Friday, June 24, 2005
Tragedy at work
Every computer user's worst nightmare happened to me yesterday at work. My hard-drive crashed in my computer and I lost everything. And I do mean everything, two years of work down the drain. How depressing is that? God forbid that Rolls-Royce install an automated backup system.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Netflix part 2
My Netflix movies have already arrived. It was less than 36 hours from order-to-delivery. That's a pretty impressive turnaround time. Perhaps this whole Netflix thing will be pretty nice.
Rolls-Royce Presentation
I had to give a presentation today to some big-wigs in Rolls-Royce. The lead engineer for RR Indianapolis and his direct staff wanted to "get to know" me. His direct staff include the engineering heads of all the different programs and departments of Rolls-Royce. They have been inviting young people to speak once in a while at their weekly staff meetings. It was a good opportunity.
I was only asked late yesterday to put something together, so it was somewhat short notice. Luckily it was only a 10 minute presentation so wasn't a big deal. I just spoke about what I do and what my interests are, both inside and outside of work. I also gave some details on one of the major projects I've worked on since I started at Rolls-Royce.
I think the presentation went well. The only glitch I had was that some data that I showed was export controlled. There was one Brit in the room that couldn't see it, so I just skipped ahead a couple slides and spoke from memory. Oops! No big deal though. It was fun.
I was only asked late yesterday to put something together, so it was somewhat short notice. Luckily it was only a 10 minute presentation so wasn't a big deal. I just spoke about what I do and what my interests are, both inside and outside of work. I also gave some details on one of the major projects I've worked on since I started at Rolls-Royce.
I think the presentation went well. The only glitch I had was that some data that I showed was export controlled. There was one Brit in the room that couldn't see it, so I just skipped ahead a couple slides and spoke from memory. Oops! No big deal though. It was fun.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Netflix
Last night I dropped HBO and signed up for Netflix instead. I had switched to HBO from the Blockbuster all-you-can-eat deal about a month ago.
The Blockbuster deal allowed you to check out an unlimited amount of movies a month, two at a time, for a flat fee of $20. While the Blockbuster deal was nice, it was also kind of a pain to have to go to the store all the time. I decided to give HBO a try for a while, since it was only $12 per month. HBO got old pretty quick though, so I was looking for something else.
Netflix is a deal where you pay $17.99 a month and get unlimited movie rentals, much like the Blockbuster deal. The difference is that Netflix just mails the movies to your home. When you're done you pop the movie into the supplied return envelope and mail it back. You get three movies out at a time and the next movie gets sent out as soon as they receive one back.
The neat thing is that you just order everything on the internet. I have a list of movies that are in my queue, ready to get mailed out. I rate the movies I've seen, tell Netflix what genres I like, and they make recommendations about what movies I might want to see. I get new releases as well as the classics. It's pretty fun and definitely convenient.
So we'll be looking forward to our first mailing pretty soon. I need a constant supply of movies to feed my new TV. More on that to come...
The Blockbuster deal allowed you to check out an unlimited amount of movies a month, two at a time, for a flat fee of $20. While the Blockbuster deal was nice, it was also kind of a pain to have to go to the store all the time. I decided to give HBO a try for a while, since it was only $12 per month. HBO got old pretty quick though, so I was looking for something else.
Netflix is a deal where you pay $17.99 a month and get unlimited movie rentals, much like the Blockbuster deal. The difference is that Netflix just mails the movies to your home. When you're done you pop the movie into the supplied return envelope and mail it back. You get three movies out at a time and the next movie gets sent out as soon as they receive one back.
The neat thing is that you just order everything on the internet. I have a list of movies that are in my queue, ready to get mailed out. I rate the movies I've seen, tell Netflix what genres I like, and they make recommendations about what movies I might want to see. I get new releases as well as the classics. It's pretty fun and definitely convenient.
So we'll be looking forward to our first mailing pretty soon. I need a constant supply of movies to feed my new TV. More on that to come...
Monday, June 20, 2005
F1 Racing Fiasco
I spent the entire weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway watching some pretty fantastic racing. The US Grand Prix was in town and there was a lot of racing to be seen. Formula 1, unbeknownst to most Americans, is the premier racing league in the world. They have all of the top drivers and the most technologically advanced cars in the world. Schumacher, the best driver in F1, is the highest paid athlete in the world. It's a pretty incredible weekend.
Saturday was practice day and qualification day. We saw the F1 cars burn around the track at pretty incredible speeds. We also got to see some Porsche 911 races and some other open-wheeled events. It was a good time. For those who have followed the Andretti family, Mario's grandson Marco smoked everybody in the Infinity racing series.
The real drama of the weekend happened on Sunday. Seven of the ten teams (2 drivers per team) were using Michelin tires. Apparently the tires weren't performing as necessary and Michelin deamed them "unsafe" for the race. Forumula 1 has a rule that you can't change anything on the car between qualifications and race-day, so all 14 cars with Michelins were running under risk.
So what happened? Well, all of the cars lined up on the grid and took a warm up lap, but at the end of that lap all of the Michelin cars just pulled into the pits and put their cars back into the garage. That's it, game over. There were just six cars left, hardly something that could be called a race.
Needless to say, the fans were livid. F1 is a very international sport and people had spent thousands of dollars to travel from Brazil, Japan, Germany, Italy, etc. I can't imagine how those people felt. I was mad as heck and I didn't even pay for my ticket, plus I only had to drive 10 minutes to get there. The booing, chanting, swearing, and throwing of things kept up for about 15 minutes and then people just started leaving. It was horrible.
The word on the street is that Formula 1 is probably over in America, or at least in Indy. The owner of the Indy track pays F1 quite a bit of money to hold the race and doesn't actually make much of it back on race day. He's lucky to break even. He was obviously not so happy with this development, nor was anyone else associated with Indy.
It's Michelin, F1, and the teams that are to blame. They just couldn't reach a compromise. Michelin, through poor planning and not bring any backup tires (which they should always do), ruined things. F1 wouldn't bend the rules for the situation so that the fans could see a race. The teams wouldn't run at a "less than optimal" vehicle set-up that would have made their cars safe again. Basically, they're all a bunch of stubborn, rich brats with no respect for the fans.
Oh well, at least I had fun the rest of the weekend. I really do like F1 racing far more than NASCAR, Champ series, or the IRL. It was a good weekend overall, with some drama at the end to leave a sour taste in my mouth. I'm just glad I didn't spend $5000 to bring my child with me to Indianapolis from Brazil to see the race like a guy on the news did. Ouch!
Saturday was practice day and qualification day. We saw the F1 cars burn around the track at pretty incredible speeds. We also got to see some Porsche 911 races and some other open-wheeled events. It was a good time. For those who have followed the Andretti family, Mario's grandson Marco smoked everybody in the Infinity racing series.
The real drama of the weekend happened on Sunday. Seven of the ten teams (2 drivers per team) were using Michelin tires. Apparently the tires weren't performing as necessary and Michelin deamed them "unsafe" for the race. Forumula 1 has a rule that you can't change anything on the car between qualifications and race-day, so all 14 cars with Michelins were running under risk.
So what happened? Well, all of the cars lined up on the grid and took a warm up lap, but at the end of that lap all of the Michelin cars just pulled into the pits and put their cars back into the garage. That's it, game over. There were just six cars left, hardly something that could be called a race.
Needless to say, the fans were livid. F1 is a very international sport and people had spent thousands of dollars to travel from Brazil, Japan, Germany, Italy, etc. I can't imagine how those people felt. I was mad as heck and I didn't even pay for my ticket, plus I only had to drive 10 minutes to get there. The booing, chanting, swearing, and throwing of things kept up for about 15 minutes and then people just started leaving. It was horrible.
The word on the street is that Formula 1 is probably over in America, or at least in Indy. The owner of the Indy track pays F1 quite a bit of money to hold the race and doesn't actually make much of it back on race day. He's lucky to break even. He was obviously not so happy with this development, nor was anyone else associated with Indy.
It's Michelin, F1, and the teams that are to blame. They just couldn't reach a compromise. Michelin, through poor planning and not bring any backup tires (which they should always do), ruined things. F1 wouldn't bend the rules for the situation so that the fans could see a race. The teams wouldn't run at a "less than optimal" vehicle set-up that would have made their cars safe again. Basically, they're all a bunch of stubborn, rich brats with no respect for the fans.
Oh well, at least I had fun the rest of the weekend. I really do like F1 racing far more than NASCAR, Champ series, or the IRL. It was a good weekend overall, with some drama at the end to leave a sour taste in my mouth. I'm just glad I didn't spend $5000 to bring my child with me to Indianapolis from Brazil to see the race like a guy on the news did. Ouch!
Monday, June 13, 2005
Day 5 - Driving
We weren't looking forward to day 5 of our cruise because day 5 wasn't really a cruise at all. All it was going to be was a day full of driving. They gave us breakfast on the boat and then started shipping us off. We did manage to get lucky and be one of the first sets of people to be let off the boat. Seeing as we had 16 hours of driving ahead of us this was nice.
I'll spare you the details of a 16 hour trip in the car, but I had mentioned on day 0 that I hated Georgia with all of my soul. Well, three things happened in Georgia on I-75 that served to increase that hatred.
First, we got stuck in a half-hour standstill out in the middle of nowhere. We finally decided to pull off at a gas station for a little break. Luckily Jen was able to talk to a local and found out that there was a state highway that ran parallel to the interstate for about 60 miles. So we hopped on that and took what turned out to be a very pretty half hour drive north through the backcountry of Georgia. Even though the drive was pretty it still managed to add 30 minutes to our driving time.
Shortly after that we ran into what only can be described as God pouring a bucket of water directly onto my car. It rained so hard that we couldn’t even tell the wipers were working. I mean, they would swoosh by and everything, but they didn’t seem to have any effect on the amount of water on the windshield. I was half expecting a dolphin to swim by the window. To top it off it started to hail as well. Fantastic! It took about 15 miles of driving to get through the storm, so it didn’t take too long, but at 25 miles an hour 15 miles can take a long time. Luckily, we didn’t get any damage from the hail.
The third and final “how ya’ll doin’” from Georgia involved Atlanta traffic. I knew we were in trouble because our delays earlier put us into Atlanta around 4:00 pm. I figured rush hour traffic was inevitable. To my surprise, however, we managed to go all the way through downtown and past the north bypass with very little problem. My spirits were high; I thought Georgia was finally giving me a break. I should have known better.
It appears that there are approximately 5 billion people that live a few miles north of Atlanta. It also appears that every single one of those people is on I-75 at 4:30 pm. Traffic was so backed up it was ridiculous. It was incredible, there were 6 or 7 lanes of traffic and every single one of them was at a standstill. It took us at least 45 minutes to get through the mess.
To top it all off, just when traffic started to pick up we almost got in an accident. The guy in front of me switched to the right lane and I moved into his spot. I know he saw me because we locked eyes in his mirror. However, a truck started to come into his lane and he decided that the best course of action would be to cut the wheel as hard as possible and swerve back into my car. Luckily I saw it, hit the brakes, and eased to the left a bit. I missed both the guardrail on my left and his car on my right by less than a foot. That got the ol’ blood pumpin’. Afterward, I had an overwhelming urge to let that guy know he was the “number one” driver, if you know what I mean.
That’s it, that’s all the trouble we had on our trip. Everything bad happened in Georgia. You know, I’ve always heard that song “The Devil Went Down To Georgia.” I guess I just never figured that he stayed there.
I'll spare you the details of a 16 hour trip in the car, but I had mentioned on day 0 that I hated Georgia with all of my soul. Well, three things happened in Georgia on I-75 that served to increase that hatred.
First, we got stuck in a half-hour standstill out in the middle of nowhere. We finally decided to pull off at a gas station for a little break. Luckily Jen was able to talk to a local and found out that there was a state highway that ran parallel to the interstate for about 60 miles. So we hopped on that and took what turned out to be a very pretty half hour drive north through the backcountry of Georgia. Even though the drive was pretty it still managed to add 30 minutes to our driving time.
Shortly after that we ran into what only can be described as God pouring a bucket of water directly onto my car. It rained so hard that we couldn’t even tell the wipers were working. I mean, they would swoosh by and everything, but they didn’t seem to have any effect on the amount of water on the windshield. I was half expecting a dolphin to swim by the window. To top it off it started to hail as well. Fantastic! It took about 15 miles of driving to get through the storm, so it didn’t take too long, but at 25 miles an hour 15 miles can take a long time. Luckily, we didn’t get any damage from the hail.
The third and final “how ya’ll doin’” from Georgia involved Atlanta traffic. I knew we were in trouble because our delays earlier put us into Atlanta around 4:00 pm. I figured rush hour traffic was inevitable. To my surprise, however, we managed to go all the way through downtown and past the north bypass with very little problem. My spirits were high; I thought Georgia was finally giving me a break. I should have known better.
It appears that there are approximately 5 billion people that live a few miles north of Atlanta. It also appears that every single one of those people is on I-75 at 4:30 pm. Traffic was so backed up it was ridiculous. It was incredible, there were 6 or 7 lanes of traffic and every single one of them was at a standstill. It took us at least 45 minutes to get through the mess.
To top it all off, just when traffic started to pick up we almost got in an accident. The guy in front of me switched to the right lane and I moved into his spot. I know he saw me because we locked eyes in his mirror. However, a truck started to come into his lane and he decided that the best course of action would be to cut the wheel as hard as possible and swerve back into my car. Luckily I saw it, hit the brakes, and eased to the left a bit. I missed both the guardrail on my left and his car on my right by less than a foot. That got the ol’ blood pumpin’. Afterward, I had an overwhelming urge to let that guy know he was the “number one” driver, if you know what I mean.
That’s it, that’s all the trouble we had on our trip. Everything bad happened in Georgia. You know, I’ve always heard that song “The Devil Went Down To Georgia.” I guess I just never figured that he stayed there.
Day 4 - Cococay Island
Wow, this is taking forever to get all of this posted. I tried posting a little bit more to Day 3 but the program screwed up and I lost all I had written. Ugh, that killed the motivation for a while. Oh well, on to day 4.
Day 4 started with a nice breakfast again, but instead of reading for an hour and then eating lunch, we hopped on a little boat (called a tender) for a quick trip to Cococay Island. Cococay is Royal Caribbean’s private island somewhere in the Bahamas. It's quite small but it's really nice. I would say this was our favorite day.
The first thing we did when we got on the island was to go parasailing. That's where they strap the two of you into a parachute, tie the parachute to the back of a speedboat, and then release you so that the boat drags you around through the air. It was awesome!
We’ve got some great pictures that I’ll have to post as soon as I get all of my computer stuff righted around (I’m in the middle of a big computer project). There we six couples on the boat, so we just passed the cameras around so that everybody had pictures of themselves. Everyone was really friendly.
The boat driver took us up in the air pretty high right away. We could see the entire island, as well as a few nearby islands. The water was crystal clear and we could see right down to the ocean floor. The driver then let us drop to within a few feet of the water before he took us back up again. We were hoping he would dip our feet into the water, but he only did that for the last couple that went. It surprised the heck out of them! Anyway, it was absolutely gorgeous up there and I would highly recommend parasailing if you ever get the chance.
When we got back to the island we did a little swimming in the cove and a little sunning on the beach. I was pretty paranoid about sun block for the entire vacation. You see, when we went to New York I got burned so bad on my forehead that I blistered. And that wasn’t nearly as close to the equator as this was. So I lathered on the sun block and really didn’t get much of a tan. Better white than red, right?!
After swimming, sunning, and eating lunch on the island Jen and I found a great hammock in the shade of a tree. We laid down and took what I would consider the best nap I’ve ever had. We had to peel ourselves out of the hammock to go back to the boat. It was so nice and relaxing.
Like I said, Cococay was our favorite day on the cruise. It was fun and relaxing all at the same time. We had another nice dinner and went to another show to cap things off. All in all it was a great way to end the cruise.
Day 4 started with a nice breakfast again, but instead of reading for an hour and then eating lunch, we hopped on a little boat (called a tender) for a quick trip to Cococay Island. Cococay is Royal Caribbean’s private island somewhere in the Bahamas. It's quite small but it's really nice. I would say this was our favorite day.
The first thing we did when we got on the island was to go parasailing. That's where they strap the two of you into a parachute, tie the parachute to the back of a speedboat, and then release you so that the boat drags you around through the air. It was awesome!
We’ve got some great pictures that I’ll have to post as soon as I get all of my computer stuff righted around (I’m in the middle of a big computer project). There we six couples on the boat, so we just passed the cameras around so that everybody had pictures of themselves. Everyone was really friendly.
The boat driver took us up in the air pretty high right away. We could see the entire island, as well as a few nearby islands. The water was crystal clear and we could see right down to the ocean floor. The driver then let us drop to within a few feet of the water before he took us back up again. We were hoping he would dip our feet into the water, but he only did that for the last couple that went. It surprised the heck out of them! Anyway, it was absolutely gorgeous up there and I would highly recommend parasailing if you ever get the chance.
When we got back to the island we did a little swimming in the cove and a little sunning on the beach. I was pretty paranoid about sun block for the entire vacation. You see, when we went to New York I got burned so bad on my forehead that I blistered. And that wasn’t nearly as close to the equator as this was. So I lathered on the sun block and really didn’t get much of a tan. Better white than red, right?!
After swimming, sunning, and eating lunch on the island Jen and I found a great hammock in the shade of a tree. We laid down and took what I would consider the best nap I’ve ever had. We had to peel ourselves out of the hammock to go back to the boat. It was so nice and relaxing.
Like I said, Cococay was our favorite day on the cruise. It was fun and relaxing all at the same time. We had another nice dinner and went to another show to cap things off. All in all it was a great way to end the cruise.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Day 3 - Stingrays
Day 3 started just like the other days, with sleeping in followed by a big ol' breakfast. It then continued just like the other days, with some reading and lounging around followed by an even bigger lunch. Really, you've gotta love the food on the cruise line. I think there's only about half an hour each day that there isn't food available somewhere.
After lunch Jen and I went on our first official "shore excursion". A shore excursion is where you pay some extra money to go do something on the island. In this case, we took a 20 minute boat ride out to another little island. This was just a small island with a nice little beach. We went there to swim with the stringrays.
We started out by getting our snorkel gear and getting in the water. The stingrays were in a large enclosed area along with some man-made reefs and lots of fish. We were a bit worried that the fences along the edge of the area would be distracting but we barely noticed them. It turned out to be a nice little area.
They let us tool around for a while checking out fish and attempting to touch the stingrays on our own. They said that the females were pregnant so we had to be careful. The females were also about three times the size of the males, so that made us a little nervous. It was fine though, they had their stingers removed and they don't have any teeth to begin with. I don't think they could hurt anyone even if they tried.
The coolest part of the swim came a little later though. They lined us all up in the water and had us get down on our knees. The water came up to about our bellybutton. As soon as we did this the stingrays started swarming around. They knew it was feeding time.
The trainer gave us each a few pieces of squid and let us feed the stingrays. You just held it out and then swam along and, "shhhuuuucck", sucked it right out of your hand. It was really neat. They were really soft and kept brushing up against us with their bodies. Jen and I were only a foot apart and the big females even managed to swim between us. It was a great experience.
After lunch Jen and I went on our first official "shore excursion". A shore excursion is where you pay some extra money to go do something on the island. In this case, we took a 20 minute boat ride out to another little island. This was just a small island with a nice little beach. We went there to swim with the stringrays.
We started out by getting our snorkel gear and getting in the water. The stingrays were in a large enclosed area along with some man-made reefs and lots of fish. We were a bit worried that the fences along the edge of the area would be distracting but we barely noticed them. It turned out to be a nice little area.
They let us tool around for a while checking out fish and attempting to touch the stingrays on our own. They said that the females were pregnant so we had to be careful. The females were also about three times the size of the males, so that made us a little nervous. It was fine though, they had their stingers removed and they don't have any teeth to begin with. I don't think they could hurt anyone even if they tried.
The coolest part of the swim came a little later though. They lined us all up in the water and had us get down on our knees. The water came up to about our bellybutton. As soon as we did this the stingrays started swarming around. They knew it was feeding time.
The trainer gave us each a few pieces of squid and let us feed the stingrays. You just held it out and then swam along and, "shhhuuuucck", sucked it right out of your hand. It was really neat. They were really soft and kept brushing up against us with their bodies. Jen and I were only a foot apart and the big females even managed to swim between us. It was a great experience.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Day 2 - Dis iz your Captin zpeeking
Day 2 starting off with the entire ship meeting the captain for the first time. Well, not really "meeting", but hearing for the first time. At 8 o'clock in the morning the speaker in our room blared to life with an overly loud announcement from the Captain. It went something like this:
Note: Pretend this is all in a really thick and barely intelligible Norwegian accent.
"Hello, dis iz your Captin zpeeking. Good morning. I am coming into your rooms to tell you that we have some inclement weather ahead of us. There is some weather that is not good, and it is not as good as expected. For this reason I have had to cancel the island. We will not be going to the island today because there is some bad weather. We will continue on to Nassau early because I have canceled the island. The bad weather is too choppy for the boats so I must cancel the island….”
Continues, repeating the same thing for about 5 minutes….
“So in review, I have canceled the island….”
5 more minutes….
“Just to review, I have….”
Oh, dear Lord….
“Okay, I’m sorry to have woken you. I just had to cancel the island because of the bad weather that is not good and ….”
Ahhhhhhhhh!!!
And finally, silence.
After our 20 minute update on the weather we found out that we weren’t going to Cococay that day. Instead, we would continue on to Nassau and try to catch Cococay on the way back. Apparently the weather was too choppy for the smaller boats to ferry us to and from the island. However, in Nassau we would be docked and the weather wouldn’t matter. No big deal.
After a tasty breakfast and a tasty lunch just an hour later we arrived in Nassau. We decided to explore the island a bit that day. We got off the boat and took a taxi jam-packed with people to Paradise Island. Paradise Island is the nicest part of Nassau. A single guy (with apparently too much money) owns the entire island. The highlight is Atlantis, and absolutely gigantic hotel & casino. They have a casino, lots of pools and beaches, walk-through aquariums, etc. It was neat to see.
After winding our way through Atlantis we decided to go down to the beach. We couldn’t go through the gigantic pool area of Atlantis because we weren’t guests, so we had to walk half a mile around the complex to the public access area. We then had to find a place to change into our bathing suits. Our first attempt at that was unsuccessful because we tried to enter another closed off area. We quickly got the boot. Oops! Then we found a public restroom and all was well.
The beach was neat. There were some big waves, the water was clear and warm, the sand was nice, etc. We played around for a while and thoroughly wore ourselves out. Then it was back to ship via another cramped taxi ride. Ugh.
That evening was highlighted by another nice dinner, a comedian, and a sister-brother act. The sister-brother act was somewhat amusing because the brother juggled while the sister just stood there looking stupid. We weren’t quite sure why she was even there. Weird.
All in all it wasn’t a bad day. We got some sun, hit the beach, and ate a ton of food. I’d deem that a success.
Note: Pretend this is all in a really thick and barely intelligible Norwegian accent.
"Hello, dis iz your Captin zpeeking. Good morning. I am coming into your rooms to tell you that we have some inclement weather ahead of us. There is some weather that is not good, and it is not as good as expected. For this reason I have had to cancel the island. We will not be going to the island today because there is some bad weather. We will continue on to Nassau early because I have canceled the island. The bad weather is too choppy for the boats so I must cancel the island….”
Continues, repeating the same thing for about 5 minutes….
“So in review, I have canceled the island….”
5 more minutes….
“Just to review, I have….”
Oh, dear Lord….
“Okay, I’m sorry to have woken you. I just had to cancel the island because of the bad weather that is not good and ….”
Ahhhhhhhhh!!!
And finally, silence.
After our 20 minute update on the weather we found out that we weren’t going to Cococay that day. Instead, we would continue on to Nassau and try to catch Cococay on the way back. Apparently the weather was too choppy for the smaller boats to ferry us to and from the island. However, in Nassau we would be docked and the weather wouldn’t matter. No big deal.
After a tasty breakfast and a tasty lunch just an hour later we arrived in Nassau. We decided to explore the island a bit that day. We got off the boat and took a taxi jam-packed with people to Paradise Island. Paradise Island is the nicest part of Nassau. A single guy (with apparently too much money) owns the entire island. The highlight is Atlantis, and absolutely gigantic hotel & casino. They have a casino, lots of pools and beaches, walk-through aquariums, etc. It was neat to see.
After winding our way through Atlantis we decided to go down to the beach. We couldn’t go through the gigantic pool area of Atlantis because we weren’t guests, so we had to walk half a mile around the complex to the public access area. We then had to find a place to change into our bathing suits. Our first attempt at that was unsuccessful because we tried to enter another closed off area. We quickly got the boot. Oops! Then we found a public restroom and all was well.
The beach was neat. There were some big waves, the water was clear and warm, the sand was nice, etc. We played around for a while and thoroughly wore ourselves out. Then it was back to ship via another cramped taxi ride. Ugh.
That evening was highlighted by another nice dinner, a comedian, and a sister-brother act. The sister-brother act was somewhat amusing because the brother juggled while the sister just stood there looking stupid. We weren’t quite sure why she was even there. Weird.
All in all it wasn’t a bad day. We got some sun, hit the beach, and ate a ton of food. I’d deem that a success.
Day 1 - We're Off
The second day of our vacation started with a not-so-inspiring four hour drive down to the Cocoa Beach area. The drive was more of the same, lots of road and very little scenery. Fortunatley, it didn't seem to take long until we arrived at the port and saw our boat.
The boat was huge! We parked the car ($40) and proceeded to the passenger area. After what can only be called the most ridiculous "security screening" ever, we got through to the ticketing area. I find it amusing that the security for a giant ship with 3000 people on it is less than the security for a plane with a couple hundred. Oh well.
We were greeted at the front desk by a line of probably 300-400 people. Ugh. Luckily, the line went extremely fast and we only had to wait about 15 minutes to get on the boat. After that it was smooth sailing (pun intended).
We went right to our room to drop off our stuff. I realize now that I forgot to take a picture of the room, but suffice it to say that it was small. It was livable though. We had a little closet, a small desk, some shelving, and a bathroom. The only other thing that fit in the room was the bed. I'd say the entire room was probably 8' by 14'. It was nice enough though, especially for the price we paid.
The funniest thing about the room was that there were two extra beds that folded down from the wall. As if cramming two people into that space wasn't enough! I guess those extra tickets are pretty cheap though, so if you and your friends are trying to save money then it would be nice.
The first thing we did after that was get some food. We had thought we could eat when we got off the freeway, but their wasn't anything before we got to the ship. I'm glad we didn't eat, because they had quite the buffet set out for us. There was a ton of food and it was all quite good. This would become a nice little trend over the length of the cruise, lot's of pretty good food.
The rest of the day was spent exploring the ship, watching us leave port, reading by the pool, etc. We went to dinner and met the people at our table. There were two other couples, a young couple of Georgia (accent included) and a middle-aged couple from Pittsburg. They were all very nice and fun to have dinner with.
Day 1 ended with us going to bed excited about the island excursion the next day. Cococay here we come...
The boat was huge! We parked the car ($40) and proceeded to the passenger area. After what can only be called the most ridiculous "security screening" ever, we got through to the ticketing area. I find it amusing that the security for a giant ship with 3000 people on it is less than the security for a plane with a couple hundred. Oh well.
We were greeted at the front desk by a line of probably 300-400 people. Ugh. Luckily, the line went extremely fast and we only had to wait about 15 minutes to get on the boat. After that it was smooth sailing (pun intended).
We went right to our room to drop off our stuff. I realize now that I forgot to take a picture of the room, but suffice it to say that it was small. It was livable though. We had a little closet, a small desk, some shelving, and a bathroom. The only other thing that fit in the room was the bed. I'd say the entire room was probably 8' by 14'. It was nice enough though, especially for the price we paid.
The funniest thing about the room was that there were two extra beds that folded down from the wall. As if cramming two people into that space wasn't enough! I guess those extra tickets are pretty cheap though, so if you and your friends are trying to save money then it would be nice.
The first thing we did after that was get some food. We had thought we could eat when we got off the freeway, but their wasn't anything before we got to the ship. I'm glad we didn't eat, because they had quite the buffet set out for us. There was a ton of food and it was all quite good. This would become a nice little trend over the length of the cruise, lot's of pretty good food.
The rest of the day was spent exploring the ship, watching us leave port, reading by the pool, etc. We went to dinner and met the people at our table. There were two other couples, a young couple of Georgia (accent included) and a middle-aged couple from Pittsburg. They were all very nice and fun to have dinner with.
Day 1 ended with us going to bed excited about the island excursion the next day. Cococay here we come...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
