Carnival Splendor, Day 4

Day 4

Well, I was right, the chair man decided that 5:30 is a perfect time to slide chairs across the floor.  

The Chairs that were my alarm clock

I woke up and headed to my spot right outside of the casino to write about yesterday.  It is actually nice at 6:30 because there is nobody around to interrupt your thought process, unlike now while I am writing this one (at 4:00pm), and of all places, I am right next to the kids’ hangout—the arcade and sushi bar.  Lots of kids are running around which is fine, they need a place to go too, right?  I was kind of limited as to where I could go, because there are about 6 plugs on the entire cruise ship, and I didn’t want to hang out in my room.

Today was actually a pretty fun day in the beautiful town of Cabo San Lucas.  Before heading out to Cabo, we went to work out for a little while at the Cloud 9 Spa.  Luckily there were not too many people there, I get very anxious and nervous when I am surrounded by a lot of people, especially at the gym.  I know that I look like I have a sexy body and am very tough and cut, but underneath my shirt, you will find nothing but a white little dough boy with a cute little (ok medium size) spare tire encircling my mid section—not too attractive.  Fortunately my wife thinks I’m sexy, at least she doesn’t say otherwise!  I decided to not show off my lifting capabilities and I just hopped on a treadmill for a nice little jog/walk.  It does feel like you can justify eating a couple more ice cream cones though when you exercise a little (I know it is just my stomach telling me those horribly incorrect falsehoods, but I can’t help it!  I’m addicted to cruise food!)

From the gym we headed down to breakfast where we met up with Gary and Becky.  Madison and Emma have been very wise and have ordered room service every morning, they are taking advantage of the rest and relax that one should do on a cruise.  We decided to head into Cabo at about 10:30.

When we arrived at Cabo San Lucas, we were instantly met by salesmen, very persistent salesmen, and they talked us into going on a 45 minute “tour” up to the arch, and they had a glass bottom boat, which was very homemade.  It was $6 per person, best $6 spent for a tour.  

We saw the arch, and a little rock that looks like an upside down version of Baja California.  We saw a couple of fish come to the bottom of the boat (no sharks unfortunately) to feed on the stringy nastiness on the bottom of the boat. 

Upon arriving back at the marina, we decided to head to La Hacienda which is a super nice hotel that Jim and Jennefer recommended we go and eat at.  Not a big deal except that as the crow flies the hotel was maybe a tenth of a mile, but as we cannot fly like a crow, we had to take the alternative walk like a human route.  That route took us all around the marina, which took about 2 to 2.5 miles.  It was hard because we could see the hotel the entire walk and it was literally right there the whole time.  Every corner we made, we thought this has to be it, but it wasn’t.  There are a couple of drawbacks to walking that route, one is that we had to walk past several of those annoying, will not take no for an answer, salesmen.  Needless to say that Gary, Madison and Emma were all suckered in to their BS sales routine on more than one occasion.  Poor Emma just couldn’t say no to anything.  That said we just continued on.

By the time we reached the hotel, I was sweating profusely, I know, hard to believe huh?  I was not the happiest camper, and Emily was not happy with me being unhappy.  In a situation like that it is so much better to let me just cool off than try to ask me what is wrong, it usually takes about 10 minutes and I am good.  Somewhere in the walk to the hotel, Gary and Becky decided to stay and shop, I felt pretty bad leaving them, mainly because we didn’t see Gary the rest of the trip in Cabo.  It made me feel better because Becky eventually found us, she ditched him too!  We were able to eat there at La Hacienda, but the pool was, and I quote, “the fruits for the homeowners”, not for us meager little peasants. 

We did however get smarter on the return trip, we went to the beach right below the hotel, and played in the ocean for about 30 minutes and then caught a water taxi back to the marina—I wish we knew about that before the 2 mile trek, oh well, we got some great exercise…I just hope that Gary made his way back to the ship, don’t know yet.  

I have to continue this at a different point in the cruise as the guy with the camera is setting up for the picture taking area during dinner, so I am being kicked out of my spot, so bye bye.

Ok, back again.  It is funny that even though more than 12 hours have passed since my last writing, it feels like no time at all has passed for the reader, it’s like a movie, crazy!  Now, back to my story about Gary (which now I know what happened to him).  He did in fact get lost.  He had no idea where we had gone to for lunch, all he knew was orange umbrellas.  He went to the beach where he walked up and down it a couple of times.  He saw a place with orange umbrellas, but we were not there (because it was a different restaurant, the Mango Breeze or something like that).  He saw the one we were at, and decided to not go there because it was a hotel.  So, he just decided to go back to the ship, he didn’t get any lunch, but he did get a Haagen-daz ice cream cone for $8!  We didn’t see him until dinner that evening, where he related his story to us.

Tomorrow is Emily and my 9^th anniversary.  I had to do something amazing for her.  I went around to the shops in the ship to see what I could do, and there in the candy shop they sold roses as well, and they deliver to the room!  So, I got one single rose (I am cheap), and told them to deliver it to our room at 8:00 tomorrow morning, I hope she likes it.

At dinner, I was able to try (for the very first time in my life) shark.  I didn’t know what to expect, I hate everything that comes out of the ocean and the first bite of shark (was little breaded balls of shark meat) I thought the same thing.  I saw the lemon sitting there on my plate, and I decided to try the shark with a little bit of lemon, and that helped tremendously, and it was actually ok.  I don’t think I would ever try it again.

After dinner we went to the show, where we were able to watch a guy sing some big band songs and a few from musicals, he was a very good singer that got his start on the West End of London where Emily used to hang out as a study abroad student at least a couple times a week.  He sang one of my favorite songs from Les Miserables, “Bring Him Home”.  I thought he did a tremendous job, gave me goosebumps!

We were bound and determined to stay up past 10:00 to not be so “boring”.  Well, I made it to about 10:30 and Emily made it to 9:45.  I guess we are still pretty boring.  Tomorrow is a new day, and maybe then we won’t be so tired.  We will be in Puerto Vallarta tomorrow.  I think we are going to try and do something fun and exciting, like snorkeling.  Till tomorrow.

Carnival Splendor, Day 3

Day 3   

There is beginning to be a not-so-good pattern evolving on this cruise, and it begins at 5:30 am.  It begins with a massive scraping sound, which kind of sounds like like some gigantic animal being killed with the animal protesting its death.  What it actually is: those poolside cots being dragged across the floor right above our heads.  You see, we are on Deck #8, the Verandah Deck.  On Deck #9 is the pool deck, the Lido Deck.  Our cabin happens to be in the middle of the ship, right below the major pool area of the ship.  They store all of the cots every night, and at 5:30 am they decide to slide them across the ground to their resting place for the day.  Needless to say, my wife is not pleased with the moving of chairs so early in the morning because she cannot go back to sleep, which is a very precious commodity for a bearer of triplets!

Gary put on his “nasty persona” today to try and get the $100 spending credit onboard the ship.  It was great.  He was telling them how he had a reporter back in Georgia waiting upon their return for the completion of the Carnival Splendor saga.  He said that this was a joke that they were doing nothing about this.  They had said that they couldn’t find it anywhere in their system, and Gary did not like that.  We gave them the number to the travel agent that set up our previous cruise so that she could let them know that it really was true and that Gary really wasn’t some crazy cruiser.  Apparently because we had such a big group, Carnival gave each stateroom $100, and we were trying to get that again because we had it then.  I was actually very shocked that they wouldn’t even budge.  Gary said that he couldn’t wait to get back to talk to his reporter, still nothing.  Oh well, we’ll see what happens in the next couple of days or else the all mighty Griffin Daily News (Griffin, GA) may get a hold of the story, step aside NBC, Wall Street Journal, and the rest of the powerhouse media.

Today was the first day that we could leave the ship, we made it to Cabo San Lucas.  What a beautiful place!  The setting is absolutely beautiful, on the point of Baja California Sur, beautiful rocks and cliffs, with hotels being built right into the cliffsides, then you have the famous arch right at the point of the peninsula—BEAUTIFUL!  

At this port we have to wait to be tendered in on little boats.  That is fine, but they have to load up everyone on the ship, which generally takes a couple of hours to get everyone off the ship, and we happened to be on the very last boat.  I know this because the crew also gets to go ashore, but they have to wait until all of the guests are gone.  We were on a boat with members of the crew.  It was the last boat of guests, and it was after 12:00.  We did not get a lot of time because we had to get back on the tender at 5:00.

This is when we went on a little errand for Jennefer.  We had to go the hotel that she and Jim stayed in last week because she forgot some of her pajamas, so we had to go and pick those up.  We just stayed at the hotel, unbeknownst to the staff at said hotel, and swam, laid back and read for hours!  

 By now you should know that I do not do well with just sitting and reading in the sun, yes, I started to get antsy.  Emily suggested I go down to the beach.  So I did just that.  It was beautiful, the waves were hitting against the rocks and splashing up, in fact I was walking on the rocks unawares when one of the waves doused me in sea water!  I just sat there and watched the waves and crabs for about a half-hour, then climbed back to the hotel.  That was our adventure at the “free resort”.  Oh, we had a few tacos because it was Taco Tuesday, and Jennefer said that you could get tacos for like 50 cents.  She was off by about $1.50 per taco.  You can get them cheaper in the states!

That seemed to be a common theme in Cabo, you can get it (anything) cheaper in the states.  That doesn’t seem right.  You go to Mexico to get cheap stuff, right?  Do not go to Cabo San Lucas for cheapy, cheapy.  I guess we’ll wait for Puerto Vallarta which is Thursday’s stop.

We got back to the Splendor, headed to dinner, where we have this very annoying hostess who feels that it is her job to keep us entertained while we eat, with a very obnoxious voice saying, “Hellllooooo!”  Make it stop, please!  The food has been amazing though, so much better than the sandwiches we were served in 2010.  Oh, that was nasty!  From dinner we went to the room to watch the Women’s USA Gymnastics kick some butt and win the gold medal, go “Fab 5”, I guess now it has been changed to the "Fierce Five" thanks to Jalen Rose getting a little offended at "Fab 5" because of his Michigan team from who knows how long ago, that being their nickname.  After that we saw Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte and company take the gold in the 4 x 200 Freestyle, go U.S.A!  

We decided that it was probably time to go hit the evening show, which was a comedy/juggling act.  Emily made it about 30 minutes when she said, “he is really funny, but I can’t stay awake.  I’m going to bed.”  This was at about 9:15!  Not normal.  Oh well, I stayed to the end, and the guy was pretty funny, then I headed to bed; only to be awaken by those dadgum chairs.  AAGGHH!!!  Who wants to sleep on a cruise anyway?

Carnival Splendor--Take 2 (Part 2)

Day 2

Today was a “Day at Sea”, my least favorite day aboard a cruise ship.  Emily loves them.  These days remind me of when we really were at sea for 4 days.  The difference from then and now is then I had to study for a chemistry class that I was in, now I had no studying to do.  That means there wasn’t much for me to do.  I know that the majority of Americans enjoy nothing more than to show off their latest “upgrades”, especially the ladies.  Little soapbox now, ladies, please ditch the string bikinis, it makes life so uncomfortable for everyone else that has to look at you.  It might be cool for you and your significant other, but no one else appreciates your “latest model” which seems to give you such a thrill to show everyone.  And believe me when I say that it is ok if you have a little bit of a tan line on your back, no need to undo that little teeny, tiny string which produces no line anyway, so that the entire world can see your squished breasts hanging out the side of your pool-side cot—not attractive.  Please cover up.  I’m done.

I can’t stand to just sit by a pool and soak in the rays of the sun.  The sun never wants to cooperate and give me a nice, brown hue to my skin, I think that it laughs at me and says, “Is this a joke, you think you can sit out and enjoy my rays? Haha!  I will show you what I can really do!”  The instant I step outside in the sun, it changes my skin to a nice hypercolor (remember those shirts back in the 80’s?), from white to red, and then when you touch my red skin it turns white again in the shape of your finger, then the white spot disappears and turns red again.  It really is quite the spectacle.  I am a fan of staying in the safety of the shade.  Anyone remember that movie Benchwarmers, the guy that plays Jon Heder’s brother, he wouldn’t step foot into the sun because he was so white, that was actually me and they asked me to act natural. 

Something else I got from my dad is that unless I am fast asleep, I can’t stay in the same place with nothing to do, I have to be moving around.  Even in the mornings when I wake up, I can’t just lay there like Emily can for an hour or more, for some strange reason I have to get up and go do something, even if that means I have to walk in circles.  Believe me, I wish that I could just lay there, sit there, whatever there and just relax.  A “Day at Sea” would be the perfect place to hone that talent, a talent that definitely passed me over.

With all of this being said, this “Day at Sea”, for me, was spent doing a lot of circle walking. I started off the day walking/jogging in circles on the outdoor track.  We then all met up for breakfast, and enjoyed some amazing omelets. We sat around and talked a lot, just getting caught up with everything going on in life, we talked mostly about how Emily and I felt about having triplets (that is still so weird to think that we will have triplets!). 

The rest of the day for me was spent walking in circles.  From going up and down stairs, going to the lobby and back to my room to the swimming pool and back, to the yummy and delicious ice cream bar (a few times) and back to the room.  I won’t lie and tell you that I am such a fun, exciting, wonderful companion to have with you on a cruise, in fact, I am probably the opposite (sorry Emily!).  It is funny whenever we are on the chairs poolside, after about 5 minutes, I say to Emily, “Let’s go do something.”  She replies, “Like what?”  My response is 100% of the time the exact same, “I don’t know, I have to go do something though.”  She will usually at this point just tell me to go and walk around, but that she is staying there.  So I spend a lot of time with me, myself and Jake.

Dinner time rolled around (finally) and we got all fancied up.  

(Finger-Lickin' Good)

This is when Emily points out that the ceiling in the dining room (which is called the “Gold Pearl”) has boobs on the ceiling.  I told her that it was an open clam with pearls inside of it.  She said that she knew, but it looked like breasts.  She then said that this should be called the “Boob Cruise”!  I laughed because it was so true!  Here are just a couple of examples of the thousands aboard this ship:

After dinner we went to the “Spectacular Spectacular” lounge to watch the evening show, which was a medley of rock and roll songs mostly from the 60’s and 70’s.  It was a well put together show, and keeping with the “Boob Cruise” theme, the dancers, like the sunbathers, were not dressed very adequately to cover up their “upgrades” (Sorry, no pictures of this one).  However, it is fun to see truly talented people, I have a lot of respect for people that can go on stage and perform like they do.  I personally always wanted to be a member of NKOTB, or NSync, or even the Backstreet Boys.  My problem is that I can’t sing or dance, so that dream was never going to be realized, so I remain a “closet karaoke-er”.

This was pretty much the end of our day. We went back to the room and played a game of B.S. and then hit the sack.  Our first port of call is tomorrow, Cabo San Lucas, where we will be for 2 days, and then it is off to Puerto Vallarta.

Carnival Splendor--Take 2

This is my (Jake's) journal entry from our most recent cruise.  It was a 7 day, 8 night cruise that went to Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta.  It was aboard the Carnival Splendor, same ship as the "fire cruise".  This will be a long entry, followed by more long entries.  Enjoy:

It is currently Monday morning (July 30) of our cruise aboard the Carnival Splendor.  There is something much more quiet about this one at 6:30 am than our last attempt of a cruise on this exact same ship.  The difference is the fact that I am the only one out and about, in November of 2010 everyone aboard the Splendor was standing at their muster station, inhaling smoke that was coming from the engine room, and eagerly awaiting the call (which never happened by the way) to abandon ship! 

This cruise from where I am writing this beautiful story actually began in November of 2010.  That is when we came aboard the Carnival Splendor for the first time, it was an attempt at a family reunion.  As several of you know, that was the same time said ship decided that the engines had had enough and they didn’t want to work anymore (yes, we were on “that cruise”).  Unfortunately for us, it happened on the very first morning at 6:00.  I will not get into details about that one, because I already wrote a 17 page essay on the matter, which you can find on our family blog, jakeandemilyhutchings.blogspot.com, and look in the November or December file in the 2010 category on the right hand side of the webpage.

The nice thing about that “cruise” was that they reimbursed us for it, and they gave us vouchers for another cruise with Carnival for the same rate.  It took us until the vouchers just about expired to take them up on their generous offer, which is where we are today.  For reasons very unknown to me, and as fate would have it, we are aboard the EXACT same ship, going to the EXACT same ports of call we were supposed to go to (minus Mazatlan), and the EXACT same room (just kidding about the room, but that’s all I could think of). 

Now, the journal portion begins.  On Friday (July 27, 2012) afternoon we drove up to Denver where Grant and Shalie were super generous and decided that they wouldn’t mind taking on three extra kids for a week, thank you so much you guys!  We got in at about 8:30 that night and put the kids to bed (who were SUPER excited to be with their cousins, so excited I don’t think they slept for more than 4 hours!), then we just sat around and talked until it was our bedtime.  On Saturday Emily and Shalie went into IKEA for some girl time, while Grant and I took the 6 kiddos to the neighborhood swimming pool.

This pool is the nicest neighborhood pool I have ever seen, and coming from ABQ where lifeguards won’t let you swim in a pool, it was so nice to feel like I could actually enjoy my kids a little bit in the pool!  Plus, they even let Ethan wear floaties (unheard of in ABQ public pools), so he was content as well.  Later that day, Grant, the older 3 boys and I went to Bass Pro Shops in order to escape it all for a couple of hours.  A great time was had by all, then we had to return.  Upon arrival, the ladies went and had their toenails done, we had dinner, watched some Olympics, and went to bed to wake up at “the butt-crack of dawn” to catch our flight to LAX. 

We arrived at LAX, met up with our favorite travelling buddies (Gary and Becky, Madison and Emma) and hopped into our shuttle that was taking us to the Carnival Splendor.  Gary was talking about how he was going to put on his “nasty persona” (because being “nice” gets you nothing in life when it comes to dealing with companies, so remember that when you go return something to Target or Wal-Mart without a receipt), to try and get some credit aboard the ship, he is very bitter about the way that Carnival treated us after the disaster of Nov 2010.  He has very valid points, as his work revolves around making companies better in treating their guests.  It truly is a blast to travel with Gary and Becky because you never know when the “nasty” Gary is going to come out, and it is fun to sit a few feet back and observe the “master” in action.

Day 1

We arrived at the Cruise Terminal a couple of hours early which was nice because unlike Nov 2010 there was no line to go through.  We registered with no hiccups, we were put into Zone 2 for boarding the ship.  This is where we spent an additional 3 hours of line waiting in 2010, yesterday was a very different experience, still inefficient, but a lot better.  I was taking pictures of the lines when a security guard came to me and said, “Sir, you need to delete that photo!”  I didn’t understand why, he just pointed to a TV screen where it said something about carrying firearms is illegal at this point of the security process.  I said I didn’t see anything, and he replied it is illegal to take a picture of the security point.  Oh!  That makes sense, camera=firearm.  Well, I obliged, I held up the camera so he could see me actually delete the picture, he was satisfied and moved on.  I did see the TV five minutes later where it said that “photography was not permitted at this point”, I am such a jerk, plus a law breaker! Here is a picture of the line for security (you can't see any security devices so I am pretty sure that I am safe to put this one up).

Nothing extraordinary happened for the remainder of the boarding process.  We were welcomed aboard the ship, went to the Lido Deck (oh the memories!) and had a buffet style lunch.  Now, in Nov 2010 this happened to be the only meal I had that was not infused with some sort of canned meat product.  So far so good.  It has been really strange to walk around the ship seeing all of the places that bring back so many memories.  “This is where I sat and studied for hours!” “Look, that is where we sat when it all began.”  “This is where we got together as a family and had discussions.” Etc, etc, etc. 

I made it to dinner.  This is already better than 2010, where I got a migraine right when dinner started and decided to lay down in the dark room instead of go to dinner.  What an experience, being able to sit in the restaurant, with lights, and eating food that has been cooked!  It was really good, I had the salmon.  After dinner there wasn’t much happening.  We went to go talk to the Guest Services about our credit, where they had no record of us having an on-board credit last time (which we did have), so they told us the only way we could do that would be to talk to the travel agent that set up the last cruise.  I think that good customer service would have been to say, “oh, you were on THAT cruise, yeah, we’ll put the credit back for you.”  That would have been too easy, even after they verified we indeed WERE on THAT cruise.  Whatever, I am done cruising Carnival, just like I am done purchasing Dodge vehicles.

We then proceeded to bed where we watched some Olympics, then we watched the Planet of the Apes movie and fell asleep.  Unfortunately for me, I inherited my father’s capability of sleeping—I can sleep anywhere, but I cannot sleep past 6:00 am, which is what brought me to where I am now…in the casino, all alone with my laptop typing away! In Emily’s words, “You are such a nerd!”

Just Kidding!

So, surprisingly, it turns out we were wrong.  When I went into the Perinatalist this afternoon they immediately saw that there were not twins in my tummy, but TRIPLETS!  OH.MY.GOSH!  We are very shocked right now!  We have ZERO idea how we missed an actual baby in the third sack during 2 different ultrasounds, but we did!  All three babies are in separate sacs with separate placentas which is good news!  There is obviously a much higher rate of losing one of them and also of chromosomal deficiencies.  I will be highly regulated during the pregnancy so we will get a lot of answers as we go.  I go back in 2 weeks to measure the spinal fluid in all 3 babies which will tell a lot and for some basic genetic counseling.  Eek!  I feel like I am in a foreign world!  So, keep us in your prayers as we will be needing it!

For your viewing pleasure:

EASTER!

We didn't do anything fancy, in fact we even stooped as low as dye-ing our easter eggs with kool-aid.  But the kids loved the traditional easter egg hunts, finding their hidden baskets, and especially devouring candy without limitations!  We had the nicest Sunday meal at our friend's home and then played games while the kids played and ate their Easter egg candy.  I love this time of year!

Happy Late Easter!

Exciting Times in the Hutchings Household!!!

It is twins for sure, no more hyperventilating thinking that it might be 3! They are both doing well, heartbeats looked good, and they were measuring right on schedule.  The third one that we thought we saw last week, is what they refer to as an "invisible twin" (triplet in our case), and that one will just disappear basically, you can still see the sack of the invisible twin in the Twins picture, it is the dark spot below them.  Since some of you have asked for these, here you go.  I give you first Baby A, Baby B, and then the twins together.  Enjoy!

1, 2, or 3?

Here is your clue....Let's say you are in Minnesota and you go to watch a baseball game.  You are going to "root, root, root for the home team", the Minnesota......

TWINS!

At least we think.  Here are the pictures from the ultrasound, I will let you be the judge. Twins, or triplets? We found a third sack in there, and we (the ultrasound tech included) thought we saw something moving around in said third sack.  However, it was measuring at a week earlier than the the other two healthy (excellent heartbeats) little babies.  We were unable to locate a heartbeat on the third one.  The tech said that she wants a doctor to look at it and give a final say, but she said that in her professional opinion it probably would not survive if in fact there is anything in there.  So, for your viewing pleasure, I give you Fetus A, Fetus B, and Sack C:                                                                                                                                                  

 

We are SO excited for Twins! Triplets on the other hand, scares us to death.  Just imagine 6 kids age 6 and under.  I mean 5 kids 6 and under is bad, but 6....AAAGGGHHH!!!  We are going back in for another ultrasound probably next week to see if there has been any development on sack/fetus C.  Til then....