The Babymoon

Well, if you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you'll know just exactly how our Babymoon went. But, I'll fill everyone else in and maybe give a few details I didn't mention in other places.

We decided to go on a seven day cruise out of Galveston, TX - with three days at sea, a stop in Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Jamaica.  We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas.

I also treated Emily to a pre-natal massage and a night at the Houstonian Hotel the night before the cruise for her birthday/valentines day.  Props to Amy A. for house sitting and taking care of the pups.  A shout out to Nana for backing Amy up on Wednesday.

The night at the Houstonian was awesome and Emily liked the massage. The package entitled Brian (me) to a deep-tissue massage. I guess Im not a spa kind of guy as I was uncomfortable for most of it.  I was too worried about how short the robe was and concerned about keeping it closed, etc. My massage dude was named Oscar from Venezuela, so we spoke in Spanish which was fine with me. He told me about Venezuela, how long he'd been working at the spa etc. He kept telling me I was too tense and I needed to relax.  I told I was tense because I was stressed. And I was stressed because there was too much of me "out there". It just wasn't for me. But, all in all, Emily enjoyed it and that's what mattered most.

As far as the cuise goes, the ship was beautiful - and held over 3100 people. The captain was a 33 year old Swede who had been sailing since he was 10.  I kept wanting to ask him "are you SURE you're allowed to drive this thing?".  He was very well spoken and had a great sense of humor, though. Which- he needed his sense of humor - trust me.  Cozumel was just how both of us remembered it - the world's largest garage sale. And then.....the wind hit. The wind, the waves, more waves, more wind. It didn't stop for three days.  We skipped ports, we rolled and pitched and ended up spending five days at sea. The Captain would tell us each morning about the weather, the wave height and the wind. He told us one morning that we were experiencing 12 to 15 foot waves with 45 mph winds, which is classified as a severe gale (according to him and the Beaufort scale- which I'd never heard of).  Needless to say people didn't leave their cabins, you ran into walls while walking and couldn't go on deck.  In fact, Emily and I became experts at running from one end of the cabin to the other using the momentum from the pitching and rolling to go from one side to the other. And before you judge - given the circumstances at least we found something to do besides throwing up- which is more than I can say for everyone else.

We loved our waiters who were from Turkey - Himmit and Mesut. And yes, we ate. We ate all 3 meals. Neither of us get motion sick so we were going to get our money out of this cruise no matter what. There were only us and some other hardcores in the dining room one evening. Felt like it was an accomplishment some how.

On the way back, we sat in the Gulf of Mexico for five hours as the Port of Galveston had closed due to fog. We finally arrived and were able to get off the ship (supposed to arrive at 7am and finally got off at 230p). I honestly can't complain because we lived through it. And while I dont think cruising is for me necessarily, I have no complaints about Royal Caribbean and how they handled what were obviously unusual conditions. In fact, a lot of the entertainers were really funny, and were successful at making many of us forget about what was going on.

Wednesday we'll be heading off to the Dr. to find out whether we'll be having a boy or a girl.  We won't be keeping it a secret and we will share the name once we get everything settled.  So, look for another blog later this week!