Cruise - Part Deux

After 18 months of blog silence, I'm back. It's not that I've intentionally ignored this blog; I just haven't travelled anywhere worth posting about...until now. I'm going on another cruise!!! Last July, my friend, Bib, said her mom wanted to plan a "girl's trip" with her 4 daughters, and they might be interested in taking a cruise. She and I exchanged several emails about the ins and outs of cruising, and before long, they had booked a 7-day Western Caribbean sailing on the Carnival Dream for May 2011. Since it was designed to be a mother/daughter trip, she asked if my mom and I would be interested in going, too. Um...well...of course we wanted to go. Where do I sign up? We booked the next day, and the waiting began. Of course, I would have never guessed that I would lose my job a month later and be unemployed for three months before getting rehired by GM, but it all worked out in the end. After all the phone calls, emails, planning, packing, and anticipation, the day is finally here.

Bib flew down earlier in the day with her sister, Sarah, and her cousin, Pam, and Pam's husband, Frankie, who are also going on the cruise. They flew into Sanford, FL, rented a car, and are spending the night at Sarah's condo in Satellite Beach. Bib's sisters, Becky and Pat, and her mom, Annette, all live in the Orlando area, so they are planning to drive over to Port Canaveral tomorrow morning. For those of you who are counting, there will be 8 women and 1 man in our party. Poor Frankie!

I'm not a superstitious person, but I'll admit I had a little anxiety about travelling on Friday the 13th. We flew from Huntington to the Melbourne, FL airport, and except for a little turbulence, and a little lightening, it was an easy trip. We did, however, travel with some characters on the flight from Charlotte to Melboure. Namely, there was a young Asian man seated in front of us who wore a fleece-lined, fur-trimmed jacket the whole flight. It might not have been such an unusual site except that it mid-May and very hot on the plane. There was also a man who took off his shoes and put them in the overhead bin. Seriously? It was a 1 hr and 30 min flight.

Bib and Sarah (and Flat Deana - more on that later) picked us up at the airport and took us to the Residence Inn Cocoa Beach, about 4 miles from Port Canaveral. (Thank you, Marriott Rewards!). For posterity, I will record that my luggage weighed 47 lbs (10 lbs less than the last cruise!), so I hope that means I've learned my lesson about over packing. Mom's luggage weighed 43 lbs, so we've left a little bit of room for souvenirs.

Our room at the Residence Inn is like a small 2-room apartment. It was very nice and spacious. The hotel has an outside company, TravelLynx, that offers a shuttle to the port for $6/PP RT. Becky, Pat, and Annette are going to park here at the hotel tomorrow morning and shuttle to the port with us at 10:45 am. Let the adventure begin!