Cruise Day 2 /Peak 30th Anniversary!

Today is the BIG Day! It is Tom and Linda's 30th Anniversary!!!!!

Randall and I got up around 7:45 and ate breakfast at Seven Seas Restaurant. We both had ham and cheese omelettes, turkey bacon and wheat toast. When you have been married as long as we have, you begin to do things just alike, including choosing the same things to eat off of a menu. We let the anniversary couple do their own thing this morning!

We ate breakfast at a table with 3 other couples--2 younger and one couple about our age.

After breakfast, we went onto the sun deck where Tom and Linda joined us later.

We stayed outside on the back of the ship all morning until lunch time. We ate lunch at the buffett which was just off the area we were sunning. Linda and I were not very hungry for some reason and the men just ate while we sat and watched.

After lunch, there was a "hairy man contest" on Lido deck that was pretty amusing. After sitting out here a while, we were all tired and decided to go to our cabins to rest for a while. We knew that we had a big night tonight. This was our one formal night on the ship and we also planned to see one of the Broadway shows after dinner. We were going to be up way past our bedtime....so we knew we better take a nap if we were going to make it:) Formal night would also be the big anniversary celebration dinner too. We had a wonderful dinner and the waiter staff sang Happy Anniversary to the Peak's. Afterwards we went to the show, "Shout" which we really enjoyed. Below is one of the towel creatures that we were greeted with every night when we came back to our cabin after dinner and the show. I think having the bed made with the lights turned down when you came back in the room was one of my favorite things about the whole cruise.

Cruise Day 1

After getting approximately 3 hours of sleep on Sunday night because of all of my excitement, I woke up ready to get this cruise on the road! Randall and I arrived at Tom's and Linda's around 10:15. They were ready to go and off we went. The weather left alot to be desired. It was cloudy and rained on us as we approached the terminal. The Peak's son, Andrew, dropped us off around 10:35. The first thing we did was to unload our baggage at the luggage drop off.

After leaving our luggage, we proceeded into the terminal to check in. As soon as we entered the doors, we were asked for our "fun pass" and photo I.D. Then they sent us a few feet further where we were given a questionaire about swine flu symptoms. We were asked to go up the escalator and then fill out the questionaire.

Our next stop was the desk check in where once again they reviewed our "fun pass", passport and collected our swine flu questionaire. Then our picture was taken and we sat down in a holding area until they were ready for us to board the ship.

At 11:25, we began the boarding process. We were able to enter the boat, but were not able to go to our cabins until 1:30. So we used this time to familiarize ourselves with the ship and eat our lunch in the buffett area. Linda and I had cheeseburgers and Randall and Tom went to a different area of the buffett and had different foods than us.

After lunch, we continued to just walk around until they announced that we could go to our cabins. When we arrived at our room, our luggage had not yet arrived. We went in and began to put up all the things that we had brought in in our carry on luggage. By the time we did this, one piece of our luggage had been brought to out door and a little while later the other piece arrived. Tom and Linda were beginning to sweat a little because it looked like most of the luggage had been delivered and they still did not have the piece of luggage that had all of their medications in it.

After getting all of our things in place in our room, we rested for just a little while and then we went back to the buffett where we got some fruit. While sitting in the restaurant eating our fruit, an announcement was made that the muster drill was getting ready to begin. We were instructed to go to our cabins and get our life jackets out of the closets and bring them to our designated muster drill areas. I had heard horror stories about the drill taking forever, but it did not last long at all and we were done within 20 minutes.

After the drill we came back to our room to take the life jackets back. As we looked out our window, we realized we had begun to move. So we quickly headed to the deck to watch as we left the Port of Mobile. We stayed out on the deck until approximately 5:15. Then it was time for us to get ready for our 6:00 dining time in the dining room. The four of us changed clothes and headed to the dining room.

The table that we would be sitting at every night sat 8 people. We met the two other couples that we would be dining with each night. The other two couples were also friends who went to church together. They were from Navarre, FL. Nedra and Steve and Connie and Larry were an absolute delight to get to know. Our first dinner was delicious. Randall and I both had steaks.

After dinner, we stopped in a couple of different places to listen to some live music before retiring for the night. Our first day has been GREAT!