Day Two ~ At Sea

We woke up nice and early on day 2.....5:30ish I think.  The ship was ROCKING!!  Although from what we learned later, we slept through an awful storm and a very rocky ship.  I was feeling dizzy, but not too bad.  I took a lot of ginger tablets and used some kind of homeopathic something that you squeeze behind your ear.  Doug took Dramamine.  He was having a harder time than I was.  I think dealing with vertigo on a regular basis was helpful to me lol.

Doug went to the Cafe Promenade to get me coffee.  I was really trying to find good coffee, even palatable coffee, somewhere.  I gave up on day 3 I think.  Royal Caribbean does a lot of things fabulously, but making coffee would not be one of them!!

We had room service for breakfast.  I had oatmeal with raisins, Doug had eggs potatoes and turkey sausage, and we shared pastries and fresh fruit.  We watched the sun come up.  It was simply beautiful.  We really, really enjoyed sitting on the balcony in our bathrobes and watching the world go by.

 Ten this morning is the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle.  125 people signed up.  I think about 75 showed up. There were crew members that talked and gave away prizes.  I won a $200 internet certificate, which I never used and should have just given away.  There were too many other things to do than hang around online.

After the official things were over, we had a gift exchange.  Sue, a gal from our roll call, organized lots of activities.  After the gift exchange, we gathered for a cabin crawl and also a poker run.  We each anted up $5 and at each cabin we got a card.  There were prizes for best, worst and something else.  We didn't win anything.

It was really interesting to see all the different cabin categories.  We saw an inside, ocean view, balcony, aft balcony, handicapped accessible, promenade, junior suite and ended in Sue's grand suite.  She had goodies and champagne for us.  Ken announced the winners of the poker run.  After doing the cabin crawl, we were very happy to have upgraded to our suite from the balcony we originally had booked when we were going to cruise in April.

View from the aft balcony from the cabin crawl.

 We went to lunch in the main dining room.  They have a BEAUTIFUL salad bar.  You walk down the bar, tell the server what you want, they toss and chop it for you right there.  There were several kinds of lettuce, tuna, chicken, beef, smoked salmon, shrimp, and so much more.  It was my favorite place to eat lunch on sea days.  We also had dessert.  This was Doug's.  It was a meringue something wrapped with lemon mousse.  It was delicious!!

We met two really nice couples from PA at lunch this day.  The one lady reminded me of Tina Faye, and we called her Tina for most of the week.  Really her name was Amy, and Annette, Greg and Mike.  Great people that we enjoyed talking with all through the trip.

 The elevator reminded you what day of the week it was.  The days really do run together.

We shopped on the Royal Promenade and bought a Christmas tree ornament.  We napped.  Ahhh....I love vacation!  I did wake up before Doug and was feeling quite dizzy.  I went to find coffee (I really tried lol) and then sat in the Solarium and read a book for a while.  I watched a bird play in a puddle.  The birds fascinated me.  Where did they come from?  I guess they lived on the ship.

 It was the first formal night.  Doug was having tuxedo issues, so he opted to wear his suit.  So I opted to wear a cocktail dress instead of my black gown.  We headed down to have pictures taken.  We had lots and lots and lots of pictures taken, like 140.  I bought the CD that gives us all of the professional pictures, so I drug Doug to every single photo op there was lol.

This is my favorite first night professional photo.  It got to be a routine of dressing for dinner, getting pictures at all available photo ops, going to the champagne bar for before dinner drinks, going to dinner, going to a show or some other entertainment, going to the chamber for drinks and sitting on our balcony.  Many nights we went to the Cafe Promenade for cookies or sandwiches to take to our balcony.

 I'll add a professional photo for each day.  I forgot to add them to day one.  This is the first photo they take right after you check in at the terminal.

Towel animals were one of my favorite things.  We didn't get one every night since the cruise was so long, but we did get one every other day except the last night.  Here I am with the bull dog Dee made for us.  He was a fabulous room steward.

 We also got a yummy treat of chocolate covered strawberries after dinner. It was just sitting on our bar waiting for us.  I didn't realize we'd get little treats, but we did, every other night.

More gorgeous fruit sculptures.

 We went to the first production show Wild, Cool and Swinging after dinner.  I really, really enjoyed it.

Dinner in the dining room was such a great experience.  They hold your chair for you.  Put your napkin in your lap.  They learn your names and the things you like and remember that for next time.  Even though we had my time dining, we ended up eating at the same time every night.  When we'd go to sit, we'd make a reservation for the next night.  And we asked to be seated in Maria's section.  She and Ursulino were fabulous!!  

Two other couples also were sitting in this same area.  There were 3 tables for 2 in a row right by the railing overlooking the other dining room floors.  After a while we all decided to have dinner together every night. It was a really great experience.  Ken and MaryLou celebrated their 49th anniversary one night.  It was fun to sit and talk about what we did that day and things about our lives at home.  It was a great time!!

Ursulino, Kelly, Doug and Maria

 Florentina made our reservations every night and kept the MTD running as smoothly as possible.  I enjoyed getting to know her.  She's from Romania and after this next cruise she gets to go home and visit her husband.  She's been gone for 7 months.  I just cannot imagine!

 Ken and Mary Lou

Our first dinner in the dining room was fabulous.  I had papaya pineapple soup with yogurt, filet of beef with mashed potatoes and asparagus and for dessert strawberry cheesecake and coffee (I kept trying lol).  Doug had shrimp cocktail, the beef and a sugar-free coconut cake.  It was divine!

We tried to go to the 9pm show but were late and there were no seats; we went to the 10:45 show.  So in the meantime we went to the WJ for dessert.  It was almost time for the WJ to close, so it was mostly empty.  We had strawberry pavlova...divine!!  

We sat in the Royal Promenade with drinks until it was time for the show.  Mai Tai was the drink of the day....it was yummy.  They make a great drink on the ship.

After the show we went to the Chamber to visit our favorite bar tender, Vijay.

We got drinks to take back to the balcony.  I had a frozen mudslide....yummy!  Doug had sex on the beach, which is his usual, although he branched out and tried new things as the week went on.

It was a great first day at sea.  It was windy and cold, although it was getting warmer as the day went on.  It was choppy and we dealt with dizziness and queasiness.  But it was fabulous!!

Day one continued

Day one

Day zero

Day One ~ Continued

After our muster drill we went up to Deck 12 to find a place to settle in to watch sail away.  Mark and Cathy happened to settle in at the same place we were.  Doug, being the shy guy he is ;), immediately struck up conversation with Mark....and a friendship was born.  Such a great, great couple!  I'm so glad we met them.

The sun was setting about the time we left, and the city was lit up.  The Verrazano Bridge is gorgeous all lit up!

 It looks like we'll barely clear the bridge.

 But we do, and everybody cheers.

 We're leaving the city behind us.  See ya in 10 days!!

 We had my time dining, so headed to the dining room for dinner.  I was under the impression that we could show up and get a table within 15 minutes, so I didn't make any reservations online beforehand.  I really wish I would have.  I would have been able to make a 7pm standing reservation for the entire time, but could have adjusted it if I needed to.  I think Royal Caribbean needs to think through their MTD a little more and tweak it.  It could be fabulous, but my impression was that it is unorganized and overcrowded.

So on the first night, instead of waiting until 8:30 to eat, we went to the WJ for dinner (for the first and last time!).  Doug was enthralled with the food presentation and took lots of pictures.  I like this one.  They really do great food presentation.

We met Kumar, the head of the WJ, Portofino and Cafe Promenade at dinner the first night.  Three days later we saw him again, and he called us by name.  How do they do that??  Doug and Kumar struck up a nice little friendship (surprised, huh?).

 After dinner we went to the Welcome Aboard show in the Palace Theater.  It was nice.  The theater is gorgeous, and it sounds fantastic in there.  The place was built for production!  Made Doug happy.  The lights were amazing.  Of course Doug talked with the sound/video crew every time we were in there and sat by them.

 I really enjoyed the preview of the singers and dancers.  I was looking forward to their 3 shows.

 Luke Aerosmith was our cruise director.  He's from England.  We thought he was quite funny.  His late night early morning show was usually entertaining.

 A comedian (can't remember his name but he's been on HBO) was the main act.  He was good.

After the show we went down to The Chamber (the disco) to see if we could dance.  Not really.  The music there was newer than what we like to dance to.  The other live music was more easy listening.  We did dance a few times; Michael Jackson tribute hour, the 50s & 60s sock hop party, Motown night.  But we danced much less than we thought we would.

We wandered around for a while and then went to bed.  It was an exciting and overwhelming and fabulous first day!!

Day One ~ Embarkation

Day Zero ~ Travel  Day

Day one ~ Embarkation Day

We woke up nice and early at the hotel, went down for breakfast, and then headed back to the room to get organized.  We had a LOT of luggage.  Not only were we first time cruisers, but it was 10 nights, and I like options, and well, I packed a lot!  I ended up wearing almost all of my clothes, all but one pair of shoes even.  Doug took a little more than he used, but I think we can cut down at least 1 suitcase in the future ;)

We headed down to the lobby to meet Rita and Gary and wait for our driver.  He was picking us up at 10. Gary and Rita did not pack near as many things as I did.  Good thing since we picked up yet another family and their luggage, and both of them combined probably equaled ours LOL.  

I was a little anxious and didn't know what to expect.  I wish we had a picture of the first time we saw the ship.  She is enormous!!  Gorgeous and I couldn't wait. 

We stood in line what seemed like forever, showed all our paperwork, went through the metal detector and were ushered into the terminal.  We booked a grand suite, so were lead into the priority check in area and waited in a nice lounge.

I have been talking with lots of these people on the Cruise Critic forum, and when I walked around the corner, they all recognized me.  Very fun to go on a trip with people we knew, but didn't know until we met them.

We boarded a small shuttle bus to ride to the ship, and then bam!  I wish we had the camera out because it was such an awe inspiring sight!!  It was amazing to be on the ship after 1 1/2 years of dreaming about it and looking at pictures.  

It was a gorgeous, sunny, warm day!!  We were so blessed.

 We wandered around the ship taking pictures while waiting for our room to be ready.

 We went to the Wind Jammer and got some food.  They have a great selection with lots of fresh fruits and veggies.  But wow is it crowded with people that don't think they should wait in line because they are on vacation.  I avoided the WJ as much as possible. Although we did end up eating dinner there the first night, got breakfast twice (once taking it back to our room) and would get lunch in the off hours to take out by the pool.

We enjoyed the first of many drinks of the day!  Yummy, fruity things.  Although I preferred the frozen ones that we had by the pool later in the trip more.

We went to check out our room.  I had champagne and a cheese plate waiting for us when we arrived.  It was very tasty.

 We watched the fuel barge for a while.  We had a nice view of the Tear Drop Memorial and The Statue of Liberty.

We were able to get in our rooms about 1:30 by 1:45 we had all of our luggage.....all 7 pieces of it.  We were happy to see our case of water wasn't confiscated.  So we unpacked, took pictures of the room, called maintenance to come help us with the safe since the previous people didn't leave it open, and waited for muster drill.

We were thrilled with our room.  I am so glad we were able to upgrade to a grand suite.  It was very spacious, had a fabulous bathtub....a fabulous bathroom!  We enjoyed quite a few perks that came with the suite, including the reserved seats at the pool and Studio B, Barefoot Beach Club on Labadee, the ability to rent a Cabana and breakfast in Portofinos.  We also enjoyed being able to order anything from the main dining room menu to our room.  We enjoyed breakfast delivered to our balcony 7 days and dinner one night.  There was a TON of storage.  Every other day we'd have a little treat delivered.  Some days it was chocolate covered strawberries and other sweets.  Other days it was canapes or other savory things.  

I'll continue Day One in another post later on.

Day Zero

Day zero ~ Travel Day

Finally, finally it is time to leave for our trip.  We were up and out the door about 7:15.  First stop....Starbucks.  I didn't take time to make coffee before we left. I did make my oatmeal to bring with me because 6:30 is too early to eat!  And little did I know that it would be the last good, even decent, cup of coffee until we disembarked.

After coffee our next stop was State College, PA to drop Chevy at Puppy Camp.  My friend Jen and her kids graciously offered to keep my girlie.  My boys were beyond thrilled!  And so was I, frankly.  I knew I'd be leaving her in good, loving hands with people that would lavish her with attention instead of barely notice she was there.

After saying good-bye to my girlie, we were New Jersey bound!!

We noticed an oversize load truck ahead with all the escorts.  This was a pretty cool oversized load.  It was an enormous Christmas tree!  Doug and I decided it was either for the White House or Rockefeller Center.

It was the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree!  Doug wanted me to take a picture, which didn't turn out.  So we stopped in the rest area to wait for it to pass by, but still didn't get the best shot.  So I tried again, this time with the camera, to get a shot running down the road beside it.  And I did.  I thought, "What's the big deal?  It's a tree."  But everybody we told thought it was so cool and wanted to see the pictures.

It was pretty cool seeing the NY City skyline for the first time, although it was very hazy and I had no idea what I was looking it.  Lots of traffic, at least I thought so.  Doug thought it was pretty smooth sailing.

We stayed at The Country Inn & Suites in Elizabeth, NJ near the Newark Airport.  Our travel agent got us a great deal.  It was $148, including tax, for the room, breakfast and 10 nights of parking.  It would have been $190 just to park at the pier!  We had the option of using the hotel transfer for an additional $70 round trip, but decided to make our own arrangements.

I belong to the Cruise Critic forums and am a member of the roll call for our cruise.  Lots and lots of great people and wonderful advice there.  I learned about Independent Driver and Doug called to make arrangements.  It's $40 for up to 4 people each way.  So I asked on the roll call thread who else was staying at our hotel and did they want to share a car making it $40 round trip for 2 of us plus tip.  And Gary and Rita said they'd love that!!  I can't believe we didn't get a picture of Gary and Rita.  Wonderful people and they really were a ton of fun the whole trip.  We ended up meeting them first thing after we checked in.  Well, Doug met Rita at the desk.  Doug met a whole lotta people on our trip....I'm sure you're all surprised about that ;)

We were going to go for dinner, but I was whooped from traveling all day, so we ordered pizza, watched Survivor, hung out on the computer and went to bed.  We were so excited and anxious and couldn't wait for the morning when we could head to the port.  

We took a cruise!!

I know it's been a while since I've blogged, but what the heck.  This is the best place to give a detailed report with lots of pictures.

Doug and I planned a 10 night cruise way back in April 2010.  It finally arrived (and went by way too fast!!).

We left out of Bayonne, NJ on Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas.  It was a much anticipated trip and we were hoping our expectations weren't higher than our experience.  Not a chance!  It was a phenomenal trip!  I can't wait to do it again!!

So be watching....over the next few days I'll do a day by day review.  Please feel free to ask any questions if you are thinking of cruising.  

Such handsome guys!!

My last ever first day of school!

Today is such a bitter-sweet day.  It is the start of my 15th year home schooling.  It's also the start of my last year of home schooling.  In the spring, my youngest will graduate!

Where the heck did the time go?  Those years flew by I tell ya.....even when the days were never ending.

I'm feeling all sappy today.  This next season of my life doesn't look in reality how it looked when I'd dream about it.  Doug is only home on the weekends, and it's pretty lonely otherwise.  So I'm reinventing what it will look like.  I'm about to start training to be a leader for Weight Watchers.  I'm going to slowly work myself into a nice little amount of hours so that next fall I have things to do other than cry when it should be the first day of school (although I imagine I'll do that, too).

Here I am with Allen.  My baby!  How did he get so TALL?

 Allen working Hard

 I swear this was my life just last month!!

My goofy husband along with my favorite first day of school picture ever.  I cannot find just the school picture, so you're stuck with the collage.  But I like it :)

Testing

Slow Cooker Lasagna ~ WW

1 lb. 93% fat free ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 medium garlic clove, minced
28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
15 oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 c. part-skim ricotta cheese
1 1/2 c. part-skim mozzarella cheese
6 dry lasagna noodles, no cook variety (I just used uncooked whole grain lasagna)
1/2 c. shredded Parmesan cheese

Brown beef, onion and garlic.  Stir in tomatoes, tomato sauce, salt, oregano, basil and pepper flakes; simmer 5 minutes to allow flavors to blend.

In a medium bowl stir together ricotta cheese and 1 c. mozzarella cheese.

Spoon 1/3 of beef mixture into a 5 quart slow cooker.  Break 3 lasagna noodles in half and arrange over beef mixture; top with 1/2 of ricotta mixture.  Repeat with another layer and finish with remaining 1/3 of beef mixture.

Cover slow cooker and cook on low setting for 4-6 hours.  Remove cover; turn off heat.

Sprinkle remaining mozzarella cheese and the Parmesan cheese over top of lasagna.  Cover and let set until cheese melts and lasagna firms up, about 10 minutes.

YIELD: 6 servings; 1 serving = 9 WW PP


**This is SO yummy!!  I double the recipe and bake it in a 9x13 pan in the oven (still with uncooked whole wheat lasagna noodles) because the boys think lasagna in the crock pot just isn't right.  A 9x13 makes 12 good size servings.**