Monday, June 30 – Embarkment day

We began our morning with getting ourselves organized to load up for the cruise ship. Mind you my sister had been up most of the night working on my youngest niece, Hunny Bunny's hair. We decided to forego a big breakfast and eat McDonald’s. So we checked out and ended up taking an earlier shuttle for the cruise ship and were on the boat by 12:30 pm. But to my dismay and the detriment of the worker who told me we were not allowed into our cabins until 1:00 pm. Ya’ll I can be quite aggressive at times and I had spent about 30 or 45 minutes trying to get on the dayum ship and it was hot and my carry on bags were heavy. The worker, bless her heart, told us we could go eat. I was already questioning the fact she could not read, then I started to question her eyesight because we obviously had too many bags to walk around the dayum ship. So I told her in no uncertain terms, “I will be waiting these 8 minutes to put my bags up. I will not be carrying my heavy bags to eat and all over the ship. And if we couldn’t get to our rooms then they should not have let me on the ship until I could. And Carnival doesn’t do its guests like that.” She gave my sister a questioning shrug. Whatev, Strike One. And at 1 pm we went to our room which as expected was small and compact but not as bad as it could have been.

Then we proceeded to go have lunch (Yeah almost all my family was on the boat except for 4 folks. You know they couldn’t pass up a Wal.mart.) the food was a bit unrecognizable and when I found the hamburgers my plate was filled with questionable stuff. Strike Two. After lunch we went on a walking tour of the ship to get our bearings, but um, there really wasn’t all that much to see. Frankly, my first impression was the boat wasn’t as fancy or have the glamour of a Carnival ship. Stuff looked old. Then we prepared for our safety drill. One point to RCI, because it took all of 15 minutes. They have that drill down to a science so you were not held for an hour hot and miserable in the lifejacket. Carnival could learn something from RCI on this matter. Then it was off to our room for a nap because we had a late dinner seating. Our Waiter was the business, funny and silly and he took an instant liking to my niece Hunny Bunny. The food for dinner was a nice prime rib I think. We ended the night in the night club on the ship. We got drinks well under the price because the waiter had a crush on my sister. Fun times. Except when my sister when to get my niece, Hunny Bunny from the onboard daycare or kiddie program. She had blood on her shirt and a bandage on her forehead. Oh hell naw! Why didn't they contact my sister or something? Strike Three! My neice hit her head on a ledge when trying to get a ball that had rolled under a table. Luckily, there was no big scar, just bled a lot when it happened. (Note: the folks on RCI didn't want to give my sister a written account of the incident or a copy of the accident report, we did get a typed out account of the situation, but they were real funny about putting it on letterhead.)