My Bucket List Cruise of 2013 - Day 1

I am so excited to be able to go on my first cruise. My sister invited me after her coworker canceled at the last moment. Which turned out to be a blessing for me. I didn't have the money for the last minute invite, so my sister paid for me to go with a promise from me to repay by next year. My goal is to repay her before 2013 ends.

I set a goal to be able to wear at least one bikini on the cruise. I adjusted my eating by preparing 95% of my meals. I went on a vegetable and chicken soup diet for 2 weeks, asked my coworkers to help keep me on track and I hit the gym and home workouts. I used my Buddy as my judge, not only could I get into one bikini, I was able to get into three. He was so impressed that he bought me a cover-up to wear to the beach but not on the beach. I was ready and psyched.

The Sunday morning didn't start off to well. We were all tired from celebrating my daughter's 21st birthday the night before. We got on the road about 7 am, our plan was to hit the road by 6 am. Forty-five minutes into the trip, Zaneta remembered she had left a basket of wet clothes at the house. We had to get off the road and head back to the house, bummer. I thought in my head the Lord is trying to protect us from something.

Back on the road again, with extra stuff piled up in Zaneta's Nissan Sentra. I had to keep monitoring myself because her car moved so smoothly on the highway, I didn't realize I was going 80-90 MPH in a 65 zone. About 30 miles outside of Conroe the traffic came to a slow down because of a hay truck that lost its bales. So now we know why the delay, thank You Lord. After much speed driving through Houston, we finally reached the Port of Galveston, BEAUTIFUL!! I got so excited when I saw the boat, I almost stopped in the middle of the road. I couldn't get my phone camera to adjust fast enough. We eventually found a place to park where we could take a good photo of the boat, our home for the next 7 days.

Boarding the ship was a long process, security check, beverage check, cabin check-in and finally to our room. The room didn't seem too bad for spa package room. We attended the welcome aboard all you can eat lunch, good food. After the safety briefing, we headed to the party deck. When I say we danced our butts off...danced so much, went down so low, this guy started videotaping us. So if you see me dancing on YouTube, is an unauthorized posting, LOL! We burned our lunch off.
Next we hung out on the shopping level. They were giving away free shots, I had 5. I could feel the boat moving, it felt like a rocking chair. Then we headed to dinner. I ordered every thing off the starters menu and an entrée. Talk about a stuffed pig. My sister said you won't be wearing those bikinis on this trip.

After dinner I was exhausted, I couldn't eat or drink another thing. So we headed back to the room for a power nap. The plan was to get up at 11 pm and go to the club, but our phones said 2:30 am. WHAT!! We changed time zones, we're officially in international waters. We thought, oh well, we'll get on track tomorrow.