LOS ANGELES / LAS VEGAS
We woke up early, excited to leave for Vegas to get married. Before heading off, we stopped by Elena’s office to give her our 30-day notice. (Fingers crossed that the condo would actually close this time!)
We left LA around 2pm and arrived at Sam’s Town around 7pm. We quickly checked in and headed back out to meet Mah-Mee (Michelle) and Dah-Dee (Bruce) at the Stratosphere at 8pm. We went from there to the Rio for their Carnival World Buffet. Yummy! Bebe had to eat fast and then jet to the airport to pick up Mama (Jeanne) and Aunt Janet. After the buffet, I said goodnight to Mah-Mee and Dah-Dee and met back up with Bebe, Mama and Aunt Janet at Sam’s Town. We opened some cards and gifts from the Groom’s family before heading to bed. Tomorrow would be the big day!!
Wednesday April 11th, 2007
Wedding Day
We woke up at 11am and had breakfast with Mama and Aunt Janet at the Sam’s Town buffet. After breakfast we headed to the Marriage Bureau to get our Marriage License. We had the clerk cracking up when we paid for the license with a dollar bill that one of Bebe’s friends from work wrote on. It said, “Spend this wisely!” She thought it was very appropriate!! Once back to Sam’s Town, we parted ways to get ready for the big event and promised to meet back up at 4pm. Bebe stayed in our room and I went to Mah-Mee and Dah-Dee’s room to get ready.
Once ready, my parents and I went back to Bebe’s room where Mama and Aunt Janet were already waiting with Bebe. That’s when Bebe and I saw eachother all dressed up for the first time! We then all drove to the chapel where our wedding was scheduled for 5pm. After arriving, we realized that the gazebo that we were originally going to marry in was a piece of junk, so we decided to move the ceremony indoors. Dah-Dee walked me down the aisle and gave me away. The ceremony lasted approximately 15 minutes, during which, I was on the edge of tears the entire time. Bebe kept it together until the end, when we both completely lost it and cried like babies.
After the ceremony we headed over to the Paris Hotel and Casino to take some photos in front of their beautiful fountain. It was, unfortunately, turned off. Oh well...
While we took pictures, it was so windy that my veil flew off my head. Several people ran after it but it almost blew into traffic because nobody wanted to step on it. It was eventually saved by Dah-Dee!
When we were done taking photos, we went to the Casino and went up to the Eiffel Tower Restaurant. The restaurant was not too impressive and our waitress was a snobby bitch. It was very disappointing!
After dinner, we headed back to Sam’s Town where we all hung out in our room, ate ice cream cake, drank champagne and celebrated until 2am. At that time, everyone went back to their rooms and the newlyweds consummated their marriage.
(actual photo is unavailable)
Thursday April 12th, 2007
LAS VEGAS / FORT LAUDERDALE
This is the day that our Honeymoon Adventure begins.
After saying goodbye to our families, we rushed to the airport convinced that we’d miss our flight. And as it always happens, when you’re late, the computer at the airport told us there was a problem processing our boarding passes and that we’d have to wait in line to check in. Keep in mind, we were LATE! Not to mention, freaking out. Finally we found someone to help us and we got our boarding passes. We ran full speed to our gate just to find that our flight had been delayed an hour. (WHEW!)
After about an hour, we boarded our plane and took off for Fort Lauderdale, Flordia. During our ascent, we hit some turbulence and a lady screamed. And I laughed at her. Other than that, the flight was pretty non-eventful and we arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 12:45am. We took a cab to our hotel, settled in, filled up on too much fried food from Denny’s and finally got to bed around 4am.
Friday April 13th, 2007
Fort Lauderdale, Florida Day 1
We woke up late today…3pm. We wasted some time in our hotel room before going out and walking towards the beach with the intention of catching a water taxi towards downtown. About a third of a mile later, we saw a trolley and decided to hop on. The trolley took us to the beach where we hopped off and promptly put our feet in the warm Atlantic Ocean. After walking around a bit and checking out some shops, we headed to the next trolley stop to continue downtown. As we approached the stop, the Trolley came and went, passing us right up. So, instead of waiting for the next one, we keep walking to the next stop. We kept 
walking and walking…no trolley stops! Finally we found a bus that took us to the Riverfront. We were hungry and tired and ready to eat seafood. We decided on a place called Ugly Tuna Saloona for it’s name alone and we were not disappointed! The food was awesome. Bebe had a Mahi Mahi Ruben, I had crab-stuffed shrimp and we both had a couple of drinks. We sat outside and dined in candlelight. It was very romantic! After dinner Bebe got some ice cream from Hagen-Daaz and we hopped in a cab back to our hotel. We never made it to the water taxi.
Saturday April 14th, 2007Fort Lauderdale, Florida Day 2
We woke up early today at 11am (8am LA time), caught the trolley to the beach and signed ourselves up for a glass-bottom boat snorkeling tour. We boarded the boat, they took us out to the middle of the ocean, dropped anchor, and we jumped in. Bebe promptly swam back to the boat where he stayed for quite some time while I continued swimming and snorkeling. After some coaxing, Bebe tried again. He jumped back in and lasted a bit longer than the first time before heading back to the boat. Bebe isn’t exactly comfortable snorkeling yet, especially in the middle of the ocean. I had a great time floating in the waves. I had an underwater camera and took a handful of photos of the “same damn fish” over and over again. After about an hour, it was time to head back.
As soon as we got back on land, it was time to board the Jungle Queen, a riverboat that took us to an island where we had all-you-can-eat shrimp, ribs and chicken. Everything was very yummy! After dinner we decided to skip the show and go look at all the various animals they had on the island. (All caged, of course.) We ended up spending all our time with a monkey named Trevor. He was so cool! He grabbed a leaf from Bebe’s hand and when I tried to do it, he slapped me. And scared me to death! Then we found out that when anyone would run near his cage, he would freak out and do flips in the air. Bebe found this very amusing, so when anyone new would come over to look at Trevor, Bebe would run circles around the cage so everyone could see Trevor’s cool back flips. Eventually, it was time to say goodbye to Trevor, get back on the Jungle Queen and head back to shore. We passed the time, on the way back, by taking goofy photos of ourselves.
Once docked, we sat at a bus stop and waited for a bus that never came. So we hailed a cab. (A first for both of us!)
We got back to the hotel and went to bed…exhausted.
Sunday April 15th, 2007 
Setting Sail on our Transatlantic Cruise
We woke up, checked out and caught the hotel’s complimentary shuttle to the cruise port. As soon as we boarded the shuttle, it began to rain. We heard there was bad weather coming, and this was the first we had seen. Once at the port, we didn’t have to wait long before checking in and boarding the ship. During check in, the lady told us that they had changed our room, but it wasn’t until we got onboard that we realized we had been upgraded to an ocean view room at the very front of the ship. (Our window faced forward.)
After admiring our room and our view, we headed to the buffet and stuffed ourselves silly. We then went outside and explored the upper decks. It became so windy, my hot chocolate blew out of my cup and all over my arm! The wind was blowing so hard that it became unsafe to be outside so we ran back inside, forgetting our camera on one of the deck chairs. Once we realized this, we ran outside, frantically searching for it. Thankfully, we got it back from one of the employees who had already found it. Relieved, we went back inside and got into one of the elevators. The elevators had beautiful glass doors and the floor had a plaque that said “Sunday.” 
As we rode the elevator, a man said, “Why does it say Sunday in our elevator?” I responded with, “Because today is Sunday.” The man looked at me perplexed. (Sure enough, they changed the plaques everyday!) We explored the ship a bit more before heading back outside to the lower decks. As we sailed away and took pictures, people waived the Royal Caribbean flag as they waived goodbye to us from their balconies. We knew ahead of time that there were Tornado warnings for the east coast, and it was rocky from the get go!
After watching the land slowly disappear, it was time for the emergency drill. This is when we all have to put on our life vests and find out where we are supposed to go in case of an emergency. In our case, it was the theater. When we were done ignoring the emergency procedures, we went back to our room to drop off our life vests and then it was right back to the theater to watch the Welcome Show. After the show we headed to dinner and we were the last to arrive. Already at our table were our new friends that we would be dining with for the next twelve nights or so. We met Jim and Debbie, a married couple, Juan, and eccentric gay (we’re pretty sure) man who talked a lot and asked all the same questions over and over again, and Mark, a quiet Jewish man, both the latter traveling alone.
After dinner we went back to our room and got in bed. The ship was rocking and swaying so much that when we’d lay on our sides, we felt like we were going to roll right out of bed. I was finally drifting to sleep when Bebe, all hopped up on caffeine said, “I wanna go out and see the waves!” So we went out on one of the decks. It was 1am and we had the whole ship to ourselves. It was pitch black and Bebe was looking over the edge, trying to see the big waves. All the while, I was screaming at him to get away from the side of the ship because “that’s how people fall overboard and no one would ever know!” After Bebe was satisfied, we found the Refreshment Center and got some tea and hot chocolate. Near the Refreshment Center we noticed a Ping Pong table so we decided to play. Neither of us had played in years but we were doing pretty well and after awhile we got pretty good at over compensating for the rocking of the ship. It was so bad that one of us would reach for the ball as the ship swayed in the opposite direction causing us to completely miss the ball. It was so fun! 3am became 4am as we had to change our clocks ahead an hour. And at 4:30am we retired our Ping Pong paddles and went back to our stateroom. We slept like babies.Monday April 16th, 2007
Our First Day At Sea
Our wake up call came early this morning in the form of the Captain announcing that because of the bad weather, we would be changing course. Instead of heading north along the eastern coast and then veering east across the Atlantic, we would veer east toward Bermuda, then north and east across the Atlantic. He explained that by doing this we would escape the bad weather and that soon it would be a much smoother ride. We went back to sleep.
Finally, at 2pm, we got up and barely made it out in time for the lunch buffet before they closed it down at 3pm. We stuffed ourselves and went right back to our stateroom. I took a nap and Bebe watched TV until it was time to get ready to eat again. It was the first formal night on the ship so we got all dressed up. As we were getting ready, I realized that I needed to head down to the Centrum Shops to pick up a few things. On my way to the shops, the ship was swaying back and forth, so much so, that people were stumbling around and the dealers at the casino were rolling away from their tables. As I passed through the photo gallery, I stopped for a moment to look at all the photos taken the night before. As I attempted to stand there, I heard a crashing noise. About ten feet away, a whole display case of alcohol crashed to the floor. More than fifty bottles all broken on the floor. And I seemed to be the only person on the ship to have actually seen it happen. It was crazy… And the smell was amazing! So, after regrouping and navigating my around the mess and into the shops, I found them to be torn apart as well. Scarves and watches and earrings all covered the floor. I was told that I had to leave, as they needed to close due to all the chaos and destruction. I returned to our stateroom empty handed.
On our way to dinner, we stopped at four photography stations to get our photos taken.
Twice during the meal, dishes and glasses and wine bottles all crashed to the floor because of all the rocking and tilting of the ship. We thought all the chaos was fun! Though, we didn’t find that everyone shared our enthusiasm.
We finished our meal and went straight back to our stateroom to get out of our formal attire and then headed right back out to our Ping Pong table. We played a “best three out of five tournament” and Bebe ended up the champion while the only victory I experienced was a one game shut out at 17 to 0. Bebe did a celebratory dance and then we went back to our room where we were rocked to sleep by the waves.
Tuesday April 17th, 2007
Our Second Day at Sea
We woke up early at 9am (5am LA time). It was raining outside and the ship was no longer rocking. We sat in our window nook that overlooked the helipad and bow of the ship, and admired our view. It was so calm and peaceful. After some time, we decided to head out to the breakfast buffet, it was the first time that we had been up in time to catch it. We saw Mark there and said, “hi!” He told us that he hadn’t been sleeping well due to the fact that he had a deck two stateroom where the waves crashed on his porthole all night long. (That must suck!) After breakfast, we went back to our stateroom and went back to sleep. But before doing so, we ordered a 1:15pm wake up call because we had signed up to participate in a 1:30pm blackjack tournament. Fast asleep, the wake up call came and we immediately fell back to sleep. Then, in a panic, Bebe woke up at 1:29pm, got me up and we rushed out the door. Once we got to the casino, we hopped on the next available blackjack table and began playing, half asleep. The tournament worked like this: We all started with $500 of play money and played seven hands of blackjack. The seven people with the most money at the end go on to play at the final table. I ended my round with $850 and Bebe ended his with $1300. We were both put on the “the list” of the top scores. The next table ended and I was bumped off the list but Corey was still in 2nd place. At the end of the next table, Bebe was bumped down to 8th place, and out of the running. So much for that. (-$40) From there, we went to play bingo, and again, walked away empty handed. (-$35) We went back to our stateroom feeling like losers. Hoping to raise our spirits, we called our Real Estate Agent to find out about our house that was supposed to have closed two days earlier. She informed us that, as of 12:30 PST that day, we had become homeowners. (WHEW!) We thanked her and promptly headed down to the bar to toast our new home with a glass of champagne. Soon after, it was time for dinner. So, with champagne glasses in hand and smiles on faces, we greeted our tablemates, Jim and Debbie. We shared our news and Jim shared his bottle of wine. Juan and Mark never showed up for dinner but we didn’t mind at all, th
e four of us had a great time! We had planned to go to the Movie Theater after dinner to catch the 10pm show but didn’t end up leaving the dining room until well-after 10pm. So, having missed the movie, we headed back to our stateroom to relax. Before we knew it, we were heading back out to go to the Midnight Buffet. Keep in mind; we had just finished our dinner about and hour and a half before. (What were we thinking?) After have completely stuffed ourselves, we painfully made our way back to our stateroom where we turned our clock ahead another hour and fell asleep watching South Park.Wednesday April 18th, 2007
Our Third Day at Sea / Our One Week Anniversary
A call woke us up at 11am today. The man informed us that a spot had opened up for tonight’s Murder Mystery Dinner and that we had to be there at 6:30pm. We were happy, but tired, so we went back to sleep. We woke up again at 3pm and it was raining again. We watched TV and we watched outside our window at the people on the helipad. The next part needs a bit of back-story: The TV in our stateroom had a channel that was just a camera on the deck of the ship so that you could watch what was going on outside. We found it very amusing because we figured out that the camera had to be right above our room because the view of the camera was the same exact view that we had from our window. So anyway, Bebe was sitting in our window nook, looking out the window when he yelled, “I SEE THE AFRO COUPLE!!” (It was couple that we had nicknamed because they both had Afros and we kept seeing them all over the ship) So, I changed the channel on the TV to the one of the deck camera, and I screamed, “I SEE THE AFRO COUPLE!!”… I think you’d have to be there.We finally got out of bed around 5pm, got in our “Smart Casual” outfits and headed to the Safari Club for the Murder Mystery Show. We enjoyed the show and we especially enjoyed the food. Our waiter clued us in on who the killer was but we were too mistrusting and wrote down someone else. We should have listened to our waiter. We had fun but decided that it wasn’t worth the cost. (-$120) After dinner we went to the Movie Theater to catch the 10pm showing of Lady in the Water. We liked it (surprisingly) but we heard all the old people grumbling, “that was terrible,” and “I’m glad I didn’t waste my money on that!” After the movie we went to the Casino and put some money in a couple of slots. I lost my $20 but Bebe cashed out $43. (+$3) From there, we went to the blackjack table. Again, I lost my $45 while Bebe came out $5 ahead. (-$40) Next were the nickel slots where Bebe lost $20 and I got lucky, cashing out $36.75 from an original $20. (-$3.25) After it was all said and done, we had a lot of fun and didn’t end up losing much money at all. At that time, they kicked us out because they were closing for the night so we headed for the Refreshment Center. We grabbed some drinks to bring back to our stateroom along with some late night desserts. We turned our clocks forward for the third time in five days before Bebe fell asleep at 5am and me at 10am.
Thursday April 19th, 2007
Our Fourth Day at Sea
Bebe woke up at noon in anticipation of his 3pm Texas Hold’em Poker Tournament. On his way out the door, he noticed that my SeaPass Card was missing so he went looking in the last place he remembered us using it: the Casino! And sure enough, they had it at the cashier. (WHEW!) He then had a bit of time before his tournament so he had lunch at the buffet and read the paper. I, in the meantime, had woken up around 1pm, saw that Bebe was gone, and went back to sleep. Bebe, now at his poker tournament, gained an early chip lead and was dominating his table. But after a string of bad luck, ended up taking third at his table. Unfortunately, only first place went on the play the final table. (-$75) Bebe then went back to the stateroom where I was awake and already getting ready for another formal night. We headed out and got our portraits taken… again. Before dinner, we attended the Captain’s Reception where we met a lot of the ship employees and each enjoyed two free glasses of champagne.
Now a bit tipsy, we headed to dinner with Jim, Debbie and Juan. Mark was, once again, a no-show. We stayed late, as usual, talking to Jim and Debbie, finally leaving the dining room at 10:30pm. We took a few of our own portraits of each other before heading to the “Midnight Fisherman’s Buffet.” (An hour and a half after dinner!) Thoroughly stuffed, we went back to our stateroom to find our first towel animal. It was swan but Bebe destroyed it before I could get a photo of it. We fell asleep early that night at 1:30am.Friday April 20th, 2007
Our Fifth Day at Sea
We slept in again and woke up at 1:30pm. We went to the Seaview Café and brought back a Ruben and a Tuna Melt. We ate in bed while watching “Keeping Up with the Steins.” And very soon after eating, we fell back to sleep. We got up again around 7:30pm and both of us were just not in the mood to get dressed for dinner so instead, we opted to have a casual dinner at the buffet. We then went to the guest talent show at 10:30pm. I cannot even begin to explain to you how awful it was! One guest read a poem that just went on and on, the same thing over and over, “Love, Young Love….” (We would later hear other passengers reciting the poem to one another on a bus in Bruges!) It was hysterical. After the talent show, there was some stand-up comedy. I can barely even recall it, so it couldn’t have been very funny. From there we went back to our stateroom to find a towel dog waiting for us on our bed. So adorable! We turned our clocks forward again, for the fourth time before Bebe fell asleep at 4:30am and me, at 8:30am.
Saturday April 21st, 2007
Our Sixth Day at Sea
Bebe woke up at 9:30am (2:30am LA time), went out, got a mocha and a donut and entered a slot tournament. He was out in the first rou
nd. (-$20) He then got in on a trivia game with whom he called “The Elders,” a group of old people who welcomed him into their trivia team. Then it was back to the room where he woke me up at 12:45pm. We went to the buffet for lunch and then hustled over to the “Country Club” for a scavenger hunt. It started late so we received consolation prizes in addition to the silver medals we received for second place! We had to answer some questions about the ship and return items such as a cookie, logo merchandise, a bar receipt, and “ship shape dollars”. (Those damned things cost us a first place medal!) (+ silver medals, lanyards & caribbeaners) High on our scavenger hut win, we went straight to Bingo. We stood up, needing one number for BINGO, three different times in five games, before winning the fifth game!!! (+$187)We went to the concierge to exchange some dollars for Euros and Pounds in
anticipation of arriving in Ireland on Monday. Then we headed to the pre-dinner show. It was two magicians. The opening act was actually much more entertaining than the headlining act! From there we went to dinner with our good friends Jim, Debbie and Juan. Guess who was absent! After dinner we went back to the theater for the “Love & Marriage” game show. Bebe had already decided that he wanted to be a contestant and was putting major pressure on me to do it. But I was mortified at the thought. So, after much begging, Bebe spared me the humiliation. (WHEW!) It was a fun show! It was pretty much the ship’s version of the Newlywed Game. It was over at about 11:30pm, and at that time, we headed back to our stateroom to find the cutest little towel elephant. We turned our clocks forward an hour for the last time and were asleep by midnight.Sunday April 22nd, 2007
Our Seventh Day at Sea
We woke up on our own at about 8am (12am LA time) and went to the main dining room for breakfast. After we finished eating I wanted an English muffin and another glass of orange juice. So instead of waiting for the waiter, Bebe suggested that we just go to the buffet to grab what we wanted. We both knew this was a bad idea, but did it anyway. My muffin somehow turned into a giant Belgian waffle with strawberry topping, chocolate syrup and whipped cream. And I got my big glass of OJ. (I don’t know why I do this to myself.) From there we went to the “Centrum” and watched a tutorial on making towel animals. Then it was time to meet The Elders for a game of trivia. I played this time but was of little help to our team. It didn’t matter much, as our team tied for first. We sent Bebe up as our representative for the tiebreaker (pulling a paper from a hat) and he won it! We walked away with more lanyards, a few key chains and a couple of pens. After that, we went to the casino to play some more nickel slots. (-$20.75) I had gotten a very bad headache at that time and decided to go back to the stateroom to lie down. Bebe stayed out, bought Bingo tickets, attended a Port Q&A and watched an art auction. He walked away with two free glasses of champagne but no art. Mission accomplished! He then came back to the stateroom to wake me up in time for Bingo. This time, we walked away empty-handed. After Bingo, we went back to the stateroom to relax and get ready for our last formal night. Before dinner, we stopped by the Crown and Anchor Welcome Back Party (because we had cruised with them before) where we had more free booze. From there we went to dinner where we were the last to arrive. It was a full table that night. Even Mark was there and we had a great time! After dinner we went around to all the portrait stations again where we got a little fed up with the usual
poses and begin doing our own. Then it was back to the casino! Bebe really wanted to play some Texas Hold’em and sat down with $100. I found a dollar slot machine and fed it $40. After about nine pulls, I hit a 12x jackpot on an eight-credit payout, winning $96. I quickly cashed out and watched Bebe for the rest of his game. He never had any good hands and eventually lost his $100. (-$16) Then it was time for the “Gala Buffet”. First, we went to the “showing” where we were allowed to only look at and take pictures of the grand display. Fifteen minutes later, it was open for the eating. We found very little that we wanted to eat so we just grabbed some dessert and headed back to our stateroom. There, we found a towel bunny waiting for us. We ate our desserts and went right to sleep, excited to wake up in Ireland! 
The tour bus dropped us off in downtown Ensenada and we had an hour or two to kill before we had to be back on board, so we walked around and checked out all the shops. We stopped into a Papas & Beer and ordered a few drinks and helped ourselves to the small buffet of tacos and chips and salsa. It was pretty yummy.
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