Hot, Hot, Hot – July 29, 2017

Anyone who says it’s always cooler by the water has never been to Galveston, Texas. I could not believe the heat and the humidity! But Galveston is the departure point for our celebration cruise with Debbie and her family and closest friends, so here we are. Ironically, today is the one-year anniversary of her cancer diagnosis which makes it even more important knowing all that has transpired in this one short year. Probably enough scare and trauma for a lifetime.

Our ship is the Carnival Freedom rumored to house over 3,000 people.

Anyway, it was stifling hot checking in and then once on board, we had to go through the lifeboat drill which meant we had to stand in the heat again at the assigned lifeboat area. No breeze, no wind, outdoors with 30 strangers who would be your survival partners should the unthinkable happen. It brought all the Titanic and World War II lifeboat movies I have ever seen flashing back into my mind. Could I really live in a lifeboat with these people if I had to for days or maybe a month? Which one would be the bad guy secretly stealing the water? Oops, drill over. Get back to reality and inside to the air conditioning.
Next order of business was to scope out the ship and try to find the important places. Before arriving, we agreed we would use the stairs most of the time and not the elevators to try to minimize the effects of non-stop food. Most ships housing 3,000 passengers are huge and we were positive it would be 7 days from now before we understood the ship’s layout. Within an hour we had reached and exceeded our Fitbit step and stair goals. We kept running into sections of the center of the ship you could not go from aft to stern and would have to climb or descend stairs to try to get around it. This is the kind of situation the phrase, “you can’t get there from here” is meant to describe.  Here are some pictures around the ship to give you an idea of the size.

Family Pool

Fitness Center

Main Auditorium

Promenade Deck

Dinner was casual dress by necessity because most luggage was not delivered yet and it was the first opportunity to meet all of Debbie and Kerry’s friends who were on the trip. There are four families with children and lots of adults. We filled up three tables; 2 seating 10 and one seating 7.   After dinner, Kerry asked us all to step into a room off the dining room for a moment where he gave a very heartfelt thank you to each of us for the love and support during their trial. Seeing that big strong police officer who has seen countless tragedies fighting to compose himself and keep from breaking down was almost more than we could bear. They presented each of us with a picture frame individualized to each of our interests as a thank you. What a nice gesture on their part and meaningful to each of us.
We roamed around the ship a little more, finding most places with lots of young adults and loud music and called it quits for the day. Our balcony room was very welcoming after our first big day. Besides, we need to get to the fitness center tomorrow morning before all these young whippersnappers get up at noon.