After a long night of packing and deciding if I would need jackets and jeans or shorts and tank tops, I was ready to board the Carnival Fantasy for a 7 day cruise that we took during January 2010. The only thing I was not ready for was the long 13 hour drive down to Mobile, Alabama.
We arrived at the hotel for a long nights rest before we had to go through the process of getting on board. We boarded the shuttle bus that took us to the cruise terminal and after about 2 hours of security, checking in, and unloading our luggage, we were on board enjoying a nice lunch of hamburgers, fries, pizza, and anything else we could imagine. After every one had boarded, we had to go through the mandatory safety briefing and then we were leaving port.
The first night on this cruise was not much different than any other first nights on the last two cruises I had taken. I did not know anyone so I hung out with my family, nothing was open so I could not go shop, mostly just sat and waited for dinner. After dinner was Club O2 sign up, the teen group on board, and an hour later was meeting everyone in Club O2, but no one had showed up for the first night.
Once everyone met we clicked. Everyone knew each other and everyone liked each other. I’m still in contact with half the people from this cruise. I spent most my time hanging out with them. We would stay up until 2-3 in the morning just talking and discussing what we did at excursions at the different ports.
My favorite port is Cozumel, but after visiting it two or three times you feel like you have seen all of Cozumel and that there is not anything else to do. On this cruise, we had a dolphin excursion with Dolphin Discovery at Cozumel. I had always wanted to swim with the dolphins because they are nice and gentle animals. After being instructed the different hand signals that we would have to do for the dolphin to kiss us, to fold it, to shake hands, and to push us, we were allowed to go swim with the dolphin. Swimming with the dolphin was one of the best shore excursions I have done. My only regret is that it did not last longer.
The last sea day, the saddest day, the one that I said my good byes to new friends and pack my things. No one wanted to leave, but we knew we could not stay on the cruise ship forever. We said our final good byes and went back to our staterooms. When we woke up we expected to be in port and to be getting ready to get off the ship, but when we looked out the window we were still out at sea. Soon after waking up the captain come on informing us that the seas were to rough to attempt to go through the canal to the port and that there was also too much fog. After sitting on board for about 12 hours with nothing to do, we were allowed to get off the ship. While getting off board, I wore my sombrero that I got in Cozumel, to show I had a good time.
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