Cruisin in 2013

After almost 1 week of being home from our fabulous cruise, I'm finally posting this and 100 something pictures. Now for all those who asked, "How was your cruise?!" you can finally know! 

Saturday June 29th 6:45am-Our Frontier flight was supposed to leave Phoenix. We boarded the plane. Our plane broke. We deboarded the plane.They were going to get the part needed to fix the plane from another airline. They didn't have it. They said they could fly the part in but we would be delayed until 4:30. Oh and this flight was going to Denver, CO where we had a layover. We were not going to wait that long to get to New Orleans because we had plans with our friends Marti & Collin who live there. We call customer service. We reroute our flight to fly with American Airlines with a layover in Chicago. We give our baggage claim info to the Frontier worker and she keeps it so we have no record of a checked bag. We go all the way downstairs out through security to have them reprint us one. The line was super long due to all the customers who were missing their connections (the whole flight). We wait for 45 mins with the SAME customers being helped (the line didn't budge at all). I interrupt them and politely ask them to just reprint us a new baggage claim ticket because our next flight was leaving in 15 minutes and we had to go back through security. They weren't able to print us a new one, but they were able to print a receipt showing we purchased a checked bag. Grr. So we had back through security and make our flight. 

So now we are flying American Airlines.

Oh except it's too hot in Phoenix for the plane to travel all the way to Chicago, so we have to make a stop in Omaha, Nebraska to refuel. We weren't allowed to deboard the plane, they just refueled and we took off again, even though it took an extra 30 minutes of sitting in the airplane.

The flight attendant was so sweet, she gave us a free bag of gourmet popcorn. We finally land in Chicago. Our flight in Chicago is delayed. We are praying our bag makes it to New Orleans but in could be anywhere. Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, New Orleans...The worst is NOT KNOWING. So we are stuck in Chicago. Our flight is delayed 5 or 6 times.....finally somewhere between 11-11:30PM we board the flight. We arrive in New Orleans at 1:00am. Our bag is not there. We talk to the American Airlines people for 1 hour. Frontier office is closed of course. American will leave a note for the workers opening in the morning to contact Frontier and then contact us when they find our bag. They are aware that we are leaving for our cruise the next day, Sunday, at 4pm. We finally crash & Marti & Collin's place at 3am. They were so sweet & accommodating, giving us everything we could possibly need (especially since we had no luggage!). It was awesome arriving in New Orleans 12 hours later than expected. Not. Thank goodness for good friends. 

The next morning, Sunday, American airlines did call us with good news-they found our bag! We drove back to the airport to pick it up immediately. We went out to lunch to Johnny' Po-boys! Our first New Orleans food experience. Yum! James had a muffaletta & I had a turkey po-boy. After lunch we walked to Cafe du Monde, where they have the best beignets! The cafe is basically a large patio with a covered awning because the beignets are LOADED with powdered sugar and it gets everywhere. The floor is covered in white because the wind just blows it away. They say not to where black while eating beignets. We loved the experience and were pleased at how quickly we sat down and got our food considering how packed they were. We wished we had more time with Collin & Marti before we left for the cruise. If it weren't for the airlines, we would have had a whole day to play. Some other day....

 Reunited with Collin at Johnny's Po-Boys

 Enjoying our first New Orleans meal: Po-Boys!

 Our friends for life: Collin & Marti. We wouldn't be married if it weren't for them :)

 James loved his Muffaletta (ham, salami, mozzarella, olive salad on a bun)

 My Turkey Po-Boy (it looks like a normal sub but it's on french bread!)

My girl Marti

 Johnny's Po-Boys

 New Orleans!

 We wish we had more time to explore

Eating beignets at Cafe du Monde

sooo much powdered sugar

this is a must stop for beignets & hot chocolate

We boarded the cruise ship at around 2:30 and there were NO lines. It was awesome. We are going to show up later to check in for our cruise every time (boarding is between 1&3 pm). 

 The first thing we did when we got on the ship was get ice cream and call our parents to let them know we boarded the ship safely after our crazy nightmare of a trip. We had just enough time to get settled in our stateroom before the safety briefing.

Here's the building we saw in town. What an excellent view from the ship!

James LOVED watching New Orleans pass us by as the ship departed. We watched from the deck for 2 hours...good thing we didn't watch until we got to sea, the Mississippi River lasted for 6 hours! 

I felt loved in New Orleans.

We saw the most random trampoline location ever-on the edge of the Mississippi river with no house nearby

 He LOVES watching from the deck
Finally we headed down to explore our ship. 

 These paintings brought me back to my ballet days

 Sunflower Atrium
We ate some dinner & then went to the Welcome Aboard show. We were introduced to our cruise director, Corey, & instantly liked him WAYYYYY more than our last cruise director from our honeymoon. I was very pleased with the performers because they could sing & dance and do both extremely well! I was excited for all the other shows that week. 
Day 1: Sea Day
We set our wakeup call to 8am (6am Phoenix time) and headed to the fitness center to get our exercise on! I love the fitness center because it's on the top deck overlooking the ocean. After a good work out, we got ready & went to breakfast. We then hit up the $10 Madness sale at the shops on the cruise because everything in the store is only $10, but only during that sale! We bought a cowboy hat for James to wear for when we lay out to protect his neck & ears from the sun. Then we layed out on the deck.

 protecting my hair from the wind

 first day at sea

 tip: always bring a hair tie when going on the deck

my sailor

Then we went to Mind Game Trivia.

James went to trivia almost every day.

I participated in the Name that Kiss trivia. I had to identify 40 different movie kisses. I got 30 or so right. I needed Dad there to help me identify some of the movies! Then we had lunch & headed to Hasbro the Gameshow. This is a game show where audience members are the life size pieces to Hasbro games such as SORRY! SLIDERS, YAHTZEE BOWLING, CONNECT 4 BASKETBALL, OPERATION SAM DUNK and SIMON FLASH, where you can team up with your friends and family to win great prizes, all in front of a live audience. James and I were part of the audience. 

Then we headed to dinner in the Monet Dining room. We had early seating, so dinner was at 6pm every night. Monday was elegant night, so we dressed up all fancy & enjoyed fancy food!

Elegant Night in the Dining Room.

 James had the alligator fritters again (he had them on our last cruise)
I also tried sushi for the first time! There were 3 types of sushi, and the type I had tasted super peppery. It wasn't bad but I definitely didn't love it.

 We ate lobster tail

 and steak

 and of course I ate the chocolate melting cake every single night.

Monet Dining Room

 Traditional cruise stairway picture

 We loved our friend the towel elephant

so cute 
After dinner we changed to go to the Family Friendly Comedy show sponsored by George Lopez. We had some good laughs. 

Then we headed to the entertainment show of the evening titled The Brits! The show was a tribute to the British invasion of music including songs from The Beatles, The Who, Herman's Hermits, & The Rolling Stones. The performers were soo talented! 

Day 2: Sea Day
The second day was also a sea day on board the ship all day long. The weather turned kind of stormy & it started to rain. So after we layed out on the deck and read our books, we went indoors to read our books & sip hot chocolate. 

 relaxing on the deck & reading our books

 James read the two most recent Orson Scott Card books (Earth Unaware and Earth Afire)

 I read Beachcombers, Moonshell Beach, and The Great Gatsby
We ate lunch.

 James' first Guy Fieri burger from Guy's Burger Joint: The Chilius Maximus

I ate The Ringer burger yummm
Then we we went to The Game of Love where 3 couples from the audience participate in personal questions about their significant other. There was a newly wed couple, a midlife couple, and a couple who had been married for 60 years. The old couple were the cutest. Frank & Sandy. Frank had hearing aids. One of the questions was, "If your husband was on a deserted island, would he rather be stranded with a hooker or a nun?" Frank's response was, "If I say hooker, I get nun (none)." Bahahahahahahaha. We laughed sooo hard.

 As you can see...we had a great time
James then went to Sports Trivia in the Sports Bar & Lounge before dinner.

 James concentrating hard during sports trivia

 sports bar & lounge
We enjoyed dinner in the dining room again and got to know our servers a little better. There's George, a young guy from Romania who we socialized with the most. He has a girlfriend who also works on the cruise ship. So cute. Then there's Luko, from Croatia, an older man who should be retired. He was the main waiter. Then there was Ida, who has a really long Indonesian name, so we called him Ida. He was 30 years old, just married, with a baby on the way. He left them in Indonesia to support his family by working on the cruise ship. They were great servers, we enjoyed talking with them. 
We went to the family friendly comedy again and laughed our heads off.
We went to the entertainment show titled Latin Nights. This show's theme was based on Latin culture with music featuring superstars such as Gloria Estefan, Santana, J-LO, Shakira, Ricky Martin, and Enrique Iglesias. Loved this show!

Day 3: Montego Bay, Jamaica
We ate breakfast & loaded ourselves onto a bus to drive 1.5 hours away to Ochos Rios where we would climb Dunns River Falls.

 Upon arrival in Montego Bay, Jamaica

 We didn't even explore Montego Bay, we just hopped on a bus to explore other parts of Jamaica.

 We shared a coconut to stay hydrated. It's deceivingly small.
We also spent $7 on a pack of Lays Stacks...make sure to bring snacks with you on long shore excursions. 
Our tour guide's names was Angela & our bus driver was Frank. They are "no-problem people in a no-problem country." They taught us to say YaMan, NoMan, and NoProblemMan, as well as Irie. This means yes man, no man, no problem man, and irie means "great".
Our falls trek was fun! Climbing a 600 foot waterfall was way fun! I stupidly brought my non-waterproof camera...our falls guide, Moses, told us "noproblemman" he would hold onto it and keep it dry for us. I was freaking out! But he stayed true to his word and kept it dry throughout the entire hike AND he took all our pictures for us without us even asking. We gave him an "irie" tip at the end. Haha.

 Our adventure begins~before hiking Dunns River Falls

 Showing off our awesome neon water shoes that we rented.

 I love the green trees

 One of the many photos our falls guide generously took for us

 the water temp was perfect

  the limestone rock was slippery

 We made it to the top! 600 ft.

 We held hands with those people in the background while climbing the falls. They were high school teachers from Louisiana.

 We found this stray cat curled up outside the gift/rest stop on our way back from the falls. 

 good morning stretch

Our ship docked. The Carnival Conquest.

 Saying goodbye to Montego Bay

James went to sports trivia before dinner.

 Then headed to dinner.
Then went to another episode of Hasbro the Gameshow. We loved the commercial break:

bahahahahahahahahahahaha

Day 4: Grand Cayman Islands, Grand Cayman
The Fourth of July.
We arrived in Grand Cayman, ate breakfast, boarded the ferry to shore, bus ride, boat ride to Stingray City. Beautiful clear water in the middle of the ocean where the sandbar was swimming with 50 or so stingrays. We loved swimming with them! 

 Introducing our adventure in Grand Cayman! Stingray City!

 James loooooved these stingrays.

 He kept trying to catch one himself, but they are so fast & big & heavy

 The females are massive!

 so excited!

 They're so smooth & soft & slippery

 salty kisses

 thanks for the back massage!

 haha
We took the boat ride back, then another bus ride to the Cayman Turtle Farm.

 hundreds of rescued sea turtles

 I took tons of pictures of James holding the turtles. Here are a few:

 Oh and me.

 He kept flapping his flippers so I had to massage his neck to calm him down

 cute 

flapping away

 favorite picture at the turtle farm

 pretty shell

There was also a man-made swimming area to snorkel & swim with the turtles, but the line for snorkel gear was long, only a few people were actually snorkeling in the murky water, and I bet there were only a few turtles in there. We decided to pass on that and head to the hatchery.

 lizards & iguanas everywhere

 2 more chillin in the shade

We also saw some alligators & sharks at the farm.

 stepped inside the air conditioned hatchery

ninja turtle

or Franklin

 educational video-James loved learning about the cute baby sea turtles that are being rescued!

 I love the colors in Grand Cayman

 look at that turquoise water! 

 We said hi to our neighbors on the Carnival Liberty! We were on that same ship 2 years ago on our Honeymoon!
We went back to the ship for lunch.

 LOVED the Blue Iguana burritos on the ship

 so good.

 Our second elegant night was on Independence Day

Here are similar pictures but I couldn't decide which one to post

 James tried the escargot again...we're still not huge fans

 favorite towel monkey friend! or is it a ninja?
We changed clothes to head to the entertainment show of the night: Divas! This show featured the music of diva singers such as Whitney, Celine, Beyonce, Christina, Madonna, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and even Prince!

here's a scene from Rihanna's Umbrella song.

Happy 4th of July from the middle of the Caribbean Sea!

 It was so humid on the deck that my ice cream cone melted in seconds

 deck party

 love when this man dances

 dance party

 4th of July deck party
Day 5: Cozumel, Mexico
We ate breakfast. We shared a taxi with 2 girls from Ohio-Lauren & Kelly. We both wanted to go to a free beach to lay out, so we split the money for a taxi and hung out at the beach. Unfortunately, the nice beach was closed because there were 3 other ships docked there and they needed to reserve the beach for shore excursions. So we went to the grainy sand/rocky ocean beach where you either pay $12 for a chair or purchase food or drink to have a free chair. We purchased a $2.50 water bottle. The beach workers kept trying to sell us stuff. It was rather annoying, but at least the beach was free (to some extent), we shared a taxi, and we could just relax & read our books. I dipped my feet in the water, but it was too rocky to wade out. I was disappointed in that, but next time I will remember to pack water shoes!

 Cozumel. 
We went to Paradise Beach to lay out...& watched the storm clouds approach

 We wanted to go to the Mayan ruins but this is as close as we got...maybe next time.

 picture of a picture.
We ate Blue Iguana Mexican & pizza from the 24 hour pizzeria for lunch. 
We layed out and swam some more on the ship.
James went to sports trivia again.
We went to karaoke. I did not sing, I still had a bit of a frog in my throat from my cold I caught before the cruise. It was entertaining though! 
We went to Showcase of the Stars-the cruise talent show. There were 6 acts. There were 3 gospel songs and 3 country songs. Everyone on the cruise was either from Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, or Texas. We had a lot of religious, southern people on the boat! The first act was a pastor who sang How Great Thou Art. I actually felt the Spirit during one of the cruise shows! It was awesome. Then next act was a gospel rapper. He rapped for 10 minutes about the Bible & Jesus & stuff. He kept going on and on and on....another pastor sang but he sang country. All of the acts were great! 
One of the comedians from the Comedy Club is also from the south and he mainly does church comedy. He says that he never cusses in his comedy, even during the adult shows because he doesn't need to swear to be funny. He was our favorite comedian, he was hilarious! He even had fake hick teeth he would put in his mouth whenever he would make fun of Alabama folk. We definitely laughed a lot on this cruise.
Day 6: Saturday Sea Day.
We woke up and went to the Comedy Club Brunch

 Comedy Club Brunch with pancakes & Ranchos Huevos-George Lopez's Recipe!

 omelet goodness around 9am
Around noon we headed to the Chocolate Extravaganza. Lots of yummy chocolate desserts buffet style....yes please!

 chocolate extravaganza.

 gotta have my chocolate...

 oh and my cookie fix
we layed out & read books some more, ate salad for lunch, oh and this:

 just practicing in case we fall overboard

 that face...

 Saying goodbye to Mexico for now
Another episode of Hasbro the Gameshow, a dance show performed by a dance troupe in Mississippi (reminded me of my dance studio days), dinner, comedy, and relaxation while watching The Big Bang Theory on our TV. 
Great ending for a great cruise right? Wrong! We were informed Saturday night that the Mississippi River had been closed due to a ship sinking. Updates in the morning. We were supposed to dock in New Orleans at 7am on Sunday morning. We are all set and ready to go that morning. The captain comes over the intercom to inform us that they have rerouted us to dock in Mobile, Alabama, which is 2.5 hours away from New Orleans. ETA is 2:30pm. Our flight was supposed to leave at 2:30. Another flight missed. Unfortunately we booked our flight through Orbitz. We got on the phone as soon as we had cell service, the Orbitz lady was NOT helpful whatsoever, we cancelled our flight. No other flights going out that day due to huge New Orleans Essence festival. We call Collin & Marti after being on the phone for over an hour trying to figure out our next plan of action. Luckily they had driven to Florida that weekend and were driving back straight through Mobile, Alabama! They graciously picked us up so that we didn't have to be stuck on the hot crowded bus shipping people back to New Orleans. The cruise did their best to accommodate everyone. Guests were allowed to spend an extra night at no additional cost due to flight cancellations and lack of hotel reservations. Transportation to New Orleans via buses were provided with no charge, but thankfully we had amazing friends to transport us instead. The traffic was insane due to the festival weekend, so instead of 2.5 hours we added an extra hour to the drive. We passed all of the miserable buses on our way to New Orleans. That night we ordered pizza & sat down to figure out our flight options. Every flight was $1000+ for 1 one-way ticket to Phoenix. James had his first rotation the next day. He would have to miss it. We looked at surrounding cities to fly out of. We ended up purchasing a ticket through US Airways for Houston to Phoenix, direct flight, for $500-600. 

James rented a car and drove 5 hours, then got on his plane on Monday and flew home. He missed his first day of rotations, but his preceptor was understanding-thank goodness. I, however, stayed another day in New Orleans with our friends, because there was no way we were spending that much money on a plane ticket. I was to miss a day of work and fly home on Tuesday for $300, with a layover in Charlotte, NC, and then a 3 hour flight to Phoenix. At least they were smooth flights though. Full, but smooth. I like US Airways. Here are some pics of my extra day in New Orleans.

 stranded  arriving in Mobile, Alabama

 Lunch at The Milk Bar. 

Clooney's Choice sandwich. chicken breast, avocado, tomato, mozzarella, cilantro & lime mayo

 The Milk Bar-New Orleans...best chocolate shake ever.

photo credit here

Dinner at Joey K's Restaurant 
photo credit here

 Joey K's Restaurant-New Orleans. Another Guy Fieri suggestion from Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives. Thanks Collin & Marti for letting me experience real New Orleans fried chicken!
Dessert at Sucre.

photo credit here

 prettiest display of macaroons from Sucre Sweet Boutique 

 in love with this shop

photo credit here

 think Tiffany's meets The Cocoa Bean

 chocolates, cakes, cupcakes, chocolate drinks, cookies, macaroons, gelato, every dessert you could imagine pretty much.

 chocolates at $2 a piece

 thank goodness for free samples

Thanks for sharing the sweet treats Marti!
After an extra $1000 spent just to get home, we are home, safe and sound. James has had a great week of rotations, and I am back to work. 
We are forever grateful to Collin & Marti for being the perfect hosts and for going above and beyond to help us out. We had a fun time visiting them, experiencing a little bit of New Orleans, and having a blast on our cruise. We are thinking we might just have to drive everywhere from now on, avoid airlines for a little while, or at least purchase insurance for our next flights. Hope you enjoyed this insanely long post. We certainly enjoyed our insanely fun cruise. Next time we will skip the insanely nightmare of travelling.
Until next time!
Stay posted for a special Tips for Cruisers post coming in the next few days!