Hey guys. So I mentioned in my last post that I was going on a cruise in the near future. Now that I'm back I figured it was time to share my experience and also this way I can just point people who ask, to this link so that I don't have to retell it 1000+ times. Anyway here goes...
The cruise was a 6 day 5 night excursion, from August 1st through 6th, on the Carnival Glory cruise liner from New York, NY to Saint John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia... basically Canada. Anyway the morning of the first I woke up at 5:30a on the 1st thinking that we would be heading out at 6 because dad was going on and on about not being late and i'm just punctual like that. Didn't end up leaving till like 8 so needless to say I was a little pissed about that, thank god my brother said he would drive though. Anyway we drive down most of the way, with my dad commenting and getting irritated at my brother's driving (he has a "lead foot" ) so I took over just before getting into the city. Then we had to deal with some morning traffic because, c'mon it's NYC. Anyway after all of that we finally got to the Port of NY and boarded the ship around 11-11:30.
After lunch we explored the ship a bit before finally setting sail around 5, it was misting outside but there were still a lot of people out on the deck watching as we sailed away from the port and got our last few glimpses of the city before heading out to open water. I got shots of the Empire State Building, the Freedom Tower, and the Statue of Liberty. That is the closest I have ever been to the statue actually. Most of the first day was then spent exploring the ship and finding out where everything was, attending the opening ceremony for the convention we were a part of, and then going to dinner. My sibs actually found 1 or 2 people they knew from school on the cruise as well and then from there we started meeting friends of friends and so on so by the end of the night there was a small group chilling out in the room my brother and I were sharing. We ended up going through 2 bottles of Jack that night just getting to know each other.
Day 2 was spent all day at sea and started off with breakfast with mom and dad. It was pretty foggy that morning and stayed that way all day.After breakfast we then went to a youth forum for the convention where we heard from Ambassador Sreenivasan and Mr. K.P. George (a politician). The ambassador talked about his career and what he was working on now with the development of education in India while Mr. George talked about how there were so many Malus in the states but none were taking an active role in careers outside of medicine and engineering and therefore keeping our exposure as a somewhat substantial part of the population relatively small. After that we just kind of did our own thing on the ship because the convention events weren't very exciting. Mostly ended up walking around enjoying all the great food, meeting people, playing some card games, and hitting up the Casino on deck 5 that night. Then it was back to the room with the new friends we made for another night of partying, We ended up polishing off a bottle of rum with more good conversation. Then we went to the 24hr pizzeria before calling it a night.
Day 3 was where we made our first stop at port in Saint John, New Brunswick. That day was very foggy as well. We had breakfast with mom and dad and then disembarked for the scheduled bus tour we had around the town. Honestly if you ever go to Saint John, it's ridiculously boring. There are some interesting historic facts but mostly it was a big port town with major shipments coming in and out back in the old days, and then there was a fire that burned a lot of the town down. Then they rebuilt and soldiered on. Other than that it was a sleepy little town and there really wasn't much interesting about it. Needless to say the bus tour kinda sucked so after that we just went straight back on to the boat instead of exploring the town. Later that day we went to another convention event which was basically a beauty pageant that ended up being very one sided because out of 8 or 10 contestants only 3 actually showed up. Not much of a pageant actually but at least it was short. Then we had dinner later and hit the casino up again. Pretty much did the casino thing every night we could actually. Didn't end up partying that night because we had another shore trip the next morning.
Day 4 was the first day we finally had some sun on the trip. That day we made our second stop at port in Halifax, Nova Scotia. From the boat the city looked a lot better than Saint John but of course we had another prepaid bus tour to go on. This time it was to Peggy's Cove where we would explore and go on a Whale Watching trip. When we got there though (which took 45 minutes btw) and got on the tour boat, we found out that the tour was actually only a boat tour and that there was only a chance we would see any whales because they sometimes follow fish into the cove. Needless to say the entire boat of brown ppl got pissed and started being extremely rude to these people when it was either the cruise line or the travel agents fault over the mix up. I had never felt so ashamed to be Malu until that day. We didn't see any whales btw only some lobsters and crab. The only thing I came back with from that trip was a headache from everybody being complete a$$****s. I got off the tour bus as soon as I could and my sibs and I walked along the boardwalk where apparently there was some kind of festival going on to celebrate the city's birthday. So there were all these buskers (street performers) around doing acts and asking for $$. Halifax seemed like a pretty chill city and it was too bad we went on the stupid tour and didn't have time to explore more. Went back to the ship for dinner again with friends and then the casino once again. After that was going back to the room again, this time for a bottle of Courvoisier, then the pizzeria before calling it a night.
Day 5 was our last full day on the cruise ship and a full day out at sea. The sun was out and there was much fun to be had. We all spent the day eating, walking around the ship, playing card games again, watching the carnival glory events like dancing on the deck. Then after all that I went to my room and packed up as tomorrow we would be leaving the ship early. After that I ended up not going to dinner as I just wasn't feeling it. Instead I went and got something small to eat and then hit up the casino because it would be the last time I could while we were still in international waters. After the casino I went back to the room to find that everyone had polished off a bottle of Old Fashioned by the makers of Jack. We then went and hit up White Heat, the 18+ club on the ship. At first we were wary because it looked pretty lame the other nights we passed by, especially with all the older creepy indian guys around there, but when we finally got in, the club was poppin'. When the party was over the after party was at the pizzeria and it was here that we all exchanged our numbers and made our final goodbyes because by then we had already docked in the Port of NY and disembarkation was at 8am.
Day 6 pretty much just us getting up and leaving the ship and then the long drive back home. But on the way we all kept getting texts from all the new friends we made. To Britzy, Sherin, Shawn, Tobin, Jason, Steven. Nithish, and Sarith you guys were what really made this cruise great for me. FOMAA 2012!! Get Hype!! Hopefully I'll see all of you at the next one in Philly.
Anyway that was pretty much the whole trip. Spent a minimal amount of time with my parents and I think they enjoyed that as much as my sibs and I did.
