Anchors Away!

What do you get when you take 2 sisters, put them on a ship in the Gulf of Mexico, with a drink in their hands, and 5 days to kill? FUN---- and lots of it!!!

Bethany and I are back ashore (and trying to get our "land legs" back) after 5 wonderful, fun filled days and nights at sea! What a much needed break from reality, and even more fun that either of us could have imagined. We had such a terrific time just laying out by the pool, eating great food anytime/anywhere we wanted, having some drinks, being a little pampered and spoiled, meeting new friends, and just spending time together.

I am not known for my good fortune in life, but this time, everything was smooth sailing (no pun intended) from the get go. Our flight to Houston actually arrived early, so we thought that we would have to kill almost 2 hours at the airport waiting for our shuttle that we had scheduled. It just so happened that our luggage was the first to come off of the carousel, and our shuttle company had a shuttle pull up right then- and they had room for us even though we didn't have a reservation for that time. So, off to Galveston we went- of course thinking that we would have to spend the afternoon exploring the port, since we couldn't board the ship until 2 pm. We were fine with that, heck, killing time in a tropical location wouldn't be a problem for me! Upon arriving at the terminal, we were handed a notice that we could actually board the ship right away, and even though we couldn't go to our stateroom yet, we could certainly do everything else on board- they were even serving food early. Luckily, we had thought ahead to pack our swimming suits in our carry on, and were able to grab a drink and catch a few rays poolside more than 3 hours before we even thought we would be allowed to step foot on board! During the course of the trip, the ship apparently had to divert some storms in the Gulf, so we ended up having an entire extra half a day tacked on to our adventure. Sure, there were people on board that were upset about it because they were going to miss their flights, but we were completely fine with it- I will take an extra half a day of vacation for free any day! We were already booked on the last flight out anyway (hoping to go standby on an earlier one if we could), so it worked out perfectly for us!

View of the Lido Deck Pool upon boarding

Not wasting any time!

Once our stateroom was available, we unpacked and rested up a bit before getting ready for dinner. Each and every night, when coming in to turn down the bed, our room steward would make a different animal out of a towel, and it would be on our beds waiting for us. I won't bore you with all of them (yes, we took pictures every night), but just an example:

I must admit, neither of us were overly excited about having to dine with perfect strangers for our dinner every night, as they assign you to a table and table mates. To our surprise, we got what could possibly be the coolest cruise ship table in the history of cruises! We sat with two wonderful, fun, couples and hit it off with them right away. We ended up spending much of our time hanging out the 6 of us, and have already been in touch by phone and email many times in the couple of days since coming home. We are all already talking about a reunion cruise next spring!! In that short of a time of being together, we all really formed a neat bond. Thank you guys for helping to make this so much fun- we miss you already! (And I think Jason is getting sick of hearing about "the guys"! - Just kidding, he actually wants to come and crash our fun next year.)

Our "Group" (Lalo and Dave, us, Blake and Matt)

With Tina, the cruise director at the Lido Deck Party

Anyone who has ever cruised before knows that there is always at least one formal night on the ship..... and anyone that knows me knows that that it is rare to see me out of sweats and with makeup on (my stay home mom uniform, as I call it). Here is your proof, I can clean up when I have an occasion to do so:

We spent only one day at our Port of Call, Cozumel, Mexico. There is so much to do on the ship, that we didn't even come close to marking off our "to do list", so one stop was more than sufficient. We spent the day there doing some local shopping, stopping at a Fat Tuesday's for a drink (can't be on vacation in the tropics without a Fat Tuesday run, if it is available!), and going to Chankanaab National Marine Park. We ate a Mexican lunch in a straw hut restaurant, right on the water. After lunch, we went swimming in the ocean- where we were had natural rock formation steps that led down into the water. It was crystal clear, aqua blue, and the tropical fish would just swarm around you, and let you touch them. So beautiful.

(What's a vacation without sticking your face in at least one cut out? We had to do it!)

Cozumel from our ship as we pulled in

Mmmmm..... Daquiri and Pina Colada at Fat Tuesday's

This is our boat as seen from Cozumel

Our ship (Ecstasy) docked next to it's sister ship (Fantasy) out of New Orleans

As with all vacations, it went too quickly. It was a wonderful time, and I am so glad we were able to have the chance to do this. Now it is time to get back to reality..... and start planning for next year!