Vacation 2014: If this boat's a rocking....

Giant waves, general queasiness, hangover.
Small, enclosed spaces = bad idea.
The waves are huge. The boat is rocking from front to back and side to side. It is like a ride at the state fair that lasts all day.
The waves occasionally wash across the portholes in the dining room.
Queasy continues.

Various sea-sick home remedies are being passed around the ship including:

• Don't eat anything.
• Keep a full stomach
• Get drunk
• Avoid alcohol
• Lie down
• Stand up and look into the distance

Whatever I did, it worked - still sea sick, vomit free for 51 years. Plus I got to ride in the netting at the front of the ship with a new fiend, Tom. Not my most flattering picture, but proof I did it, nonetheless.

Of course a general feeling of queasiness was not enough to keep us from dressing in our best sunburst colored costumes for a bit of dancing. We are civilized and on vacation after all.

Tastefully sunbursty

Dance of the flowers

The lovely and talented Miss Amy Armstrong

And, yes, they ran through the crowd in slow motion

YOLO - bitches!

Two Daze Lost at Sea

RSVP 2012: Hearts and Flowers Tea Dance

This year was my fourth year sailing with RSVP into the Caribbean. I remember how overwhelmed I was my first, or freshman year by all the people and how "into it" everyone was. So in my senior year, I knew what to expect and how to keep myself fed, watered, lotioned, and entertained while at sea the last two days of the cruise.

To be honest, I look forward to the days when the ship is not in port. This year the weather was great. The captain was traveling at a relatively slow pace during the day so that we were not being blown off the tanning decks. The skies were sunny and I had replenished my tanning lotion supply. All was good in vacation land.

Except of course that we still had three more costume parties to attend. So after a lovely afternoon erasing our tan lines on the 12th floor (iguana) deck, we all headed down for the afternoon tea dance. If you are not familiar with our culture, tea dance is simply an afternoon dance around tea time - usually between 4-7 PM. Kind of a party snack before dinner and the party entree later in the evening.

Friday's tea dance theme was Hearts and Flowers, which we all thought rather odd considering that Valentine's Day was on Tuesday, but nevertheless we dove right in and congregated in Jay and John's cabin to prepare. We went with a relatively simple Alice in Wonderland: Queen of Hearts theme. I only wish we could have found a nice pig to keep our feet warm. Hahaha.

The Queens of Heart: Jay, Frank, Glenn, Andre, and John

Those ladies are not very lady-like

How does one pack such huge hats?

With Lucy (Gert) and Ricky Ricardo

BOGO drink special - Figures by Budweiser

Love bugs!

Perfect Costumes for Tea

Good friends, good times, great party. After a quick dinner, I had a brief nap before the next party that started at 10:30 PM.  This one had a darker theme - more leather / uniform / fetish, hence the lack of pictures.

Our travel agency liquored us up in their suite before sending us upstairs to finish the evening off by dancing under the stars. Fortunately, we crossed back into the Eastern time zone overnight and got an extra hour of much needed sleep to see us into our last day on board the Nieuw Amsterdam.