Carnival Cruise

I am now 8 hours off the Carnival Fantasy Western Caribbean Cruise that I had the privilege of embarking on with 10 amazing women. My friend Molly invited us all to come with her to celebrate her 40th birthday. She paid for each of us to go... I just had to get myself to New Orleans last Thursday in order to set sail that afternoon.

I wasn't sure what to expect going into it with virtual strangers. My roommate Chris, Molly's childhood friend from Minnesota was someone I had never laid eyes upon. There was Dianne, an aquaintance from California and Barbara to whom I had heard Molly refer many times in San Diego as her beloved Growth Group Leader for years. Stephanie from Saint Louis and Leslie from Chicago were blond bombshells I met on Thursday in front of the pool on the Lido deck. Kristen, an author and long distance runner roomed with Rachel, another Minnesota girl (Molly's college roommate). Nancy, Molly's sister, was the youngest girl on the trip, just eight months my junior. Would we like each other? Would there be cliques? Would we all disagree on where to go and what to do or would we mesh?

Well, from the first afternoon when we all met up, I knew we were going to have a blast! By Monday morning, we were all friends and I have to say, I would travel with these ladies again! We had an amazing time laying out, dancing, eating breakfast, eating room service, eating lunch, eating dessert, eating dinner... did I mention that we had a great time eating?

Our one stop was in Cozumel and 9 of us signed up to do the Amazing Cozumel Race excursion. We drew names and divided ourselves up into three teams of three. We competed against 5 other teams of 2-4 people and had a great time. From looking for clues at a museum, to snorkeling off a glass bottom boat in order to see the name on the side of a shipwrecked boat to running all through downtown in search of clues, we had a blast! My team arrived at our final destination first and we won the grand prize t-shirt that says "WINNER" on the front (cannot be sold in stores:-))!

Our waiter at dinner, Joseph from India, was fabulous. We took photos each night with our favorite photographer, Jay. We watched all of the shows and danced to a Michael Jackson tribute! We even sang karaoke one night. We were so bad, I think they turned off the song before we were even finished. I lovingly blame Nancy for picking that stupid song!

I loved coming to our room at night to find the bed turned down, chocolates on my pillow, the next day's itinerary waiting patiently for a perusal and some sort of animal made out of towels on the bed. It was nice to sleep in, get a tan, read a book, and have late night girl-talk every day. My blackberry didn't work so I even stayed away from emails, Facebook, and Twitter! A true respite.

Although I missed my family terribly, I am so thankful to Molly for bringing me along. And, I know some of these girls will become friends for a long long time. We created all sorts of fabulous memories and I will post some pictures when they all start to share them... I forgot my camera so only have two over-priced "Jay's photos" from the entire trip. Thanks again, Molly! And, Happy Birthday again! Too bad we don't have any diet cake to share tonight!