February 25, 2003 - 10:02 a.m.

Sailing Away

Well, I wasn't able to get onto the diaryland site last night, so I had to put this off until today. At any rate, this entry is intended to cover the first portion of the cruise, from Saturday to Monday.

Saturday (the 15th) we boarded the ship in the afternoon and spent most of our time exploring it and figuring out where everything was. The Triumph has two large formal dining rooms (our assigned table was on the upper level of the Paris dining room) an area on the upper decks for buffet-style dining, The NY Deli (with a limited selection of sandwiches), Coney Island Grille (burgers, fries, hot dogs, grilled chicken), Pizzeria DiNapoli, and Hong Kong Noodle Company (with a handful of Chinese selections), as well as room service, a coffee bar (though you had to pay for the specialty coffees and desserts there), and 24 hour self-serve frozen yogurt and soft serve ice cream machines. I am genuinely surprised I still fit into all my clothes after a week surrounded by such a plethora of food!

The ship also has three salt water pools, children's wading pool, four hot tubs, and a cool twisty waterslide. Inside there is a spa, salon, and gym, a casino, many bars and lounges, a theater for shows, a florist shop, and two other gift shops with items ranging from toiletries and clothing to souvenirs, fine jewelry, and duty-free liquor. But that still isn't all. There is also a photo shop, a small disco, an arcade, and an internet cafe. So, I imagine you can understand why it took most of that first afternoon to see most everything! At dinner we got to meet our dining companions for the rest of the cruise. Our table was dominated by women whop work in education. There were four teacher (ranging from preschool to high school), a woman who is in charge of the science labs for a private school, and myself. My mom, the lab coordinator's elderly mother, and the postal worker (the only guy at the table) rounded out the crew. Everyone was v ery nice, but no one we would seek out away from dinner.

After dinner we went to the Welcome Aboard Show during which our extremely portly cruise director called up people from the audience and proceeded to interview them with quite amusing results. For the most part you had to be there, but I will share with you that two of the passengers he happened to pick had the highly amusing names of Dick Wooden and Willy Banger.

Sunday we slept in, did some sunabthing, went to the first of several game shows complete with podiums for the contestants with buzzers and score displays, and participated in a latin dance lesson. That night was the first formal dinner, so we got all dressed up, as you can see below.

We also went to the first of the "Vegas style" shows. It was basically a song and dance revue of music representing countries around the world. It was pretty cheesy but fairly enjoyable. Not the best show we saw on the cruise, though.

Monday we again relaxed by the pool and also got to see a helicopter come to take a teenager off the ship due to a medical emergency. We later heard that he had appendicitis and had to be rushed in the helicopter ahead of us to San Juan for surgery but was fine afterwards. In the late afternoon we arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We got a great view of the 17th century fort called El Morro as we headed into port.

We could also see the lovely government buildings.

And the pretty pastel colors of Old San Juan.

Sadly, by the time we were docked and able to get off the ship, night had fallen. We took a bus tour of both new and old San Juan. The old section is lovely with streets cobbled with stones that ships used as ballast on their way to the islands and left there once their boats were filled with goods to bring back to Europe. The architecture is mostly Spanish but with tropical colors thrown in. We did a little shopping but mostly just wandered around the charming streets and squares. Before heading back to the ship we had our picture taken by one of the many pretty fountains in Old San Juan.

Back on the ship we saw a good comedy show by Jeff Shaw. He did a wonderful impression of a little kid trying to get his mom's attention in a grocery store line. Needless to say, I thoroughly appreciated that one. :)

That's enough for today. Tomorrow I'll fill you in on our acitivities on the lovely islands of St. Thomas and St. Maarten. Maybe I'll try to be a little more succinct. :)

Oh, btw, I keep forgetting to mention that I called about The Secret Garden auditions just before getting on the ship. As I suspected, I was not cast. Bah. I'll just have to keep trying, I guess.

today's project: lucky me, I get to drive H to her skiing lesson - hope I don't get lost!

musing about: what a difference a good mattress makes - yay!

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flutter back - fly ahead