Cruise Hangover

Well, it's taken me a week to come to grips with the fact that I am no longer on our cruise. My sister was able to post a blog while we were in the airport waiting to come home, but I would probably have shed some tears if I had tried to post a blog that soon afterwards. I was choking back tears for the first couple of days thinking about how wonderful it was, wondering why I have yet to open up some obscure souvenir shop somewhere in Key West, or start a profiteering snorkel operation on Cozumel.

Needless to say, our cruise experience was otherworldly. I never imagined that it would be as much fun as it ended up being. It was a much needed 10 days off and, even though I missed my boys, I needed that break as well. All Jenny wanted to do was sleep in which she was able to do. All I wanted was to be away from my cell phone for any period of time. I never thought not hearing my cell phone would be the sweetest sound of all.

Let us start at the beginning. We ran the boys up to Heber on Thursday night for their odyssey stay at Judd and Amy's house. We can't thank them enough, by the way. I can only imagine what it was to have to deal with 5 kids of similar age for 10 days. We owe them big time. Anyway, we flew out of Salt Lake on Friday morning and got into Orlando around 5:00 that evening. We managed to sneak away to Downtown Disney to start our Orlando experience.

The next day, after much deliberation, we decided to make a one day trip to all 4 Disneyworld parks. We started at the Animal Kingdom and managed to get 2 rides on Expedition Everest, a ride on Countdown to Extinction, and a ride on Kilimanjaro safari. For anyone who needs a tip on maximizing time at Disneyworld, Animal Kingdom is open one hour before any of the other parks, so make that your first stop.

After Animal Kingdom, we drove over to MGM Studios. We got in a couple of rides on Rock n' Roller Coaster and a trip to the top of Tower of Terror. Jenny and I ended up with a free lunch as well when we got behind a lady in line who had leftover meal credits on her Disney Card. It was awesome. After MGM, we went to Epcot and got in a ride on Test Track, Mission Space and Nemo. We then took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom for the greatest invention ever: DOLE WHIP!!! We also managed to take a turn on Pirates of the Carribean. It was exceptionally croweded and we were pretty much spent, so we called it a day shortly thereafter (I'm sorry, but a 90 minute wait for Space Mountain just ain't worth it). We left the Disney parks and grabbed dinner at Olive Garden.



Sunday morning, we drove the hour from Orlando to Tampa Bay where we would be embarking on our cruise. We checked in smoothly and boarded the fabulous ms Veendam or the Holland America fleet. We hung out on the Lido Deck, taking some time to explore our floating home for the next week, until we were able to get into our staterooms. We had a mandatory life-boat drill shortly thereafter and then we hung out until dinner. After dinner, we took in a show (rather cheesy "Let Me Entertain You") and then we danced the night away in the Crow's Nest. My dad won the twist contest and got a bottle of champagne!

Monday we were in Key West. We decided to hoof it to the Hemingway house. We also stopped by the Little White House. Our mission in Key West was to find the best Key Lime pie. We got a recommendation to the Blonde Giraffe, where we thought we found the best until we were directed further to a candy store on Duval Street where we did find THE best Key Lime pie. Jenny decided to be a rebel and get a henna tattoo, but it didn't really take. We got back on the boat after shopping down Duval street and got another wonderful dinner. That night, we tried to stay up to dance, but ended up too tired and turned in fairly early.

If I keep going day by day, this will be the longest post ever, so let me hit on some highlights:

1) Cave tubing in Belize.
2) Ruins tour in Guatemala.
3) Life-endangering bus rides to and from the previous excursions. Having ridden buses in the Philippines, I wasn't overly concerned about the sudden lane changes, close passes and fishtailing that comes with third-world country bus rides. The rest of my family, however, was scared to death!
4) All the wonderful people we met, starting with our room steward, Risky. Our dinner server Vindi and his assistant Dwi (Dewey) made for nightly entertainment, and we got pretty close to them, well, as close as you can get to anyone in a week.
5) DJ Mike. He was the DJ at the night club and also at Bingo. By the end of the cruise, we'd convinced him to come to Utah to find a wife, to "try out this Mormon thing", and that Utahn's, although crazy dancers, can't sing karaoke very well.
6) Snorkeling in Cozumel. Although this ended up being a pretty ghetto outfit, it was fun to get in the water and see some fish.
7) Earining "Dam Dollars." This was fun for two reasons: you earned these things that you could redeem at the end of the cruise as you participated in certain activities. I got a hat! Second, you met some fun people, like Ray, who were seasoned cruisers and knew all the tricks.
8) All the amazing food. It was so awesome not to have to worry about paying for dinner. We could sit down, be served a 5 course meal, and get up and walk out without even a tip, and everyone smiled and wished you a blessed evening on the way out.

Without making this any longer, let's just say that this was one of the most enjoyable vacations I've ever been on. It was everything I was expecting and looking forward to for over a year, and so much more.