Anniversary cruise - Day 2

Embarkation day! Today we boarded the Norwegian Jewel, our third time on NCL. Also with us are Michelline's parents. We gave her mom a cruise for her 50th birthday last year, but this is the first time we could get it scheduled. Random stuff from today -

- After getting to the cruise terminal and boarding the ship, Pete, Michelline's stepfather, realized he didn't have his credit card. We decided to check the truck. This meant going upstream and getting off the ship. If you haven't been on a cruise before, the security is similar to an airport, but not quite so tight. And when the ship is boarding, everything is designed to get people onto the ship, not off. So we're crossing under ropes, cutting around barriers and we get to an unmarked, unmanned door leading out to the baggage area. We exit and are almost to the parking lot when a guy stops us and says we're not allowed to be there. He says we have to go back through the building. So we go back to the unmarked door which now, of course, is manned and locked. Fortunately, we were able to scoot past the security guard while he was confused. It turned out that Pete did, in fact, leave his card in the truck so all was well. On the way back in, we saw the baggage area guy. He said that we could have been arrested for being in that area. Maybe he was exaggerating, but what a shitty day that would have been.

- Norwegian does what they call freestyle cruising. This means that instead of having a set time and assigned table for dinner, which is customary, you just go when you want. We don't really like this - it's fun to go to dinner with the same people every night and have the same waiters. But this ship is designed for freestyle, so they have 10 specialty restaurants. Tonight we ate in their teppanyaki room. The food was good, but probably not worth the $20 cover. Tomorrow we're trying the Italian place, which has no cover.

- Guinness Stout is good beer, even at $4.50 a bottle. I got 6 for the price of 5 and I have 3 left. One of the problems with cruising is you want to eat like a pig, but you also want to get heavily buzzed (or wasted). You really have to work a schedule if you want to do both without getting sick. I had a liquid lunch which left me pleasantly glowing until dinner. I think I may go see what kind of buzz I can work up now that dinner has settled.

- Unless Michelline's downstairs winning right now, we're down $160 in the casino. If we win any big jackpots (like my $700 slot win 2 years ago), I'll be sure to let everyone know.

- Looks like it was a bad day for all the couch regulars except for nightshift. How do the Redskins and the Eagles beat the Cowboys and the Giants on the same day? And why is the station that just finished showing the Redskins-Giants showing Sportscenter from the UK? Anyone want the score of the Liverpool-Man United game?


- We have a balcony for the first time in our 8 cruises. So I'm wondering what kind of interesting stuff we can do out there without getting kicked off the ship :).