Health & Fitness
Preparations for Cruising
This blogger will describe "the cruise of a lifetime" in this series of blog posts. Today's is Cruise Preparations, the next one will be First Days at Sea.
This blogger can take cruising off his "bucket list". His daughter talked him into a holiday cruise on Carnival Cruise Lines---at a ridiculously cheap price. (The airfare to Miami, FL, actually cost more than the cruise!).
To paraphrase Charles Dickens, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times". From the twenty persons who herded, checked, prodded, corralled, and pushed the 3,000 of us on-board the ship to the lukewarm coffee of the last morning, it was the experience of a lifetime!
We used a AAA Travel agent. As this was the daughter's idea, she asked the questions and chose the price points. Initially we had discussed a 4 day cruise (two of those days "at sea" and two "in port"). For a few dollars more, the travel agent insisted that we would enjoy an extra day cruising.
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This turned out to be less than prophetic as this blogger was "sea sick" three out of the five days. This blogger insisted on an upgrade from "interior cabin" to "ocean view".
It seemed like a good idea to be able to view the waves and the horizon line. All experience with Midwest "weather watching" did little to prepare this blogger for the swells, currents, high winds at sea, and the drone and constant clanking of the ship's engines. Yes, one of the reasons our cruise was so cheap was our cabin was almost as "aft" as anyone could get.
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Packing was easy: this blogger wore a suit and tie and resurrected his summer wardrobe of shorts and vintage Hawaiian shirts. Deciding not to shave for 5 days and not packing personal affects lightened the load of my carry-on. Towels, soap, shampoo, luxurious terry-cloth robe were provided in the hotel-like cabin.
Deodorant and sun-screen were bought later on-board the ship so as to speed up our airport screening and bypass TSA rules of the 1.5 oz liquids in baggies.
The last preparatory item was to secure a ride to Lambert International Airport for our 6:00a.m. flight. The landlord's girlfriend showed up promptly at 4:30a.m. and conveyed us in a Prius with heated seats.
We "cruised" through airport security and settled in for a bumpy flight to Miami, FL, where the weather promised to be a balmy 80 degrees F.