A few weeks ago I went on my first cruise. The trip almost didn’t happen for a few reasons but in the end, it came together and was one of the best and more importantly relaxing weeks of my life. Before leaving on the cruise, a few of my friends, with the exception of Tracy, were confused as I was going on this cruise with an ex. Quite frankly it was something we had planned before breaking up and as she is someone I care for a great deal and we don’t hate each other, there seemed no reason not to!

The weeks leading up to the cruise were exciting…in a bad way. Each of us had some issues come up that could have prevented us from going and quite frankly the only reason I made the cruise was because Trish put it on her card and let me pay her back. Trish had more serious issues to deal with than I and I cannot thank her enough for deciding to go on the cruise due to the fun we ended up having.

The cruise we decided to take was 4 nights/5 days to the Bahamas out of Port Canaveral on Royal Caribbean. Trish had found a GREAT deal on the cruise and as luck would have it…we were bumped UP to a nicer room than what we were originally supposed to have. The trip down was uneventful apart from having the top down on the convertible and the trunk lid up as someone, *cough*Trish*cough* needed to bring a suitcase. I didn’t think anything would fall out as it was fairly secure but I kept an eye out regardless.

Never having been on a cruise ship before, I wasn’t prepared for the enormous size of it. We aren’t talking aircraft carrier big but Jesus Christo…it was not small. I believe the ship held a little over 1200 passengers with a crew of almost 900. Upon receiving our boarding passes, we hopped on board!

My first thought upon seeing our room was, “Wow this is small” and my second thought was, “This is a larger room upgrade…how small are the smalls?”. My friend Tracy had been on this same cruise the week before and warned me about the size of the showers so that wasn’t much of a surprise…for the rest of you however, let me assure you there is no way to have sexy time in a Cruise Line shower unless you are in the Presidential Suite. I’d also like to point out this wasn’t because I tried, it is mainly because when in the shower the front of me pretty much touched one side of the shower and my butt touched the other side.

The ship was scheduled to depart about 4PM and as we had arrived a few hours early for good parking, this allowed us a little bit of time to get some food and to take a tour of the spa and fitness room. We were also introduced to the voice of Jimmy, our Cruise Director, who sounded like a gay, black dude, with something in his mouth speaking waaaaaay too fast. The gay and black part was later confirmed visually but I could not understand a damn thing the man said over the intercom the entire cruise.

Before officially leaving, the entire ship had to partake in an annoying safety drill which involved getting life jackets out of your room and assembling at a specific point where apparently we were supposed to jump overboard in case of an emergency or man the lifeboats or something. In all seriousness, I understood the point of the drill so I’m not really bitching. That being said, if we hit an iceberg, or were torpedoed, or rammed by the Nautilus, there is no way people would be calm and remember what the heck to do. Our Captain made an announcement where it became apparent she was a woman which elicited groans from the men. Just for the record, she was a hell of a lot better Ship Captain than any female Airline Pilot I’ve ever had.

And with that…we were off! Being located near the aft of the ship (the rear…I’m so nautical) I expected the noise from the engines to be much louder than the were. Honestly the very low rumble they made ended up being quite comfortable and made dosing off easy. Also I was interested in experiencing how much movement you would feel in the Ocean. The answer, for me, was zero. I know we weren’t hitting massive storms or anything and the swells were minimal, but I barely felt any movement the entire trip. I was amazed at the number of people I saw with the patches behind their ears to prevent motion sickness.

Our first itinerary was to travel overnight to the private island of Coco Cay. We decided to skip the main dining room on the first night and instead opted for the buffet. I’ll say this, the food on the ship was consistently good all week long. I avoided the temptation of gorging myself and ate 5 or 6 times per day a fair amount. Great food and always something different!

After exploring the ship and checking out the different venues: pool deck, casino, rock climbing wall, basketball court, theatre, etc. just to see what was around. We retired for the evening for the day that was to come!