YEA!!! I am back on solid ground!!
Mom and I had such a good time but there is no place like home. :-)
Here is a little rundown of our trip...
This was my first trip to New Orleans and since we were early we walked down to the French Quarter...don't need to visit there again!!
We got on the ship and for the first 8 hours I wasn't sure if I was going to make it...the Mississippi is one windy river!! Once we were in open water I did much much better.
The first night we tried to do a little Bingo...found out really quick we weren't that lucky. We had a hamburger at 4 and decided that we wouldn't do the formal sit down dinner for the first night. We then had another hamburger at 11!! :-D
The next day (Sunday for those who are already lost) we read our books, slept, ate, and Mom went to some seminars on where to shop for the best deals in Cozumel. That night we went to formal dinner and WOW were we in for a surprise. We were at a table with people from Arkansas. Paragould to be exact. It was a mother, father, daughter and her husband. During the first dinner we heard stories about the mother puking in the kitchen sink while her girls were in the other two bathrooms, the origin of Loushauna's name (nope mom was not named shauna with a dad named lou...just the name of a lady that did ponds cold cream commercials) and got to listen as the family played the water glasses. Now disclaimer...i too placed the water glass for the first time because I didn't want to be rude. After that Mom and I went back to the room and decided that we might not do formal dinner again. We also saw a comic and he was funny, and the dancers danced and the singer sang.
Monday was our first day off the ship. We spent 5 hours on a bus and 2 hours at the Chichen Itza ruins in Puerto Progresso
So glad we went but 100 degree temps with no shade made for some of the hottest two hours of my life. I was sooo happy to get back into the air conditioned bus. This night is a blur...I know I slept through the regular sit down dinner and mom went to hear something important or read (I can't remember) and then we watched all the Monday night season finales. We relaxed and loved it. The only down side to Monday night was that Mom got stuck in the elevator and then when it finally opened she got off and on her next elevator she met a man, told him about getting stuck and he said "well I just lost $40 in the casino" and Mom was like " I guess I can't top that".
Tuesday came and we didn't have to meet on shore until 10:00 so we were a little more relaxed with breakfast...even though we ate the same thing every morning! We went to do clear kayaking and snorkeling...both were a HUGH letdown. The description we saw was much nicer than trip we actually did and thanks to all that we didn't get to spend much time at all shopping. :-( Speaking of shopping though...while we were waiting to get back on the bus to go back into Cozumel Mom showed her superb bargaining skills when she paid $3 for a 6 in purple kids comb...if this was any inclination of her buying power in Mexico we should have never left the boat. We watched a fight almost break out at Margaritaville...a clear display of why you shouldn't drink before lunch...or take 5 shots at lunch for that matter. Because there were two Carnival ships docked at the same time getting back on the ship was a pain! AND we ran into the young couple from dinner and they said they missed us and Loushauna said "we thought we scared you away" soooooo we HAD to go to the big dinner that night. Not to our surprise they were in rare form this night too! The mom spent several minutes showing my mom her new dentures and how great her K-9's were. She also cut pieces off of Earls plate and had all of us at the table try it. Shortly after that I got to see Early digging in hid gums with his fork...I asked if everything was alright and he said it would have been if I had let him finish. WOW!!! After dinner we retired to our room to watch the two hour finale of American Idol...YEA DAVID COOK!!! After it was over she went up for some fresh air and some of our "thug wanna be's" were singing behind her ...wanna get a white girl, gotta get a white girl..." she was getting really worried they were singing but as she slowly turned around they darted into a room. Since I left home she doesn't listen to rap as much but she was guessing it's one of the new hits. :-D
Our last day was our day to lay out. It was overcast and the perfect temp for me and Mom to sit out and read. We probably spent 4 hours on deck and got only a little burnt so that was great! I even saw one of my students Rusty Jester from Ashdown. He was on a big trip with his family. Mom was excited because she was worried that would be the first place EVER that we would have gone that I didn't know someone. We took a break in the middle of our baking to try our hand at a slot tournament. Like I mentioned earlier we are not that lucky but we thought what the heck...We both got our card for $20 and the whole game was to just keep spinning for 5 minutes to see who got the biggest score. While I was watching mom I met Rusty's grandmother that looked to be around 45. I don't know what is in the water in Ashdown but I want some of it!!! She told me that Rusty had won $1000.00 the day before on the slots. Needless to say, Mom and I didn't win the tournament but I did play with $5 on Rusty's hot machine for like 45 minutes...I didn't walk away with anything but $5 for 45 minutes was worth it. For old times sake we had another burger for dinner and tried to take a picture or two for Michael...I think this was the best one.
So as the sun set on our last day I couldn't wait to get back home to my pups but all in all we had a blast...when we filled out the survey of when we planed to cruise again we both put 25 months or longer. :-)
