So, Mr. Soup and I just got back from our one year anniversary trip. It was a trip of extreme highs and lows. I'll start with the lows first:
When we arrived in Galveston, we filled up my car at a local Exxon station. We were approached by a guy who wanted to sell us a parking spot at his lot which was conveniently located next to the Exxon (excellent marketing). He told us that the cruise ship had not even come in due to the fog. We ended up going with his parking company (he was ten dollars cheaper than the port parking and Murad talked him down an extra five dollars). He and his workers took us to the port and told of us some places where we could kill time. We expected the delay to be a couple of hours and we quickly got bored walking the Strand, so we went to the port to check in. After waiting for four hours, we were told that the cruise ship would not come in until Friday and we would now be going on a 3 day cruise to nowhere....yep....nowhere. We planned to go on a four day cruise with one stop because it was our first cruise and we didn't want to be stuck on a 7 day cruise if it sucked. However, I wish we would've done a cruise with two stops, so that we could at least go somewhere. So, we went and got a hotel room. Luckily Mr. Soup brought his mac, so we were able to watch tons of movies to kill time. And we were very lucky to have met the discount parking guy. He arranged for rooms to be held at the Howard Johnson for the people who parked at his lot. Most of the hotels shot up their prices to $100, but we got ours for $60. Not bad. Plus, Mr. Soup is going to be reimbursed for the day we lost on the cruise. We just won't get the money for three weeks. We also got 20% off on our next cruise and we received some on board benefits. It wasn't too bad, but Carnival could've done a lot more!
Oh did I mention that two of my former students (they still attend my school, but they are now in 8th grade) were on our cruise? Nice, huh! Actually it wasn't that bad. Even though they were only a floor above us, I hardly saw them and they didn't see me in a swimsuit which was my biggest concern. They are good kids, but sometimes you just want to get away!
Mr. Soup forgot his wallet at the hotel the day we actually were going to board. Luckily, the cleaning lady found it. Our wonderful parking people came to pick us up, took us to the hotel and then turned around and brought us back to the port. They seriously were the NICEST people. They were also hilarious too!
The Carnival embarking and disembarking process could be a little more organized.
The food could've been a little better.
The drinks could be a little cheaper and stronger or at least free!
Everyone who works on the Carnival Cruise ship is not American. I don't know why this bothered me, but it did. I pictured a modern day slave ship going to various countries and convincing these foreigners to come work for them for $5.00/hr. And those people really do work all the time. Our room was cleaned twice a day. We had one waiter at the pool in the afternoon and then saw him working the late night shift at the night club. I do hope they are adequately compensated, but I have a feeling they are not....
Okay, so the highs:
Uninterupted Soup time! I love spending time with my husband. We always have so much fun together no matter what we do! The roadtrip was fun and even though we sat on the floor of a port terminal for five hours.
We went to the pool all three days. Now those of you who know my husband know he doesn't drink. Prior to the cruise, I've drank with him a total of three times: Once when KU won some football bowl (he took a crimson and blue shot with me, Christina and the owner of some bar), once at our rehearsal dinner tasting (he had wine) and at our wedding (not sure what he had that night). However, we drank from the time we got up until we went to bed. I know, I know, I shouldn't encourage his drinking, but I did! We went to the pool and ordered drinks all three days. We drank at dinner, we drank at karaoke and we drank at the night club. We had a blast! All the drinking made for late mornings, but we still enjoyed our afternoons. Carnival had comped us for lunch and dinner on the day we didn't board, so our on-board alcohol hall bill was $0. However, since we weren't going to stop in Mexico and buy souvenirs, we decided to use that money to buy more drinks. So we did end up with a balance, but it was sooo worth it!
We also played a few sports and by that I mean ping-pong and miniature golf. Mr. Soup beat me three times in ping-pong, but I beat him in miniature golf! All those summers of junior golf paid off!
We also made some great friends on this trip. We had a formal dinner each night with assigned seating. Luckily, we were seated with some awesome people. We met two girls from Houston who were a lot of fun, a couple from Katy (Houston) and a couple from WICHITA! We had a lot of fun eating dinner with them each night. Mr. Soup and the guys thought it was fun to order a dinner as a dessert. They would eat lobster for dinner and instead of ordering dessert, they'd order a steak dinner. No, I'm not kidding. It was a little embarrassing, but I'm glad my husband wasn't the one who iniated it, but he sure did enjoy doing it! We went out at night with the couple from Wichita and the two girls from Houston. Since we have 20% off from Carnival, we may try to take a trip together next spring or summer. In fact, we are going to Wichita this weekend and we're going to hang out with the couple when we go down there. I'm very excited! I love meeting new people, especially randomly!
The night life was the best part of the cruise. My favorite of course was karaoke. I didn't sing. I would've but we had late dining and we never made it in time to get our names on the list. However, I absolutely loved the DJ. He was my favorite person on this trip. He was very flamboyant, but hilarious. He loved hip-hop music and wanted every karaoke singer to make it clap! We ended up drinking with him one of the nights at the club. He told us he loved BET! ha!
The comedian was hilarious! We saw him at the opening night show and at his own comedy show. The variety show wasn't that great. In fact, it was pretty cheesy.
I really like the night club. I loved being able to just DANCE! I danced with Mr. Soup, but it was also fun to hang out with girls and dance to songs that were popular when I was in college. I don't go out and just dance enough, so this was perfect for me.
So that's our trip in a nutshell. I'm sure I'm leaving some things out. I think what made this trip memorable were the ups and downs, spending QT with my man and meeting some great people on the way!
