Cruise: Day at Sea #1

Sunday, February 19th we woke up after a great night of sleep.  I think it must have been the terrible/lack of sleep in Denver and walking all around New York :)  We enjoyed a decent continental breakfast (love when hotels have make your own waffles) and then headed back to our room.  

We watched Sister Act.  We laughed at the movie and how we just saw the billboard the night before in Times Square.  Marcel was sad we couldn't finish the whole movie but I was getting so antsy about leaving for the cruise.  

SO happy to have such a great vacation ahead of us!

We paid for subway tickets at a new stop this morning.  After waiting for a few minutes and still unsure about which track we needed, we asked someone.  He told us that that location was under construction and trains didn't stop there for the direction we needed.  He showed us how to go the wrong direction for a few stops and then switch and head in the right direction.  We decided to forgo our $5 and just walk to our "normal" stop and do it how we knew to do it, which we should have done in the first place.  The worst part was lugging our suitcases back up the stairs.

After the subway ride and a long walk, we made it to the pier! We were greeted with this beauty ;)  Getting through security went very smoothly and we were on the boat!

We dropped off our carry-on luggage to one of the lounges and headed to The Garden Buffet for our first on-board meal.

After lunch, we toured the ship

Love this sign on the clock, but we found that it did matter, because there were activities we didn't want to miss!

We decided our money was best spent on an inside cabin.

Less money on room = more money for excursions

Standing at the door,

the bathroom was on the left

We had to go to a mandatory safety meeting.  I played on my phone one last time before turning it off for the whole week.  We gathered in our assigned meeting place and watched a staff member put on their life jacket and then we were free to go!

After the safety meeting, we went to the very front of the ship and claimed a front row cushion to see everything as we were leaving. 

Docked:

Now we're moving :)

Our front row seats were great for pictures:

We had to wait quite awhile until we could take this picture.  Turns out our cruise was the week of President's Day and in NYC that equates to a week off from school.  There were 1000 kids on board and many of them had to cut in front of us to see better.

We headed to dinner at  _____ and started the "MaryBeth is going to try new things" experiment.

Marcel had a salmon tartare,

while I started with a caesar salad.

Then we both had meat (I don't recall what Marcel's was)

and I tried my first new thing: steamed broccoli and chimichurri sauce on my steak.  My notes from the trip remind me that I also tried honeydew and pineapple!
No one ever said I was going to be trying crazy, exotic foods, just new-to-me foods; all the foods I've always just assumed I didn't like  

We had fun in the Spinnaker Lounge watching Battle of the Sexes Game Show

and then went to the "Welcome Aboard" show in the theater where we were greeted by these lovely characters.  Good thing those 1000 kids had entertainment ;)

Not pictured:

*Our room steward asked Marcel if he was an American police.  Don't know why, but we got a good laugh from it.