On the Fun Ship…..Carnival

Cruising on the Carribean with Kat!

This was the first week long or longer vacation that I’ve taken since college – isn’t that sad? It was great but a long time coming…even in my 8 1/2 years of marriage, we didn’t take this long of a vacation can you believe it?

So when my ‘girlfriend’ Darlene asked me over the summer if I wanted to come on a cruise with her in October I didn’t hesitate a moment – I said “SIGN ME UP!” and then I asked where we were going because at that point it didn’t matter.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you can probably relate, or even if you’re just really busy and don’t normally take time out for yourself – you probably know where I’m coming from.

But 2007 was the year I told myself I was going to take at least one week long vacation. I didn’t really care where it was to as long as it was sunny and there was a beach! I didn’t know who I’d go with either but I’ve learned that you just have to MAKE THE DECISION to do something and the “HOW” it will happen will surface.

If you are motivated by this at all and want help figuring out how YOU can uncover and find more freedom in your life and business – this is what I teach! Sign up for a 1-On-1 Planning Meeting right now and take action – go to www.1on1planningmeeting.com!!

Darlene and I were going with a bunch of people in her online travel business (Ultimate Choice Travel) so since I knew I’d be talking business with these people much of the time – of course I could also write it all off! What a bonus don’t you think? There’s always a way to work business into pleasure which is one reason why I love being an entrepreneur.

So our itinerary included:

· Starting from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida – I had to fly across the country to start. Below is me in our inside cabin when we arrived….after finding out though how awesome some people had it in their rooms with balconies – I will only book those from here on out for sure! Really our room didn’t matter though as we weren’t in it very often. It was surprisingly large enough though for two DIVAS to get ready!

To the right is me on deck
the first day too –>

It was so utterly hot and humid I really thought I wouldn’t make it however – Oh My Gosh! I’d never been to Florida before and the humidity really KILLS YOUR HAIR!

Here’s us one formal night snapping photos like crazy – I sware, every corner you turned they had photographers ready to snap!

It’s funny, I thought I’d wear this pink dress that I frankly never wear the first formal night and my shiny fun, hot outfit the second formal night but guess what???? I drank so much during this cruise and became so bloated (I know, TMI) that I could hardly fit in that second outfit!! I can’t even show you the photos I took in it, it was a little embarrassing.

I think I drank over 100,000 calories in alcohol alone this trip – can you believe it? Not in food, but in alcohol!

This is a character we ran across one night – there were a lot of large groups there, mostly young or our age and they all planned dress up nights on the cruise

to make it interesting….and boy was this guy/gal interesting!! This is a guy!

This was a group of gay and lesbians who were hilarious the whole trip and I must say very entertaining.

Which brings me to the story….

All I wanted was to do some simple flirting all week long and have a bunch of fun meeting a bunch of men but I had to shift my thinking a bit and change my plans when I realized that every man on the ship (with the exception of a few 20 something’s) were either married or gay.

You know when you have that special event or formal that you have to go to and so you go out shopping specifically to find that special dress or outfit – you can never find ANYTHING! Then when you’re just casually shopping or looking around or slipping in and out for something quick in a store – YOU RUN ACROSS A TON OF STUFF THAT WOULD BE PERFECT FOR YOU! That was the case on the ship with single, attractive men. Oh well….it wasn’t meant to be.

Itinerary continues….

· First stop Key West, Florida – here Darlene and I both went parasailing (I still need to get the photos of us…) which was so much fun. We launched from a small speed boat right off shore, they dipped us in the water a few times which was hilarious and we floated up above the water for a good 15 minutes. This is so fun, if you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend parasailing on your next vacation. Then after we cleaned the salt water off us and changed into dry clothes we went on a “Pub Crawl” walking through the streets of Key West, drinking a different drink at about 6 different bars and shopping in between bars of course! Then we stumbled back on the ship to continue our little party….

Here’s us and some other girls at night enjoying the live music and dancing….BEER GOGGLES HARD AT WORK….

· Second stop the Grand Cayman Island. Here we had lunch and margaritas at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville (I can craft a better margarita than them however), did a little shopping and then we took off to lay on the beach.

We got to the beach just in time to gulp down one cocktail at a little beach bar and then it started pouring rain. Everyone huddled under cover as best as they could for about 40 minutes until it passed. It cleared though and we did manage to get a bunch of sun in plus the water in Grand Cayman is the prettiest, clearest and bluest you’ll ever see – it was wonderful.

They had a fun pirate ship excursion that we didn’t go on but the ship looked so fun!

· Third stop Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Here we didn’t see much except the port, a few select shops and one small piece of the beach because right when we got off the ship the

locals hounded us trying to get us to buy their stuff – wow, were they aggressive!

I found it actually very fascinating watching their sales techniques and even asked some of them if they study sales and marketing solely there or what? Darlene unfortunately couldn’t handle their aggressive tactics and almost freaked out – it does take a lot out of you in that situation. I found it amusing though.

So, it didn’t take long for us to buy what we wanted and get back to the beach to relax.

Luckily we had been part of a ‘beach party’ which they called an excursion so we weren’t hounded to buy stuff, we could simply relax. The locals in beach party area were quite nice however and the service was awesome. The water however was not as nice; really clean, prestine beaches but not that clear of water and boy was it hot as heck!

So, that’s where we went and no we didn’t do a lot of excursions and tours and stuff because frankly we knew we’d be up late drinking and dancing each night and neither one of us wanted to have to get up early and swim with dolphins or climb mountains or anything so we decided for this trip the scenic, relaxing things were for us.

The goal became to just layout, drink, dance and have fun – which I did!

Now….to plan the NEXT ONE!!

Katrina Out –

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