I spent last week on a cruise. You might recall that last Oct, Nov, Dec and so on, I was mentioning - I don't know, perhaps hourly - that I had 8 rooms blocked on a cruise ship leaving Galveston on a 7 night Caribbean cruise. Then in December, sadly my uncle whose health had been deteriorating for several years passed away. While at the funeral, my mom mentioned that we should all go on a cruise and take my aunt who had just become a widow along. You should know that when my mom gets an idea, she is sort of like Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland and the gang in one of those 1940's movies where somebody says "Hey! Let's have a party!" and suddenly all of the characters are on ladders decorating a barn to the point that it becomes some elaborate ballroom in the next scene. Well in this case, my mom's "barn" was Navigator of the Seas and a group of us just returned from a 7 night long party in which we had a terrific time visiting with cousins and aunts that I personally haven't spent time with in years!
As it turned out my mom did not get to go with us. About 5 weeks ago, my dad had back surgery to repair some disks in his back. I'm no surgeon and I've slept since then, but I'm pretty sure that's what they did. Mom spent the next several weeks after his surgery trying to get him to be self sufficient. Less than a week before we were to leave, we even went to CVS and got him one of those "grabbers" so that he wouldn't have to bend over to pick things up. We thought as long as my brothers checked on him daily, that he would be able to get through a week without her only weeks after the surgery. But then, just days before we were to leave, he developed a serious infection. His condition required additional surgery and hospitalization for nearly a week. So, mom stayed home and I was down one "Judy Garland".
Now, I don't mind telling you that it's sort of hard to keep up with Mickey and Judy anyway, what with all the stardust and dreams that float around when they are in the vicinity. But they can organize a great time if you don't get tired of people telling you about all the things you need to do to keep up your end of the bargain. You see, I like for things to just happen. I don't like to be forced to make them happen. And that's where Judy and Mickey come in. They thrive on making things happen. So we never had a Mickey on this project in the first place since it was a "Meyers Girls Cruise" and now we were down a Judy to boot.
But the good news is that our "barn" - The Navigator of the Seas just underwent an extensive revitalization in January and it was in tip top condition for our party. There was really nothing to be done except to show up and have a great time. So, that's what we did.
First I should tell you about everyone who came along. In the first room, 7240 were Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Vera. They are my dad's sisters. Aunt Dorothy has 5 sons and is now working on great grandchildren. Aunt Vera has 3 sons and a daughter and some great grandchildren, as well. Her daughter, Terry was traveling with us. Their cabin was the only one we had on the starboard side of the ship. Their room was just steps from the forward elevator bank. If you walked through the elevator bank, our other 3 cabins were right there. Aunt Miggie had a room alone 7540. She was supposed to room with Mom, but when she had to cancel that left Aunt Miggie with a room of her own. She's my dad's youngest surviving sister (which makes her Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Vera's kid sister) and she was the recent widow. Aunt Miggie has one son. Three doors down from Aunt Miggie were my cousins Terry and Cindy in cabin 7546. Terry is Aunt Vera's daughter and one of only two female cousins I have in the Meyers family. Cindy is the daughter of my dad's sister Nina who passed away a few years ago after a long battle with cancer and the other female cousin. Finally, my sister-in-law, Eileen and I were in the cabin next door to Terry and Cindy's - 7548. Eileen is a special ed teacher and has been saying for years that she wanted to go on a cruise with us but since we always go during the school year, she always got left out. When Mom and I mentioned this one, Eileen jumped on it. Despite her lapse in judgement of marrying my brother, I still consider her to be one of my closest friends. Just kidding... Rob is about the best big brother a girl could have.
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| Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Miggie and Eileen waiting for the shuttle to take us to the cruise ship. |
So, now you are acquainted with our traveling party. Terry had originally not planned to go since she has always had problems with sea sickness. But as the trip grew near, she decided that she was going to have to risk it since she didn't want to miss out on the trip. Eileen also had sea sickness concerns. She decided to use a patch for her motion sickness. I'm not sure what route Terry took in making sure it was not a problem. But I will report that there was absolutely no motion sickness during our cruise at all. So whatever everybody did worked.
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| Cindy, Terry and Eileen on the Promenade deck during 70's night! |
Following muster we went back to our rooms to unpack and Eileen's luggage still had not arrived. Eileen became very alarmed. I was less so.... perhaps because it wasn't my luggage. Our cabin steward asked if perhaps there was liquid in the piece of luggage.... (like, other than the bottle of wine???) We couldn't think of anything. Finally, around 7 that evening Eileen had to go to a conference room on deck 2 and retrieve her luggage after a guy in charge opened and smelled her bottle of Downy Wrinkle Release to insure that she wasn't smuggling scotch in her wrinkle release bottle. By the way, he didn't care about the bottle of wine. That was fine since it was sealed. Royal Caribbean now allows one bottle of wine to come on board on embarkation day with each adult. Just don't put any booze in your wrinkle release bottle and all is good.
So finally, we could get ready for our 8 PM dinner. We were all seated at table 428. But for some reason Aunt Miggie's seapass card stated that she was at table 428 on deck 5 while the rest of us were at table 428 on deck 4. So, while Eileen had been trying to track down her luggage and apparently drinking a beer without me, I was trying to get that situation straightened out. It turns out that there is only one table 428 and it is on deck 4. Apparently, the folks in the dining room just thought Aunt Miggie would appreciate taking the scenic route to our table.
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| From left to right: Me, Aunt Dorothy, Eileen, Terry, Conroy, Aunt Vera, Cindy and Jorge. Aunt Miggie took the final night off from dinner so she isn't pictured here. |
Dinners turned out to be one of the highlights of each day during our cruise. For one thing, it was one of the few times each day that we were all together. In addition, we had perhaps the best waiter/assistant waiter combination I have ever had during a cruise. Jorge and Conroy were fabulous! Conroy was Jamaican and an absolute delight! He smiled all the time and continually worked at doing whatever was necessary to make sure we were constantly surprised and pleased. Jorge was just as accommodating. In addition, he did tricks for us each night as we finished our desserts. So in addition to being served amazing food we were thoroughly entertained each evening. I really can't say enough about either Jorge or Conroy. Our table was for 8 diners and since mom wasn't there, we had an empty seat each night. After the first few nights Jorge mentioned removing the place setting. But then instead, we developed a running joke about what mom was eating each night and we began getting entrees and desserts for mom. I'm pretty sure that mom gained about as much weight on this cruise as I did! I think they brought her 3 or 4 desserts one night. She was unstoppable!
Tomorrow we'll continue on about the cruise. But for now, I have granite guys who are about to arrive to start work on my kitchen! Woohoo!!!!
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