Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Home from Paradise....

....and boy it was hard to get off that boat. The cruise director "Butch" warns you the day before you get home that you will experience "cruise withdrawal" for up to 2 weeks after returning home. And he is so right, you get home and the bed isn't magically made, there isn't food ready to eat at every turn and the towels in the bathroom this morning were the same ones I hung on the rack yesterday...not to mention I didn't have a "towel critter" on my bed with 2 mints last night! One day we got a very cute surprise with a monkey hanging from the curtains.

Truly we had such a wonderful time and it was an honor and blessing to share that time with 2 of our dearest friends. Jeff is such a good sport and so much fun to be around, he is definitely the life of the party. They pulled him out of the audience and onto stage the very first night (we didn't have our cameras...shocking I know, but we thought we couldn't take pictures in the lounge during the shows). He had to do a little dance and was voted Mr. Carnival Fantasy -- needless to say he was famous for 5 days. Everywhere we went the people recognized him and talked about how great he was and truly he was fabulous. We did a lot of fun things on board and even went dancing one night...that was a lot of fun. Rocky and I had NEVER been dancing in 18 years together, so it was quite a fun time, I was totally surprised that he agreed and participated.

Our only disappointment on the cruise was that a taxi driver stole the only opportunity we were looking forward to in Progresso, Mexico. We had been told by several people that this particular port was pretty much just a small depressed town, but had read enough and done research to know that there was a Flamingo Reserve in this town. Dawn & I were ready to go get some great pictures. So we got off the boat headed out to the shuttle area and the taxi drivers are out there also. The guys went to talk to the taxi guys about going to see the flamingos, which is only a $6 fare. Well they told them that they had just been out there and that this was not the "season" for the flamingos, but they would love to take us to the ruins for $60. Well, we were only interested in meeting Paco & Rita Flamago (the flamingos). So, we got back on the boat and went to hang out at the pool for a while. Later that evening we met a gentleman and he was telling us about his day and the beautiful, bright, amazingly colored flamingos he had seen at the reserve. We were so sad and somewhat angry because then we realized the taxi driver just didn't want to take a $6 fare when there were people wanting to go on the trip to the ruins for the $60 fare. Sad, but its okay, we'll always remember the Flamagos that we didn't meet. In fact I then named the one no-show couple in the dining room Paco & Rita, since we never met them either. The next day we went to Cozumel and Dawn shopped while we window shopped. There was a nice breeze and it wasn't miserably hot, so it was a nice day to be shopping.

The meals in the dining room were awesome and dessert divine...warm melting chocolate cake w/vanilla ice cream...yes it was super fine! We had one other couple dining with us, they were from New York and after the first few nights warmed up nicely to us. It was much more enjoyable this year having a couple with us that we knew, since neither of us are overly comfortable with people we don't know. Our waitress Vanya and her assitant Rowena were amazing and saw to our every need and made sure nobody left the dining room hungry. The waitstaff is awesome and they do fun mini shows each night, with singing and dancing and even get us involved on occasion. One night even found the guys all dancing with the waitstaff and then the women doing the macarena...yes imagine me trying to do the macarena..it was quite a sight.

We attempted to play miniature golf up on the top deck one evening, that lasted about 10 minutes. THE WIND WAS HORRIBLE. It was a great photo opportunity but Dawn has those photos and I haven't gotten copies yet, but it was pretty darn funny. You would think the guy checking out the balls and clubs would have said, hey its pretty windy up there I don't think this is going to be a good idea, but he didn't. It was fun anyways even if it was shortlived.

There are so many stories I could tell and write about but the most important thing is we had a great time and the 4 of us are already looking into when and where we'll be going next year, I think we already have a tentative plan, but we'll see how that works out.


1 comment:

Braxton's Mommy said...

Robin, It sounds like yall had a blast. When we went the towel critters were my fav. too!!! SO glad yall had fun!!