Cruise Journal: Day 2: Saturday, September 27, 2008

We got up this morning at 7:30. I showered while Keith made coffee. The girls got up and showered while I went to the car for socks and to dispose of the dirty clothes. I tried to call my mom, and it was a debacle. We had “breakfast” and loaded the car. After attaching the luggage tags to the 5 pieces of luggage to be checked, we were ready to go. I waited FOREVER for the lady at the desk to print me a receipt, but she was too stupid to do it. After giving up, we hit the road at 9am. Katy had a meltdown about 20 minutes later when her beach ball went into the WAY back. We refused to let her unstrap to get it and she cried for a while. We stopped for breakfast at Burger King. Erin had 2.5 packets of hash browns. Katy had nothing but Sprite. The rest of the trip to the port was fairly uneventful. We had to wait for the bridge to come down, and then saw the huge line waiting to turn in bags. We decided to park and carry over our things. It took two trips – one for the checked luggage and another for the stuff to carry on. When cruising next time, I will not carry on anything except my purse and a tote bag /backpack. Dragging the rolling cart loaded with stuff was too hard.
I had a hard time after we got on the boat. It was much more crowded than I expected, HOT, and I didn’t know where I was going. Embarkation was a breeze, all things considered. We had a short delay at security as they searched my rolling cart and Erin’s backpack. We didn’t have to wait long to get keys and cleared to board. After boarding, I had a near meltdown, but we settled in on the GLORY!! We got an empty table and found lunch. At 1:30 we found our room. We spent the afternoon exploring the boat – the girls immediately changed into bathing suits and spent time splashing in the pool and hot tub. The lifeboat drill, as usual, was timed so we missed seeing the cast off. We did go up on deck afterward and enjoyed the sights as we cruised down the channel. There were lots of people waving at us – much to the delight of the girls. We eventually came to the room and got ready for dinner. There were some short fuses – we were all tired and hungry. Dinner in the Platinum Dining Room was WONDERFUL. Erin, who had been feeling sick, ate chicken nuggets, French fries, and ice cream. Katy had a WHOLE (small) pizza and ice cream. I had the Chicken de la Greque – delicious. Keith had the linguine with sausage, peppers, and mushrooms. He said his mouth was burning when he finished! But the best part was dessert – at least for me! I had the melting chocolate cake with ice cream. Yum! So good, that later, about 8:30, I found another portion in the buffet dining room. Yummmmmm. We walked the decks for about an hour and the girls danced to music by the pool. We called it a day and retired to our room at about 9:15. The girls were very enamored of the towel animal left on the bed. It was a bird. I took pictures of their beds and the towel animal. We turned off the light at about 9:45. Everyone was tired! It should be a good night.