Just got back from a wonderful vacation! It started out pretty stressful but everything was fine in the end!
I had been tracking a snow storm in the northeast that was going to potentially impact our flights to New Orleans… our original plan was to drive into Burlington VT on tuesday Jan 11th, sleep at one of the park and fly hotels, and then take a shuttle to the airport the next morning for our flights to New Orleans. We packed monday night and had a list of things still to do on tuesday morning before dropping the kids off at my parents. Tuesday morning I woke up and noticed that our wednesday flights were cancelled due to the coming storm, full on panic mode at that point! I knew that if we didn’t fly out right away it would be at least thursday before we would be able to fly again, and of course our New Orleans hotel reservations were non refundable. I called Continental and they were great about it, quickly booking me into a flight leaving THAT SAME DAY at 3pm. The next hour is a huge blur, running around throwing everything into the car, called my parents to let them know we’d be there early, cancelled our reservations for the Burlington hotel that night, and just really really hoped that our flights wouldn’t get cancelled when we got to Burlington. We dropped the kids off (I wasn’t ready, we really thought we’d have all day with them, it seemed like such an abrupt goodbye) and drove to Burlington, made good time, got there at about 1pm. Sat around still very stressed, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Our connection was in Newark, and the snow storm was headed straight for it… we were half convinced that our flight would get cancelled at the last minute, or at the very least that we’d get stuck in Newark instead of Burlington… Noticed on the flight monitors that other airlines that were flying from Burlington to Newark that day had already cancelled THEIR flights, Continental’s were still showing on time. Finally, flight time rolled around and our flight was a go. We took off, and were a tiny bit relieved… at least we were moving forward. If we had to stay in Newark for a day or two, we’d make the best of it. We landed in Newark, had supper, and headed over to our gate to see how things were going. At this point we weren’t too stressed anymore as a lot of flights were going out. Our flight wasn’t cancelled but was one of the very last flights to leave the airport before the snow storm shut down the rest of the flights, we cut it VERY close. The pilot was telling everyone to sit down and buckle up because we had to leave NOW or we’d not make it out ahead of the storm. Once we were airborne I was finally able to relax! New Orleans here we come!
We had reservations at the Roosevelt hotel for wed/thur/fri nights, and were relieved that they had room for us when we landed at 11pm on tuesday night, at least we wouldn’t have to switch hotels! The hotel was absolutely beautiful… the shower was to die for, multiple jets. There was even a television in the bathroom!
That night Ethan and I went out onto Bourbon street and had a beer at Howl at the Moon. We went back to the hotel to sleep after, it was a very long day!
The next morning we went shopping in the french quarter, discovered Jamie Hayes gallery, what a wonderful place… we bought a little stuffed voodoo doll there and a few wooden baubles, we could have easily bought lots more but we were on a budget. Also bought the greatest pair of jeans ever at the Voluptuous Vixen. Amy and Barry’s flight arrived shortly after so we returned to the hotel to meet up with them. They had had some flight issues as well but the ended up getting into New Orleans only a little later than they were originally scheduled. They decided to be smart about things and mail their luggage through UPS guaranteed 2 day delivery so they wouldn’t have to worry about the airline losing their luggage. Anyways… they got to the hotel and checked in, and then we headed out for supper. Ate at the Acme Oyster House, I had a ham po’boy, very good. After supper we went back to Bourbon street for some drinking, heading to Pat O’Briens for some hurricanes, sat in the freezing cold on their terrace and had a few each. We then headed to Howl at the Moon where I proceeded to get entirely too drunk (had a few long island iced teas) and wrote some lovely comments on the song request cards. We also were a bit confused over the use of bathroom attendants, surely I don’t need someone to squirt soap in my hand and hand me a towel… awkward! We headed back to the hotel after, surprisingly it was only about 10pm but we were pretty much done, having been drinking since about 5pm!
The next morning I woke up to the worst hangover of my life, and we went to IHOP for breakfast. I managed to eat some toast and some eggs, I don’t remember much of what we did that day… I know we hit up happy hour at Domenica’s and had some great pizza, and Barry ordered the most awesome pumpkin fritter things with frothed egg nog dip or something like that. They were great though! We also found out that Barry and Amy’s luggage was not in New Orleans yet and that in fact it wasn’t even in Atlanta yet, and that the 2 day delivery guarantee from UPS basically meant nothing. The person they spoke to said that the luggage should be there on friday.
On friday, Amy called UPS again and this time was told that there was no chance at all that their luggage would get there before our cruise left. So basically they shipped their luggage UPS because they were afraid the airlines would delay it or lose it, and instead UPS just totally screwed them over. Emergency mode, we located a likely shopping spot 10 miles away and hopped in a cab. We spent a few hours finding warm weather clothing for them to wear on the cruise, though bathing suits were an issue, nobody had any in stock that were suitable. Finally we headed back to the hotel to meet up with Tanya and Brent, whose flights had arrived. I know we did supper at Margaritaville , had beignets at Cafe du Monde, and some more hurricanes at Pat O’Briens. We also went to the Cat’s Meow karaoke bar, though none of us sang (not that Tanya didn’t try to convince us!) I know the boys tried hand grenades, but I wasn’t about to try drinking those, the monster hangover was still fresh in my mind. We finished the night at Domenica’s, had some pizza and those yummy pumpkin fritters again… and Brent told us an interesting story about his 20 minute trip to the bathroom and something about a zip gun.
Saturday morning we headed to the cruise terminal for embarkation… embarkation is not the greatest process, it took 1.5 hours or so this time. Love this pic of us 3 girls right after boarding:
View of New Orleans from our balcony right after sail away:
The cruise was a ton of fun. I didn’t take that many pictures of the ship itself, I never carried my camera around while we were in the ship. I really enjoyed both of the big ship shows (Wonderful World and The Big Easy), didn’t spend any time in the piano bar or the hollywood dance club… Tried seeing a comedy show one night but was too tired. The rest of the time was spent eating yummy yummy food and gambling in the casino. We spent a ton of time at the blackjack tables! Tanya was the lucky one at the slots, Brent seemed to have the best luck at the Blackjack tables, Ethan and Barry preferred to just drinking and not gamble… I think I did OK, I didn’t win a lot of money at the tables but I played for hours and hours on the same chips, winning some and then losing some and then winning some more. I also won 80$ on a slot machine, and probably lost about 40 bucks in the stupid quarter pushing machines, they are my kryptonite. The only formal night we participated in was on sunday or monday night, I forget which… here we are all dressed up!
Our first port was supposed to be Belize but they were having some disputes with the local tender operators, and so we got Grand Cayman instead. I was quite excited about this change, we had been scheduled to stop in Grand Cayman on our 2005 Carnival Valor cruise, but a hurricane had diverted us to the East caribbean itinerary back then. I had long wanted to swim with the stingrays there, so booking the excursions was a complete no brainer, Ethan and I opted to do Stingray City and Coral Gardens snorkel. It was awesome!
Our second port was Roatan, Honduras… here we opted to do a private tour by Bodden Tours, this turned out to be a GREAT idea, it was just awesome. Our tour guide Channon was great and told us all about the many many aphrodisiacs found on the island :P He even made us smell the most disgusting one (noni fruit), isn’t he so nice? We did some shopping, toured the island, took some nice photographs… it was HOT that day. We also visited the monkey house where we got to hold real monkeys, it was great, Ethan was quite excited about MONKEYS!
Our final port day was Cozumel, Mexico. I had done research online prior to our trip and found Nachi Cocom, an all inclusive beach club where we could spend the day. It was really awesome! Waiters bringing us free drinks, beautiful ocean spread out before us, white sand beaches, shade and sun… cold refreshing water on our bare feet in the bathroom (hah!), it was seriously great.
Finally our last day at sea, time to say goodbye to all the memorable characters we met on our cruise… we’ll remember you fondly, Dumptruck D (Amy and Barry’s neighbour), Cooter (thanks for the tips on the quarter pushing machine, and so glad you finally scored), and Blackjack sugar daddy (Pinky played a long time with your money, and you must have given Tanya at least 30-40$ that night… I hope you really are rich and weren’t just drunk!)
Sad that vacation is over, but we made a lot of memories!
