Eric Holen

Earlier this month, Yvette treated me and herself to a 4-day cruise aboard the Carnival Ecstasy for my 40th birthday. Like last year, Yvette let me decide what I wanted to do and I chose the cruise to celebrate. This was our sixth cruise, our fourth time traveling to Cozumel, our third time departing from Galveston, our second 4-day cruise, and our first cruise in December. Except for the weather, I could not have been happier with the cruise.

I brought the idea up the idea of a cruise to Yvette in August and when we found a deal for $269 per person, she was sold. It had been almost 20 months since our previous cruise. I was little nervous about it only being a 4-day cruise, given that our last four cruises had been 7-day affairs. While I won’t give up the longer cruises, one of the great things that Yvette and I agreed about with the shorter cruise is that there was a lot less stress from planning and packing, giving us more time to enjoy ourselves.

The cruise departed on a Thursday. That morning, Yvette and I tucked the “kids” into their cages and drove to Galveston. The drive wasn’t bad, but we had a late start because we were so relaxed. We still made it to Galveston with plenty of time to spare. It was cold that day and we were bundled up in our coats. Yvette made a comment about whether I thought Carnival would have any Christmas directions, which I thought was funny. Since this was our sixth cruise, we received our gold Sail & Sign cards which serve as our access to the ship, onboard charge card, and room key. When we reach our 10th cruise, we’ll graduate to platinum cards. Carnival was taking the H1N1 virus seriously and had short questionnaires for guests to fill out before they boarded. We probably spent an hour working our way through the security checkpoint, registration and on to the ship, but its part of the fun and it only builds the anticipation.

We got on the ship and immediately admired the Christmas decorations in the main lobby. Then we headed off to our room to drop our stuff before exploring. The ship had gone through a refit within the last several months and we were very pleased with how she looked. While the bathroom wasn’t as big as what we had on the Carnival Conquest, they added lighting which opened it up. The room had a flat panel television while the bed had a thick comforter that felt so soft. We couldn’t unpack any luggage because it had not arrived so, after admiring the room, we headed off to explore the ship.

While the ship has the same over design as Carnival’s other Fantasy-class ships, it’s still fun to explore its differences. With the recent refit of the ship, Carnival added large fake palm trees on the Lido deck, giant water slides on the back of the ship, an adult’s only quiet area with a hot tub, and a 9-hole miniature golf course. Yvette and I agreed that the ship looked great.

On the first day, even before the ship leaves port, we had been required to participate in a life boat drill. Each cruise we would take pictures of ourselves in our life jackets during the drill. However, Carnival has replaced the life boat drill with a safety briefing that did not require us to bring our life jackets to our muster station. After the drill, Yvette headed back to the cabin to wait for the luggage and unpack while I continued exploring and taking pictures.

One of the surprises on any cruise is who your dinner mates will be. On this cruise, we ate dinner with Mark, Joey his partner, Nancy who is Mark’s employee, and Lisa who is Nancy’s daughter. This was their first cruise. Nancy was going for her birthday and had brought along her daughter. Mark was going just because Nancy went, and he brought along Joey. This was the best group of dinner mates that Yvette and I have had on any of our previous cruises. We had lots of conversation and laughter each night. It was also the first cruise where we hung out with our dinner mates outside of the dining room.

On our first day at sea, Yvette and I signed up for a spinning class. Our hope was that the physical activity would help offset the good food and drink. I unfortunately had a collision with the bike when my foot flew out of the pedal, which came around and then gouged me in the shin. I finished the class while watching the blood run down my leg into my sneaker. I was able to wash my sneaker in the room and Yvette, who had packed a first aid kit, bandaged me up.

With the cold weather, Yvette and I did not sit out on deck. Instead, we spent time playing in the Casino, shopping, playing games with each other and reading.

Our arrival in Cozumel was uneventful and since we were doing this trip on the “cheap”, we skipped the shore excursions and opted for shopping. Cozumel is one of our favorite destinations. While we were shopping, a storm rolled through so we stopped and ate lunch in port. With shopping complete, we headed back to the ship. The ship’s departure was delayed for almost 30 minutes while waiting for a family of 5 to return. That evening, we and several others, commandeered one of the bars in the back of the ship and watched the Florida/Alabama and then the Texas/Nebraska football games on large flat-screen televisions. The crowd kept growing and getting louder throughout the games, but we all had a great time. In addition, Mark, Nancy and Lisa joined us to watch the Texas game.

Later that evening, I played a round of laser tag in a large inflatable arena. Out of the five of us who played, I came in second behind a teenage girl.

It was warmer on our second day at sea, and people were lying out by the pools. Yvette and I headed up to play some serious rounds of miniature golf. It was close, but in the end I managed to beat Yvette.

While Yvette and told me that we weren’t going to take any formal portraits on my birthday cruise, which lasted all of a couple minutes. We ended up taking lots of pictures and walked away with a couple or poses that we really liked. The only formal portraits that Yvette and I have of us were taken on cruise ships. This was also the first cruise were we bought the picture that they took of us getting off of the ship in port. Yvette said we looked good in it.

Unfortunately, the cruise had to come to an end; however, we were in for a surprise. I really enjoy watching operational stuff, so I got up early on our last day to watch us arrive in port. However, when I got to the front of the ship, I noticed we were in thick fog and moving very slowly. Later, the cruise director would announce that the Port of Galveston was closed until later that morning. We ended up arriving at the dock just before 1:00 PM, which after getting approval to leave the ship, getting our baggage, and clearing Customs, put us back into Austin at 8:30 PM.

Even with the weather, Yvette and I had a great time and would do a 4-day cruise again, just not in December.