The Voyage of the Crazy Hair Monster (review, will be long and pic-intensive)

I have a crazy case of post-cruise depression right now, so it is time to start writing my review!

I'm going to start off what will probably be a very lengthy, picture-intensive thread of stories and madness with a little bit of background information, which is relevant to our experiences on-board and in-port. I am 26, my fabulous BF is 31, and neither of us had ever been on a cruise before this, nor had we been on an extended trip together. Weekends away here and there and that’s it, although we do live together and thus are quite used to each other in that sense.

We appreciate good food, places that are not over-crowded, common courtesy, and anything beautiful. We do not appreciate large crowds of obnoxious people, unnecessarily and excessively slow restaurant service, and the hours between 3:00-10:00 AM.

I take my own pillow with me every time I leave the house with the intention of spending at least one night because 99% of pillows available give me intense headaches (yayyy, neck support), I am the lighter packer between the two of us in all things except shoes and toiletries (crazy hair monster enough of a tip for you?), and we both do photography and love to write. I also do video. There will be plenty of these in this review if you hang in here with me.

He sunburns if he so much as thinks about the sun (Irish blood). I went on the ship thinking I'd be fine if I reapplied sunscreen regularly, despite a history of burning like crazy in the more southern portions of the country. I have asthma and a dozen other bodily stupidities that make life less comfortable than I'd prefer, but I get by and managed fine with most aspects of the trip.

Prior to this trip, I had spent more than 6 years of my life outside of the country (Air Force brat) and knew what cars look like outside of the USA and selected other areas in the world. He spent two hours in Canada looking at Niagara Falls from the good side and used to be able to list that as his only international experience.

We also both swear (a lot) by nature and probably shouldn't complain so much about petty things. He’s demonstrated strong preference for very comfortable travel while I can sleep soundly on a cot or the ground without batting an eye.

That said, I’ll be starting my actual review tomorrow! I still feel the swaying of the ship and am nursing whatever it is I got on the ship, which means I need to sleep.

Looking forward to your review..so far this sounds like this is going to be a good one! :)

Rochelle

Looking forward to your review..so far this sounds like this is going to be a good one! :)

 

 

Rochelle

Haha, thanks. I almost told my boyfriend to move over in bed last night because I was afraid the ship was going to rock me right out of it.

Then I realized I was being unreasonable and the ship is a lie. There is. no. ship.

Sadly.

Staying home from work today for a doctor's appointment and, quite frankly, I'm glad I said I'd need today off because I woke up coughing and choking and can't quite breathe right. FUN. Second trip this year that I've ended with some sort of respiratory something. BUT I'm hoping to get day one written and posted, pics and all.

Can't wait for your Review. Ship - Destination - Days?

Can't wait for your Review. Ship - Destination - Days?

We were on the Breakaway to Bermuda, 9/21-28. I'm working on photos now. I have a bit over 63 GB of photos and videos to go through, so I'm taking it one day at a time right now.

I'm liking the sound of this... And Looking forward to the next bit!

Looking forward to next installment!

Ready to sit back and enjoy your review. Sounds like it is going to be fun!

(don't say I didn't warn you about the length of this)

DAY ONE - 9/21 - Journey to Platform 9 ¾… I mean, the Manhattan Cruise Ship Terminal

Our alarms went off entirely too early (hahahahaha… hilarious, as we would find out) at about 6:30 AM on Sunday morning. Naturally, we stayed in bed until 7. By 7:15 AM, James was in the shower or something and I was making us some bacon and eggs because BREAKFAST! We still had a handful of random oddities and nonsense to stuff into the suitcases, but we were also not being picked up for another two hours. Finishing that up could wait until after we’d determined that we weren’t actually all that hungry, although I at least finished my eggs. We stared at the news for a few minutes - please never ask me what the stories being covered were, I have no clue - then I got up to see what kind of fun it would be to fit my pillow into the larger suitcase that probably already weighed 65 lbs. My pillow easily weighs in the 10-15 lb. range because it’s special enough for the short bus I belong on at that hour. Once everything was packed up and we’d determined we could do nothing else useful with the remaining 45 minutes, we wound up back on the couch, staring at what was now a blank TV, as I’d stolen the power strip to pack it.

MOMMY DEAREST! HURRAY! Le boyfriend had requested his mother come pick us up, which meant his mom and her boyfriend arrived right about 9:00. We all sat around, potentially with some early morning senseless drooling from yours truly, for about 15 minutes before we grabbed everything and tried to wrestle ye olde behemoth out the door. Well, BF did that. I somehow got stuck with every. other. bag. Five of them, including my purse. Once everything was in the off, power-wise, and the apartment locked up, we loaded into the car and settled in for our horrifically long 30-minute drive to the terminal.

Awful, I know. How did we ever survive in the minimal traffic?

At some point I pulled out my camera and shot some video, which may or may not be useable, I’m a little afraid to find out, but it all stopped when we got our first site of “OMG IS THAT OUR SHIP? IT’S MUCH SMALLER THAN I EXPECTED!”

Oh. Wait. NOPE. That says Aida on it. Ours is the one behind it, totally dwarfing it in every way. HELLOOOO GIGANDO-SHIP! Silly duck, thinking our ship could possibly be that puny.

We were off-loaded out of the car by about 9:45 AM, 15 minutes earlier than I thought we needed to be there, and BF was already asking why we had gotten up so early. “Because, this place will be packed and the lines will be long. You hate long lines and large crowds, remember?”

“Yes, but-”

“You HATE long lines. Do you see long lines here? No? C’mon. I have no clue where to go from here.”

Fortunately, about ten seconds later a porter walked up to us and asked if we were checking in. NOPE! We’re gonna pitch a tent right here and camp for a week. He took the godzilla-case from us and I was finally relieved of some of the five bags I’d once again been coerced into dragging around and directed us inside. A mob of people promptly walked in front of us, blocking the entrance, but once they cleared off, we made our way inside and I immediately turned to look at BF. “See? No lines.”

This was true. There was one person going through security in front of us and he was gone by the time we got to the desk. Security was a complete breeze, by the way, and check-in continued just as easily, minus the ten seconds of panic as someone in the terminal decided to act like we’d missed every step ever just to mess with us. Health forms were completed, the non-lines were not stood in, and by 10:05 we were seated and in boarding group 6.

The worst part of the entire process was the hour and a half wait we had to get on the cruise ship, but even that was fine once we started talking to the people around us and gave up on doing productive things like taking pictures of lightbulbs and lifeboats.

Le boyfriend continued to complain on and off about why we got there so early, until 11:00 hit and I pointed at the check-in line. “You hate long lines, babe.”

“Yeah. I do. I’m really glad we got here when we did. How much longer until we can board? I’m starving.”

Keep it coming...great style!!!

96 days until we board the breakaway! Excited to read your review!

L

96 days until we board the breakaway! Excited to read your review!

L

Hehe, thanks. My laptop had to be taken for repairs, so sharing BF's desktop and thus photoshop access until I get it back. I'd prefer not to write too much without pics, but will if it comes to that.

Loving your style of writing so far! Can't wait for more :D

Great start, can't wait for more! :)

Same here :)

~Robin

Every Day at Sea is a Great Day

Hoping to read more!

looking forward to the review of the ship.

Just a brief update to let you know I haven't forgotten about this review by any means. October is just proving to be a bad month already. It's the end of day 6 and I've already had an ER visit. I'm also still waiting to hear back on my laptop and when I'll have it back. Meanwhile, I'm going to work on getting pictures ready for the next segment of my review. I might put off doing work tomorrow in favor of this... It's tempting.

Just a brief update to let you know I haven't forgotten about this review by any means. October is just proving to be a bad month already. It's the end of day 6 and I've already had an ER visit. I'm also still waiting to hear back on my laptop and when I'll have it back. Meanwhile, I'm going to work on getting pictures ready for the next segment of my review. I might put off doing work tomorrow in favor of this... It's tempting.

Sorry about the ER visit. Hope your feeling better. Can't wait to read the rest

Donna

Hope things work out.

I want to find out about the crazy hair monster.

Good luck!

~Robin

Every Day at Sea is a Great Day

Absolutely love your writing style. You definitely know how to keep your audience engaged. Looking forward to more of this review. Good start, so far.

Sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for more....

Feel better

Safe sailing

We'll be here when you are ready :)

I hope you are okay, I read about the ER visit... I look forward to reading your review when you are ready.

Cherie

Subscribing; looks like this one will be fun.