Holiday from a Holiday

We had been really looking forward to this

portion of our travels for some time! After our honeymoon we figured we might never go on another cruise again. However when we were looking to book flights from Europe to Peru, Milessa found a trans-Atlantic cruise with Royal Caribbean International for almost the same price as flights! So we decided that 14 days with as much as food as we could eat and crossing the ocean by boat sounded more fun than 15 hours flying and only 2 plane meals :) Boarding was hectic and took a couple house, as the Rotterdam Port had never housed a ship of this size. It was actually the largest ship in the world, the Oasis of the Seas, at about 1200 feet long, with a capacity of 6100 guests and 2500 crew. That's the reason the deals were so good, the ship was too big to fill for a trans-Atlatic cruise. If anyone reading has any questions for finding really good cruise deals,

shoot me an email! People in Rotterdam were really excited about the ship and apparently it was a big deal for it to have been ported there. Tens of thousands of people lined the shore for miles waving as the cruise went down the river. And apparently over 200 000 people were there when it arrived at port 2 weeks earlier. So all of Regina was excited to see this ship cruise up the canal to the port. The ship is truly extravagant, with fancier restaraunts, bars, theatres, casinos, lounges, and main venues than I could have imagined. When you first walk on you have no idea you're on a ship. The main promenade feels more like a small street in New York complete with pizzerias, bars, shops, tile flooring, a 1930s vehicle strictly for photo opportunities, a 'floating bar' that started on floor 5 and rose 2 floors above the floor finishing on floor 8, and even street lights. The next floor above floor 5, floor 8, was a giant park complete with trees, plants and the

whole shabang. Walking paths, cafes and shops all around the sides. You might have thought you were actually at a park back home. The Silk Dining Room, where we had dinners, was a million times fancier than anything else we'll ever eat at. And it, along with all other food (except a few specialty restaraunts) was included. So that means I was able to have 3 shrimp cocktails, salmon and a steak every night if I'd wanted. It was a little bizarre to say the least. On the ship there was countless planned activities going on every day- 2 entire pages of activities were handed out every day so you knew the schedule. From Spanish classes, to literally dozens of kinds of dance classes, bingo, free skating time on the actually skating rink, trivias, lectures, learning workshops, shows, musicals, etc. It was crazy. We went to a couple Spanish classes, one Tango class (so scary), a couple basketball tournaments, a volleyball tournament, and I'm not sure what else. We also got so much frozen yogurt everyday. There were also 2 43-foot climbing walls with several possible paths to the top at varying degrees of difficulty, so we tried to that everyday as well. We'd been wanting to rock climb for years but just hadn't in Regina so that was one of our

favourite parts. Somehow between the rock climbing, running track, exercise/weight room, ping pong tables, basketball court, mini golf course, the many restaraunts, and Milessa putting dreadlocks in my hair, we were never bored. And then there was all of the people we got to meet. You'd think with 5000 guests onboard you'd never see the same person more than 2-3 times but you'd be wrong. We would see the same people multiple times per day all over the place! At breakfast, on the sports deck, at a public washroom, lunch, cafe, the theatre... it was weird. At first we were a little overwhelmed as we didn't really fit the cruise demographic. Rich and retired. And my looking like a hobo made it even worse- luckily when I was with Milessa I looked a little more presentable. And the cruise just seemed to have this sense of entitlement permeating everrywhere, from many of the guests. So after a while the mindset of 'I'm better than everyone' and 'I deserve everything I want' and not treating the crew members was a little frustrating. But we did quite a few really down to earth people and we really enjoyed that. One older retired couple started talking to us after watching me play baskeetball for a while and pretty soon we found out he had been a preacher in a Southern Baptist Church for 30 years down in Georgia and was now retired. They invited us to have dinner with that night and it was so great to meet people with so much in common and such a deep love for God. Then a couple days later we met with them for a little church service on Sunday. They were extremely encouraging to visit with so much times! Then there was so many of the crew we got to know! Many from The

Philippines, India and Jamaica that we got to know. As well as several from Peru, South-Eastern Europe like Croatia and Romania. One guy from Mauritia, a little island off the coast of Madagascar. We felt like we had much more in

common with the crew than any of the guests and it was really cool getting to know them in the various restaraunts and sports deck. Lots of the Jamaicans and Indians liked that I had dreads so it made getting to know them even easier. We made 2 stops at shore in the 13 days at sea. One in Southampton, England and one in Vigo, Spain. In Southampton we just stayed in the port area and did some shopping to replace some of our stolen clothes and didn't bother going up to London or The Stonehenge, which were excursion options since they were quite a bit of money to do. Then in Vigo we spent a lot of time walking around the city and going to a couple historic points and nice lookouts of the surrounding area. Really, nothing too special at those places except for our near royal sendoff from the Vigo port! Literally thousands of people were all over the shoreline and hanging out of the windows with flags and whistling and blowing horns. Then they had about a 40 person bagpipe/drumming band complete with dancers playing music for over half an hour before our departure. Then the next 8 days we spent having fun on-board the ship before landing in Fort Lauderdale!