Cruise in Review

Sunday - So, due to my inability to remember time, we left about an hour after we had intended and were further delayed by the incompetent people at the Delaware house. Ben's mom called three times to see where we were and to brag that they were ahead of us. We arrived at the sea port around 1:30. We had to drop our bags off and then drive to a long line to park. About thirty minutes later, we got to wait in line again to check in. Idiotically, we missed the sign with the priority check in for suite guests, but luckily found it before we had to waiting in line for 40 minutes to take a shuttle to the boat. We got on the boat by 2:30 and went to have some lunch. It turns out we beat Ben's parents on. We win! Go us! After lunch, I ran around putting together the oot bags and unpacking. My mom yelled at me the first time she saw me about not giving her a room list (when I hadn't seen her yet ... how was I supposed to get it to her?). We called our wedding contact on the boat only to learn that she was sick and the other coordinator was in a wedding. In retrospect, I am very glad to not have gotten married in New Jersey before we left. The port was UGLY. Look at Tim's pictures on the wedding website for photographic proof of the crappy industrial park that is the cruise sea port. I ran around and gave every oot bags and unpacked. We stared at the balcony for a while, ordered room service with Nick, Drew, and Greg. Tried to take a nap. Went to dinner. I had a delicious brie and asparagus tart. After dinner, I went to the hot tub while Ben stared out on the balcony only to fall asleep cuddling Infinite Jest.

Monday - We finally got in contact with Melanie, our wedding coordinator (picture in gallery) to take about how tomorrow would go. We scoped out the chapel and game rooms where our reception would be held. Ben went to a black jack tournament and I went to sign up for the nerdy science tour later that afternoon. I worked on making copies of the best man scavenger hunt. Kayla helped me write them. Ben came back as Kayla, Ducore, Tim, and I were going to head out for the art auction. My goal for the next cruise I go on is to drink as much free champagne as possible. The art auction had a preview session with free champagne. They also had art work for action. Expensive art work. They had some original Dali's (from his religious phase), Rembrandt stamps, and Picasso sketches. It really seemed like a scam for those who don't know much about high priced art work. We left before the actual auction since they said it would go to about 4:00 (the preview started at 1:30). We all went to eat lunch. I went on a tour with my parents of the science lab aboard (BORING!). Ben took a nap. I came back and joined him in the nap. He got up and looked out over the balcony for a while. We took showers (it was humidly gross on ship due to the rain) and got dressed for dinner. I think we might have gone for second lunch to the cafe due to the late time of our dining. We went to dinner (I had like an eggplant tower). After dinner, we went to a honeymooner's thing (more free champagne!) and won a couples facial in the spa. We were supposed to meet everyone in the hot tub, but I was tired. Everyone eventually showed up and we did the picture judging of the scavenger hunt. Tim won mostly due to fact that he was the only one brave enough to take a picture of himself and a hot man. People finally left at like 1:30 and I finally got to go to sleep.

Tuesday - Due to the fact that I'm an idiot, I couldn't sleep. I left the balcony door unsealed and it kept rattling during the night. I was freaking out and thinking someone was knocking on our door at all hours of the night. We got up and went to breakfast in the dining room. We sat with frog people. Seriously. It was the most boring meal ever. It was also raining. A lot. Once we got back to the room with much time to spare, I realized we could have slept in for another hour and been fine. After taking a short, ten minute nap, I ran off to salon to get my hair done. I then went to my mom's room and got dressed and put on makeup. Karel and Kayla arrived and had to button up the back of my dress. Fun for them! When we were within like 30 minutes of wedding time, I realized the boys didn't have their boutonnieres and our bouquets needed their bows. Yeah, good planning on my part. Apparently Ben and the boys had a hard time turning off the possessed TV in our room. My mom, Karel, Kayla, and I went up to the chapel, and had to wait. Apparently the island wedding coordinator was not let on the ship and Melanie had to go down there to let her on. Our minister came to meet us, he wore pink Bermuda shorts, and is a Scottish Bermudian. Now, let me slow things down so I can remember them in the future.
1. Our wedding coordinator thought the idea of a bridesman was unique and hilarious. (They are very conservative in Bermuda.)
2. They have a hard time getting Ben's grandma (who fell and hurt her knee the day before) up into the chapel, so we start late.
3. Once we get into the chapel, and I'm standing there with my dad, ready to go in, the coordinator can't get her boom box to work. Eventually Melanie puts the CD in the sound system and we start. I honestly can't remember what the music sounded like.
4. My mom makes fun of me as we walk in because I'm leading my dad. No duh, it's the only way to walk in without him stepping all over my dress.
5. I walk down the very short aisle and no one fixes my train (which I step on multiple times walking up the steps).
6. I honestly can't remember most of what the minister said, although I do remember how weird it was. Do I look at Ben? Do I look at the minister who is speaking?
7. The ceremony was nice and short.
8. Ben can't put my ring all the way on my finger and I had to jam it on.
9. I kept looking for the photographer and was impressed that I couldn't see him. Turns out, he wasn't there.
10. We walked down stairs and couldn't decide if we were doing a receiving line or not. Then the photographer shows up. We head back upstairs to take pictures.
11. After a lot of pictures, we go downstairs to drink and eat cake. Someone just needed to tell us exactly what to do and move us along. Weddings are way too hectic and my head was spinning. I wish someone would have just told me what to do.
12. Our cake was delicious.
13. Karel's speech made me cry.
14. We said hello to everyone, Ben kept getting pulled into conversations with his brothers (who were not as important to talk to as say his grandmas). We left early to go take pictures with the photographer around the ship. He apologized and said that it was not his fault that he was late, apparently his manager never told him he had to work.
15. After like an hour of picture taking, we headed back to our rooms to change. I realized that I couldn't leave for the island because I didn't have my SeaPass or wallet.
16. We ran into our families and bridal party in the cafe and I finally got my stuff back. My mom yelled at Kayla because Kayla took some of my bags that my mom left in the game room. Hello! The bag with my wallet! Thanks Mom! And thanks for yelling at Kayla for picking up on your slack.
16. We went out to Bermuda where it had cleared up. We took a ferry to Hamilton. Once we docked, it started pouring again. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking down the boring street in Hamilton looking in overpriced shops. We had to had back to the boat around 6:00 because there was no other shuttle until 8:00 that would take us back to the boat in time for dinner. I was tired and grumpy and annoyed that Fuzzy was taking up all of Ben's time and attention. I was obviously not feeling well and he was spending all of his time looking at useless maps with Tim. What a great way to start a marriage.
17. When we returned to the ship, we went into the hot tub. That was relaxing. We then went to dinner. I got something really good, but I can't remember what it was. I think it was the chili. The alcohol pusher came by with the special of the night -- blinky glasses. We all got one except for Zach (we had condensed tables tonight due to the fact that Nick, Drew, Greg, and all of Ben's family weren't at dinner). After dinner, we went back to our room. Everyone kept bugging us to the to the ship's ripoff of the Honeymooners show. I wanted to have sex. Call me crazy, but it was our wedding night. Ben ended up doing a light show for me with the glasses that night in our room.
18. Everyone else went to a couple of bars in Bermuda and didn't get back until Wednesday.

Wednesday --
We had all planned to leave for Bermuda and go to Horseshoe Bay at 9:15. We were going to leave later because we had facial appointments. I went to get a facial. It was very relaxing and nice. Well, except for the part where it felt like the woman was going to break my nose when she was getting rid of the blackheads in my nose. Ben and I went to breakfast and then headed out to the bus. We got to Horseshoe Bay and found his family. We walked around and looked for Tim, Kayla, Ducore, Karel, and Jason to only find the last two, who were leaving. We sat on the beach, went into the water, and decided to leave about an hour later. It was windy and the pink sand kept getting into our eyes. The water is super salty, and with the increased waves due to the storm that we experienced yesterday, Ben's vision was destroyed within fifteen minutes of playing in the waves. As we were leaving, we ran into Kayla, Ducore, and Tim. It was like the law of conservation of bridal party members. When one group arrives, the other must leave. We took a bus back and went back to our room to take a shower. We grabbed something at the cafe and headed back to the dockyard to go shopping. Everything was extremely over priced or crappy. Considering that Bermuda's main industry is tourism, you'd think they'd have better things to bring home. The pottery was not unique and way over priced. The glass stuff at the glassworks was amazing, but even the littlest little glass penguins
(like the height of a nickel) was $25.
We got back on the boat before it left and headed to the cafe to get some food. We then met with the photography manager and yelled at him for his mistake. At the time, I wasn't too mad, but now that I look at the armature pictures of the wedding ceremony taken by our friends and family, I'm a little more pissed that we don't have any good pictures from our ceremony. Anyway, we ended up getting a pretty good deal for their fuck up. We went to show our pictures to our parents. We played trivia in a bar with my parents, Joan, Tim, and Ducore. My dad didn't know the capital of Austria. It thoroughly shocked our view of my dad and his knowledge of geography. Then it was off to dinner. I had ziti with marinara. It sucked.
After dinner, we went to the Quest game show. We saw many interesting things. Including, but not limited to, Tim in his boxers, Zach taking it from behind from his dad, a random woman's white bikini underwear, and my dad being really, really drunk. Due to the suckiness of dinner and the slowness of service not allowing us to get second entrees, Ben, Tim, and I went to the midnight buffet thinking that, since it was after midnight, that it would be open. It wasn't. It was still preview time. Why is there a preview for a buffet? We went back to our room disappointed. Thank goodness room service had left our food on our bed and I got some cheesecake before I went to sleep.

Thursday --
Thank goodness Kayla woke me up at 10:30 in the morning, or I might have wasted my last day on the cruise in bed. We got up, went to breakfast, and stopped by the photographers to finish up some last minutes stuff (picking out a photo for the announcements, getting our cd of the photos). Ben went to the casino to gamble and I went to the pool. Since it was the only sunny day that we were stuck on the boat, the pool deck was packed. The idea of sitting there with everyone and their mother did not interest me, so I talked Kayla into coming back to my room. We sat on the balcony and caught up on the going-ons of Tuesday night. Ben came back from winning money. We sat on the balcony longer and looked at all the flying fish. We also saw a hammerhead shark. It was cool. Ducore thought he was special because he saw a big flying fish, but we won with our shark. We got hungry, ordered room service, and Tim showed up. We ate and broke out the bottle of champagne from our wedding reception. We finished up the last third of our cake. I made deliciously strong drinks and we went to play shuffleboard. I am not a good shuffleboard player. Or, I am not a good drunk shuffleboard player.
It was back to our rooms for a shower and dressing for the ice show. Ben went back to the casino. I've had two glasses of champagne and a concoction of vodka, Kahlua, and Baileys when we go to the ice show. I ordered a margarita. It was awesome. I think mostly because I was fairly drunk at that point. I went with Tim and Ducore to the duty free shop to buy some alcohol. I went back to the room to start packing. After about an hour and a half of packing, Ben left to go to the casino and I went to go get my dress bag. I took the pictures with me to dinner and met him in the casino. I got bored and went back to the room. We all met up at dinner. I had a delicious vegetable curry. We tried to get out of taking a stupid picture of all of us in our t shirts, but Ben caved in to his mom's pressure. After that, we went back to our room where I pressured everyone to drink the alcohol I had left over. I finished packing while we all sat around. I kicked everyone out at 12:30 and I think the rest of them went out to do crazy drunken things on the ship.

Friday --
I woke up really early because I was afraid we would miss departure. We went to breakfast and waited for everyone else to get up. We hung out in the Solarium until we were called. We took naps. It was a good time. Right before our color was called (we were fairly high up there in the color code), we got paged to guest services. Turns out Ben was over his credit card limit, which would make sense considering that we had an $800 charge for additional pictures and he put all the tuxedos on his card. We fixed that and went to the gate to depart. Ben's card made a funny noise and they made him go back up to guest services. Apparently the cards do not get reprogrammed to show that we had fixed the billing situation. Ben finally comes down again, and the card beeps for a third time. He's about ready to kick the computers over when they finally let him out. The trolley ride off the boat to customs wasn't bad. And, surprisingly, customs was a breeze. Apparently they didn't even want to see my passport and didn't give us a second look. We could have smuggled in all sorts of stuff. Extra booze, the flowers from my bouquet, etc. We dragged all four of our bags to our car and took off. Traffic was sucky in some places and we managed to stop at the same restaurant for lunch as our parents and some of Ben's extended family. We didn't get back home until 4:30 and sat on the couch for hours. Today, the floor still seems like it's moving.