Bon Voyage
Trip Start
Oct 09, 2010
1
2
10
Trip End
Oct 18, 2010
Where I stayed
Carnival Splendor
Long Beach, California
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The first ship we saw was the Queen Mary and we were a little surprised to see how big it was..until you saw the Splendor behind it..and it was even bigger. After the husband left to return the car rental we were stuck with the task of what the heck to do next. There were so many people everywhere... some leaving and some arriving. After accidentally sneaking in the back way we found a porter who must have realized we were completely lost. He helped us tag our luggage and took it away for us which was one left hassle to worry about. Since the husband wasn't back yet we hung out outside and took some picture of the huge ship that was to be our home for the next 7 nights.
The checkin process is a little long... i think we spent about an hour waiting in line (in the insane heat) just waiting to clear customs and get our room keys. After getting all this you are directed inside were there are a couple of cheesy photo ops (although there are no cameras around..or so I was told since I must have missed the signs) and then you walk across the gangway onto the ship.
The first impressions of the ship was "Holy Sh*t! its freaking pink!" but you get used to it really quick. The next was "crap, I can feel the boat moving and were not even out of port yet!" (I suffer from mild motion sickness which my lovely husband thinks I'm faking). I had been worried about being sick for the entire week but as I'm never one to let something that could happen stop me from doing anything we booked the cruise anyways.
After checking out our stateroom (inside cabin, bottom level, exactly mid ship) we decided to explore the rest of the ship. We found buffets galore, 2 pools, 5 hot tubs, a theatre, library, sports bar, casino (much to the husbands delight) and many many MANY more things. Before the ship can leave port they do a "muster" drill. Basically they have EVERYONE go to their muster stations and line up so we can listen to announcements and watch a safety drill..kinda boring but a necessity. The husband found this enjoyable as there were 1500 people on our side of the ship and he could see over everyones head..the joys of being 6'6". I thought they were cutting the muster drill awfully close to the departure time. I had visions of everyone on deck and the horn blowing as we sail off...apparently not so much. there were maybe 200 people actually on deck watching us pull out..it was so smooth you barely noticed anything.
The rest of the night was spent checking out the ship, enjoying a pretty decent dinner at the Black Pearl restaurant (love my time dinning!) and relaxing.
