Upon arrival at the docks, I was struck by the size of the ship. I knew cruise ships were big, but I had no idea just how huge! It’s like a floating city. The ship had 11 restaurants, numerous bars, a casino, an 1,100 seat theatre, a cinema, and so much more. While waiting in line to board the ship, Rosie and her family arrived. Even though I worked for her show for a year, it is still surreal to actually see her in person. I become such a geeked out fan. Ugh. It was the first of many Rosie encounters. Once onboard we found some food and began exploring the ship. Again…I was blown away by the size of it. There were 2,200 passengers and over 1,000 crew members. Even though there were so many people on board, you never felt cramped or claustrophobic. It was pretty easy to find yourself some space to be by yourself and enjoy the quiet.
First up was the mandatory emergency evacuation drill. This basically ended up being nothing more than everyone standing around the promenade with our life jackets on looking at the life boats. Now having seen both “Titanic” and “Poseidon” and personally living through a canoe incident, I was already very knowledgeable about surviving a crisis at sea. If we crash into something I need to float on a wooden door until rescued or if the ship is overturned by a giant wave I need to escape through the propeller chamber. I personally found the drill to be unnecessary. But, I went anyways since I am a team player.
Once we set sail there was a huge Bon Voyage Party. It was pretty surreal to be sailing down the Hudson River with NYC as the skyline on a cruise ship. At the party Tyler and I ran into Esera Tualo. Back in October we had gone to the Cyndi Lauper concert and Esera was a special guest. He has a great singing voice and had sang “No Woman, No Cry” with Cyndi at the concert. We spoke briefly about the concert and then returned to the party. After eating about 10 times (the food onboard is never ending. Literally. You can eat as much as you want, whenever you want.) “Rosie’s Broadway Belters Show” was the main entertainment show of the night. There was a huge opening production number and the crowd went crazy when Rosie appeared on stage. For a joke Rosie had a giant picture of Elisabeth Hasselbeck that was scribbled on to make her look like the devil. It was hysterical. The picture would later surface in UsWeekly with an inaccurate account of what happened. Ahh the spin in the press. The show was amazing. Rosie returned to stand up comedy and had the audience eating out of the palm of her hand. Hysterical. Some of Broadway’s best performers sang songs from musical theatre and Andrea McArdle (Broadway’s original Annie) brought down the house with a song from “Les Miz” (she was saving the “Annie” songs for “Annie the Concert” on Friday). I went to “Rosie’s Broadway Belter’s Show” twice. I am a huge nerd for stuff like that.
Now everyone had been warning me about motion sickness. I had envisioned the ship to be rocking like crazy with crap sliding all over the place. That was so NOT the case at all. I didn’t really notice the ship rocking much and had no problems. Tyler on the other hand was pretty much a giant wimp about it. He was popping Dramamine like they were Skittles. I figured we would have to put him in rehab by time we reached Port Canaveral.
After a full day of food, shows, food, hanging out, and food it was time to crash for the night. I was dead beat tired.
First up was the mandatory emergency evacuation drill. This basically ended up being nothing more than everyone standing around the promenade with our life jackets on looking at the life boats. Now having seen both “Titanic” and “Poseidon” and personally living through a canoe incident, I was already very knowledgeable about surviving a crisis at sea. If we crash into something I need to float on a wooden door until rescued or if the ship is overturned by a giant wave I need to escape through the propeller chamber. I personally found the drill to be unnecessary. But, I went anyways since I am a team player.
Once we set sail there was a huge Bon Voyage Party. It was pretty surreal to be sailing down the Hudson River with NYC as the skyline on a cruise ship. At the party Tyler and I ran into Esera Tualo. Back in October we had gone to the Cyndi Lauper concert and Esera was a special guest. He has a great singing voice and had sang “No Woman, No Cry” with Cyndi at the concert. We spoke briefly about the concert and then returned to the party. After eating about 10 times (the food onboard is never ending. Literally. You can eat as much as you want, whenever you want.) “Rosie’s Broadway Belters Show” was the main entertainment show of the night. There was a huge opening production number and the crowd went crazy when Rosie appeared on stage. For a joke Rosie had a giant picture of Elisabeth Hasselbeck that was scribbled on to make her look like the devil. It was hysterical. The picture would later surface in UsWeekly with an inaccurate account of what happened. Ahh the spin in the press. The show was amazing. Rosie returned to stand up comedy and had the audience eating out of the palm of her hand. Hysterical. Some of Broadway’s best performers sang songs from musical theatre and Andrea McArdle (Broadway’s original Annie) brought down the house with a song from “Les Miz” (she was saving the “Annie” songs for “Annie the Concert” on Friday). I went to “Rosie’s Broadway Belter’s Show” twice. I am a huge nerd for stuff like that.
Now everyone had been warning me about motion sickness. I had envisioned the ship to be rocking like crazy with crap sliding all over the place. That was so NOT the case at all. I didn’t really notice the ship rocking much and had no problems. Tyler on the other hand was pretty much a giant wimp about it. He was popping Dramamine like they were Skittles. I figured we would have to put him in rehab by time we reached Port Canaveral.
After a full day of food, shows, food, hanging out, and food it was time to crash for the night. I was dead beat tired.
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