Our Voyage to the Western Caribbean (Part 1)

Well before my wife and I got married but after I'd asked for her hand, I made a promise to her that our life together would be an adventure.  I'd like to think it's lived up to that guarantee thus far.

We began the process of putting our vacation together more than a year ago.  If you didn't know, when booking a cruise it's much better to do so as far in advance as possible seeing as how the cruise lines raise their rates as the date of departure nears.  We wanted to have this trip serve as a follow up to our honeymoon, almost as if we were turning going on a cruise into an annual event, but we knew that we wouldn't be able to take the trip so close to our anniversary (which is in May) seeing as how we'd both be using up a majority of our vacation time for our yearly trek to Myrtle Beach in June.  Our sights were set on sailing to the Western Caribbean but the potential perils of hurricane season weighed heavily on our minds when looking at cruise itineraries in that part of the world, which is why we decided November would be as good a time of year as any.  We'd sailed on the Carnival Sensation for our honeymoon; the Sensation is a great boat and one with a fairly interesting history (it was loaned to the government in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for use as a refuge for people who'd been displaced by the storm and then put through a complete refit thereafter) but I wanted to experience one of the bigger, more modern vessels in Carnival's fleet.  Our honeymoon was also a fairly short trip, a 4-day jaunt to the Bahamas, and I was desiring something more lengthy.  All factors having been considered, we booked a 7-day cruise on board the Carnival Dream - one of Carnival's newest and largest ships - with stops in port at Cozumel, Belize, Isla Roatan, and Costa Maya.

To say that the weeks and months leading up to the cruise were somewhat agonizing would be an understatement.  Every so often we would remind each other of the fact that our trip was inching its way ever nearer, dangling out in front of us like a carrot - only this wasn't a carrot, this was more like a porterhouse steak cooked to perfection and served with all the trimmings. (It's fitting that I use a food analogy in this context because Jill and I have noticed that when we plot our vacations it invariably turns out that much of them are centered around things we want to eat or visiting restaurants we want to experience.) When we were less than a month away from setting sail, the both of us were just about as giddy as I can ever remember having been.  We normally take a few small trips throughout the year but we hadn't been anywhere this year since our Myrtle Beach trip, which meant we'd essentially been cooped up at home for nearly six months.  Suffice to say that we were chomping at the bit to get out on the road again.

This was the fortune I received from Red Bowl Asian Bistro the night before we left.

As I've detailed previously, packing for this trip was a definite challenge or at least it was for me.  I hadn't considered the logistics of wrangling enough clothes for a 7-day voyage that includes several formal occasions when we were booking this trip.  Fortunately, my bags had enough give to them that I was able to get everything packed but they couldn't save me from a bit of lighthearted ridicule from my wife who managed to only need one suitcase (which should count as at least 2 because her suitcase is only slightly smaller than a Smart Car) whereas I had two suitcases plus a duffel bag and my backpack.  I wound up bringing way more clothes than I would need, but as the old saying goes I'd sooner have had it and not needed it than needed it and not had it.

Our vacation began the morning of November 11, 2011 - Veterans Day.

11-11-11 (Friday): It finally hit me that we were about to leave for a trip to Mexico as I was loading our luggage into the car.  Loading luggage being the point where the rubber meets the road, as it were, when it comes to fantasies of a vacation materializing into something much more substantive.  What would we do, what would we see, who would we meet, and so many other questions danced around in my head, all swirling about each other with excitement over getting the opportunity to do something so unique as this.

When planning for our honeymoon last year, I knew we wouldn't be able to make the entire drive from South Carolina to Florida the day of our wedding as we would be getting married in the afternoon and would most certainly have much revelry to enjoy before departing.  That being the case, I looked for an oasis along the route which would allow us an opportunity to get some rest.  I found such a spot in the form of Kingsland, Georgia - pretty much the last town in the peach state you encounter traveling south on I-95 before entering Florida.

We stopped for lunch at a Cracker Barrel not far from Savannah.  Cracker Barrel might have been an odd choice for a first date, but their location in Orangeburg was where Jill and I first met and for this reason those restaurants will always be special to us.  The meal was quite tasty, however the real treat from our stop there was when I validated my genius-level IQ via the golf tee peg board game featured on each table in every Cracker Barrel.

Straight up skills, yo...

There are many hotels and restaurants around Kingsland as the town has definitely seized the chance to welcome road-weary travelers.  For our honeymoon, we'd stayed at a Best Western and I think I'll always remember the process of checking into that hotel well after midnight while standing in line with many other folks who were closer to being asleep than they were awake (the other resounding memory from that night being Jill's struggle to remove all the make-up and hairspray that had been put on her).  This time through we stayed at a Days Inn which was modestly priced and adequate for our needs but not nearly as nice as the Best Western.

After checking in, we kicked back and relaxed for a few hours.  When dinner-time rolled around I had it in mind that I wanted to try a local restaurant instead of a chain.  I had looked up several potentials before we'd left home; we narrowed down our search by glancing over the local Yellow Pages and had it in mind to try the Bonzai Japanese Steakhouse.  To say that Jill was apprehensive about dining there after we arrived would be selling short her reaction.  Truth be told, it was dark and the decor outside the restaurant wasn't all that inviting but the parking lot was somewhat full (although that could've been attributable to the fact that several other restaurants were adjacent to Bonzai).  We road by a few other restaurants - all chains - and most of them appeared to be near capacity which was no surprise given it was a Friday evening.

Somewhat begrudgingly, Jill agreed to eat at Bonzai after all.  From her hesitance to get out of the car, you'd have thought she was under the impression I was leading her into some kind of den of horrors.  Fortunately, this meal would be one of the more memorable dining experiences (for good reasons) of the entire trip.  The interior of the restaurant was nothing like the outside; very brightly lit and welcoming, albeit somewhat cramped (I'll admit that isn't an unbiased statement seeing as how a space that cramps a person my size would be perfectly comfortable for most people).  The food was quite good and our chef was entertaining with his constant-yet-mostly-unintelligible banter ("Yummy, yummy, woo-hoo!" is about all I could make out).  After the meal we picked up a few more doses of Dramamine as I wasn't sure if we had enough (we did) then returned to our room to get a good night's rest.

11-12-11 (Saturday): I didn't sleep all that well, ironically enough.  Chalk it up to excitement or to my body not being accustomed to the strange bed I'd put it in.  On top of that, when setting the alarm clock the night before I somehow managed to change the time on the device so instead of waking up at 6:30 AM like we'd planned I woke us up at (drum roll, if you will) 5:30 AM!  This wasn't that bad, though, as it gave us plenty of time to gather ourselves and have breakfast (the continental breakfast Days Inn was serving didn't look all that appetizing - besides, there was a Shoney's directly in front of the hotel and their breakfast buffet is too enticing to pass up; the wait staff at this particular location were excellent and amazingly up-beat for being at work so early in the morning) before setting off on the final leg of our drive to Port Canaveral.

Kingsland, GA is around 3 miles from the Florida state line which meant we weren't on the road long before we were stopping, this time at the Florida visitors welcome center.  I have so many fond memories of this welcome center, odd as that may seem.  When I was growing up, my family came to Florida almost every summer and we would always stop at the welcome center to have a cup of fresh orange or grapefruit juice and to pick up a slew of brochures (I kid you not when I say we would easily fill up a grocery bag with those things).  The place hasn't changed much since I was a child - they're still serving juice (I had two cups this time through, one grapefruit and one orange) and the walls of brochures are as vibrantly colored as ever.

Double-fisting juices - grapefruit in one hand, orange in the other

To me, navigating through Jacksonville is the only tricky part about getting to Port Canaveral.  Notice that I said "through" and not "around" as you do have an option since there is a bypass available to those not wanting to take a direct route.  We were on something of a tight schedule which is why we'd be taking the straightest path, right through the center of Jacksonville.  There are so many interchanges, off-ramps, on-ramps, and random other potential bottlenecks to this stretch of road that I would probably decline the chance to live or work there if I had to use it for transportation every day.  From the sky, I'm sure that the highways going through that city have to look like a bundle of serpents writhing around each other.  Thankfully, there is ample signage to assist motorists; between them and our handy GPS, it wasn't too difficult of a segment.

The approach to Port Canaveral is a real treat for me because it's within a stone's throw of Cape Canaveral, site of NASA's Kennedy Space Center.  You can see many of the buildings making up the complex from the road, but it would turn out that we'd have a much better view of them later on in the day.

As we neared the port we could see several cruise ships sitting out on the water like great behemoths of the sea.  It's amazing to see craft as large as these - trust me when I say that they get a whole lot bigger the closer you are to them!  They truly are "nautical cities" and for someone like myself who marvels at feats of engineering it is astounding to consider all that goes into operating and maintaining these vessels.  I'd love to someday see what all goes on behind the scenes as I'm sure it's fascinating.

Our home away from home for the next 7 days, the Carnival Dream

We'd gotten turned around last year when entering the port as our directions weren't as effective as I'd hope they'd be (signage near the port wasn't all that helpful either), however we had no such issues this year.  Of course, the fact that we could very clearly see where our boat was docked helped - the Carnival Dream is one of the larger boats in port at Canaveral, after all, so it wasn't difficult to spot.  We just had to find our way to it, which was easy enough as the route into the parking lot and embarkation area is clearly marked.  After dropping off our luggage with the porters, we were able to park the car less than 50 yards away from the ship, an ideal scenario seeing as how we'd be carrying the luggage we'd just deposited upon our return.

Getting through security checkpoints when entering a cruise ship is not unlike the process of boarding an airplane - well, I take that back because while Homeland Security is present there are no body scanners, no pat-downs, and no limitations on how much shampoo you can bring with you (not that you need to bring any as the stateroom showers on Carnival boats come stocked with plenty of shampoo and shower gel).  It's a tedious process but only because of the shear volume of travelers to be processed.  Similarly, guest check-in can feel like it's taking forever but the truth of it is that patience is the order of the day when it comes to embarkation.  The whole ordeal took less than an hour, all totaled, which is impressive.

An aside to the check-in process is a personal story about Carnival's sign and sail cards.  The sign and sail card is an all-purpose device as it functions as your room key, identification, and is linked to your on-board spending account (you don't use cash or credit/debit cards on these boats, rather you wrack up charges over the course of your trip and are responsible for paying the balance when you return to port).  When we checked in for our honeymoon cruise, I was rather put off by the fact that Jill received a prestigious-looking gold sign and sail card whereas I was issued a card that was powder-blue in color. (The powder-blue, to me, looked like something they should be giving to kids.) It turns out that customers who've sailed previously with Carnival are recognized by different color cards, those being gold and platinum (given to guests who've taken 10 cruises with Carnival).  Jill had sailed with Carnival before, hence why she was ahead of me in the pecking order.  Be that as it may, I was pleased to get my first gold sign and sail card this time around.

Walking across the gantry connecting land to our boat was like leaving reality and entering a completely different realm of existence - one where it's perfectly acceptable to order 4 deserts after having eaten 5 servings of lobster.  Once we were on board, we made our way to the lido deck because we weren't yet allowed into our staterooms.  Lido is an important place because it's where all the buffets are located, and seeing as how it was just past lunchtime seating was at a premium but we were able to get a table without much delay. (This would be the only occasion where we'd have much difficulty in finding a table on lido; in contrast I'd read reviews online that seemed to indicate it was almost impossible 100% of the time.)

The Dream features several stations around its lido deck that offer customized fare, such as a burrito bar which was where I decided to dine this first day (other selections included pasta, salads, omelets, hot dogs & hamburgers, and deli sandwiches).  The food on these boats is impeccable, and the fact that service in some form is available 24 hours a day is remarkable.  Again I'll say that the logistics of running an operation like this are astounding.

Not long after we'd finished our lunch an announcement was made that guests could make their way to their staterooms.  I was very eager to see ours as we'd be occupying a cove balcony stateroom, which is unique in comparison to other balcony rooms in that the balcony does not overhang the side of the boat.  Instead these balconies are tucked into the ships' hull making them more secure as well as more private.  When we opened the door we immediately noticed that this room was larger than what we'd experienced previously on the Carnival Sensation.  Our room featured a king-size bed, a seating area with a couch, ample closet space, a great bathroom, and - of course - the balcony which was spectacular.  An added bonus was that we were on the port side (which is the left-hand side if you're in the boat and facing the front of the ship) meaning that we'd get a great view of each port (not to be redundant) we'd be visiting.

Our stateroom, a cove balcony class - very spacious & comfortable.

At this point in time we hadn't yet received our luggage.  This is another part of cruising that demands patience seeing as how each and every bag has to be delivered to the stateroom it belongs and this can take a fair amount of time on a boat like the Dream since there could be more than 4,000 guests on board.

It's required that all guests participate in an evacuation drill prior to the ship leaving port.  In a nut shell, this is where you learn what you would be doing in the event of an emergency where there might be no other option than to use the ship's lifeboats to escape some level of danger.  It involves everyone reporting to their assigned muster stations then receiving instruction on how to effectively use life preservers.  This is the sort of thing that comes across as being unnecessary, to the point that if you've sat through it once you should receive some kind of lifetime certification, but for a  number of reasons (read, payouts from personal injury lawsuits) it doesn't quite work that way.  Once the muster drill was complete we decided to make our way to the promenade deck to watch as we left port.

We shoved off around 5 PM, close to dusk for this time of year.  On our way out of port, we passed several other boats including a Disney ship and another of Carnival's fleet.  This gave us a much more vivid sense of just how tall the Dream is seeing as how we were standing on one of the middle-upper level decks and we were looking across the tops of those other boats.  The setting sun was a great backdrop for our departure, as was the sight of a shrimp boat following behind us.

On our way out of Port Canaveral

You have many dining options but when it comes to dinner the only way to go for us is to enjoy a meal in one of the main dining rooms.  For this cruise we were assigned to the Scarlet dining room; we realized as the week went on that most of the featured locations inside the boat had monikers that made reference to a shade of red.  We were curious to find out who our table-mates would be as we were looking forward to meeting some of our fellow cruisers.  As it would turn out, we were assigned to a booth instead of one of the larger tables, making for much more quaint dining experiences.  We had the table to ourselves that first night as we later learned that our table-mates had decided to visit the steakhouse this first evening.  I received a special treat at the end of our meal in the form of a heart-shaped chocolate cake Jill had ordered as a surprise; our waiter brought it to our table and sang "Happy Anniversary" to us (and encouraged us to "kissy-kissy").  The cake, like all the food served to us that week, was almost too pretty to eat but of course we ate it anyway and it was delicious - moist, creamy, and chocolatey!

The view from our table in the Scarlet Dining Room

After dinner, we returned to our stateroom and low & behold our luggage had arrived.  We unpacked our bags and bundled up several orders of laundry (there are do-it-yourself laundry stations on board but if you think I'm going to iron something while I'm on vacation you've got another thing coming) and gave them to our steward before venturing back out to peruse the Fun Shops.  Jill and I have developed quite a collection of magnets over our years of traveling together (in my opinion they're the best souvenirs imaginable - I can go to get a cold drink and be reminded of our escapades), and we added to it this first night by picking up a magnet featuring a great image of the Dream.

We capped off our evening by watching several programs in the Encore Theater.  Bingo games - which almost always preceded performances in the Encore (they're as good of a lead-in as any; come for the bingo, stay for the show) - are never hard to find on Carnival's boats and I have to say they aren't exactly bashful when it comes to giving away prizes.  More often than not, winners of these games would receive either a hefty amount of cash or a large amount of credit being applied to their sign and sail account (there were even a few games played later in the week where if you won your entire sign and sail charges would be wiped out; that's a huge opportunity because trust me when I say that over the duration of a 7-day cruise you can wrack up a significant balance).  Trivia games are also commonplace with the game of the evening being centered around material from the 1980s.  The actual performance we saw that night was an introduction to the entertainers who'd be putting their skills on display for us the remainder of the week.  By far my favorite element of this show was a segment arranged by Fun Force who are a group of break dancers.  Quite frankly I don't think the human body was intended to bend or move the way these guys are able to, so the notion that they're able to perform the acrobatic feats they do is out of this world.

The Encore Theater/Lounge

By the end of the show, we were ready to retire to our stateroom.  Between being on the road and all the excitement of the day, we'd thoroughly worn ourselves out.  It had been a great first day and our adventure was definitely only just beginning!