I Love It When We're Cruising Together

Back in May, Dave and I went on a cruise with my parents to celebrate my mom's 70th birthday.  I had no idea what it was going to be like (I just never had the desire to go on one before - prime example being skipping out on a senior year spring break cruise with a handful of my friends to go to Cancun instead.)

I have to say, the cruise was SO fun.  There was never a lack of anything to do.  We even enjoyed it more than the all-inclusive resort we went to last year in the Dominican Republic.  I'll give you a run down of some of the things we did (I do not have an impeccable memory - I wrote this post ages ago and never completed it until now):

View from our room when we boarded, woohoo!

Day 1:
Free raffle you say?  There was an "art gallery" on deck 6 of the ship (more like a hallway with about 20 paintings that rotated out every other day), but they were some of the nicest paintings I've ever seen.  The auctioneer held a mini seminar about the gallery to lure people in for the rest of the week's auctions and events, and held a free raffle so we decided to attend.  Dave was the lucky winner of a woman's $125 bracelet which I've now got in my possession (thanks!) A man winning the bracelet was pretty funny, but not as funny as the 10 year old kid who won entry to the slots competition in the casino.

Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool

The highlight of the day was the Howl at the Moon Dueling Pianos. We ended up watching this for probably a good 3 hours that night. And the 3 entertainers were so talented that we spent another 2 nights watching them.  To top that off, 2 of them played a show of their original music in the city, and we actually went (I was slightly embarrassed, but they advertised it, and we could see that there were some other cruisers there as well.)

Day 2:
I was over-the-top excited to play Bingo, until I turned up to the kick-off game and found out it was a $40 entry fee!!!  My parents had already bought their tickets, and we had a $150 credit (which disappeared in about 2 hours by the way), so we gave it a shot.  No winning here, but this was where the rec staff was introduced to us. We quickly grew to idolize these people, along with the other entertainers, which was of course totally ridiculous, but felt like a celebrity spotting every time we saw them on the ship.

Out by the pool, we watched the Mr. Sexy Legs competition, and on the subsequent sea days we watched synchronized swimming and hot dog eating contests.  We'd recognize the entrants on the days following, who also gained a mini celebrity status + applicable nicknames, as sad as that sounds.

**Updated view**

We watched a Cirque show in the evening, a Motown tribute, and then went to the evening party out on the deck.  We spotted our favorite member of the rec team, Jovan (who, at Bingo, was introduced as Serbia's own Mr. Bean), and he spotted us as well and came over with the camera crew.  This is the embarrassing video that followed:

This was shot on Monday evening, and was shown on one of the TV channels every 15 minutes for the remainder of the cruise (through Sunday.)  Yeah, we became "those people."

Day 3:
On Tuesday, we laid out on the deck (I received a complimentary rash all over my chest which lasted for the remainder of the cruise) and watched some of the aforementioned competitions.  In the evening, we went to 90s Power Hour at the night club (Backstreet's back, all right!)  Every night there were about 10 people max in the club, and I was the only one dancing.  Hey, YOLO!  We also went to the 70s party on the deck which was exactly what you'd expect it to be.

Ummm by the way, they are crazy obsessive about handwashing on this ship.  Totally understandable, but they brainwashed us so much about germs that we always make sure to close the lid to our toilet seat at home now (too much information?)  The "Washy Washy Band" would perform in front of the entrance to the buffet, singing songs like "If you're happy and you know it wash your hands" and spray you with anti-bacterial stuff.  And they got the biggest shout out of anyone during the last day's staff appreciation/talent show. (Yes, I said talent show.)

Day 4:
On Wednesday, we played some giant chess before we got off the ship.  Check out this view while we played:

Docked!

Check out the water, the bluest of blue

I told you this boat was HUGE

We took a bus tour of Bermuda which was quite informative.  Some key learnings:

• Bermuda has the most churches to people in the world (seriously, there was a church on every block, and the tour guide named all of them.)
• The houses are required to be built out of concrete to withstand hurricanes.
• Bermudians have the strangest accent I have ever heard (no offense.)  They sound like a cross between English and Dutch, and sound like Goldmember (again, no offense meant.)

Bootiful Bermuda

It was too cold to go in the water, so we admired it from afar

This place is located at the dockyard.  The locals come here to steal the wifi.

In the evening, back on the boat, we watched Rock of Ages.  I was cringing at first (I forgot how corny the musical is, even though I loved it on Broadway), but about halfway through I began to embrace it, and concluded that it was still good (cring-ey, but good), even when performed on a cruise ship.

The highlight of the evening entertainment was Dancing with the Breakaway Stars.  The couples were made up of the rec team members paired with cruisers.  I'm not going to get into details as you know what it entails if you've seen the show, but this was perhaps one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my entire life, and quite frankly the highlight of the cruise.

Day 5:
Dave and I took the ferry to Hamilton on Thursday, and ate a $60 lunch in a pub (OMG that's expensive!)  I also got a new hat and beach cover up, along with a pen that has a crab leg on the end which opens and closes (yay for souvenirs!)  On line to board the return ferry, Dave thought the guys and girl in front of us in the queue were cruise ship entertainers based on their conversation.  We later found out that they were in fact members of the ship's Second City comedy troupe, Rock of Ages, and Burn the Floor (ballroom dancing cast) - they were all friends, AND they were allowed to leave the ship just like regular people!  OMG!  Worlds colliding!

Back on the boat, we dragged my parents to the nightclub for 50s and 60s hour.  It was full of people their age, and was the most crowded it had been the entire cruise.

Afterwards we went to the "glow party" on the deck.  Here's our friend Jovan (WATCH THIS.)

Day 6:
I spent some quality time in the hot tub with people my parents' age who primarily enjoyed comparing cruises (on Carnival they give you robes when you get out of the hot tub!) and ask questions like "You're from New York?  Have you ever been to Wo Hop?"

I then went to Beatles trivia in the Atrium.  They played the first 5-10 seconds of the song, and about 7/8 of the people (of Beatlemania age I might add) were like "What?  What kind of trivia is this?"  I thought I had scored pretty well, but alas, I did get about 5 wrong and my team lost (for the record, a few I missed were "Chains" and "For No One," but I did get "Only a Northern Song," so that must count for something.)

We watched the Second City improv show in the evening.  The best bit were two guys acting out a rock opera with every new line starting with the next letter in the alphabet, and the theme was a father and daughter on a trip to Disney World.  Pretty hilarious, but I guess you had to be there to get the full effect.

And now a belated birthday celebration for Dave

The 80s night on the deck was pretty standard, except there were also fireworks which were kind of amazing being that this was a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Day 7:
I'm picking up this blog post almost 3 months after I wrote about the first six days.  A few additional highlights I can speak to are:

Discovering an upper deck with about
200 chairs and no people in sight

Towel animals

Bringing my mom into the Svedka Ice Bar

Back of the boat action

Hot dog trucks!!

Family time

The Martini Bar

Representing Queens

A rare moment of emptiness on the party deck

Tons of receipts from things we actually had to purchase (OOPS)

Blackjack

Though I didn't participate, the top deck had a ropes course, basketball court, miniature golf, and 4 waterslides.  It was insane.

And how could I forget...
- A Bavarian food feast
- Laughing at people doing Zumba from the pub balcony like a creep
- Watching the various entertainers sing along to the dueling pianos for one of the pianist's last night of his tour (so emotional, it made me feel like my own family member was leaving)

There were a ton of things I didn't do as well - Flywheel on board, a Rockettes-themed workout, scavenger hunts, etc., but you really can't fit everything in, it's crazy.

After the comedown of pulling back into the pier, getting our bags, and taking the long walk to land, we were able to catch a cab and were home in 20 minutes!  The luxury of taking a ship out of Manhattan is indescribable!

In short, I don't think I'm likely to go on another cruise for another couple of decades, just because I want to explore other far away lands, but if your family asks you to come with them on the Norwegian Breakaway, I highly recommend you say yes.