonight, we were greeted by another towel friend to keep us company through the night.

How does the housekeeping staff have time for this???

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.

Leaving for Galveston (Saturday, January 9th, 2016)

We got about four inches of snow again yesterday. They say that’s what we should expect in an El Nino year, but not necessarily what we want. If we still enjoyed skiing, snow would be a great thing, but right now it just means shoveling, slow traffic and very dirty cars.

We made another phone change before we left on this trip. We paid an extra $40 to Verizon this month to have cell phone coverage from the ship and at each of our ports. If you have Verizon, you can call 611 from your cell phone and it will put you in touch with the international representative who will give you pricing for international travel phone coverage. We decided that the extra $40 would be worth it to be able to talk to our older daughter while we were away.

We left the house at 4:45 this morning for a 7:25 flight to Houston Hobby Airport. We will be boarding the Carnival Freedom later today for a seven-day cruise in the northern Caribbean. As we drove to Denver International Airport it was 21 degrees outside and some of the roads were still icy from yesterday's snow.  Security lines were longer than we expected, probably still the end of the holiday travelers.  

Our flight to Houston was completely full, and in fact, it was over sold, so they were asking for people to take a bump. Unfortunately that wouldn't work for us this time, but maybe another time.  The flight on Southwest Airlines was very good, and got into Houston about 15 minutes early. We landed at about 11:00 a.m. It was 55 degrees when we landed, so the temperatures are definitely moving in the right direction.

We are taking this trip with just our youngest daughter. Our oldest daughter started her “big girl job” on January 4th, and is getting her career off to a good start, and our son (in-law) is back in training in Georgia.

When we booked our Carnival Cruise, we purchased the airport to ship transportation option that they provide for $37 per person each way for about an hour ride.They had a check-in desk right in the baggage claim area at the Houston Hobby airport, which made it really easy. We checked in after picking up our bags, and then waited about 30 minutes for the rest of the bus passengers to arrive.

We talked to the Carnival representative at the airport and she said that a lot of people flew in yesterday and stayed at a local hotel, then caught the hotel shuttle back to the airport this morning in time to catch the first bus to the ship. We hadn’t thought of that, but might have to try it next time. They run three buses a day on arrival days to get people from the airport to the ship.

Once everyone had arrived, they walked us all out to the bus, which was a nice big coach bus. 

We told them that we wanted to carry our luggage on when we got to the ship, so they put it in a separate bay from the other luggage so it wouldn’t automatically be taken by the porters when we got to the ship. We appreciated that very much!  

The cruise lines typically handle your luggage when you arrive, and as quickly as they can, they deliver it to your room. Since there are thousands of passengers on the ship, this can take quite a bit of time, and until your luggage arrives, you don’t have access to it. So we prefer to just carry our luggage on ourselves and put it in our room. That way we have everything we need, and don’t have to wait on the luggage delivery people. 

We always enjoy seeing how different life is in different places. As we came over the bridge into Galveston, there were beautiful neighborhoods (on stilts of course) built right on the water, and in Galveston, it's all about oil. Everywhere you look has something to do with oil.  

Since we came straight from the airport and used the Carnival transportation, we got to skip the long lines and go straight through priority security and check-in at the ship. It was very nice because the main lines looked really long. 

 Carnival cruises are all inclusive except for alcohol, and alcohol can be quite expensive. We don’t drink a lot, but we do enjoy a drink here and there, so we always take advantage of the carry on wine policy that Carnival has. Each person over 21 can carry on one bottle of wine. If you choose to drink it with dinner, there is a $15 uncorking fee, but if you just drink it in your room, or around the ship, it is free to enjoy anywhere else on the ship. Just don’t forget to bring a corkscrew, although our housekeeping staff has helped us with in the past. 

The other thing we also always pack for a cruise ship (and hotels too) is extra hangars. We keep lots of metal hangars from the dry cleaners around just for this purpose. There is plenty of closet space on cruise ships, but never enough hangars.

When we got to our room, it was just as we expected it to be.

Plenty of room for the three of us for a week

Looking back toward the window

Cozy, but efficient!

After we got our bags to our room, we headed out to explore the ship a little it. All of the Carnival ships have basically the same layout, but are decorated differently. The buffet style restaurants are always open when you get on board to provide food to hungry travelers. This was a good thing for us today since we got up at 4:00 a.m., had a small breakfast, and really hadn’t eaten anything else since. We all found a little something for lunch at the Italian buffet.  We walked around the ship some more, but it was really cold and windy on the outside decks so we didn’t spend much time out there. 

The ships always do a safety briefing before they set sail, which varies by ship, but requires the passengers to report to their “muster” station. This is an area out of the side decks of the ship where the lifeboats are stored. They explain what to do in an emergency while you are standing out there. Since it’s quite cold outside today, we went back to the cabin and grabbed our coats before reporting to our station. This turned out to be a really good idea. There were a lot of really cold people huddled around trying to get through the safety talk. 

We each only brought one or two pairs of pants, so were hoping that as the ship makes it way south that it starts warming up or we’re going to be doing a lot of re-wearing.

After the safety briefing we found ourselves a nice, warm inside table from which to watch the sail away. 

Our daughter and I went out to the pizza bar to see if they had gluten free crust, and to our surprise they do. They made her, her very own, hot out of the oven gluten free pizza with any toppings she wanted. It took about 4 minutes to get her pizza. What a nice surprise! 

As we sat at our table, eating pizza and waiting for the sail away, we noticed a school of dolphins right outside our window. They swam around the side of the ship for about an hour. What a treat! I tried to get a few pictures, but only had a little point and shoot camera, so not much luck, but it was really fun to see them.

If you look closely, you can see a mama and baby jumping side by side

Galveston sunset

We prefer to have the late dinner slot, so that we are never rushed to get back on the ship after our excursion days. Our dinner time this trip is 8:15. We had time to go to the welcome aboard show before going down to dinner.  In the main restaurant there is assigned seating. We have been seated with another family of three. A mom, with her daughter and son from Freemont, Nebraska. They are really nice and about our age, so they will be fun to eat with each night. 

Steve had the vegetarian option, which is always Indian. Carnival usually has Indian chef’s, so the Indian food is always really good. I had grilled mahi mahi and creamed spinach and our daughter had grilled chicken and a baked potato. We all also had an appetizer and chocolate melting cake for dessert. Our daughter had ice cream since she can’t have gluten. 

From now on, our daughter will order a day ahead, and all of her meals will be prepared gluten free for her.  As we finished our dessert, they brought tomorrow-nights menu to our table, and she picked out all of her selections for tomorrow night, including gluten free chocolate melting cake. We are very pleased with how Carnival is handling her meals, and they do it all with a huge smile on their faces.

After dinner we went to the comedy club where we watched two really good comedians, Thomas Brown and Sheila Kay. They usually have good comedians on Carnival cruises, but we thought these two were exceptional. After the comedy club we all headed back to our room for some much needed sleep.

Happy New Year (January 4th, 2016)

It is now January 4th, and we are thawing out for the first time since we've been home.  The temperatures have not been above freezing in almost a month.  This is the type of weather that gets me down.  Steve and I have tried to go for a walk a few times, but we only go about half a mile and then it's time to come in because we're really cold.  

Shortly after Christmas, our son (in-law) had to head back to Georgia  for a few days of mandatory work.  Our daughter took him to the airport, which is always hard for her.  We took time to take down all of the Christmas decorations and get the house back in order, which always feels kind of good.  

On December 30th our oldest daughter headed up to Estes Park. She is the matron of honor in her sister-in-law's wedding.  She, the groom and the brides dad all headed up early to string some lights and get things set up.  The rest of the bridal party would join them later in the day.  

Our son (in-law) was supposed to arrive back in Denver at about 9:00 p.m. on the 30th of December.  This meant that he would miss the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner, but would be there to help with any last minute details for his sister's wedding.  As we watched his flight throughout the evening, it just kept getting delayed.  

For some reason, flights out of Georgia, especially in the evening, are always late.  He ended up getting in at about midnight, so Steve and I were on-call to go get him and help him get to Estes Park as quickly as possible.  We sat in the Cell Phone Lot at Denver International Airport until he saw on the train back to the main terminal, then we headed out to Terminal East to pick him up. It was a very busy night at DIA.  As he came out of the terminal, we were stuck in the traffic waiting to pick people up.  We stayed in the left lane (which is usually the fast lane), but it seemed to be moving slower than the right lane.  As we were waiting, we could see our son (in-law) walking out of the parking structure toward us.  We were still waiting to get into the structure.  We made our way into the right lane, and as we passed through the structure, we could see that there was an SUV parked in the fast lane of traffic, holding up everyone who were trying to pick up their passengers.  

Once we got our son (in-law) in the car, we took him back to the Cell Phone Lot where we had his car waiting for him.  He quickly headed out for Estes Park and Steve and I headed home.  We got home at about 1:00 a.m. and by 2:00 a.m. we were heading to bed.

New Year's eve was wedding day.  Our oldest daughter and son (in-law) were already in Estes Park.  We picked up our youngest daughter's boyfriend at about 4:00 and headed for one of the most beautiful places in Colorado.  It takes about an hour and a half to get there from our house, and we were hoping to get there while it was still light enough to see and maybe take some pictures, but as we came over the hill and started dropping down into Estes Park, the sun was setting.  The beautiful mountains quickly disappeared into darkness.  We were sad that we didn't really get to take in this grand valley before the sunset. 

The wedding was held in a beautiful rustic church that was all decked out for Christmas.  We had a chance to take a few pictures before the ceremony started.

Our youngest daughter and her boyfriend.  I love it when they get all dressed up.  It doesn't happen often.

The Christmas tree and poinsettias made such a pretty backdrop

When the wedding was over, we headed to the reception, which was held in a lodge on the edge of the lake.  Most of the wedding pictures were taken outside during the heat of the day, but the high today in Estes Park was 6 degrees, so from what our oldest daughter told us, it was a cold affair.  We're very excited to see the pictures, I bet they are gorgeous!

The reception was a lot of fun and included party favors and a toast for the New Year, and of course lots of dancing.  We left the reception at about 1:00 am and arrived back home at about 2:30.  

We had a very low key day on New Years day.  Early in the afternoon our youngest daughter wanted to try her hand at some photography, so she and I went on a trek to get some snow pictures.

Bunny tracks

It's been almost a month since it snowed, but the front yard still has quite a bit.

Although it was cold, the snow sparkled and shimmered as we walk along and shot our pictures.  It was great to get outside and enjoy a little fresh air while the sun was up to warm our faces.  We're looking forward to warmer days, but it was nice to enjoy the beauty of Colorado snow.