Day 1- Dec 24- Ft. Lauterdale, FL

Greetings!  By the time you read this, I will be back in the United States, but right now, I am at sea.  Since I cannot get Internet connection in the middle of the ocean, I am writing these blog posts each day on the ship and I will upload them when I return.  Also, I will upload them in reverse order, so Day 1 will be first on my page, and Day 2 second, and so on, so you can easily start at the beginning.

Right now it's actually Day 2, but let me tell you what yesterday was like.

Becki and I woke up at 10:00, since we were supposed to leave my aunt's at 11:30.  We packed up our room and got dressed, then hung out until it was time to leave.  The harbor is about 45 minutes away from Aunt Jan's, so we played our DS's on the car ride.  Once we arrived, we got through the check-in process very quickly, since Aunt Jan and Uncle Stan had a suite, so we were able to skip all the lines.  We got on the ship almost at one, so we were right in time for the staterooms to open.  Becki and I found ours quickly and spent several minutes freaking out.

We were unaware that our room would have a balcony.  This was a huge surprise.  We were so excited.  We unpacked our backpacks, and followed with our suitcases, once they had been delivered.  Back home, I bought tiny Christmas trees and ornaments at Hobby Lobby, so Becki and I had fun decorating.  We also had a little wreath that we hung on our door with dental floss.

Then we decided we were hungry, so off to the buffet we went.  We tried not to eat too much, since we had dinner in a mere three hours.  After that, we went back to our stateroom to make our final phone calls before the ship left, but the stupid captain kept making noisy announcements about the upcoming muster station drill.  The drill, surprisingly, was far less painful than in previous years.  We were not required to bring our life jackets, and our muster station met in the roomy, air-conditioned theater.  It was pleasant.  We met up with some of our younger cousins during the drill and, after considering Becki's and my goofy behavior (It was boring, okay?  We had to entertain ourselves.) we decided that we needed little-kid wristbands like them, since, in the event of a real emergency, we would probably be unable to conduct ourselves in a fashion necessary to save our lives.

After the drill, we hurried to our balcony to watch the ship pull out of Ft. Lauderdale.  We enjoyed watching the ship sail and the sun set so much we had to scramble to get ready for dinner.  Once there, Becki and I both had chilled watermelon soup and I had Prime Rib and Becki had Fillet Mignon.  Her's tasted better, so she won the dinner for the night.  We had Chocolate Cherry cake for dessert.  During dinner, our cousin Aubrey got seasick and had to leave early, so we tried to convince our cousin Emmy, her roommate and companion, to come to the casino with us and Adam since she just turned 18 and it's legal to gamble at 18 over international waters.  She resisted at first, but once she discovered Aubrey was going to bed, she decided to join us.

So down to the casino we headed.  Blackjack is our game.  I started off with $24 and the minimum bet per hand was $6.  At the end of the night, I had $52 (after I had tipped our dealer $5) so that made me $28 richer.  Becki did extremely well, making about $100.  We had planned on going caroling, but the casino had taken up more time than planned, so we went to the 18-20+ Meet and Mingle that the ship had scheduled, but unfortunately no one else showed up.  We ended up taking Adam and Emmy back to our room, where we ordered room service and watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Then we got tired, so we sent them on their way, and so ended the first day of our cruise.

Day Two- Dec 25- At Sea

Merry Christmas!  Except it's not anymore, for you guys or for me.  For me, it is actually Day 3, but I'll check in and tell you about my Christmas anyway.

So yesterday we got an early start.  We got up at 7:30 and had breakfast sent to the room so we could go to the Christmas Interdenominational Service they had at 9.  After that we grabbed some coffee and some seats in the big atrium.  Santa was there handing out presents to the kids (looked like cruise blankets and tote bags... I know, exciting, right?  Some of the really little kids got small toys, but we couldn't see what they were.) so we stayed and watched for a while.  Then we took a quick peek at Aunt Jan and Uncle Stan before returning to our room to open gifts.

I got Becki a lot of stuff.  I felt bad for her because she didn't like leaving our parents on Christmas.  I got her a stocking full of little fun presents, and then my main gift was a joke: six calendars for 2011, each featuring her favorite TV/Movie etc. stuff.  She got a kick out of it.  We spent a good half hour looking at them all.  Then I got her present to me: a bottle of perfume that is my favorite Bath and Body Works scent.  Very thoughtful!  I love it.  Becki, however, overwhelmed by the number of gifts I got her, insisted we go down to the shops on board and find another Christmas present for me.  I should put in here that Becki had got me a very nice jewelry box picture thing for Christmas, but she gave it to me before we left on the cruise because it was too big to bring.  So the perfume wasn't the only thing; it was just the 'on the ship' gift for me.

 What Becki looks like in the morning.

 What Becki looks like in the morning when presents are involved.

She's showing off the necklace, not the boobs.

So we wandered the shops for a while and found a few necklaces I liked, but nothing I loved enough to buy.  We ate lunch, then retreated to our room.  The rest of the day was spent hanging out in the room playing games.  It was a lazy, relaxing Christmas, and I was glad to spend it with my sister.  Before we knew it, it was time for dinner.

It was a formal night, so I wore a black polka-dotty dress.  We had bought small gifts for all the kids (jewelery for the girls, DVD's for the boys) and that was good because we received small gifts from some of their parents.  For dinner, Becki got the traditional turkey, and I got the beef and veal.  I am proud to announce I that I won dinner that night.  For those of you keeping score, that's Becki-1, Paige-1.  After a quick shoe change (ugh, high heels) we joined Adam and Zach at the casino.  It was a quick night.  I started out with $24 on a $6 minimum bet table and swiftly lost it all, as did my companions.  It was especially disappointing because we didn't even get to play for very long.

Discouraged, Becki and I returned to our room and fell into depression.  We felt isolated from our aunt's family and we missed our own, especially because it was Christmas.  To cheer ourselves up, we went to the upper decks and participated in the Pets at Sea program, which was basically Build-a-Bear on a boat.  I made an elephant in a sailor outfit, which I named First Officer Trunkington.  Becki made a purple fuzzy monster that she named Darcy, from Pride and Prejudice, but the name fit.  Making furry new friends helped a little (even though it was a tad awkward because it was in the kid's club on the ship) but we were still sad, so we watched an episode of Buffy and  went to bed, certain that we would wake up feeling better in the morning.

Day Three- Dec 26- Labadee, Haiti

Ah, finally!  I am caught up on blog enteries.  I am actually writing this on Dec 26, so it should all be fresh in my mind, and maybe tomorrow I can slack a little.

Today was another early start.  We were set to land in Haiti at 7, so we set our alarm for 6:30.  Becki, ever the anti-morning person, took one step onto our balcony, decided Haiti wasn't interesting enough to be up this early for, and went back to bed.  I stayed up and watched them hook up the ship to the dock.  By the time I was done, room service had brought us breakfast, so Becki had to get up again.  We had originally planned on leaving the ship fairly soon, but decided to go back to sleep until 9.

By the time we finally got on dry land, it was HOT.  And humid.  And uncomfortable.  It sucked.  We walked down the pier and into the town square, which must have been a half a mile away, until we finally got to the shops.  Becki walked through the first one, which was in a building and had a relaxed atmosphere, and instantly decided Labadee had nothing more to offer us.  I, however, insisted we power on and at least look at the line of small shop booths further in the square.  The shopkeepers there were much more... traditional Central American businessman.  "Come, look in my shop, miss," "Come see, for you only one dollar!"  We didn't stop to check out most of them firstly because they were making us uncomfortable, and secondly because they all contained wood carvings, which Haiti is apparantly famous for, but what our ship's newsletter had warned us against purchasing because of seizure-inducing, wood-burrowing pests.  Huh.  We stopped back at the original building shop on our way back so I could buy a card to send to Will, then boarded the ship again.  All in all, we were only in Haiti for about an hour and a half.  Not much to see, not much to do, not too exciting.

By now we were covered in sweat and rushed to our room to grab our suits and head to the pool.  We had stupidly not brought our suits into port with us because we only planned on shopping; neither of us care for beaches, you see.  After cooling down in the pool, showering, and eating, we spent another quiet few hours in our room.  We left to watch us sail out.  Adam had found a place at the front of the ship that was elusive to get to, and therefore almost empty of other passengers.  After leaving the ship deck, Adam, Zachary, Beck and I went down to look at the ship's shops again.  There was a raffle, but unfortunately, we didn't win.  We hurried upstairs to get dressed for dinner, then went to the dining room.

Tonight was one of the nights the adults went to one of the onboard restaurants for dinner instead of eating with the rest of the general population, so Becki and I were recruited to watch three of the younger kids, the youngest being ten.  Since we all eat dinner at the same table anyway, the first half of our job was easy.  Becki got the lamb and I got the garlic roasted shrimp.  I won dinner again today.  Becki-1, Paige-2.  Our cousin Aubrey, age 16, brought a boy to the table, which was a huge mistake.  This boy wasn't very bright, so we messed with him for a while.  Becki told him to call her Mrs. M, and I made him try and guess my name.  His first guess was Jessica, which I told him was correct, and he believed me.  Aubrey was glaring at me like, 'stop messing this up for me.'  It was awesome.

After dinner we hung out with the kids until their parents came home.  Then we headed to the casino for another disappointing night.  I lost another $25 quickly at the blackjack table.  I also fed spare change into the quarter slots.  I broke off from Becki and Adam to watch the cruise's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire show.  I met up with Aunt Eileen and Uncle Allen and they bought me my first alcoholic drink this cruise, a mudslide.  Finally, I came back to the room and started writing this post.  I would just like to let Nicole know it is 12:41 AM and I've been eating french fries while typing this.  Unavailable at this hour through the ship's cafe's, but available through room service.  Score.

Day 5- December 28- Cartengna, Columbia

Okay, so that "little break" I said I could take from this blog because I had finally caught up?  I little bigger than little.  My procrastinative nature took over and it is now Day 9.  I've decided that in order to keep you all (and me) from getting bored, I'm going to try and shorten these up a bit.

Some of you may be wondering what happened to Day 4.  Well, Day 4 was pretty boring.  We were at sea, so we didn't really do much.  We spent the day relaxing.  We decided not to gamble that night because of our 2 night losing streak.  I don't remember what we got for dinner, but I do remember Becki won, making the score 2-2.

As for Day 5, far more interesting than Day 4.  We slept in a tad before heading out to Columbia.  After a nervous encounter with a sketchy street full of Columbian taxi drivers offering us rides, we decided to just hang out at the one store at the terminal, so we didn't really see much of Cartegna.  It was one of those things that would have not been such a big deal if we were traveling with our dad or with Will, but just Becki and I weren't comfortable with it.  It turned out ok though.  The shop had a big selection.  I got an awesome gift for Nicole (you will love it!  come back to AZ and get it!) and both of us bought Columbian coffee for our parents.  Plus there were some cool parrots outside and a fake mine exhibit where you could see how they mine the emeralds Columbia sells.

We were way hot and gross from the humidity, so Becki and I decided on another swimming trip on deck to cool off.  I don't remember what we had for dinner, but I think I won, making the new score 3-2.  After dinner, Becki went with Adam to play pool, while I went with Zachary to watch a comedian, which was fun.  We were still discouraged from losing our money, so we didn't do any gambling that night either.  The other exciting thing we did that day was book an excursion for the port of Costa Rica.  We would be horseback riding through the rainforest.  Becki was so excited because it was the excursion she wanted and I was happy because there was a chance of seeing the colorful poisonous frogs found only in the rainforest.  We went to bed happy.