The Midnight Showing of Trisha

Cruise Askew, Day 3 in Nassau

As the day before in Freeport, Nassau started bright and early with a 9:15am departure time for the excursion to the Atlantis Aquaventure.  Unlike in Freeport where a lot of us branched off to different excursions, most of us went to Atlantis.  Adam, Nicole, Gavin, & Nikki had decided to fork over the extra dough to swim with the dolphins, while Katie, James, Lena, Crystal, Ed, Joe, Andrew, Drena & I all decided to do just the water park portion.  Carrie & Steven ended up coming with us too because the dive they were scheduled for was canceled due to choppy waters.  Atlantis was my favorite part of the Bahamas HANDS DOWN!

Gorgeous.  Now this was the tropical paradise we'd been hoping for.  Definitely more touristy than Freeport, but that's just what we wanted.  It took us about an hour to get to the park from port and through the long ass tour they take you on before letting you loose.  I made the error in judgment to only bring the disposable waterproof camera I'd bought with me and not my normal camera, not really knowing that there would be SO much cool stuff to take pictures of before getting to the slides.  I figured slides are slides, pictures aren't 100% needed, but I was wrong.  LUCKILY, Katie was a champ and remembered hers, and wisely relinquished it to me during the tour and I must have taken probably a hundred photos just of the grounds as we were walking through.  You think I'm lazy getting these updates up, she still hasn't taken the photos off her camera and sent them to me.  I think I may have to go to her house next weekend to retrieve them myself!  I was able to snag some that others took, so here's a delicious taste.







That walkway in the last photo isn't actually a walkway, though that's what most of us assumed it was at first glance.  That's actually one big suite.  The tour guide pointed out that celebrities like Michael Jackson have stayed there.  The price is $25,000 per night with at least a 4 night commitment and books years in advance.  It has views of both sides of the island, over the resort and beach and out to the ocean on both sides.  Just... WOW. 







We decided to attack The Current before hitting the slides... there's a slide called the Leap of Faith that's something like a 120 foot drop that dumps you into the lazy river, and several people wanted to go on that.  Crystal and I... not so much.  So we opted to just grab some tubes and jump into this lazy river.  Well, it wasn't that lazy.  It was actually more of a rapids ride... think Rip Roaring Rapids for those familiar with Great America... except with an individual tube like at Waterworld or Raging Waters.  Of course, no rocks, more artificial rapids created by strategically placed water jets, but it was a nice balance back and forth from scream like a little girl rapids to lazy floating.  Crystal & I were greatly amused at how far apart we got at some points because of the rapids.  We did a round and jumped out.  We'd been separated from most our group and Ed had opted not to get in the water at all after feeling the colder winds that were blowing through, so he was keeper of some of our stuff by one of the big pools.  We'd left most of it like clothes, cameras, etc. in the lockers at the main visitor center, but he chilled in a shaded lounge chair with our towels and sunscreen.  I believe Carrie & Steven chilled with him awhile, so he was definitely not bored.

Again, I've failed you for photos... I took a bunch with my waterproof disposable camera, but I haven't taken that camera in to get developed yet.  So, that'll be it's own post I guess.

I personally hadn't really noticed the wind until after we were getting out of the water (of course).  It wasn't as nasty overcast in Nassau as it had been in Freeport; the sun was out most of the time and it was definitely brighter and bluer skies, but there was a chilly wind blowing.  Crystal and I headed almost straight past Ed and into the neighboring pool.  Soon after Lena and Katie found us and Katie joined us in the pool.  We spent a lot of time just chilling talking with the majority of our bodies submerged in water to keep warm (yes, the water was warm... just like I'd dreamed for Bahamian water!), then finally got out to utilize our meal vouchers and get some lunch at the snack bar near the pool.  As we were eating with Carrie, Steven, Ed & Crystal, the others managed to find us.  We spent the time drying off and getting our grub on while attempting to solidify plans for the rest of the afternoon.  We decided that once we were all done we'd head over to the two aquariums that Atlantis boasted.  We had wanted to meet up with the 4 that went for the dolphin excursion, but without cell phones (NO ONE wanted to mess with $6.99/minute international rates!) there wasn't much way to communicate.  Although we headed over to the aquarium in kind of two groups since some were going to stop off at the lockers first, and while they were there they ran into the dolphin folks, who'd been far delayed and were more interested in enjoying the slides than the aquariums at that particular moment.



It was about that time that I first learned (cause I haven't been in the loop I guess) that Gavin had been long planning to propose to Nikki while they did the dolphin swimming.  And she'd said yes!  Gavin, you suave motherfucker... this boy made arrangements with the people at Atlantis to, during their experience, have a dolphin swim over to them holding a buoy that said "Will You Marry Me?"  I guess originally he wanted the dolphin to be carrying the ring somehow in a waterproof container or something, but people quickly talked him out of it.  What a dreamy way to propose to a woman... via dolphin in the Bahamas... and I LOVE dolphins, ask anyone whose seen my collection of dolphin stuff... so yes, consider me super jealous!  It was just so romantic and sweet and great.  Couldn't have happened to a nicer couple of people to find each other either.



So, back to the aquarium, aptly titled The Dig.  One of the coolest things was the decor, which again, we'll have to wait for Katie's photos of because I don't see any of our other travel buddies have pictures of it in their albums that they've shared with me.  But, they also had two MASSIVE manta rays.  Like, 10 foot wingspan.



That photo has no scale and doesn't do it justice... once I get the photos from Katie I'm almost certain I have one that has a scale object in it.  When we went through with the group we just had my disposable camera with us, but on our way out of the park we went through again to stop in the gift shop that was in the center of the aquarium halls, so I took a TON of photos of the inside of the aquariums with her camera... it all fascinated me.  I love aquariums.  The decor inside was also rather futuristic in an ancient civilization way, very true to the Atlantis theme.  So there was plenty of photos of that too.  One of the nifty factoids that the tour guide had told us that morning about the aquarium's residents are in such good shape because the water in the aquarium isn't just water treated with chemicals and sea salts to mimic their natural sea water - it IS actual ocean water from the surrounding Caribbean.  Pretty cool.



Once we were done oohing and ahhing as a group, we wandered around the lagoon area to the other side where the smaller predator aquarium was located.  This promised to be sharks, sting rays, barracuda, etc. that, for obvious reasons, can't be housed wiht the other fish.  I have to say I was disappointed - the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas was a much better predator only aquarium attraction.  The decor was basically none, and they were all just in one big bowl like tank.  There was one of those glass domed walk ways, but that was it.  And the sharks are the small ones that aren't that impressive, and there didn't seem to really be that many fish in there either.  So that was a bit of a let down for me, but The Dig made up for it.

In general Atlantis was AWESOME, and I'd love to just fly straight to Nassau and spend more time there to do the dolphin swim, try out more slides, hang in the lagoon, snorkel, feed sharks (yes, they do this twice a day but we missed both times), etc.  The only thing I really didn't like about Atlantis was the exorbantly long tour upon first arrival and that the park was cashless - I specifically brought cash with me to take care of snacks and stuff but even the snack bars only accepted credit card or payment via room key if you were a guest at the resort.  Which was lame, and now I owe Carrie like $4 for an ice cream lol. 

More photos I stole from Crystal since Katie's laggin'...





Once we were done with the two aquariums as a group, it was pretty much decided that we were done for the day.  Drena was having some energy issues because she really needed to get back to the lockers and take her medications, so Joe & Andrew volunteered to go back to get them while the rest of the group stayed with her at the shark area.  Katie and I had decided that, since we already knew we wanted to go back to the gift shop in The Dig before leaving, we'd head back to the lockers with them and get our stuff and then head back to the port.  Once we got back to the lockers we realized that there was an inlet right beside them for The Current, so since it had definitely warmed a bit, we took one last go-round before the park started reeling people in and we got dressed to leave.  We made our stop at the gift shop, taking another slightly less leisurely trip through the aquarium for me to take better photos with Katie's camera.  We wandered back to the bus area through the casino, taking more photos of their really cool dolphin lighting features and a couple of the big glass sculptures they had. 

Just in time, we ended up getting onto what seemed to be the last or second to last bus, and low and behold the rest of our group ended up on that bus too!  So we all rode back to the port.  I was a bit sad to see when we returned that the Harley shop I'd seen that morning was now closed.  I really wanted to get another shirt for my dad, but I was relived when Linnitt later told me that all the stuff inside looked exactly like what Katie and I had shown her that we got at the one in Freeport.  But later that evening as we went to Senor Frogs I had to take a photo of the store anyway.  It's perfectly placed next to a Nascar store - which means my dad would have been like a little boy in a candy store!



Once again I'm going to tease you to say that the festivities for the evening at Senor Frogs are worthy of their own post.  So stay tuned!

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Niles Canyon Railway

As a way belated activity for my husband's birthday, we went to Niles Canyon Railway to ride the train. He's begun to build himself a model train set (he & his dad worked on one when he was young) and so he's been big into checking out trains lately. The train went from one station in Sunol to the other in Fremont, about 30 min ride. On the way there I messed with the Sepia tone on my camera and switched back to color for the return trip. Here's some of my favorite pics from Sunday:

The birthday boy (29 is still a boy, right?) trying to battle a migraine

I think he called this guy a break engineer? He wants to have this photo printed and take it back for this guy.

Going around the bend

They're building a Y at the Niles/Fremont station, this is part of that junction

I just liked the sign on this car in their work yard

Approaching the Niles station

The nose of the locomotive... very Thomas the Tank Engine feel

The side of the train

If that was the nose, I guess this is the mouth?

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Why Girl Scouts Still Shouldn't Allow Internet Sales

This is really irritating me... I caught wind of this story the other day and wrote about my take over at GirlScoutGuide.com: a young girl in North Carolina, obviously with the help of her father, created a video promoting her sales of Girl Scout Cookies and put together an online ordering system for the purchase of the cookies.  Since this does not follow the policies of the Girl Scouts, they were asked to remove the website and video from YouTube.  For some reason a lot of online marketers and tech chic people are painting the Girl Scouts in a bad light because they're not embracing social media and technology and allowing girls to sell cookies online. 

This has been covered on the Wall Street Journal's website, which was of course picked up by the tech-set crowd at Silicon Alley Insider, and there was coverage on the story on the Today show.  All these outlets seem to be preying on the "but she's just a little girl!" emotion card and making it out to be that the Girl Scouts are luddite monsters who are just too afraid to embrace new technology and social media and modern marketing.  Anyone actually familiar with the girl scouts knows that's not the case - I earned several badges related to technology and the internet myself as a scout in the mid to late 90's.  The reason is fairness and safety - they want to make the selling environment that these 5-18 year old girls engage in as safe and as fair as possible.  Since when are the basic principals of safety and fairness something you'd rather toss out the window to teach you daughter about breaking rules?

I want to shake the hand of a commenter at the WSJ's article going by "Mom & Leader" for her clear defence of the Girl Scouts.  Here are some highlights of what she says:

"I personally believe Girl Scouts officials made the rules they do first and foremost for the SAFETY of EVERY GIRL. This seems obvious to me, doesn’t seem like it should require defending."

Some would say that the instances of internet predators have calmed down since the mainstream adoption of the internet, others would say they've gone up.  This girl's dad was obviously monitoring what was going on, but that wouldn't be the case generally speaking if the GSUSA opened up the rules to internet selling.  There's a substantial potential, unfortunately, for unsupervised girls to make arrangements with suspicious characters to buy cookies and fall prey to pedophiles, kidnappers, you name it.  Putting that aside, since the girl is only eight it's obvious that while she may have been able to post a video to YouTube (should she know is a different arguement), I can guarantee her dad set up the online ordering process, so really that's unfair in that it's him selling the cookies, not her doing her best to do it.

"Secondly, the rules are in place to ensure fairness to ALL girls.  This was violated from what I understood - and I could have misinterpreted the article - by the intended “pre-orders” the video was soliciting. There are set timeframes so that cookies are sold by everyone at the same time and therefore the playing field is level. If they were taking orders before the start date then that calls into question the fairness issue. As the rules are currently you are welcome to send e-mails letting those out-of-town relatives know that its time to place those all important orders. Nobody said Grandma has to order from the neighbor girl."

Allowing girls to sell on the internet  gives them a broader reach over the girls in other areas.  And believe it or not techy douchebags, there are still families who don't have internet.  So allowing some girls who have the advantage of an internet connection to out-sell girls without an internet connection in a different region or neighborhood isn't fair.  And I agree with Mom&Leader - I read it to think they were selling outside the designated time for orders as well.

"The “Official” rules don’t address the other issue I found with this fathers decision(s), but the GS Promise and Law do. Namely “Respect authority” In this case the GSUSA is that authority in that they have made a rule in an arena which you have chosen to participate in. I feel as a parent setting an example is a major key in teaching our children - even when by doing the right thing it could mean not reaching a much-desired goal. (12,000 boxes? whoa!) Admittedly he chose to ignore a rule he was aware of."

I added the emphasis on that last line.  Back to my previous point about teaching girls to break rules ahead of teaching them about fairness and safety.  The world isn't perfect, to be sure, but the Girl Scouts are doing nothing but attempting to instill good code prinicipals and beliefes in it's members.  Knowingly breaking a rule is a terrible example to show your child; explaining to them why it's fairer and safer to not sell online is a much better lesson for a child, regardless of gender.  I'm all for the technological upbringing of children, but think about the core principals in what you're doing because that will ultimately stick with the child longer than being able to make a YouTube video to sell cookies.

My main issue, personally, is the issue of fairness.  Inherently, some troops already have a huge advantage over other troops in cookie sales based on their location.  A troop in an affluent suburb is likely to make more sales than a troop in a economically depressed inner city.  That's just the reality of business in general, whether you're discussing fundraising like this or opening up a retail store - that much is common sense.  The Girl Scouts are just trying to keep the field as level as possible knowing that things like region, economic conditions, availability of parents to volunteer, etc. is out of their control.  But allowing sales on the internet IS under their control, so they're doing what they can to give every girl the opportunity to do their best and reach their cookie goals.

Another commenter there, GS Leader, said it best: "When you have internet sales by one troop, you are actually “stealing” sales that may have supported another troop. I know it is not like that in the real world, where everyone is out for themselves, but while selling Girl Scout cookies teaches entrepreneurial skills it also teaches morals of honesty and fairness."

So I'm sorry but all the people who are giving the Girl Scouts attitude for standing strong on their policy of not allowing use of the Internet to sell should chill out and realize WHY the rule is there in the first place.

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Eff That Crazy Octo Mom

I really hate that any idiot who can make the poorest judgment call ever to have eight kids gets a cushy life just THROWN at her.  What has she done to deserve this kind of generosity from people other than be batshit crazy and make a terrible decision to have 8 more kids with 6 at home, half of which are special needs, with zero job and some half assed claim to not be on public assistance?  People should not be rewarded for making such bad choices.  This isn't a matter of a woman wanting a lot of kids.. if you want them and HAVE the means to support them, knock yourself out.  Several relatives of my husband have large familes (6-12 children) but they can support them.  He's the oldest of 12 himself, and while their lives growing up may not have been the lap of luxury, the kids never realized just how broke the family was because they never wanted for anything (wanting a new toy and not getting it doesn't count).  Frequently he'll start telling me some story from his childhood about model railroads with his dad or camping trips they went on or something and add that he had NO clue how they could have afforded all the things they did for the kids.  The fact that the media panders to this kind of attention whoring behavior is just sad as well. 

I'm glad her house got TP'd.  She doesn't deserve that house and got lucky something more serious didn't happen to it.  I'm not saying she should be penalized and her situation made worse for being an idiot, but she certainly shouldn't be rewarded with a nice house in a nice Orange County neighborhood either.  I hate Dr. Phil, but I actually watched an episode a few weeks ago when he was criticizing her hardcore for being so stupid.  I guess I shouldn't have been  surprised to see her go Oprah charity case on her.  Are your surprised with a nut bar like this that two PR people have already quit on her?  The last one even called her nuts!

It irritates me to no end when idiots like her get rewarded for being f'ing stupid.  Apparently the people who support this kind of attention whoring unhealthy behavior, like Dr. Phil and anyone who donated money to her to help buy a house, are stupid too.  Don't get me wrong, I feel for the kids and they shouldn't have to suffer from their mom being a whack job, but she hardly seems entirely fit to be a mother.  If the foster/adoption system weren't so flawed... anyway, I'm rambling.  But there are just so many good, deserving, hard working people that don't get what's coming to them, don't see the benefits from their hard work that they should, whether that's in the form of some windfalls or raises at work or what have you.  Too many people are legitimately deserving of this kind of attention and generosity that don't get it that it makes my blood boil to see this nut get it.

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Cruise Askew, Night 2 Formal Evening

I left off in my last chronicle of my Bahamian cruise just about the point where we'd returned to the ship after our day in Freeport.  We all knew when planning for the cruise that one night would be the "Captain's Dinner" where the attire was formal.  I was sweating this a bit since the last time I had to wear anything "formal" was my wedding almost 6 years ago.  But, I managed to get a dress from Old Navy that could be dressed up as formal, even though it was technically cotton, so I wasn't too worried once I got the accessories.

It was about 4 once we got back on and talked to some of our traveling companions.  We found out that some people planned on attending the Captain's cocktail party, which was one of the only times/events on board offering complimentary cocktails.  So Katie & I decided we'd go straight back to our stateroom and get ready for the evening then, assuming it'd take a bit of time for both of us to get cleaned up and gussied up for the formality.

So after getting all pretty, we headed down to the Captain's Cocktail hour before dinner.  We made a point of going in early to get a booth since we expected more of our travelling group to show up.  Katie and I were sitting in a booth alone for probably 40 mins enjoying several glasses of wine and screwdrivers before Adam, Drena, and Andrew (below) showed up, just in time for the last round of complimentary cocktails and a brief toast. Everyone looked smashing, especially Andrew showcasing his British charm in a tux!

After three drinks and an hour of listening to the ship's swing band and mocking some poor woman wearing a turquoise dress that looked like the most hideous prom or bridesmaid dress from 1986 with poorly matched black shoes, we floated our way to the dining room to join the rest of our party for the meal.  As I said before, everyone looked smashing.  Dinner this second night was much better quality than dinner the first night.  I think after Gavin's tongue lashing the evening prior, they were on their toes.  Our server Andy was a pleasure... he was our table's server all nights and we made sure to tip him extra the final night, even though their tips are technically included in the $10/day Carnival charged for service like the waiters and porters and stewards.

The one thing that bothered the bejesus out of me during dinners in the dining room were the photographers.  I remember after my first adult trip to Las Vegas mentioning that every attraction you go to had a shameless forced photo op trying to sell you the incredibly overpriced prints afterwards.  And on the cruise they pushed that camera in your face every chance they could.  Before we got on the boat in Port Canaveral, after we got onto the boat, every time we got off in port, sometimes twice, photos every night at dinner while you're trying to eat they go around to every table and take photos of every person or couple, sometimes photos with a showgirl outside the dining room, and an entire corridor of one deck was lined with backdrops and pro photogs asking you if you were interested in taking photos.  And some of the backdrops were HORRIBLE... like it was obviously pixelated from 5 feet away.  I understand if I was looking at it up close and could see the poor quality, but from 5 feet it shouldn't be visible. 

I digress... it's the years I spent working at a printing company infiltrating my vacation story!  Anyway the first night I think it was they came around with some ass dressed like a poor facimilie of Capt. Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.  If this was the Disney cruise I'd expect that, but man it was lame.  The night of the fancy dinner they came around again and this was the only night I could really understand them doing it since people don't normally have many opportunities to get dressed up so a pic would be nice.  Retrospectively the accessories all worked for a fun formal outfit for me, though I should have left the watch off lol.

After dinner they also had a photog set up on the staircase in the main lobby, and we took a nice group shot.

We got a little photo happy afterwards against the wall as some of the couples in our group were busy with the pro taking couples shots on the stairs.

After the photo extravaganza, some people went to play bingo, Katie went to the casino for some blackjack and ended up doubling her money, and I stayed behind in the room to get into some more comfy shorts & a t-shirt and watch some Dark Knight while chilling before having to get up bright and early again the next morning for when we arrived in Nassau.

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More Cruise Coming

Yes, I stopped just before the evening of Day 2.  I haven't had the focus to keep going with the saga in the last few days.  I'll post the next installment tomorrow, promise!

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Cruise Askew, Day 2 in Freeport

Day two started bright and early with Katie and I getting up at 7 ish.  Not really my idea of fun on a vacation to get up earlier than I do when not on vacation, but we'd docked in Freeport and jam packed our time there with an island bus tour and a glass bottom boat tour.  To steal Katie's wording from her blog, Freeport was not the tropical island paradise that we'd imagined.  Freeport is the industrual capital of the Bahamas on the main island Grand Bahama Island. 

As a disclaimer since I take a LOT of photos and talk a LOT about my experiences, this is only day 2 up until our getting back on the boat after being on shore.  The formal dinner was that night on board and that requires a post by itself, apparently.  Yes I ramble that much!

We made our way down to the gangway and off the ship to where the tours were.  We were informed that, while on our tour, we should stay on the last stop the bus made because that's where the glass bottom boat would leave from.  Otherwise we'd waste a bunch of time taking the bus back to the cruise ship port and then another bus back to the port for the boat.  So on our way to our first stop, a market in downtown Freeport, we started snapping photos of the local scenery.

There were markets and similar stands everywhere on the island, which were commonly referred to as "straw markets".  Katie described them as a cross between a flea market and an art festival, but I'd really say they were strongly more flea market.  Most merchants sold local straw woven bags and necklaces and such, with a lot of other trinkety things like t-shirts 3 for $10 and shot glasses 2 for $5.  Of course, being a collector of shot glasses, I got one.  We spent about 20 minutes at the market and I almost missed the bus because of a group of other tourists lingering in the small stall that I wanted a shot glass from (I hadn't seen the same one at any of the other stalls).  But I made it on and we were off.  Here's some photos from the market:

On our way to the next stop, Taino Beach, we were driven through some of the neighborhoods of the island.  The tour guide/bus driver told us that this upper-class neighborhood was mostly 3-4 bedroom houses that ranged from about $100,000 - $200,000.  Since we'd already been told that the Bahamian dollar exchanges at a 1:1 rate with the US dollar, I was really irritated to know that a super nice house in the Bahamas is way cheaper than a comparable house here in the SF Bay area!  Someone I mentioned that too reminded me that the crime rate in the non-tourist areas is pretty high though, so I guess that's the trade off.  We were told more facts about Freeport and the Bahamas, and soon we arrived at the Junkanoo Beach Club at Taino Beach.

We were there for about 30 minutes, enough time for Katie and I to sink our feet into the crystal clear Caribbean Ocean and walk on the soft sugary sand of the beach.  The overcast weather was a bit of a downer since we were hoping for blue skies like you see in photos, but it was still absolutely gorgeous. 

We ran into our travel companions Linnitt and Kory as we left - they'd chosen the shore excursion that was just spending the day at Junkanoo to soak up the sand and waves.  So we said a quick hi & bye to them and were back on the bus heading to our final stop, Port Lucaya.  This area is one of the main tourist areas of the island, where many of the resorts are located, the casino, and the port where all recreational vessels are docked (for the most part).  So while we were only supposed to be there for an hour with the bus tour, we took the advise of the tour guides at the ship's dock and stayed a couple hours in Port Lucaya waiting for the Glass Bottom Boat tour we'd scheduled. 

This was great, because it gave us plenty of time to wander around the shops, where we discoverd a Harley-Davidson store.  My dad collects t-shirts from various Harley stores, so of course I HAD to get him a Harley of Freeport shirt!  We also stopped in one of the drug stores there to get some munchies to take back onto the boat.  The gift shop on board really didn't have much in the way of snacks to keep around the stateroom, and didn't have my staple caffinated beverage, Mountain Dew, at all, so I grabbed a couple bottles and some snacks to take back, as did Katie.  We wandered around for a long while trying to decide on where to eat lunch.  Katie wanted to sample some local fare, but unfortunately all the restaurants were pretty mainstream and the only local fare they had was conch, but she wasn't quite ready to give that a shot, so we ended up having some strawberry daiquiries and really American food at Rum Runners (she had a hot dog, I had a grilled cheese sandwich... adventurous, aren't we?). 

Finally it was time to go on the glass bottom boat tour.  We found the place to turn our tickets in and were led to the boat and got on. 

We set out of the bay area, past the jetty and out into the open waters.  The water the boat was in was incredibly clear, so it was easy to see every plant and random fish as we headed out to our first stop.  We finally arrived above a coral reef with tons of fish swimming around.  I was worried that the photos I was taking through the glass below wouldn't be that great, but the clarity of the Caribbean really helped that endeavor.

They gave us some hamburger buns and let us toss them over the side to feed the fish.  I didn't expect them to rush to the surface, but they did and it was really cool to see them schooling around just under the surface.  A couple of small kids tossed in their buns whole instead of breaking them into bits like the rest of us did, and it was a massacre!  The fish went nuts, of course.  We then took off towards a ship wreck in deeper water, which Katie and I were looking forward too.  They also promised that there would be sharks there, which was also exciting.  Unfortunately when we got there, divers were on the wreck, which meant the boat couldn't hover over it.  Bummer.  But, we did see sharks!  Since the water was a bit deeper, we couldn't see a lot of detail, mostly just silhouettes.  But even that was nifty.

The small boat was rocking a lot and it wasn't making me feel all that great, but I still wish it had gone on longer.  We got back to the dock and, smartly, went straight for where the tour busses were to get back to the ship.  They'd given us return vouchers when we got off at Port Lucaya, so we just jumped back onto the first bus that was headed back to the Sensation.  Good for us, even though we thought we had time to spare, because we got back right about 3:30, the time they told us we HAD to be back on the ship by. 

So, like I said at the beginning of this post, that evening on board after we set sail and said bye bye to Freeport, the formal Captain's dinner was scheduled.  That, my friends, requires more time to process and a whole other post.

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Sync'd Up Nicely

As a total side note in between my cruise ramblings, I think I've finally gotten control of my personal blogging.  Some friends follow the MySpace blog, which is an entity in & of itself and my private haven.  But I wanted to share my personal rants elsewhere in more "public" forums... so now I think there's ample area for rambles.

http://trishalyn.tumblr.com
http://trisha.posterous.com
http://trishalynfawver.wordpress.com
My live journal (which I won't make too public in terms of user name, but if you're reading this on LJ you obviously know who you are...)
http://www.twitter.com/trishalyn
My Facebook account.

Thanks to Posterous, I can email a blog post to them and it gets posted to my posterous, my tumblr, my wordpress blog, my live journal blog, a link on twitter, and a link on Facebook.  This is finally a way to kind of master my social media destiny in terms of a place where I can ramble that people can know "me" more than my "professional" blog at http://www.TrishaLyn.com.  I was using Ping.fm for awhile, but that was hard to remember to do and, while at first it worked to post to my MySpace blog, it stopped working right and I haven't been able to figure it out.  So for the time being, Ping is only good when I want to cross post a tweet type message to MySpace.  Otherwise I think I'm going to stop using it for the most part and go on with Posterous, which I can easily post to from my phone via email or from a few other email accounts I've added there.  Convenient, yes!

However, if I start to see crazy amounts of cross redundancy posting or something I'll have to fix that, but for now I think it's all synced up nicely.  The one crappy thing is that ther categories in Wordpress will be thrown a bit out the window, but for that I sorta don't really care too much.  But right now, I think this works well and I'll be leaving this be for awhile.  Maybe some day Posterous will support MySpace blogs and then domination will be complete!

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Cruise Askew, Day 1a & 1

So now that Crystal and Katie have both blogged about the cruise, I guess it's my turn.  I tried to use my Posterous account to blog while on the vacation via my mobile phone, but once we set sail I remembered that we were venturing into International waters, and I didn't want to use the phone and incur International charges.  So much for that, but a few things are up at http://trisha.posterous.com

Also, I think since I tend to ramble on I'll need to talk about the whole vacation 1 day at a time, so this will focus on the night we arrived in Orlando (day 1a) and Day 1 of the cruise while we were at sea headed to Freeport.

So, it all started Saturday morning the 21st with Katie and I heading to Oakland Airport bright and early for a 5 hour flight to New York.  The flight to JFK was relatively uneventful... we had a pleasant few conversations with the lady sitting in our row and enjoyed some DirecTV and XM Radio via Jet Blue.  They're definitely my favorite airline right now, with Southwest in a close second. 

I digress.  Once arriving at JFK and changing our watches to Eastern time, we find out that our connection flight to Orlando would be leaving from the same gate & went to find some lunch.  Just when it was looking like we'd have to settle for some Jamba Juice and premade sandwiches, we find a food court and get some burgers.  It was kinda nifty because there were several options, like a normal mall food court, but you ordered via screen and then paid at one central station.  The service was slow and the burgers were a bit overcooked (even for my normally well-done standards).  We also had to grab our burgers and head back to the gate to board on time. 

The flight to Orlando was even less eventful, and once we arrived and got our luggage I called Nicole to arrange getting to the condos we were staying at for the night.  They'd had a horrible time coming to the airport earlier in the day to pick up others, so they took up a pool to pay for our cab and we cabbed it over.  The cab driver was incredibly chatty (which I hate) and told us some long sob story about having lost his job 4 months ago and how this was his second night driving a cab and how he only makes $15 at the end of the day between tolls and gas and the cab rental fee.  It was like he was begging for a good tip, so I found it really funny when Katie didn't tip him at all!  Besides the fact that when we arrived the meter said $31 and he asked us for $34 when we asked how much we owed while he was bitching about how heavy our bags were getting them out of his trunk. 

We got into the condos and man were they nice.  The master bathroom was almost the size of my living room & dining room combined.  We met up with about half the crew we'd be sailing with: Kevin, Nikki, Crystal, Joe, and Drena.  The rest had gone to get dinner and a Walmart run.  Luckily when I called Nicole from the airport she'd took Katie & my dinner requests and we were soon introduced to Five Guys, an East Coast burger chain.  Do I have to turn in my West Coast resident card if I say it was better than In & Out? lol  The rest of the gang Nicole, Gavin, Ed, Adam, and Maria came back with the burgers and we watched Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog.  Shorter than I thought it'd be, but pretty good.  Later that night Lena & James arrived, and shortly after we all bedded down for the night on the air mattress, which was perfectly comfortable enough for us.

The next morning we got up and had some cereal and prepared the condo to leave.  The view from our 4th floor balcony was nice, as seen here:


After cleaning up the condo per the check out instructions we went to get on the limo bus we'd rented to take us the hour to Port Canaveral.  The limo bus rental was cheaper per person than the shuttle from Carnival, and picked us up at the condos without us all having to make a trip back to the airport to get the Carnival shuttle.  Although, being a "limo bus", I have to say I expected it to be a bit nicer than it was, but still a comfy ride to the port.





We'd all heard that it could take hours for our checked luggage to be delivered to our staterooms, so we made some moves of various items into our carry ons and started to get on board.  The process of getting on the ship was more than I thought it'd be, but there weren't any hangups and it went smoothly. We got on the ship with our carry-ons at about noon and our cabins weren't going to be ready until 1:30, so we all headed up to the Lido deck for the lunch buffet.  Not that great; it was Italian day and I didn't eat much, but enjoyed the chocolate milk & bread lol.  We made it down to our stateroom to check it out and, if I remember correctly, found our luggage there already. 

So, some notes about the ship before I forget.  MAN was it Vegasy!  The walls were purple, lots of neon, very bright.  I expected it to be a lot more modern, especially since this particular ship, the Carnival Sensation, had just been in dry dock getting revamped.  The staterooms were nice and calm though, but much of the ship was really dated in terms of decor.  There was a certain charm to that though, being something I'm not used to.  It became a bit of a running joke though. 





Since we were tired from travelling all the day before, we just chilled out for awhile and I took a short nap... man the beds were comfy!  We then went up for the life boat drill, which was boring but a necessary evil.  One cool thing was that as we were out on the decks by the boats was when the ship set sail, so we were on deck to see the ship embarking.  Nifty!  Afterwards we put our live vests back in the cabin and went exploring to check out the shops that were supposedly on board.  The shops weren't open yet so we got a drink at the main lobby bar.

We killed enough time to go look at the shops and again, were a bit disappointed with how few there were and the content.  While in the gift shop I started for the first time to feel the ship actually move, and since she didn't feel the movement Katie accused me of being tipsy since the drink I'd had at the bar was a bit strong.  Luckily Andrew was also around in the gift shop and confirmed that it wasn't just me!  We ended up killing more time wandering and went to stand in line to get into the dining room for dinner.  We'd decided as a group to go with the later dinner time of 8:15 and as we stood in line there were two couples behind us, easily in their mid-late 60's chatting.  I heard one of the men say something about being happy to choose the late dinner time to avoid all the little old ladies.  I couldn't help but thinking how ironic that was coming from an older gentleman himself lol.

One of the things I was looking forward to on the cruise was the food; I've heard that cruise food was supposed to be really good.  Well, by the end of day 1 I was really let down.  As I already mentioned the lunch buffet was severely disappointing, and dinner in the dining room night one was a bit of a letdown as well.  And, since we were split up to two large tables with all 19 of us, the second table didn't get served until after we were done eating.  Gavin gave them a stern talking to after the meal... and believe me when I say it normally takes a lot to get him riled up.  But dinner was one of the first times we were all together... the 15 of us who'd stayed at the condo the evening before, Carrie & Steven, and Linnitt & Korey.  Although Katie & I had randomly run into Linnitt & Korey in the hallway on our way back to the room earlier that evening.

So that was day one... we went to bed and set our alarms to get up bright and early since we had to eat breakfast and be off the boat in Freeport for our bus tour by 8:45am. 

Here's some photos of our stateroom for those interested:

Katie took the bed by the window


This was the view of the stateroom from the inset porthole windows

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Back in Oakland

We've made it back to Oakland and are awaiting our ride home. The flights home were mostly uneventful, other than the fact that turbulence into IAD was atrocious and I was THISCLOSE to losing my breakfast. But I perservered & managed to keep it together. I did have a Banana Margarita during our layover which was delightful. The hotel we stayed at last night was actually really comfy, and in the end it was probably better for our sanity to not stay with everyone else last night since we had a different agenda. And the hotel had free internet terminals so I was able to catch up on emails and such. A week without internet is rough!
 
Our ride has arrived so more on the last legs of our journey later!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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