Day one images here.

Day two and three images here.

Day Two – BOARDING THE EXPLORER
We wake and get an early start at Jerry’s Deli, a massive derrigible-hanger of a deco-deli, popular with the South Beach crowd. After that, we all hit the ground running in different directions. Some went shopping to replace their missing camera, some helped find a good deal on said missing camera shopping and others just wandered off. Sharkboy and I went and got chocolate covered blueberries and an underwater disposable camera. We were good to go!

By noon, we were speeding towards the dock crammed into two taxis. With our luggage taken from us at the curb, we had a few hours to kill before we left so we all explored. And explored. And ate. And explored some more. We wound up on the bow of the ship for the last moments in Miami. We scooted around the Freedom of the Seas, currently the world’s largest cruise ship (next year?) and turned around in the basin. I got to see a dolphin, but was too slow to get it’s picture. At that point, Griz and Evil Panda showed up, meeting us on the bow. We hug and make merry until it got a bit too chilly to stand out there so we went back to the room and changed for the pre-dinner show.

At the ship’s theatre, The Cruise Director, a handsome lad from BC, was given the once over by our group and deemed extremely do-able. Shaved head, smart, and tall. Smiled with his eyes. Unremarkable show of a balancing act and comedian who’s timing was so

off

that you could drive the ship itself in between the pauses before she hit the punchlines.

Off to dinner! Yum! They did everything except wipe our chins. I’ve been told the food on these ships is considered some of the best in the industry, even if they’re churning out 3000 plates in one night. I could hear my waist expand just looking at the menu.

We all congregated in Evil Panda’s room after dinner and discussed shore excursions. Turns out that we’re not all going on the same ones, which would make for nice dinner conversations at the end of the day.

DAY 3 – AT SEA
Not much to do other than tour some of the ship and sit out on deck.

We make our first enemy: 5 of us are sitting in a small theatre waiting for a tour of the ship’s science department. The Explorer is the only cruise ship that constantly monitors the current and temperature of the Caribbean waters since it circles ’round and ’round it all year long. We’re upbeat and happy. The theatre isn’t that full and a couple of about 70yrs of age sit directly in front of us. After a few moments, the man turns to the Mailman and asks him to keep it down because he doesn’t like the “constant chatter” that the 5 of us are generating. We’re in shock… us being loud? While the tour hasn’t even started yet? Sharkboy quips back “There are other seats.” and we leave it at that, adjusting our volume until the guide arrives.

“How is everyone doing?” the guide says, to open up his tour.

“I’m afraid to say…” says the Mailman very loudly to the back of “Constant Chatter’s” head.

Later on, we encounter “Constant Chatter” man, his silent wife and his geriatric crew several times over the duration of the cruise. The most notable run-in was, during a massive drunken treasure hunt game called “The Quest” that involved audience participation as they hunt for “three ladies’ bras” or “three men’s trousers”, etc. At the end, Constant Chattering man interrupted the show to boldly announce that his group of fossils were all over 70 and drunk. Wow. It really was embarrassing to see and slightly enraging to know this was the man who shushed us not 24 hours prior. Nice… Now sit down, gramps.

Anyway, that was later on. We’re still on Day 3…

The rest of the day was spent eating. Eating eating eating. And spending about $20 in the casino. Those money grubbing machines. I hated them so much I had to stuff about $80 of my money into them over the duration of the cruise, just to shut them up.

No I didn’t win anything.

Early to bed because the next day was to be Belize: zip lines and inner-tubing through caves. Woot!