Spring Break Conquest

jtm1631 · 04-09-2006

Now if this thread title had been started by the likes of Vagabond, this thread would be all about the European women I slept with over spring break. Given that I’m a near 40 year old bench warmer and not a 20 year old player, this thread is all about my families spring break 2006 follies on the Carnival Conquest cruise ship.

Before we begin let me start with some history for those of you that don’t know. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago…OK not that much history. The we I refer to is myself 38, my wife 39, 12 year old daughter Hayley who has decided it is never to early to be a difficult teenager, 8 year old daughter Casey with special needs and not sure if she wants to be a surely teenager like her older sister or a whiney snot like her little sister. Which brings us to the 4 year old daughter Jillian who as you may have guessed is the whiney know it all. Despite these adoring descriptions, I really do love my daughters and would not change anything about them (OK maybe one or two things, but that is all). Obviously my wife and I are perfect and everybody loves us. I used to have a women who worked for me that would tell me and everyone else at the company that my only redeeming quality was my daughters. Needless to say she didn’t work for me for very long.

But here we are, planning that most sacred of all vacations, Spring Break 2006! Normally we travel over the summer months to avoid the spring break crowds. This year my wife thought it would be fun to travel with some friends. “Friends” I said, “I have no friends”. See when I was just a fetus, I think something must have sucked all the genes out of me that allow people to make and keep friends. I don’t have friends, I have people I work with and family. You all know this is true because we have been to Playa several times, but none of you know who I am and I’ve never been to a peep meet. That isn’t to say I don’t want to meet you, just that I don’t have the right gene pool to allow me to. One more important fact about my family is, as you may have noticed, I’m the only guy. Being the only guy means I make no decisions. Well, that’s not entirely true, I do make one important decision. My decision making is always prompted by one important question from my wife…”Which credit card do you want me to pay for this with?” Yes, I’m the king of the castle. So, here is my wife deciding we would all have more fun if we traveled with the Rich’s and the Glass’s. Turns out the Rich’s and the Glasses had already made all their spring break plans and we were the proverbial third wheel in this scenario. See, the other families were taking a fun cruise together. “Fun Cruise” a true dichotomy if ever there was one. “A cruise? I really don’t want to take a cruise.” The fact that I am now writing this “trip” report is a testament to my power in my household. “Which cruise are they going on?” I ask my loving wife. “The Conquest” “THE CONQUEST? You mean that giant boat we saw when life was good and we were sitting on Steve’s beach at Playa Maya in November?” “Yes, that’s the one” my wife responds. “You mean that ship that we said, ‘Who in the hell would ever want to be on a ship like that, when they could spend an entire week sitting here loving life?” Oh how quickly things can change in a world ruled by women. Just a quick side note, I know it’s not “Steve’s beach“, everybody knows the beaches in Mexico are public property. Well, everybody except the Mexican government which has declared several small sections of beach at the end of 8th and 6th public beach access (See Steve Ryberg’s previous thread under News and Gossip. If I were any of numerous forum peeps I would include the direct link to Steve‘s post, but I‘m really just to lazy to bother).

So, quick summary for those of you keeping track at home, traveling with two other families on a giant cruise ship to destinations that I otherwise would not want to visit. “Sound’s great honey, put it on the Yahoo Visa”. I can honestly say this is one of the first vacations we have been on that I have not been counting down the days until we left. I didn’t have a countdown counter in my signature for this, I had a doomsday counter.

Here’s some fun facts about the Conquest for you, the ship is 110,000 Tons, has 1,437 cabins, 1,150 crew members and 2,974 passengers assuming a double occupancy. For the purposes of Spring Break 2006, I think we can safely assume 200 passengers per cabin and a total of 15,000 people on board. Imagine if you will a 110,00 ton steaming pile of crap floating through the ocean. I should probably explain something here to be fair. Last year I planned our summer vacation to Walt Disney World and it was a near perfect experience. The kids were great and we did not have a single minute of whining or complaining. Yes, that‘s right, we traveled with a 3 year old, a 7 year old and an 11 year old to the heat and humidity of Florida in June and had NO WHINNING!. We waited in no line greater than 10 minutes despite near capacity crowds at the park and we had tons of special surprises. I had Disney books autographed by the princesses waiting in the hotel room for the girls and we all celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary at one of the best restaurants I have ever eaten at. In addition, I had a beautiful necklace for my wife that I gave to the restaurant before our arrival and which they presented to hear at dessert draped over the arms of a 12” tall solid chocolate Mickey Mouse. On the way to this dinner, my wife was wearing a new outfit which I remarked that she looked great in. Her comment back to me was the only thing it was missing was a nice necklace because the blouse was low cut. She had no idea she was about to receive the necklace and it just made the day that much more magical. Damn I’m good. No chance of anything my wife planned for vacation living up to this.

And so we begin…

bufante · 04-09-2006

I like your story so far...great descriptions of the fam...would love to have met you at a peep meet.

Keep it up, looking forward to the rest of it!

roni · 04-09-2006

Love your kids already.

We did a Carnival cruise in 2005. Good time. Highlights were running into Scott, Lil'G and Tyra in Playa, brunch at the Cueva del Chango, a day with Susie at Paamul, dropping off books for Heather, seeing Elsah and showing my brother and sis-in-law and their friend a couple of our favorite places down there (Covi and Paamul

).

The ship was cool too, great food, great service and I won money in the casino!!

jamesblonde · 04-09-2006

Very entertaining so far. Can't wait for more.

Nerak936 · 04-09-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by jtm1631

......but none of you know who I am and I’ve never been to a peep meet.

Ok, no peep meet. I can deal with that. But.... if you're ever in Playa the same time as I am, can you at least promise me a raucous game of Candyland in an off-the-beaten-path bar followed shortly thereafter by Ben & Jerry's Phish Phood ice cream cones??

JudyBluEyes · 04-09-2006

It also looks like you just had a birthday....so Happy Birthday to you - late...D:

beachluver2 · 04-09-2006

can't wait to find out how things really went on this trip of yours...Not sure if you had a great time or not, how could you not? It's sure fun to read about. :p
P.S. I also love my whiny kids, just a little more when they don't whine. Boys 8 and 10

jtm1631 · 04-10-2006

Day 1 - Pre cruise travel

So here’s the deal, the Conquest is sailing out of Galveston because its home port of New Orleans is damaged from Hurricane Katrina. You’ll soon see that hurricane damage is a recurring theme for this cruise. So we are all scheduled to fly into Houston the day before the cruise, stay overnight in Houston and than we have a private shuttle taking our group of 15 from Houston to Galveston. Why are we staying in Houston instead of Galveston you ask? Nobody really knows the answer to that. You will have to continue to ponder that question and if you can figure out a good reason, please let me know.

After trying to find a reasonably priced way to get from Houston to Galveston (about 90 miles), I discover “Texas Cruise Ship Shuttle” online. Now this service sounds good, run by an individual who has his own vans and takes groups to the port in Galveston. I have heard some good things about the service through a cruise message board I was reading and about a month or two before our departure date I email the info to our other cruisers and get the Ok from them to book the shuttle. LJ from Texas cruise confirms our info and gives us a pick-up time of 11:30 the morning of the cruise to get us to the port at 1:00PM. This seems great to me since you can’t get on the ship until about 12:00 – 12:30 and I forward the information to my fellow cruisers. I will soon learn a very valuable lesson. When traveling with other people, stay away from any aspect of planning the trip. Let’s fast forward to 7 days before the trip. I get a call from one of the fellow cruisers indicating they would really like to be picked up earlier than 11:30. “OK, let me call LJ and see what we can do.” Well, LJ only has two vans. He picks people up at the port at 10:00 getting off the cruise and takes them to Houston airport and than gets the people leaving on the cruise at 11:30. “Sorry JT, I can’t pick you up any earlier than 11:30.” Not a problem, I booked you almost two months ago and I completely understand. Unfortunately, the fellow cruisers don’t understand. See guys, it’s like this, I confirmed with LJ that we wanted him to pick us up two months ago and now 7 days before the cruise I refuse to cancel. LJ has no way to try and book someone else this close to the cruise. This apparently did not go over well with my fellow cruisers. They had the nerve to ask me if I had already given him credit card information. “No, but more importantly I gave him my word and that is really more important to me than the money.” I’m really beginning to regret this vacation. Can you fell the tension rising?

The big day unfortunately arrives and we are on our way to the airport. Now, we have several options for a family of five to get to the airport. We can take our trusty Toyota Sienna minivan. This entails the drop off dance at the terminal, drive the car to remote parking, pray there is a spot, get on a bus to the airport train, take the train to the terminal, meet up with the family and wait in line to check-in and get through security. Given the spring break crowds, this option did not seem great. We can also take a taxi assuming they have a minivan available. Or option 3 which is get a stretch limo. We went with option three because the cost was only a few bucks more than a cab. The limo arrives, with dvd player and a selection of movies for the kids. Things are beginning to look like vacation.

We arrive at O’Hare airport in Chicago two hours before our flight. Spring Break is a special event for us Midwesterners and it seems like everyone within 100 miles of the city is getting on a plane today. Our ride to the airport is telling us that two hours earlier it took him 45 minutes to go the ¼ of a mile from the tollway exit to the terminal drop off point. The lines of people seem to be endless. Endless that is until we get to where our driver drops us off. He takes us to the last area of our terminal and there is one family in front of us at the curb side checkin. From the time we hop out of the limo to the time we are through security is less than 15 minutes. Seems like a miracle to us and we are thankful. We hang out until our flight and see our fellow cruisers.

Flight to Houston is uneventful, we arrive and I call the hotel to ask them to send the shuttle for us. We collect all of our baggage and wait outside for the shuttle. After about five minutes our fellow cruisers are asking me if I called the hotel. I tell them again that I have and the shuttle will be here soon. Reread the last sentence about three more times. Can you feel the tension rising? See that is what happened every five minutes until the shuttle arrived. Keep in mind we are outside, its 70 degrees and sunny and we’ve just come from Chicago where it was cloudy, about 35 and snow showers. How dare they make us wait out side in this horrid weather. We get to the hotel and begin the checkin process. It seems that the women at the front desk can’t just assign us rooms, she has to actually go to each room and physically check if the room is occupied or not. Yes, that’s right. The front desk clerk has to physically walk to each room and make sure nobody is already in that room. Apparently computer systems have not made it all the way down to the Residence Inn at the Houston airport. I know for a fact that Houston has computers because I see Tommy and Donna posting on here all the time. Although with the new job and all Tommy is rarely actually posting from Houston, but still Computers and Houston are not mutually exclusive entities.

While we are waiting for the rooms I call LJ to let him know we are in town and confirm our pick-up for tomorrow morning. Good news, he tells me that he will actually pick us up at 11:00 not 11:30. Or maybe not good news. We order some pizzas, eat them by the pool and after dinner I hit the exercise room to burn off some of the pizza. I go back up to the room where my wife is getting the kids out of the shower. As soon as I see her face I know there is something wrong. “What happened?” “Well, Judy mentioned something about the pick-up tomorrow” It seems one of our cruisers is still unhappy that they wont be at the ship at the crack of dawn. Keep in mind that they don’t let you on the ship until 12:00, but that does not seem to matter. “Everyone else wants to know if it would be worth a call to LJ to see if he can pick us up on his way to Galveston when he picks the other people up?” Worth a call. By that they mean, hey John, call this guy up and tell him we want to be picked-up at 7:00 AM so we can be at the port at 8:30AM and than we can sit around there for four freakin hours with the kids bored out of their minds waiting to get on that horrible cruise ship which you didn’t want to be on in the first place. I inform my wife that I will not be calling anybody. That I want to sleep in, maybe get up and work out in the morning, have a decent breakfast, pack up the disaster that is now our two bedroom “suite” at the Residence Inn and head to the port at a civil time. I do not want to sit at the port for four hours with three kids that will be bored out of their minds. If the other cruisers would like to call LJ or make other arrangements and still pay for LJ, I will be happy to give them LJ’s number. This was the last I heard of this. Can you feel the tension rising?

If we could digress for a minute and discuss packing. Ever try to pack for a family trip? Now imagine packing for a family trip with three daughters, going on a cruise with two formal nights, a dining room that suggests you don’t wear shorts or jeans, an extra day of travel before you get to the cruise, blah blah blah. Imagine the stack of luggage that this entailed. I think we had an entire 50 pound suitcase filled just with shoes. Needless to say, when all of our luggage came off the carousel at the airport, they had the “HEAVY” tags all over them. And don’t forget people, bend at the knees.

Nerak936 · 04-10-2006

Oh, JT...... I'm feeling for ya, dude...... Trying to keep everyone happy can be a no-win situation. Keep it coming.... maybe we'll start a pool to guess what day you were caught trying to toss one of your group overboard.

jtm1631 · 04-10-2006

Day 2 – Sunday - The Journey to the port and our first experience with the Conquest.

So here we are, one of several Residence Inn’s in the greater Houston metro area. Do you remember seeing the science films in high school of the monkey all jacked up on caffeine? No? Let me describe the experiment for you with myself playing the part of the monkey. I don’t ever drink caffeine. No need for the stuff and it is an expense I can do without. No coffee, no soda, no nothing. Yesterday when we ordered the pizza I decided a 20 oz. bottle of Coke sounded good. I than proceeded to drink the Coke. That caffeine must have started to kick in about 9:30 because I was suddenly wired. After laying in bed for hours, I finally decided at about 1:30AM to grab the laptop and send off some emails. I was literally bouncing off the walls. I could not have gone to sleep if I had wanted to. And this little experiment is the exact reason that speed was never a drug of choice for me. The sun is starting to rise and the kids are stirring and I realize this vacation is going to start with a sleepless night.

We all eat breakfast and decide to screw around playing basketball at the hotel. There were two fifteen year old boys traveling with one of the families and it was them against the rest of us. So 2 15 year olds against a couple 38 year old men, an 8 and 5 year old boy and a couple of 12 year old girls. We actually all had a good time together playing basketball in the beautiful Houston weather. This would be about the only time we all had a good time together. Before you know it, it is 10:30 and we need to get going. I run up stairs, get showered and ready and my family heads down to the lobby to meet LJ for our 11:00 pick-up time. Now remember, both of the other families were pissed we were being picked-up so late. You see where I’m going with this? You guessed it, 11:00 and nobody else is in the lobby yet. 11:10 and LJ shows up but none of the other cruisers. Classic. Around 11:30 or so our fellow cruisers make it down to the lobby. Only 30 minutes late, but it is the principal of the thing. I remark that it is a good thing we didn’t have LJ arrive at 7:30 that morning. Can you feel the tension rising? We load up the vans and head to the port. Uneventful trip to Galveston and we are at the port.

Side note here for those Texans living in the Houston area. I don’t know that I have seen a more depressing landscape than that which can be seen from the freeway between Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and the Galveston port. Seems to me there was a mixture of burned out buildings, adult book stores, strip clubs and the occasional car dealer ship and mall thrown in. There was no evidence of any houses or areas where one could actually raise a family. I know this exists in Houston and it is unfair to only see the city from the freeway, but wow, that drive was really depressing. It would almost be worth a trip back to Houston to see the real city. Almost.

We arrive at the port and wait in very minimal lines to get on board the ship. It seems interesting to me that there are so many people that are so excited about getting on this ship. And then there is me. I felt like I was on death row. Every step forward brought me that much closer to boarding the ship and completely losing all dignity.

No problems boarding the Conquest and we find our cabins to drop off our carry-on bags. The one advantage to booking after the other two families is that our cabin is on the same deck as the others, but far enough away to give us some space. For this sailing we have a beautiful balcony cabin for mom and dad and a slightly smaller not quite as nice interior cabin across the hall for the girls. You see, traveling is not designed for a family of five. Four to a room, sure no problem. Five to a room? No can do, two rooms for you. When we booked things it sounded like a great idea. The 12 year old Hayley would sleep with Jilly and Casey and mom and dad would be across the hall sitting on their balcony drinking wine and doing things that people only do while on vacation surrounded by people they don’t know. Good theory, but man reality sucks. Remember reading about the cruise ship fire last month? Well that was two days before we left. Think my wife felt comfortable with having the girls across the hall? No, she didn’t. Think I did? Not a chance. We were also concerned with Casey waking up in the middle of the night, wandering into the hall and not knowing where she was.

So lets rearrange the thought process here. Think about this more like a divorced couple on vacation together for the sake of the kids. My wife has custody of some of the kids in one cabin and I have custody of the other kid(s) in the other cabin. Oh, we’re still friends mind you. In fact sometimes we even get to have sex. But when it comes right down to it we are still divorced and we live our separate lives. Can you feel the tension rising?

The ship is huge, we’re easily confused and we really aren’t sure what we are doing here. Sounds like fun right? We grab some food at the pool grill and I am not sure if we have been served hamburgers or hockey pucks. The good news is there is a soft serve ice cream machine and we take full advantage of it. I remember reading once that “Ice cream makes everything better”. Better yes, but not necessarily good.

We are excited about having dinner in the dining room. We dress nice each night and hope the food will be good. For those not familiar with the cruise experience (you lucky bastards), you are assigned a dining time and table. For our group of 15 we have the 6:15PM seating and tables 201 and 203. The time is perfect for us and the table situation works out great. We can put all of the kids at one table and the six adults sit at the other table. The dinner in the dinning room is actually quite good. The adults enjoy a couple of bottle’s of wine, some good food and some mildly entertaining conversation. For desert my daughter Casey discover’s the pure bliss that is a banana split. She orders one and instantly falls in love. I should probably explain something about Casey here. Casey loves to eat. Casey is one of those people who is very precise about her eating methods. She takes her time and eats every bit of food on her plate. In a family of people who suck down their food, we are frequently sitting at a table waiting for Casey to methodically get through her dinner. This is no different on the cruise. Casey is consistently the last person eating and can be seen enjoying one of her banana splits as all the other kids have either moved on to other activities or are hovering around the adults table.

After dinner the little girls are getting tired and I volunteer to take them back to the cabin. Given my complete lack of sleep the previous night, I am looking forward to getting in bed. At this same time my wife and oldest daughter go to sign all three girls up for Camp Carnival. Think of Camp C as day care at sea. Camp C breaks the kids up by age. All three girls will be in different Camp C groups doing different activities. My wife talks to Natasha the head of Camp C about putting Casey in the younger group with her sister Jillian. This will be good for both girls and we think because Casey is very speech delayed it would be best if she was with the 2 - 5 year olds not the 6 - 8. Natasha tells my wife that wont be any problem but we should think about keeping Casey in her age group because Natasha thinks she will have more fun. After signing up the kids it is off to bed for the other half of the family.

TEX · 04-10-2006

this report has all the makings, jt. keep it coming, this is good stuff!!

louden48 · 04-10-2006

I'm loving it! Keep going! I feel the same way about cruise ships. Only been on one, overnight and don't desire to do it again!

thisoldhippy · 04-10-2006

I was on this same ship in November of 05.....realllllllly big ship!! The best part of my cruise (besides my son's wedding in Jamaica) was discovering Playa because of storm damage to Cozumel. Oh, and swimming with the stingrays off Grand Cayman was pretty kool too.

Nerak936 · 04-10-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by thisoldhippy

I was on this same ship in November of 05.....realllllllly big ship!! The best part of my cruise (besides my son's wedding in Jamaica) was discovering Playa because of storm damage to Cozumel. Oh, and swimming with the stingrays off Grand Cayman was pretty kool too.

Great job, JT!!! Looking forward to the next installment.

TOH: Swimming with the stingrays at Stingray City at Grand Cayman was one of the most thrilling things I've ever done!!! Scary and exciting at the same time. I still have the empty beer bottle that they were serving on the boat: "Stingray" beer. I don't recall if it was good beer, and I didn't really care. I just wanted that bottle!

jtm1631 · 04-10-2006

I've got more coming for you. It is amazing how much work I can get done on this thing here at work.

Make sure you all stick around for the exciting conclusion. There are some great stories from our day of traveling home.

And thanks for the belated birthday wishes Judy Blue Eyes. My wife got me a great little toy for my bike. Sometimes I think she prefers when I'm not home and I'm out on the bicycle.

04-09-2006	#1 (permalink)
jtm1631 añejo Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Denver, CO and loving it Posts: 2,490	Spring Break Conquest Now if this thread title had been started by the likes of Vagabond, this thread would be all about the European women I slept with over spring break. Given that I’m a near 40 year old bench warmer and not a 20 year old player, this thread is all about my families spring break 2006 follies on the Carnival Conquest cruise ship. Before we begin let me start with some history for those of you that don’t know. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago…OK not that much history. The we I refer to is myself 38, my wife 39, 12 year old daughter Hayley who has decided it is never to early to be a difficult teenager, 8 year old daughter Casey with special needs and not sure if she wants to be a surely teenager like her older sister or a whiney snot like her little sister. Which brings us to the 4 year old daughter Jillian who as you may have guessed is the whiney know it all. Despite these adoring descriptions, I really do love my daughters and would not change anything about them (OK maybe one or two things, but that is all). Obviously my wife and I are perfect and everybody loves us. I used to have a women who worked for me that would tell me and everyone else at the company that my only redeeming quality was my daughters. Needless to say she didn’t work for me for very long. But here we are, planning that most sacred of all vacations, Spring Break 2006! Normally we travel over the summer months to avoid the spring break crowds. This year my wife thought it would be fun to travel with some friends. “Friends” I said, “I have no friends”. See when I was just a fetus, I think something must have sucked all the genes out of me that allow people to make and keep friends. I don’t have friends, I have people I work with and family. You all know this is true because we have been to Playa several times, but none of you know who I am and I’ve never been to a peep meet. That isn’t to say I don’t want to meet you, just that I don’t have the right gene pool to allow me to. One more important fact about my family is, as you may have noticed, I’m the only guy. Being the only guy means I make no decisions. Well, that’s not entirely true, I do make one important decision. My decision making is always prompted by one important question from my wife…”Which credit card do you want me to pay for this with?” Yes, I’m the king of the castle. So, here is my wife deciding we would all have more fun if we traveled with the Rich’s and the Glass’s. Turns out the Rich’s and the Glasses had already made all their spring break plans and we were the proverbial third wheel in this scenario. See, the other families were taking a fun cruise together. “Fun Cruise” a true dichotomy if ever there was one. “A cruise? I really don’t want to take a cruise.” The fact that I am now writing this “trip” report is a testament to my power in my household. “Which cruise are they going on?” I ask my loving wife. “The Conquest” “THE CONQUEST? You mean that giant boat we saw when life was good and we were sitting on Steve’s beach at Playa Maya in November?” “Yes, that’s the one” my wife responds. “You mean that ship that we said, ‘Who in the hell would ever want to be on a ship like that, when they could spend an entire week sitting here loving life?” Oh how quickly things can change in a world ruled by women. Just a quick side note, I know it’s not “Steve’s beach“, everybody knows the beaches in Mexico are public property. Well, everybody except the Mexican government which has declared several small sections of beach at the end of 8th and 6th public beach access (See Steve Ryberg’s previous thread under News and Gossip. If I were any of numerous forum peeps I would include the direct link to Steve‘s post, but I‘m really just to lazy to bother). So, quick summary for those of you keeping track at home, traveling with two other families on a giant cruise ship to destinations that I otherwise would not want to visit. “Sound’s great honey, put it on the Yahoo Visa”. I can honestly say this is one of the first vacations we have been on that I have not been counting down the days until we left. I didn’t have a countdown counter in my signature for this, I had a doomsday counter. Here’s some fun facts about the Conquest for you, the ship is 110,000 Tons, has 1,437 cabins, 1,150 crew members and 2,974 passengers assuming a double occupancy. For the purposes of Spring Break 2006, I think we can safely assume 200 passengers per cabin and a total of 15,000 people on board. Imagine if you will a 110,00 ton steaming pile of crap floating through the ocean. I should probably explain something here to be fair. Last year I planned our summer vacation to Walt Disney World and it was a near perfect experience. The kids were great and we did not have a single minute of whining or complaining. Yes, that‘s right, we traveled with a 3 year old, a 7 year old and an 11 year old to the heat and humidity of Florida in June and had NO WHINNING!. We waited in no line greater than 10 minutes despite near capacity crowds at the park and we had tons of special surprises. I had Disney books autographed by the princesses waiting in the hotel room for the girls and we all celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary at one of the best restaurants I have ever eaten at. In addition, I had a beautiful necklace for my wife that I gave to the restaurant before our arrival and which they presented to hear at dessert draped over the arms of a 12” tall solid chocolate Mickey Mouse. On the way to this dinner, my wife was wearing a new outfit which I remarked that she looked great in. Her comment back to me was the only thing it was missing was a nice necklace because the blouse was low cut. She had no idea she was about to receive the necklace and it just made the day that much more magical. Damn I’m good. No chance of anything my wife planned for vacation living up to this. And so we begin… __________________ JT

04-09-2006	#2 (permalink)
bufante minucker Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Crop Dusting the IA Posts: 2,613	I like your story so far...great descriptions of the fam...would love to have met you at a peep meet. Keep it up, looking forward to the rest of it!

04-09-2006	#3 (permalink)
roni añejo Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Oregon Posts: 59,651	Love your kids already. We did a Carnival cruise in 2005. Good time. Highlights were running into Scott, Lil'G and Tyra in Playa, brunch at the Cueva del Chango, a day with Susie at Paamul, dropping off books for Heather, seeing Elsah and showing my brother and sis-in-law and their friend a couple of our favorite places down there (Covi and Paamul ). The ship was cool too, great food, great service and I won money in the casino!!

04-09-2006	#4 (permalink)
jamesblonde añejo Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: South of Seattle Posts: 8,253	Very entertaining so far. Can't wait for more.

04-09-2006	#6 (permalink)
JudyBluEyes añejo Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 4,870	It also looks like you just had a birthday....so Happy Birthday to you - late...D:

04-09-2006	#7 (permalink)
beachluver2 way into it Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Arlington, Tx. Posts: 112	can't wait to find out how things really went on this trip of yours...Not sure if you had a great time or not, how could you not? It's sure fun to read about. :p P.S. I also love my whiny kids, just a little more when they don't whine. Boys 8 and 10

04-10-2006	#8 (permalink)
jtm1631 añejo Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Denver, CO and loving it Posts: 2,490	Day 1 - Pre cruise travel So here’s the deal, the Conquest is sailing out of Galveston because its home port of New Orleans is damaged from Hurricane Katrina. You’ll soon see that hurricane damage is a recurring theme for this cruise. So we are all scheduled to fly into Houston the day before the cruise, stay overnight in Houston and than we have a private shuttle taking our group of 15 from Houston to Galveston. Why are we staying in Houston instead of Galveston you ask? Nobody really knows the answer to that. You will have to continue to ponder that question and if you can figure out a good reason, please let me know. After trying to find a reasonably priced way to get from Houston to Galveston (about 90 miles), I discover “Texas Cruise Ship Shuttle” online. Now this service sounds good, run by an individual who has his own vans and takes groups to the port in Galveston. I have heard some good things about the service through a cruise message board I was reading and about a month or two before our departure date I email the info to our other cruisers and get the Ok from them to book the shuttle. LJ from Texas cruise confirms our info and gives us a pick-up time of 11:30 the morning of the cruise to get us to the port at 1:00PM. This seems great to me since you can’t get on the ship until about 12:00 – 12:30 and I forward the information to my fellow cruisers. I will soon learn a very valuable lesson. When traveling with other people, stay away from any aspect of planning the trip. Let’s fast forward to 7 days before the trip. I get a call from one of the fellow cruisers indicating they would really like to be picked up earlier than 11:30. “OK, let me call LJ and see what we can do.” Well, LJ only has two vans. He picks people up at the port at 10:00 getting off the cruise and takes them to Houston airport and than gets the people leaving on the cruise at 11:30. “Sorry JT, I can’t pick you up any earlier than 11:30.” Not a problem, I booked you almost two months ago and I completely understand. Unfortunately, the fellow cruisers don’t understand. See guys, it’s like this, I confirmed with LJ that we wanted him to pick us up two months ago and now 7 days before the cruise I refuse to cancel. LJ has no way to try and book someone else this close to the cruise. This apparently did not go over well with my fellow cruisers. They had the nerve to ask me if I had already given him credit card information. “No, but more importantly I gave him my word and that is really more important to me than the money.” I’m really beginning to regret this vacation. Can you fell the tension rising? The big day unfortunately arrives and we are on our way to the airport. Now, we have several options for a family of five to get to the airport. We can take our trusty Toyota Sienna minivan. This entails the drop off dance at the terminal, drive the car to remote parking, pray there is a spot, get on a bus to the airport train, take the train to the terminal, meet up with the family and wait in line to check-in and get through security. Given the spring break crowds, this option did not seem great. We can also take a taxi assuming they have a minivan available. Or option 3 which is get a stretch limo. We went with option three because the cost was only a few bucks more than a cab. The limo arrives, with dvd player and a selection of movies for the kids. Things are beginning to look like vacation. We arrive at O’Hare airport in Chicago two hours before our flight. Spring Break is a special event for us Midwesterners and it seems like everyone within 100 miles of the city is getting on a plane today. Our ride to the airport is telling us that two hours earlier it took him 45 minutes to go the ¼ of a mile from the tollway exit to the terminal drop off point. The lines of people seem to be endless. Endless that is until we get to where our driver drops us off. He takes us to the last area of our terminal and there is one family in front of us at the curb side checkin. From the time we hop out of the limo to the time we are through security is less than 15 minutes. Seems like a miracle to us and we are thankful. We hang out until our flight and see our fellow cruisers. Flight to Houston is uneventful, we arrive and I call the hotel to ask them to send the shuttle for us. We collect all of our baggage and wait outside for the shuttle. After about five minutes our fellow cruisers are asking me if I called the hotel. I tell them again that I have and the shuttle will be here soon. Reread the last sentence about three more times. Can you feel the tension rising? See that is what happened every five minutes until the shuttle arrived. Keep in mind we are outside, its 70 degrees and sunny and we’ve just come from Chicago where it was cloudy, about 35 and snow showers. How dare they make us wait out side in this horrid weather. We get to the hotel and begin the checkin process. It seems that the women at the front desk can’t just assign us rooms, she has to actually go to each room and physically check if the room is occupied or not. Yes, that’s right. The front desk clerk has to physically walk to each room and make sure nobody is already in that room. Apparently computer systems have not made it all the way down to the Residence Inn at the Houston airport. I know for a fact that Houston has computers because I see Tommy and Donna posting on here all the time. Although with the new job and all Tommy is rarely actually posting from Houston, but still Computers and Houston are not mutually exclusive entities. While we are waiting for the rooms I call LJ to let him know we are in town and confirm our pick-up for tomorrow morning. Good news, he tells me that he will actually pick us up at 11:00 not 11:30. Or maybe not good news. We order some pizzas, eat them by the pool and after dinner I hit the exercise room to burn off some of the pizza. I go back up to the room where my wife is getting the kids out of the shower. As soon as I see her face I know there is something wrong. “What happened?” “Well, Judy mentioned something about the pick-up tomorrow” It seems one of our cruisers is still unhappy that they wont be at the ship at the crack of dawn. Keep in mind that they don’t let you on the ship until 12:00, but that does not seem to matter. “Everyone else wants to know if it would be worth a call to LJ to see if he can pick us up on his way to Galveston when he picks the other people up?” Worth a call. By that they mean, hey John, call this guy up and tell him we want to be picked-up at 7:00 AM so we can be at the port at 8:30AM and than we can sit around there for four freakin hours with the kids bored out of their minds waiting to get on that horrible cruise ship which you didn’t want to be on in the first place. I inform my wife that I will not be calling anybody. That I want to sleep in, maybe get up and work out in the morning, have a decent breakfast, pack up the disaster that is now our two bedroom “suite” at the Residence Inn and head to the port at a civil time. I do not want to sit at the port for four hours with three kids that will be bored out of their minds. If the other cruisers would like to call LJ or make other arrangements and still pay for LJ, I will be happy to give them LJ’s number. This was the last I heard of this. Can you feel the tension rising? If we could digress for a minute and discuss packing. Ever try to pack for a family trip? Now imagine packing for a family trip with three daughters, going on a cruise with two formal nights, a dining room that suggests you don’t wear shorts or jeans, an extra day of travel before you get to the cruise, blah blah blah. Imagine the stack of luggage that this entailed. I think we had an entire 50 pound suitcase filled just with shoes. Needless to say, when all of our luggage came off the carousel at the airport, they had the “HEAVY” tags all over them. And don’t forget people, bend at the knees.

04-10-2006	#9 (permalink)
Nerak936 añejo Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: South Shore of Baahhstun, Massachusetts Posts: 23,227	Oh, JT...... I'm feeling for ya, dude...... Trying to keep everyone happy can be a no-win situation. Keep it coming.... maybe we'll start a pool to guess what day you were caught trying to toss one of your group overboard.

04-10-2006	#10 (permalink)
jtm1631 añejo Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Denver, CO and loving it Posts: 2,490	Day 2 – Sunday - The Journey to the port and our first experience with the Conquest. So here we are, one of several Residence Inn’s in the greater Houston metro area. Do you remember seeing the science films in high school of the monkey all jacked up on caffeine? No? Let me describe the experiment for you with myself playing the part of the monkey. I don’t ever drink caffeine. No need for the stuff and it is an expense I can do without. No coffee, no soda, no nothing. Yesterday when we ordered the pizza I decided a 20 oz. bottle of Coke sounded good. I than proceeded to drink the Coke. That caffeine must have started to kick in about 9:30 because I was suddenly wired. After laying in bed for hours, I finally decided at about 1:30AM to grab the laptop and send off some emails. I was literally bouncing off the walls. I could not have gone to sleep if I had wanted to. And this little experiment is the exact reason that speed was never a drug of choice for me. The sun is starting to rise and the kids are stirring and I realize this vacation is going to start with a sleepless night. We all eat breakfast and decide to screw around playing basketball at the hotel. There were two fifteen year old boys traveling with one of the families and it was them against the rest of us. So 2 15 year olds against a couple 38 year old men, an 8 and 5 year old boy and a couple of 12 year old girls. We actually all had a good time together playing basketball in the beautiful Houston weather. This would be about the only time we all had a good time together. Before you know it, it is 10:30 and we need to get going. I run up stairs, get showered and ready and my family heads down to the lobby to meet LJ for our 11:00 pick-up time. Now remember, both of the other families were pissed we were being picked-up so late. You see where I’m going with this? You guessed it, 11:00 and nobody else is in the lobby yet. 11:10 and LJ shows up but none of the other cruisers. Classic. Around 11:30 or so our fellow cruisers make it down to the lobby. Only 30 minutes late, but it is the principal of the thing. I remark that it is a good thing we didn’t have LJ arrive at 7:30 that morning. Can you feel the tension rising? We load up the vans and head to the port. Uneventful trip to Galveston and we are at the port. Side note here for those Texans living in the Houston area. I don’t know that I have seen a more depressing landscape than that which can be seen from the freeway between Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and the Galveston port. Seems to me there was a mixture of burned out buildings, adult book stores, strip clubs and the occasional car dealer ship and mall thrown in. There was no evidence of any houses or areas where one could actually raise a family. I know this exists in Houston and it is unfair to only see the city from the freeway, but wow, that drive was really depressing. It would almost be worth a trip back to Houston to see the real city. Almost. We arrive at the port and wait in very minimal lines to get on board the ship. It seems interesting to me that there are so many people that are so excited about getting on this ship. And then there is me. I felt like I was on death row. Every step forward brought me that much closer to boarding the ship and completely losing all dignity. No problems boarding the Conquest and we find our cabins to drop off our carry-on bags. The one advantage to booking after the other two families is that our cabin is on the same deck as the others, but far enough away to give us some space. For this sailing we have a beautiful balcony cabin for mom and dad and a slightly smaller not quite as nice interior cabin across the hall for the girls. You see, traveling is not designed for a family of five. Four to a room, sure no problem. Five to a room? No can do, two rooms for you. When we booked things it sounded like a great idea. The 12 year old Hayley would sleep with Jilly and Casey and mom and dad would be across the hall sitting on their balcony drinking wine and doing things that people only do while on vacation surrounded by people they don’t know. Good theory, but man reality sucks. Remember reading about the cruise ship fire last month? Well that was two days before we left. Think my wife felt comfortable with having the girls across the hall? No, she didn’t. Think I did? Not a chance. We were also concerned with Casey waking up in the middle of the night, wandering into the hall and not knowing where she was. So lets rearrange the thought process here. Think about this more like a divorced couple on vacation together for the sake of the kids. My wife has custody of some of the kids in one cabin and I have custody of the other kid(s) in the other cabin. Oh, we’re still friends mind you. In fact sometimes we even get to have sex. But when it comes right down to it we are still divorced and we live our separate lives. Can you feel the tension rising? The ship is huge, we’re easily confused and we really aren’t sure what we are doing here. Sounds like fun right? We grab some food at the pool grill and I am not sure if we have been served hamburgers or hockey pucks. The good news is there is a soft serve ice cream machine and we take full advantage of it. I remember reading once that “Ice cream makes everything better”. Better yes, but not necessarily good. We are excited about having dinner in the dining room. We dress nice each night and hope the food will be good. For those not familiar with the cruise experience (you lucky bastards), you are assigned a dining time and table. For our group of 15 we have the 6:15PM seating and tables 201 and 203. The time is perfect for us and the table situation works out great. We can put all of the kids at one table and the six adults sit at the other table. The dinner in the dinning room is actually quite good. The adults enjoy a couple of bottle’s of wine, some good food and some mildly entertaining conversation. For desert my daughter Casey discover’s the pure bliss that is a banana split. She orders one and instantly falls in love. I should probably explain something about Casey here. Casey loves to eat. Casey is one of those people who is very precise about her eating methods. She takes her time and eats every bit of food on her plate. In a family of people who suck down their food, we are frequently sitting at a table waiting for Casey to methodically get through her dinner. This is no different on the cruise. Casey is consistently the last person eating and can be seen enjoying one of her banana splits as all the other kids have either moved on to other activities or are hovering around the adults table. After dinner the little girls are getting tired and I volunteer to take them back to the cabin. Given my complete lack of sleep the previous night, I am looking forward to getting in bed. At this same time my wife and oldest daughter go to sign all three girls up for Camp Carnival. Think of Camp C as day care at sea. Camp C breaks the kids up by age. All three girls will be in different Camp C groups doing different activities. My wife talks to Natasha the head of Camp C about putting Casey in the younger group with her sister Jillian. This will be good for both girls and we think because Casey is very speech delayed it would be best if she was with the 2 - 5 year olds not the 6 - 8. Natasha tells my wife that wont be any problem but we should think about keeping Casey in her age group because Natasha thinks she will have more fun. After signing up the kids it is off to bed for the other half of the family.

04-10-2006	#11 (permalink)
TEX añejo Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Rockwall,Texas Posts: 4,984	this report has all the makings, jt. keep it coming, this is good stuff!!

04-10-2006	#12 (permalink)
louden48 añejo Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Hot Springs, Arkansas Posts: 1,900	I'm loving it! Keep going! I feel the same way about cruise ships. Only been on one, overnight and don't desire to do it again!

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04-10-2006	#13 (permalink)
thisoldhippy beachaholic Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: North Dakota,U.S.A. Posts: 402	I was on this same ship in November of 05.....realllllllly big ship!! The best part of my cruise (besides my son's wedding in Jamaica) was discovering Playa because of storm damage to Cozumel. Oh, and swimming with the stingrays off Grand Cayman was pretty kool too.

04-10-2006	#15 (permalink)
jtm1631 añejo Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Denver, CO and loving it Posts: 2,490	I've got more coming for you. It is amazing how much work I can get done on this thing here at work. Make sure you all stick around for the exciting conclusion. There are some great stories from our day of traveling home. And thanks for the belated birthday wishes Judy Blue Eyes. My wife got me a great little toy for my bike. Sometimes I think she prefers when I'm not home and I'm out on the bicycle.