(insert montage...like a dream sequence with blurry edges. Fade to a vision of Mush walking through a library and coming across this blog, only it is in the form of an old book instead of an electronic journal. He grabs hold of the blogbook and wipes off the cover; in the process, his allergies kick in, and he is seized by a sneezing fit....)
Hi Folks! It has been a VERY long time since I last updated this blog. Surprisingly, I’ve recently had several people ask about the end of this cruise, even though it is over 4 years old. Who am I to disappoint my fan base of probably about 12 people? I’ll warn you though…there’s a reason for not posting it…it was a boring day for me, which likely means that it will be a REALLY boring read for you. As you read it, I think you'll understand why the report really never got finished up.
For those who may need a refresher, you might want to check out the previous several days' worth of posts. Trip Report Index is the place you'll want to go to if you want to do that.
Sooooooo, without further ado, here is the conclusion to Escaping Insanity.
(For those keeping track, this is late June of 2017)
I think I
woke up, though I’m honestly not entire sure – all I knew was that my mind and body
decided to take a vacation day from our vacation. We grabbed breakfast in Garden Café, where I
enjoyed a pretty good version of eggs Benedict.
We then headed back up to the room to chill for a while as we made our
way to Nassau. I hopped out on the balcony and could see Atlantis in the distance.
We had already decided that we were not going to be getting off the ship, so we headed down to the Atrium on Deck 6 and took part in a napkin folding demonstration…well…three of them did. I was content just to sit back and watch the molecules move around me.
Yeah, I was definitely a bit tired.
Once we were done with that, we wandered around the ship a little bit; eventually, we made out way up to Deck 8 outside and chilled for a while on the Waterfront. We enjoyed seeing the ships also in port with us, especially Disney Dream, the first ship that Sheri and I cruised on. With the comfy chairs out there, it was a struggle to keep focused. It was not long before I curled up and started snoring – I think Sheri was actually talking to me when I fell asleep. I vaguely remember someone saying that they were going to grab a bite to eat for a snack, and I told them I’d catch up with them later…..
.…
…..
…..
…..
About 15 minutes later (that's what I keep telling myself), I woke up and sat up for a bit to watch workers touching up some paint on the Dream.
Then I curled back up on those really comfortable sofas on the Waterfront.
….
….
….
After what
seemed like about 15 more minutes, I grabbed my phone and texted the rest of the
Mushfam to see where they were…and I noticed about 4 texts that I missed.
“You
coming?”
“At Atrium…eating…got
tired of waiting for you”
“In atrium
to watch a movie”
“You
alive???”
I was out
for over three hours on the Waterfront.
In my
periphery, I thought I saw someone shoo away a priest prepared to give me last
rites.
I sat up and
contemplated laying back down for a while, but I made my way to my feet. Once I realized that I hadn’t eaten for at
least six hours (a mortal sin on a cruise ship), I nearly panicked, but then I
realized that I wasn’t hungry. The boys
grabbed a game of air hockey and successfully played a match without killing
each other. We then noticed that there
was no line for the bowling alleys, so we played a game there. My high in actual bowling is 217 – I think I
might not have even broken 100 there.
After
bowling, we did a bit more exploring of the ship and found the game room and
the portrait studio. Then we went back
to the room, as we had an hour or so before our reservation at Teppanyaki.
As soon as we made it back to the stateroom, I was out for the count, and I woke up only after several attempts by everyone to again make sure I was breathing. In what had to look like a scene from Weekend at Bernie’s, I somehow found myself at Teppanyaki. We met a family from New York, and I did my best to carry on a conversation with them. I may also have told our chef that he kindly remove my face from the grill surface if I fell asleep during the meal. Normally, I absolutely LOVE teppan-style dining, and I could tell that both the food and the show put on by the chef was awesome; however, I barely ate 50% of my meal. For those who know me, this was an indication that Mush wasn’t quite right. I felt terrible wasting the food, but I was simply in “try to continue existing” mode. I wasn’t sick at all…just exhausted. It was a lesson that I had to learn on a cruise.
After eating, we moseyed to the aft of the ship to check out our photos and bought some to bring home...there were some really good ones:
I had grand plans for our last night – we were going to check out all the favorite places one more time, see our favorite crew members one more time, and enjoy the heck out of it!
Nope.
I told the others to go out and enjoy the last evening, but they opted to stay in the room, despite my protests. The evening was not a complete bust, though; we were graced with an amazing sunset:
For all I know, they could have
gone streaking on the pool deck…I wouldn’t have known any difference. I was down for the count yet again at around 8:30, and I slept through the night.
When I woke
up the next morning, I did a little math, and I found out that I had slept nearly
14 hours of the past 24. I readily
admitted that I felt a lot better on the day that we were getting off the
ship. Sheri and the boys had packed up
most everything the previous evening, which made the last couple of hours
onboard a lot easier, though I felt terrible for not helping at all. I think my feet may have supported a suitcase
that they threw on the bed; other than that, I did nothing.
Sunrise at Port Miami gave us another awesome sight:
We headed out and grabbed one last breakfast at Taste/Savor. We all were dreading the disembarkation and the flight back to reality, but I could tell that it was a very successful family vacation - and that the boys were definitely into cruising!
