Let's begin with my Single's Cruise to the Southern Caribbean at the end of January of this year. So. much. fun. I can't really put into words how happy I was, how much I laughed, how carefree I was, how many great new friends I made, etc etc but...I will try to appease the masses of blogstalkers (all 5 of you) by sharing a few pics. :) Now I already posted, oh you know, about 200 pictures (narrowed down from 500 on my camera) on facebook in an album. Because of that, I'll just leave the link here and count that good so to not repeat myself and help in making this blog post my typical short posts of ~5 pages, instead of what would be ~15. Your welcome.
Pictures from the cruise at this link:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100327032281659.2509689.17801379&type=3
Turns out I'm a nerd and documented my week in paradise so if you have an hour to read about my adventures (mom, siblings, Janae...I'm talking to you haha), then continue reading...
Everyday was an adventure on this trip. We started in Puerto Rico, where the ship took off from, and stayed in a hostel, mostly because we wanted to impress our friends with how hardcore we are but also because it was super cheap and right in the middle of Old San Juan and walking distance from the ship. Not that the roads were made for people dragging 3 rolly pieces of luggage, but we made it to where we needed to go with only minor injuries of broken toes and sweaty appearances upon arrival. Oh and let's not forget to mention the rash Janae took as a souvenir from the hostel's bed. She got to share the bed with me there though so overall our choice was, clearly, so worth it. Anyways...after landing in Puerto Rico on Saturday, we went down to see the Bioluminescent Bay, a body of water in Vieques Bay where the water glows. That was quite the adventure getting there but definitely worth it.
Now from the time we left Salt Lake on our red eye flight Friday night to Saturday night when we had been in Puerto Rico for about 12 hours, we had taken 14 vehicles of transportation. Suffice it to say, we were BEAT by the time we hit our pillows that night. We got back from Vieques at around midnight and crashed for like 11 hours, barely crawling out of our bed before our checkout at noon. We were just trying to fit in with the classiness of the place. Don't judge. We didn't even get our showers as a result so we toured the forts that day and then boarded the ship looking like we had been traveling for days and rocking the unclean/unkept look (perhaps because we had) so we apologize to those in our path, including a few friends in our cruise group that we so luckily bumped into on the way on. We like to make good first impressions.
The embarkation party that night was so fun and it hit at that time that I was about to have the adventure of my life. Yay Single's Cruise 2012! That night we started documentation of the growth of the 'food baby.' The food wasn't all that impressive on the ship but thanks to the melting cake and 24 hr self serve ice cream machines, we still went above and beyond our caloric needs for weight gain and food baby growth. Therefore, every night, we took our "pregnancy pics" after dinner and documented our food baby growth, the way those that are actually pregnant do. Don't worry about it, it's totally weird normal of us.
We played in St. Thomas the next day (Monday) where we traveled with the group out by ferry to St. John, the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. For some reason we enjoyed watching people play ultimate frisbee and take pictures of everything rather than participating. Might be one regret I have, we've committed to do better next year. That night was Hawaiian night at dinner and we met some fun friends that made me laugh a lot, which I appreciated because the quality of food that night was not worth my attention.
Tuesday we had our only day at sea and I LOVED it. It was so relaxing to lay out with friends and share the experience of earning our first ridiculous sunburn of the trip together and consume about 7 ice cream cones. Something about laying out, eating and relaxing increases the bonding power with people so naturally we made even more friends that day. Might have something to do with feeling absolute happiness. We later played on the water slide, where I made the record for slowest water slider in history. I like to win things, can't be picky so I went with it. We later went to some funny shows, karoke and went dancing that night which is always a sight to see...a bunch of Mormons busting out the dance moves. I had so much fun either way and the people at the bar enjoyed the free awkward yet fantastic show.
Wednesday we went to Barbados and got to go snorkeling with the sea turtles which was definitely a new experience for me! I was amazed at how close they'd get to us, bumping into us and everything. Janae was kind enough to take 241 pictures of them so check these cute guys out on my facebook album. We also got to see a shipwreck and coral which also made me feel pretty cool. One highlight from the trip that day involved one of my top embarrassing moments, which is saying something since if you know me at all, you know these are common occurrences for me. It's a long story but basically I had an emergency I-need-a-bathroom-right-now-to-pee-or-I'm-jumping-overboard moment. I ended up resorting to going in the space shuttle looking compartment on the side of this small boat, having people help me in and out of the shuttle and making quite the scene. Feeling toilet shy was only the beginning of my thoughts once I finally found my way to the toddler sized toilet. I got an applause as I made it out and accomplished my goal of getting to know everyone on the boat that day. Good work Mary. Now there was a scuba group that got to actually go into the ship wreck that day and later see sharks but you can see how we definitely got the better experience floating above the water staring at the ship wreck from a distance, playing with less crazy creatures and using toddler toilets with everyone's help on the boat. :-P haha.
That night we attempted to watch the sun set but of course I ran back to get my camera to document said event so I ended up missing despite my dedicated endeavors. I hear it was cool. Oh well. At dinner we sat at a table that was flooded with kisses, unfortunately they all were from the girls and delivered to one individual, our new and now good friend Caleb, who claimed it was his birthday. Caleb saved us many times on the trip though so now looking back, I think we owe him a kiss. He ended up receiving quite a few birthday kisses that night and I started cursing my parents for not waiting a couple months to have me so I could've received such cruise dinner love. Meanwhile, Caleb and I focused our attention on finding Janae a husband among our group that met her brother's standards for her future spouse - didn't live at home, made a living (not necessarily legal) and who loves Red Mango (this last one added by Janae). Caleb and I really struggled with this task thanks to the tight standards, (dang Red Mango haters), and were left without any options to offer her in the near vicinity of our table. We laughed a lot but were unable to accomplish the goal. Dancing and karaoke followed our dinner that night.
Thursday we went ziplining through the rainforests of St. Lucia where Janae FINALLY found her future husband. A worker pushed me aside on one of the lines and gave Janae a "great cruise experience," attaching her to him and they flew down the line together, spinning and singing songs of love. It was so cute. We missed out on a seemingly fun trip to the mud baths with the group that day, the mud baths shown in the show the Bachelor apparently (pretty sure one of our awesome guys on the cruise had to inform me of that haha). Missing this trip broke our little hearts but we still had fun and again, committed to doing better with group activities in the future. That night was another fun night at dinner and was followed by some late night Mormon/EFY-like games including dares and other goofy games. Of course I loved every one last of those games and was proud to finally be doing better with the goal of finding/joining the group for group activities so was glad to participate.
Friday we went with the group on scooters touring the island of St. Kitts. BEST ACTIVITY by far. It was amazing to soar through the town (at max of 40 mph:)) seeing the people, their lives, the scenery, beaches and historic forts. Lucky for us, the guys drove us gals so I sat back and took it all in. I felt like life couldn't get any better at that moment. I need to be back there. I just do.
For dinner we wore our formal attire and Janae and I curled my hair which was quite the feat. Michelle was so proud. :) Then...I had another "Mary moment," special moment...whatever you want to call it, that ended up in some embarrassing pictures. Let's just say I learned my lesson to not wear a nude bra with thin black clothing when cameras with flash are involved...I felt like a part of me was resembling the Bioluminescent Bay and lucky for me, that was the night of pictures so everyone has that image to cherish forever on their cameras. Awesome. Haha.
Later that night we played another funny game, this one went by the name of Kissing Rugby where I'm pretty sure I earned myself the nickname of "fiesty gumby." I grew up with all girls, was a ballerina most of my life and am not typically the competitive type so was surprised to see how aggressive and competitive I became with this game. For those intrigued individuals...this game involved trying to kiss the person in the middle before someone else in the group kissed you. Yes, we know...we are a bunch of sexually frustrated youngish Mormon single adults. :)
Friday we went with the group on scooters touring the island of St. Kitts. BEST ACTIVITY by far. It was amazing to soar through the town (at max of 40 mph:)) seeing the people, their lives, the scenery, beaches and historic forts. Lucky for us, the guys drove us gals so I sat back and took it all in. I felt like life couldn't get any better at that moment. I need to be back there. I just do.
For dinner we wore our formal attire and Janae and I curled my hair which was quite the feat. Michelle was so proud. :) Then...I had another "Mary moment," special moment...whatever you want to call it, that ended up in some embarrassing pictures. Let's just say I learned my lesson to not wear a nude bra with thin black clothing when cameras with flash are involved...I felt like a part of me was resembling the Bioluminescent Bay and lucky for me, that was the night of pictures so everyone has that image to cherish forever on their cameras. Awesome. Haha.
Later that night we played another funny game, this one went by the name of Kissing Rugby where I'm pretty sure I earned myself the nickname of "fiesty gumby." I grew up with all girls, was a ballerina most of my life and am not typically the competitive type so was surprised to see how aggressive and competitive I became with this game. For those intrigued individuals...this game involved trying to kiss the person in the middle before someone else in the group kissed you. Yes, we know...we are a bunch of sexually frustrated youngish Mormon single adults. :)
Saturday we slept in really late because I came down with something earlier in the week and had not been sleeping well (not to mention all our late nights of talking and playing games) so...we decided we were allowed to get some shut eye that night/morning. We found our Sacramento friends getting lunch, since lunchtime was about the time we had rolled out of bed...and found a friend to walk to the beach with us in St. Maartan and soak up some final rays! Jon was so kind to pick up seashells for us with his feet, a skill I always look for in a guy, and then we got our 3rd pina colada for the week and relaxed on the beach. That night we watched the final cruise show which our group starred in and then hung out and talked with friends again. That never got old. Never.
Sunday we reluctantly got out of bed and dragged our luggage off the ship. We refused to leave until a man over the intercom asked the remaining passengers to please leave the ship. That's us. Whoops. I don't regret those moments of disobedience though, any extra time on the ship is extra happiness for me. All our friends took taxis to their fancy smanchy hotels and we walked to our hostel. We checked in, dropped off our stuff then took a taxi to join our cool friends at the Marriott to use their backyard beach and watch the superbowl with everyone. We were so tired that we fell asleep out on the beach as soon as we arrived that afternoon and then used our friends' hotel room for more naps before the game. We also learned a very important lesson, 4 adults can indeed fit on a hotel bed for naptime. Your welcome for that information for future endeavors. Haha.
Monday we left for the airport and had some good friends from the cruise be so kind to pick us up from our hostel and drive us to the airport since we were on the same flight. We almost missed our flight though due to an unfortunate incident with a place called Cinnabon. Curse the piles of lard and the attraction Janae and I have to them...our friend saved us though and that cinnamon roll was so worth it so I'd say it ended up being a positive thing for us, despite the double heart attack that roll of goodness inflicted upon us.
It's been about 3 weeks now since that dreaded departure date from San Juan. Janae and I have looked back at our pictures multiple times, still talk often about the funny stories/amazing experiences we had out there and spend any minute we can with our "cruise friends"...I'm still wondering why we ever walked off that ship. The goal this year - stay single and keep everyone else in single status to relive this next year! Yeah 2013 Singles cruise...only 300 or so more days!! :)
Are you still awake? If so, you deserve an award. And that reward is the videos that we took throughout the week...some are longer than others and some not as interesting maybe to those not there but for the few out there that may laugh, this is for you. :)
(Captions explaining the video's contents written beneath the posted video.)
The boat ride over to Vieques Bay in Puerto Rico on our way to the Bioluminescent Bay...the purpose of this video was to depict how rocky the ride was, the rockiest, most nauseating ride I have EVER been on but hilarious because of the hosts of the ship and everyone's reactions. We missed the part when it was more intense but this is still pretty good. We were pretending to be drunk as we slid around and drank our virgin Pina Coladas so please excuse the dorkiness. :)
Documenting the first time of many that we ran down the hallway on the 2nd floor to our room...a couple warnings though, this video catches quite a few of our ditzy moments (mostly mine) that are both funny/embarrassing and like Janae says in the video, "this is a long video so bless your heart if you have the patience to watch it all." I think it's worth it so give it a go, won't you? (We also documented in this video the embarrassment we felt when running into our fellow single's cruise people when boarding, looking as unshowered for days as we did haha)
My attempt to document me going down the zipline...I had to hold on with both hands at one point though so it's mostly a ride viewing my shirt. It's a pretty colored shirt though so it could be worse. The part to watch though is when the worker at the end starts asking me questions about my personal life...and when Janae comes flying in. You have to listen closely but it's pretty funny if you can make out what we're saying.
Oh dear...you would think I never showered on the trip but the humidity just doesn't bode well with my appearance nor did sleeplessness. I'm in the Caribbean so I'm happy regardless. (This video shows me on the fastest, most exciting line at the end...too bad I screwed it up by pulling on the line too early due to the pinching on my leg from wearing a skirt to zipline. :-P)
I took this video as my scooter buddy took me along the roads of St. Kitts. Ah, happiness.
A sneak peak into the game of kissing rugby...this was towards the end of a long round where I ended up getting twisted in the most awkward positions for an extended period of time! I'm sorry we didn't get all of that awkwardness on video for us to view that but still, I think you'll get the idea. At this moment, he is trying to kiss me and I am trying to get away to kiss the guy in the middle that I once was holding on to but now so far from that he's not even in the shot. Obviously, this is one I lost...too bad my 'fiestiness' just couldn't seem to win me many of the challenges.
