At Sea, Jan 29

Hey all! Didn't get to continue my trip updates yesterday with it being Valentine's Day and all. My husband and I worked out at the Y after work, ate some quick dinner, and then I spent the evening making him this:

{used the watercolors he bought me for xmas}

But on with the show! January 29th was one of my favorite days on the ship--the excitement and promise that the upcoming ports of call brought was clouding my mind, I had Best Coast and M83 on repeat on my mp3 player, the sun was especially bright and gorgeous, and I had the most delicious curry ever for dinner. Good times!

{second day of sunbathing}

{a girl could get used to this, i tell ya}

{hanging out in the salt water pool. photo by rachel.}

{later in the afternoon, i went exploring and found the "peek-a-boo deck"}

{"hey, dude sailing this boat, what's up?"}

{even later in the afternoon, we went to watch some of our friends play basketball and rock climb} 

{omg, raccoon eyes! ha!}

{delicious frissee salad with roasted butternut squash and white beans}

{tasty veggie curry with basmati rice for dinner}

{after dinner drinks with my friend, Rachel}

{the end to a perfect day!}

Jes

At Sea, Jan 28

Hey there!

I'm fondly looking back at my cruise vacation. Jan 28th was our first long day at sea. The sun was up, and so was my mood. This is the day I learned how to make a freaking awesome amaretto sour at the first of two Mixology classes and was also the night of our first formal dinner (yay, dress up!).

{my very first view of the first full day at sea}

{i so want to be back here right now...}

{a view of my feet on our balcony, looking down at deck 4}

{for real, this was the most beautiful water i've ever seen, aside from the Mediterranean}

{how could someone not want to experience this? once you get over the rocking of the boat, you're lost in the awe and wonder of it all}

After getting up and ready, we headed out to the pool decks around 9am or so. They tended to fill up later in the afternoon, so while this may seem a bit early, it was good timing to get a choice spot. After sunbathing, sipping on frosty drinks, we cleaned up and went to the first of our two Mixology classes taught by Paul from Romania. He's pretty much the coolest person we met while on board. We ended up making four drinks, one of which was their take on my fave, Amaretto Sour (they used Disaronno and a custom-made sour mix). For real, drinks are a little pricey on the ship, but this class was $14 before extra tipping for 4 drinks...totally worth it, and it was so much fun! 

{morning sun in the solarium}

{first time lounging on the deck. found a sunnier spot after this}

{happy times}

{see? sunnier. this is the beginning of my burn, haha!}

{while exploring, we found the aft of the ship}

{at mixology class. omg, we got so hammered.}

Having drank our weight in booze, we got ready for our first formal dinner. I decided to break out my brand new dress from Kohl's, and my friend, Jen, loaned me some retro, white earrings. We had more drinks (!!) and then went to dinner. Oh yeah, and Paula Deen was on our cruise. Before dinner this night, my friend, Jen, got some liquid courage in her and got her photo taken with Paula Deen. We ended up seeing her and her husband several times while on the ship. 

{i went retro this evening}

{yummy salad with olives for first course. i think i had pasta with marinara again, didn't warrant a photo}

{this guy was awesome. i think he was alone on the cruise and wanted a photo with us.}

{sad face #1...like my awesome Kohl's LC dress?}

{sad face #2, ftw.}

{friends and i at our first formal dinner}

{it's like i got a new school photo, bonus!}

More to come tomorrow!

Jes

PS--Keep the passengers of the Carnival Triumph in your thoughts. I feel so bad for those poor people. Good lord, I could not imagine, though it could always be worse. Hopefully everything goes OK until they get to Mobile, AL tomorrow morning.

Vacation Update! Jan 26-27

What's up, everyone???

I'm back from my cruise! I had SO. MUCH. FUN. and can't wait to share some highlights with you guys. I took the last week off of blogging (got back late Sunday, went back to work Monday, got sick Tuesday and Wednesday, and then was busy the rest of the week). So here goes!

The cruise is way too much for one post, so I'm dividing it into sets of days/ports. First up, Jan 26-27, which was our trip down to Galveston and the first day on the boat.

The drive down wasn't too bad, aside from our friend's car losing a bolt on the brakes in the Middle-of-Nowhere, TX. Luckily, one of the guys on the trip was able to fix it, and we were back on the road.We stayed the night in The Woodlands, TX, which is north of Houston.

{chilling out in the hotel room before our final push into Galveston. photo taken by my friend, Jen.}

{Galveston!}

{our first real view of the ship, RCCL Mariner of the Seas}

{drug dogs sniffing bags--strangely, they didn't sniff our carry on bags, though we did go through security...}

{we literally walked onto the ship at deck 4, saw the bar (Boleros), sat down, and ordered drinks from the coolest bartender ever, Paul from Romania. this was a bitchin' amaretto sour...one of many}

{checking out the pool deck--happy photo}

{lest we forget the sad face photo}

{our stateroom on deck 6}

{with a balcony! totes worth the extra $}

{gorgeous 3-deck dining room. our table was right inside the door. photo by my friend, Jen.}

{are we drunk already at first dinner? maybe.}

{delicious spinach salad, first course}

{one of three marinara nights. freaking delicious}

Everyone asks, "How was the food?" I would have to say that before the cruise, that was one of my chief worries. When putting down my deposit for the cruise way back in like Jan/Feb 2012, I had also submitted a list of can't eat/can eat foods (sometimes people have differing opinions of what "vegan" means...). The only thing we had to do at that first dinner was tell our main waiter about being vegan. He said, "You need to tell us a day in advance so we can make food changes for you" (kind of a little difficult having only just then boarded the ship). But it totally worked out! I think I only ate one sub-par meal the whole time on the ship. Our AWESOME waiter, Ciprian, would bring us the following dinner's menu each night to peruse. There wasn't much they had to alter. The biggest thing was leaving off raita (yogurt sauce) from a curry. And on the times we went to Windjammer Cafe for breakfast/lunch/dinner, they had food labeled very well, and there was a lot I could eat. I'm kind of proud to say that I made it through the cruise eating completely vegan (to my knowledge).

I'll be back tomorrow with more!

Jes