plate? more like platter...

The Biggest Loser trainers would have a coronary just stepping onto this ship. I'm not kidding. I'm pretty sure they'd burn the buffet AND the five dining rooms and tell us all to jump overboard and spear fish for our dinner or we wouldn't be allowed back onboard... and then the evil trainer lady would flaunt her perfect abs in HER swimsuit and we WOULD spear something. Mutiny. That's all I'm sayin.

Anyways... were starving. It was like 2pm and we were ready for some grub. Little did I know that’d be the last time I felt hunger pangs for a week… HOLY CRAP.

The food lines here go really fast, but it’s just because you grab a little bit of everything -even if you think you wont like it- just because you can. When I got in line I grabbed a plate for the buffet and someone, Joy or Danel, said “that’s not a plate” and I looked around and realized I’d grabbed the dessert (normal dinner sized plate) and everyone else had what looked like PLATTERS for their food. I shrugged and grabbed a platter and jumped in line.

So much food… too small of a stomach.

Faith and Danel insisted on taking a tour of the boat, so we did. Ironically, we took a tour of the spa (and Gym facilities) after lunch. The gym instructor, who looked like a younger, tanner, Jean Claude Vandamm (with bad highlights), told us the average person gains 7-14 lbs on a cruise and we girls looked at each other and moved on. Poor highlighted, buff, food nazi dude… but he wasn’t about to guilt us into visiting the gym. No siree.

Throughout the rest of the tour we’d look up and see a notification for “Deck 5” about the time Faith would say “now we’re on Deck 5” and this happened with every area, deck, club, bar or restaurant we came to. She was so excited I didn’t have the heart to shut her up. I’m just surprised Danel let her lead the way. Sometimes being around these two administrators is like having ropes on each of your arms and being in the middle of a tug of war towards one woman‘s intuition or the other‘s. Ha!

The Sailaway party as we left the LA Port was so much fun. Jamaican music and not-yet-sunscorched people all getting trashed on margaritas and dancing with strangers. They just enjoyed alot of laughing, drinking and hooking up... and all in the first couple hours onboard. Partaaaay. Oh boy...

Faith and I and Joy joined the conga line and danced for a bit and then we left to go get changed for dinner.

My first experience at the served dinner was awesome. Napkin in my lap, waiters named Dennis and Edgardo at our service, and the Princess treatment was served up in style. Danel explained that there were no rules when it came to dinner, so we ordered whatever and however much we wanted of EVERYTHING! We can watch the water out the dining room windows and it’s so surreal to enjoy a great meal while watching the world float by.

We four ladies have our very own table. It is pretty stinkin great, and we laugh when we see awkward conversations happening -or trying to happen- at tables nearby. Our waiters obviously love us too, because they are extremely attentive. Danel loves watching everyone react to Faith and I and Joy… like bears to honey. I guess the old addige is true: “Nothing promotes speculation more than the sight of a woman enjoying herself”… and there are four of us! Lucky.

Danel likes to point out that we always seem to have more than our fair share of waiters around our table, and at least once every night, one of them gets in trouble for neglecting another table - and sometimes in a different section of the dining room. The other night we had four around us… all of them trying to stump Joy on a joke or trick of some kind.

We went to the welcome aboard show with dancing and singing after dinner and Danel almost tripped and tanked it down the theater stairs. We can tell we’ll have to watch her close and make sure she doesn’t fall over some railings or something. She can barely stay upright on solid ground, let alone a rocking cruise ship. We have a battle plan… Faith on the right arm, Joy on the left, and me behind her… at all times.

Oh... and by the way, her balance problems onboard are caused by wearing shoes like this...

We should just LET her fall. Sometimes children need to learn lessons the hard way. ;o)

to LAX or bust!

Leaving Reno is always so fun and exciting… especially if you know you’re about to experience something like Faith and I getting to go on our first cruise. AAAAAH!! So freakin cool.


We got to the airport and my bags were overweight. Holy crap… I went to Africa and didn’t have overweight bags, but apparently I overpack when going on a cruise. Whatever. Faith helped me reorganize (that’s why I go places with her) and we checked in our bags.

Danel was late -or on time, depending on how early we debate people are supposed to arrive before flights- so when she came, we’d had a few minutes to sit by ourselves and that’s never good. Idle time and impatient adventurers makes for a lot of giggling and stupid jokes, but it was fun times.

Speaking of idle time... Joy and I nearly shot Faith. She was so excited that she couldn’t stay quiet… we listened to her nonstop commentary on half of a Vogue magazine before Danel arrived. Faith would say things like “omigosh this girl looks so beautiful” regarding some nutritionally deprived teenager who looked like you could snap her in half like a breadstick -something she obviously has never had the privilege of eating- and Joy would gasp with laughter as I looked at the picture in question and say “she just looks hungry to me”.

So… this is the way our hour or so of waiting for the plane to depart went. It was even funnier to have Danel along as she provided new entertainment for us as well. Purchasing $16 worth of snacks and diet soda from airport gift shops before ever leaving was pretty darn awesome to watch. I was sure she’d leave with the whole store, but alas she knew even if her pockets were deep, her bladder wasn’t. Sorry, Danel.

Our plane was so small it was like “Rescuers Down Under” sized. Flying on the wing of a seagull small… in comparison to normal jets, I guess. We walked down the airport ramp onto the ptarmack and then up into the plane via little stairs. Thank you Horizon Air for making me feel like a princess embarking on my own private jet… and thank you flight attendant for reminding upon my entry to the tiny cabin where you were stooping over to greet me, that that’s just not my reality. We got onboard and a large and loudly unpleasant man was yelling at the stewardess that his air conditioning was broken. She did her best to fix his problem as Danel and Faith and Joy and I found our assigned seats.

Faith and Joy found their seats, but a man was sitting in one of theirs and was obviously confused with assigned seats. Faith clued him in and he gave a very heartfelt apology in an AUSTRALIAN ACCENT and went to the front of the plane to find his seats, where those people warmly welcomed he and his beautiful accent. I glared at Faith as his hearty happy laughter in the front of the plane was drowned out by Mr. Loud and Obnoxious sitting behind us. Faith is so dense sometimes… ;o)

The stewardess informed us that there was only one bathroom on board - all the way in front, second door on the right - SECOND door on the right, she repeated. I wondered why and then realized the THIRD door on the right was the Captain’s deck and imagined that Horizon Air probably has a lot more fake terrorist scares than larger airlines since the bathroom door looks very similar to the Captain’s deck one. Can you imagine Mr. Loud and Obnoxious getting taken out by the three stewardesses as he starts banging on the Captain’s deck door thinking it was the bathroom? Good grief. Our biggest worry was Joy making it through the flight but she did great under the influence of two Dramamine tablets. She was a bit out of it the whole day after that though.

Danel was laughing pretty much nonstop as I was making friends with everyone on the plane that we met (except Mr. Loud and Obnoxious), so imagine her delight when my next friend became Mr. Matrix in front of me. He was a good natured man with sunglasses that made him look like he was Morpheus from the Matrix. It was awesome! When our flight was over and I had Faith snap a picture of Danel and I, he randomly stuck his head in our picture and thus began my random adventures with strange men.

We arrived in LA after what seemed like the shortest flight ever (maybe when you‘re that small, you get shorter faster routes since all the cool kids are flying in their 747s up higher). I asked the stewardess for permission to disembark after everyone else so that I could take a picture exiting the plane. She laughed and agreed, so I have pictures to prove my desired reality of a Princess lifestyle on the steps of “my“ airplane. Mr. Matrix laughed and watched our photo session long after his luggage was ready for him and Danel got a kick out of that.

As we got our luggage and hoofed it across half of LAX to where we could catch a taxi to the Pier we needed to be at, Danel said in a shocked voice “I don’t think I can remember the last time I carried my own luggage.” We realized the same was true for all of us and we’re happy to acknowledge that whenever we’re around the men in our lives we ARE Princesses. We don’t need no stinking cruise! ;o)

Aaaaand then we got the ship.

Now… when Faith giggles, it’s usually stop and go… like a chipmunk with hiccups… but this time I thought there was something medically wrong with our chipmunk. I don’t think she stopped giggling for the entire half hour that we checked in, took a picture, crossed the boat ramp and entered the boat. It went like this
“maam, this is your room key”
“hehehe. Thank you”.
“maam, let me take your luggage from you”
“hehehehehe. I’M GOING ON A CRUISE!!!”
“yes maam, you are. Will you need me to show you to your room?”
“no. hehehe. I’m going to FIND IT MYSELF. It’s an adventure!! Heehee”

… and so on and so forth. Omigosh. I hadn’t ever been on a cruise either, but going with her made the experience oh so much more exciting. Her smile was blinding, people.

We had arrived on the cruise ship, and no one even needed to ask if we’d ever been on a cruise ship before. Faith’s giggle alone was the answer to that question.