Day One: Sail Away

Thursday, March 18, 2010

I discovered the best cure for daylight savings time is to take a cruise. I got up early on Sunday, ready to head out to the Port. Even though this was actually two hours earlier at home (with the new time zone, and the new time change)….it was fine because adrenaline kept me moving during the first part of the trip, and then I found…when you are on a cruise, if you are feeling sleepy, you can head to your room and be rocked to sleep….assuming the Dramamine has kicked in and you don’t need to put your head anywhere else. When you are done rocking, head up to the deck, find a lounge chair and do something like, take a nap. Leaving early did allow me to see the sun rise over Cocoa Beach. I think seagull footprints make them almost appealing birds…and then they start squawking and I remember I don’t think this at all.

I chose a Carnival Cruise because it had the dates, and locations I wanted. I’ve never been to the Bahamas, and…the Sensation was headed there, but it also wasn’t gone so long that I wouldn’t have time to see Maurine and the family in Florida at the end of the week when I returned. I’ve been on a Carnival cruise before via Galveston’s port. They have a lot of great deals, and it is a ‘family friendly’ cruise with all day babysitting (with fun activities for the kids) included…and I do mean all day-the kids I met at various points let me know how fun it was to hang out until 2 am doing fun activities, and crafts while their parents were off doing whatever their kids weren’t doing.

There are also plenty of things to keep the kids occupied…pools, slides, water zones, sports areas, camps, 24-hour pizza, and ice cream….and don’t think some of that didn’t keep me entertained as well…I won’t mention which parts. There are also plenty of adult friendly activities, but I’ll come back to these at the end of this ‘cruise journal.’
After the send off via a Calypso band, and the typical send off affairs…the eating began. They say the average person gains 6 pounds on a cruise….I hope they meant ‘a day’ or I might be at the high end of the bell curve. I won’t list what I ate in detail the first day (Surely it’s good to chase Dramamine down with food?!?), but I will end with my highlight….the Molten Chocolate Lava cake….yum! Melted chocolate, covered with baked chocolate, and ice cream for dipping. I imagine this is what you eat for dessert in heaven....scratch that, in heaven, this is what the appetizers look like.

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