Postscript: The End of the Sail
So we have actually been back from our trip for almost a week and a half, but finding time to finish off this latest round of blogs has not been easy. It would have been a bit easier if our laptop was not at Fry's for the past week being examined for obscenely short battery life.
Anyhow, when we last left off, I had just completed the dolphin moment of my life (no, no Dan Marino sighting), we had made new friends in the Oregel family, and were saying "Adios!" to the lands of the Caribbean. Our last full day at sea went well. We did some swimming, trivia, eating, sleeping, movie watching, more eating, one last hot dog from the grill, one last frozen yogurt from the dispensers, etc. Jule and I put Alyssa in Camp Carnival and had a couple message. Those professional therapists can really lay into you. It hurt, but it also felt really good. Jule nearly laughed through her entire treatment. We both fell asleep. For the next few hours my body repositioned itself as I took it easy. We also took a few more pictures onboard and ended up with a couple of nice family photos - maybe one of our last before the next baby arrives in December?
Yes, "nice family photo" means Alyssa smiled. She is going throught he Terrible Twos right now, but is still a cutie pie if her daddy had to say. Nonetheless, she wasnt really enthralled by the photographers all week but finally smiled in the last two days or so. This is so surreal compared to that Royal Caribbean commerical where the daughter is grumpy and the mom is photographing her and finally catches a candid smile while the daughter did not realize she was the subject of the photo. We had the same experience almost, except this was Carnival.
Arrival in Tampa came a day after a small tropical storm landed there. Who'da thunkit by the looks of Tampa on Sunday, June 3. Nothing but clear skies, sunny, hardly a cloud. The abrupt firing of the props on the bow of the ship that position the ship closer to the docks at 6am told me we had arrived. I got up to peak and sure enough, there was the familiar scene of the Tampa skyline. When I last looked at this, we were in the exciting first moments of our voyage and so much excitment ahead of us. Now this same scene meant an end to a journey and a return to a normal life. By 8:30am we had wolfed down breakfast and our deck (6) was called to disembark the ship. By 9am we were well on our way to the airport where we discovered that our flight had been delayed an hour, making for a good 2-3 hour wait at the Tampa airport. I mostly passed the time blogging (shocker), Jule resting, and Alyssa exploring every square inch of the part of the terminal we were in (and occassionally reporting her findings to me).
Our flights home were not ideal. American Airlines apparently doesnt think too much of both Tampa and Sacramento, meaning we were seated during all legs of our journey in older MD-80s. Cramped, lacking modern airline comforts (like movies, leg room, positionable a/c vents) these MD-80s need serious consideration for AARP membership. To make matters worse, from Dallas to Sacramento, some hippy couple sat in front of us with their 3 year old son. He thought it was neat to stand in his seat and turn around and face us for large blocks of time. His parents also thought it was neato. We didnt. Imagine some obnoxious kid staring at you for 10, 15 minute blocks on a cramped old plane. I wanted to find a hemp paddle to smack him around a bit. Plus, it didnt help that he pee'd his pants a good hour into the journey and the parents failed to acknowledge the obvious PEE smell for another 90 minutes. I'm guessing it is hard to change a diaper that is holding your doobie stash without too much attention.
Alyssa wigged out when we tried to play a video for her and the computer battery went kapuut for some reason. I swear we had it charged all night and even more while in Dallas. So that 10 minute teaser did not please 'er and we wound up drinking all night... Oops, sorry, that last line started to sound like a country song so I just went with the feeling.
So home we were. Lots of memories in our minds and camera memory. Our little Alyssa is already quite the traveler having flown across the country twice and visited 4 countries already (The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Mexico, and Belize), Disneyland twice, Las Vegas once, and many other local destinations. This summer she'll be off to Michigan with Jule to visit the family there. At the rate she is going, she'll have been to to see half the planet by age 10. On this trip she discovered many new things including what it feels like to plop out of bed, the Caribbean is home to an endless supply of humpback whales (or so she thinks), old airplanes suck, and one does not always get their way by having a tizzy fit.
Thanks for joining us on the journey. I'll post one or two more messages to summarize my thoughts on the trip, the Carnival Legend experience, and comparisons to what we have experienced in prior trips.
Now, where to go next...?
So we have actually been back from our trip for almost a week and a half, but finding time to finish off this latest round of blogs has not been easy. It would have been a bit easier if our laptop was not at Fry's for the past week being examined for obscenely short battery life.
Anyhow, when we last left off, I had just completed the dolphin moment of my life (no, no Dan Marino sighting), we had made new friends in the Oregel family, and were saying "Adios!" to the lands of the Caribbean. Our last full day at sea went well. We did some swimming, trivia, eating, sleeping, movie watching, more eating, one last hot dog from the grill, one last frozen yogurt from the dispensers, etc. Jule and I put Alyssa in Camp Carnival and had a couple message. Those professional therapists can really lay into you. It hurt, but it also felt really good. Jule nearly laughed through her entire treatment. We both fell asleep. For the next few hours my body repositioned itself as I took it easy. We also took a few more pictures onboard and ended up with a couple of nice family photos - maybe one of our last before the next baby arrives in December?
Yes, "nice family photo" means Alyssa smiled. She is going throught he Terrible Twos right now, but is still a cutie pie if her daddy had to say. Nonetheless, she wasnt really enthralled by the photographers all week but finally smiled in the last two days or so. This is so surreal compared to that Royal Caribbean commerical where the daughter is grumpy and the mom is photographing her and finally catches a candid smile while the daughter did not realize she was the subject of the photo. We had the same experience almost, except this was Carnival.
Arrival in Tampa came a day after a small tropical storm landed there. Who'da thunkit by the looks of Tampa on Sunday, June 3. Nothing but clear skies, sunny, hardly a cloud. The abrupt firing of the props on the bow of the ship that position the ship closer to the docks at 6am told me we had arrived. I got up to peak and sure enough, there was the familiar scene of the Tampa skyline. When I last looked at this, we were in the exciting first moments of our voyage and so much excitment ahead of us. Now this same scene meant an end to a journey and a return to a normal life. By 8:30am we had wolfed down breakfast and our deck (6) was called to disembark the ship. By 9am we were well on our way to the airport where we discovered that our flight had been delayed an hour, making for a good 2-3 hour wait at the Tampa airport. I mostly passed the time blogging (shocker), Jule resting, and Alyssa exploring every square inch of the part of the terminal we were in (and occassionally reporting her findings to me).
Our flights home were not ideal. American Airlines apparently doesnt think too much of both Tampa and Sacramento, meaning we were seated during all legs of our journey in older MD-80s. Cramped, lacking modern airline comforts (like movies, leg room, positionable a/c vents) these MD-80s need serious consideration for AARP membership. To make matters worse, from Dallas to Sacramento, some hippy couple sat in front of us with their 3 year old son. He thought it was neat to stand in his seat and turn around and face us for large blocks of time. His parents also thought it was neato. We didnt. Imagine some obnoxious kid staring at you for 10, 15 minute blocks on a cramped old plane. I wanted to find a hemp paddle to smack him around a bit. Plus, it didnt help that he pee'd his pants a good hour into the journey and the parents failed to acknowledge the obvious PEE smell for another 90 minutes. I'm guessing it is hard to change a diaper that is holding your doobie stash without too much attention.
Alyssa wigged out when we tried to play a video for her and the computer battery went kapuut for some reason. I swear we had it charged all night and even more while in Dallas. So that 10 minute teaser did not please 'er and we wound up drinking all night... Oops, sorry, that last line started to sound like a country song so I just went with the feeling.
So home we were. Lots of memories in our minds and camera memory. Our little Alyssa is already quite the traveler having flown across the country twice and visited 4 countries already (The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Mexico, and Belize), Disneyland twice, Las Vegas once, and many other local destinations. This summer she'll be off to Michigan with Jule to visit the family there. At the rate she is going, she'll have been to to see half the planet by age 10. On this trip she discovered many new things including what it feels like to plop out of bed, the Caribbean is home to an endless supply of humpback whales (or so she thinks), old airplanes suck, and one does not always get their way by having a tizzy fit.
Thanks for joining us on the journey. I'll post one or two more messages to summarize my thoughts on the trip, the Carnival Legend experience, and comparisons to what we have experienced in prior trips.
Now, where to go next...?
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