There was a girl who loved a boy. She married the boy. They went on a honeymoon cruise. Intimacy developed, experiences were had, lessons were learned, marine life was kissed. Imported beers were suddenly domestic and were imbibed in their homelands. Mojitos and mai tais were consumed. Water was clear and blue and beautiful. It was mostly awesome.
The Drive Down
We got off to a rocky start, both of us being cranky and sleep-deprived and slightly hung over from the party the night before, rushed and stressed because we ended up being too tired to pack after the party and had to throw it all together in the morning. But the weather was beautiful, traffic flowed smoothly, and as we got underway it began to sink in where we were going and why. Matt put in his driving tunes, took hold of my hand, and we mellowed out and enjoyed the drive.
About six hours later, on the other side of Dallas, we stopped for the night in a little town called Corsicana. This is where we discovered that we forgot our garment bag.
Yeah.
The party dresses and bathing suits I'd spent hours shopping for especially for the cruise, Matt's shirts that he didn't want to get wrinkled, all of my lingerie and underwear... all back in Oklahoma hanging on the back of the closet door. It was too late in the evening for my mom to overnight it to us.
In circumstances such as these, thank God for credit cards.
The next day, a complimentary breakfast and a sense of resignation that all we could do was shop boosted our spirits as we set out for Galveston. We started out a lot closer to that city than we'd originally thought, so we arrived with plenty of time to hit the stores before we had to check in at the pier. And here's something I never thought I'd say: Wal-Mart had a much, much cuter selection of clothes than Target. We hit the latter first, where Matt replaced all of his shirts and I managed to piece a couple of bathing suits together out of bottoms from the clearance rack and workout tops that gave me the coverage and support I needed. Then I lucked out at Wal-Mart and found a cute black wrap dress that could serve as a cocktail dress. Once I'd replaced all my underwear, we were off to the pier.
The Ship
We could see our ship, the Rhapsody of the Seas, as we approached our parking lot. It was big and shiny. From the parking lot they shuttled us and our luggage over to the pier, where we checked our bags, showed our passports, received our oh-so-important Sea Pass cards (these would serve as our tickets, our ID, and our on-board currency for the entire week), got our picture taken for security, got another one taken that they would try to sell to us later, and finally got herded onto the ship.
First things first: find our stateroom. That didn't take long, and as worn out as I already was, with a big, inviting bed and nothing to see outside our window but oil derricks and refineries, I plopped myself down for a rest. I didn't intend to nap, but let me tell you something about those beds. They're not really that comfortable, in and of themselves. The mattresses are thin and hard, and so are the pillows. But when you lie down you feel the vibration of the ship's engines, like a subtle Magic Fingers, no quarters required. And then there's the rocking, and once you lie down you just don't want to get up again. So when Matt insisted on going to explore the ship, I waved him off and told him I was just fine where I was, thanks, but to have fun. But then once the ship started pulling out of port, I felt bad for not sharing that moment with him, so I got up to go find him.
That's when I got a sense of how big the ship truly was. He'd only been gone for about fifteen minutes, but it only took me a few minutes more to figure out that finding him wouldn't be easy. Walking the lower deck, I saw dolphins at the front of the ship, racing along beside us. Neat. After my search turned up a duty-free mall, a Ben & Jerry's/Seattle's Best Coffee shop, a photography studio, a casino and two bars, I finally ran into a very excited Matt, who led me around to show me all of the things he'd discovered. Namely, the party deck, which held another bar, two swimming pools, a cafeteria, and a snack bar that constantly served up pizza, hamburgers and hot dogs. Then together we found yet another bar, a spa, a gym, and a rock wall that Matt wasn't allowed to even attempt to climb because of his leg. So we staked out a spot on the front deck to watch the Gulf go by and marvel at how much bluer the water had already become once we left the harbor. Then we found a spot to snuggle in one of the indoor bars and ordered up our first mojitos--we found we really like mojitos--and then we made our way to the formal dining room for dinner, where we were seated with another couple from Tulsa, which gave us plenty to talk about, and where the food just kept coming. Finally, worn out and stuffed, we made our way back to our stateroom and fell into bed, where we both got the best night's sleep that either of us had had in weeks.
Heaven.
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