Before the cruise we had spent two days at Epcot & Magic Kingdom with Sis-in-law Sylvie, Pogo, Shawn and his new girlfriend, Dana (who is utterly cool), which was a blast. Though it did rain while at The Kingdom, we had a great time largely due to Beta Mike and unlimited knowledge of the park – he was the tour guide extrodinaire <\/i>and would part with nuggets of trivia when we walked by things: “That trash can right there is where they found a human lung.”<\/i>\u00a0He pretty much made the entire week interesting and fun by always “being on”.<\/p>\n

The morning of the cruise we met at Mike and Johnny’s beautiful home and had a moment with Ms Olive before the dog sitter took over. The other couple we shared the seas with, Thom and Dave, arrived soon after and we set out in two cars to the port. Each mid-sized SUV was packed to the brim with luggage\u00a0as you\u00a0can imagine three gay couples would.\u00a0We stopped in a gas station\u00a0on the far side of the airport that sold deep fried Gator bits. That people were actually buying. With money.<\/p>\n

We parked and entered the terminal and checked in, no issues. As we waited for our boarding number I wandered in and out of the\u00a04000+ crowd, looking for other 501st comrades and found a few. We chatted and shared our excitement. Nothing compares to Star Wars Nerd Excitement<\/em> – it’s almost visible in the\u00a0air and makes cats horny in a\u00a02 mile\u00a0radius. They should bottle it.<\/p>\n

We board. And as you might have read previously, we were announced as the “Healey-Maquette” family. Yeah me and the wooden model. Nobody noticed, we were too excited.<\/p>\n

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the ship and the first (of many) drinks in La Piazza. When they released our rooms and our luggage was delivered\u00a0we\u00a0dressed for dinner and experienced that evening’s sunset (of many). But before the food trough was lowered, we saw that night’s show and then head into the restaurant. Little did we know that we were already singled out by one of the crew…<\/p>\n

Dinner was a curiosity. Dave (a staunch Republican) and Thom (a staunch I never got what he was) told us about their plan to adopt a child in the very near future, told to us while Dave carved up raw garlic across his steak. The wait staff were a bit alarmed by the request\u00a0yet brought him two hearty sized cloves. He folded them into his steak as we discussed diapers and future travel plans. As one does. I snuck a glance to Thom to see if this was normal and got no indication that this was going to be a problem with him. Later. In a small cabin. To each his own, I thought and fattily dug into my 3rd dessert.<\/p>\n

There is NOTHING like sleeping on a ship in somewhat calm waters (the weather was super windy, but not, you know… Royal Caribbean windy<\/a>)<\/p>\n

$\"First$ <\/a>
First Florida pic! <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>

$\"A$ <\/a>
A Cast Member took this for us. Then gave us a letter “U” pin – “Just for U!” she said. Day made. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>

$\"Am$ <\/a>
Am I 501st yet? <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>

$\"Drink$ <\/a>
Drink – the first of many <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>

$\"Bitey$ <\/a>
Bitey – The first of many <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>

$\"Never$ <\/a>
Never wast a Monorail sunset. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before the cruise we had spent two days at Epcot & Magic Kingdom with Sis-in-law Sylvie, Pogo, Shawn and his new girlfriend, Dana (who is utterly cool), which was a blast. Though it did rain while at The Kingdom, we had a great time largely due to Beta Mike and unlimited knowledge of the park […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":10279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[2011,2006,1,2017],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/IMG_1176.jpg?fit=900%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9WjY-2FC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10268"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10281,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10268\/revisions\/10281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}