Let's say I needed to change and dress Squizzle but the diapers are downstairs. I took him down and trusted that the quality cartoon entertainment was enough to prevent disasters. As usual, I am mistaken. Bub finds the package of cookies left on the counter from making the girl's lunches. Reaggers and Peff pile all the couch cushions and pillows onto the living room floor and pull the dinning room chairs into the living room to serve as "tent poles" for their "Fort".
I set Squizzle down and try to wipe pink crumbs off Bub's face, while Peff and Squizzle decide that this is an excellent time to sample Squizzle's favorite delicacy; red licorice. Ever see what a one year old does with a piece of red licorice? He looks like a Picasso clown. I was so irritated that I threw him into the tub without taking a picture first. DOH!!!!
I now have the "fort" picked up, Squizzle washed off and in his chair, and the rest of the runts are dressed and upstairs fighting over the toy Nerf guns. I might get a minute to finish up Day 2.
Uh-hu. Here goes...
After lunch, we could go check out our rooms, and I have to say that for a inside (no window) room on a boat, it was not bad. It was clean; much bigger than I was expecting and didn't feel very claustrophobic at all.
The bathroom was a little on the small side but very clean and all the fixtures were working. Frankly it was a step up from the joint we stayed at in Houston; even if it was a little (OK a lot) smaller. I started thinking about how many rooms there were on the boat, and what a logistical nightmare the plumbing must be. Trying to cram all those pipes for every bathroom, plus the electrical for each room, air conditioning, not to mention all the space needed for normal boat operations...I bet there isn't three square inches of wasted space on a boat like that.
They had a behind the scenes tour of the boat that I thought would have been really cool to take, but it was seventy bucks a pop. I might have a curious nature, but I'm way too cheap to blow that kind of cash on a walking tour. Besides, they did have a TV channel in the room that was devoted to all kinds of trivia about how the ship worked. It showed the engine rooms (very cool), the electrical generators (enough juice to light up West Jordan), and the desalination plant. They also used waste heat from the generators to heat the water, so it was pretty much impossible to run out of hot water. Some very interesting info.
One of the other channels had information about the boat's navigation, like position, speed, wind direction, course, and ocean depth. I tried to get pics in the morning and before bed that would show where we were, or if the wind was blowing really hard or if the water was extra deep. I thought it might be like a kind of passengers log.
We got unpacked and then headed up to the Mardi Gras party that Coke was throwing for our group. We got cokes and hors d'oeuvres (What an asinine way to spell a word) and they tossed cheap plastic beads at us. The Boss and I hunted down as many strands as we could because, hey...Free treats for the girls!!! I also got to wear a ridiculous foil "snitch" hat.
They played a scavenger hunt game but we didn't come close to winning. The food was good and it was fun to watch others make dopes of themselves.
When it was over, we went to dinner in the dining room. I had a duck salad (really good; it was cold, smoked duck and tasted a little like ham), a tasty steak with garlic mashed potatoes and curried carrots, and Blackforest cake for dessert.
The Boss had broccoli cheese soup (she said it was OK but more broccoli than cheese which is actually an unforgivable sin) BBQ ribs, and cheesecake for dessert. The cheesecake was a real disappointment, apparently. Almost everyone at the table ordered it and not one person finished their piece. It had a funny taste that no one was very impressed with. The one thing that the Boss was looking most forward too, and they blew it. Oh well. Overall, dinner was a thumbs up from me and a neutral from the Boss. We said our goodnights, and went to bed, but not before I caught the tail end of the US whooping up on the Fins in Hockey. We also found that our room steward, in a Carnival cruise tradition, had done a turndown service, leaving mints, a schedule for the next day's activities, and a towl animal. The first night it was this sealion with sunglasses
It was not a bad way to spend a day. And I enjoyed every second of it.
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