Allen Family Vacation 09!

We are back from our cruise, attempting to get into the swing of things again. Knowing that we would get into town late Sunday night, I took off work on Monday knowing that I would want to do the laundry, clean the house, hit up the grocery store and watch the previous week's Bachelorette. Thankfully, I was able to complete all that and more! Here's a summary of our vacation ...Here we are waiting to board "The Freedom of the Seas". If anyone ever wants to take a cruise, I highly recommend getting to the port early b/c despite what information the cruise line gives you related to "boarding time", it is false. We were the first passengers to board the ship (@ 11:00am) and thus got almost an entire extra day to enjoy the ammenities on board!


I'll go ahead and give the background story on Grayson's pink arms in the previous photo. He got poison ivy the day before we left for our trip. Having never had poison ivy before or been around anyone who has had it, I was clueless as to the best way to help Grayson. We both were actually. He got a steroid shot before we left and we purchased the lovely calamine lotion (thus the pink/white lotion you'll see in the following pics) and thought that would be enough. Sadly, the poison ivy got worse and well, you'll see and learn as we progress!

Here we are on the deck about to head off into the ocean. We left from Port Canaveral and in the distance we were able to see where they launch space shuttles etc from the Kennedy Space Center. There was a shuttle on the deck and we were actually able to make out the outline from afar. It was very neat to see.

This boat was huge and had tons of things to do. One of which was a mini putt-putt course. Grayson and I played a round on the first day. It was really fun, albeit a little bit windy, but otherwise we had a blast playing each other. They also had a climbing wall, a Flow Rider and an ice skating rink ... so fun!

After dinner the first night, we all decided to hit up the bingo game. It wasn't your traditional paper and large marker stamp though. It was electronic bingo that required little to no effort on the part of those playing. In fact we set up a machine and it told us whether or not our 40 cards were winning. While we didn't technically win any money that night, I think we should have won an award for "Most Animated Bingo Players". We had a blast and met a really fun honeymooning couple.

A few of us decided we wanted to see more of what the ship had to offer so we headed off to the adult dance lounge called "The Crypt" (seen above). The strange decor in gargoyle & gothic tones should have been our first clue to not go there, but aiming to be "vacation rockstars" we went anyways. I ventured out on this excursion on my own because after a day in the hot sun Grayson was not feeling up to a night in a crowded, dance club (who could blame him?). Someone should have told us that being in the sun, sweating and putting rubbing alcohol on poison ivy are not the best steps to take toward a fast recovery. Oops!

Anyways, here we all are: Winston, his girlfriend Maddie, Natalee, Thurston, Mark (Madalyn's boyfriend), Madalyn and me. The place was not that busy when we arrived, but due to the large size of our group and the fun being had, the place soon became a great dance club. It was so fun that we began making requests to the DJ to play some great tunes.Here is proof of how much fun we were having! In fact, Thurston's request for the evening was "Pop - Lock - and Drop it". Ironically enough ...

That's was happened. While dancing the night away, Thurston's knee accidentally popped out of socket. Sadly, our fun dance party was forced to change venues from "The Crypt" to the onboard emergency room. We quicky made friends with the doctor and nursing staff. This made it much easier when later in the trip Grayson and I returned to get an IV and round of sterroids for the poison ivy. Needless to say, we literally were on a first name basis with the medical staff.

Don't let his frown fool you, he really was a fantastic sport!

Here we are on a formal night. We learned that another "no-no" when dealing with poison ivy is to wear lots of clothing over the irritated spots. This was one of the few nights that Grayson was able to wear a long sleeve shirt and slacks. The food in the dining room was delicious! We definitely enjoyed tasting new dishes throughout the week.

We very much enjoyed the shows on this cruise. In 2009 it won the award for "Best Entertainment" out of all cruise ship's world wide. We saw an illusionist, some acrobats, a few comedians, lots of broadway type shows and a few musicians. Thankfully it was cold in the theatre and so we were able to enjoy ourselves (meaning be itchfree) every night.

This is the beach we layed out at in St. Thomas. It was beautiful!

Fun self-take!

I was just glad that Grayson could make it to dinner. This was another fancy night and you'll notice that we were down to wearing an undershirt, khaki shorts, flip-flops and loads of calamine lotion. Grayson was such a great sport, he found numerous activities on board to keep him occupied. They included: eating, watching movies in the theatre, watching the ice skating performance, reading some magazines and eating some more. He said he had a blast!

Despite what may have seemed like a few snags, we had a great vacation. It's been difficult to get used to washing our own towels, cooking our own food, and not being waited on hand and foot, but I think with time we will re-adjust and get used to life again. In the meantime, I'm enjoying my new tan while we anxiously wait for G's poison ivy to settle down so he can get to feeling normal again.

Oh and in case anyone was wondering, Thurston got a full-on leg cast which he promptly had removed after finding a pharmacy in St. Maarten that sold knee braces. No word on what the diagnosis is, but he was a great sport as well.