Embarkation Day

As Michelle and I are off for a weeks vacation cruising in the Atlantic Ocean I'm going to write a series of absentee blog posts relevant to what we are doing that day. There are two deck cams on the Pride, the Bridge and the Aft where you can watch to see if you see us. Watch the Forward Cam as that is where the ice cream machines are that I tend to find.

This is the one of the longest days of the cruise, the other being when we get off. We're scheduled to arrive at the Port of Baltimore at around 1:30 for our Embarkation. We do not have Faster to the Fun this year so we will have to wait with everyone else, but I'm hearing it's a smooth process or so we hope.

At about 4:00 we will do our mandatory Muster Drill where everyone goes to their muster station for instructions in case we have problems at sea and hit an iceberg. They walk through everything like the safety flotation device and how to use it, and about everything you will need to know if there are problems.

We'll hopefully meet a new set of dinner guests this evening, we have remained friends with each and every couple we have dined with on every cruise. Looking forward to making new friends.

Off to Baltimore

As Michelle and I are off for a weeks vacation cruising in the Atlantic Ocean I'm going to write a series of absentee blog posts relevant to what we are doing that day. There are two deck cams on the Pride, the Bridge and the Aft where you can watch to see if you see us. Watch the Forward Cam as that is where the ice cream machines are that I tend to find.

Well today starts our vacation, Michelle and I will be traveling to Baltimore this evening and having dinner with some good friends, people who we have previously cruised with and have maintained friendships beyond the Carnival Pride. Gone is our friend Cheryl. but she will never be forgotten.

We'll be staying at the Holiday Inn at the Inner Harbor, we have stayed here for three of our five cruises to date (make this 4 out of 6) and we really like this hotel. It's just a walk to the inner harbor and just right across the street from the convention center.

We'll be leaving Morgantown this morning and tonight, tonight my pee will be going to the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Mississippi River.

Back in Baltimore and Debarkation

As Michelle and I embark upon our fifth Cruise and enjoy our vacation, I will also be taking a little break as a blogger and writing some pre-written canned blogs. You can check more of what we are into on mine or Michelle's Facebook Page.

You can follow us on either the Front Web Cam, the Aft Webcam or just simply be tracking our location.

Well today is the day that we say goodbye to the big red fin that we have come to love so much. It's a day for us to debark off the ship and get in Pearl and jump on the interstate and head back to the Mountains of West Virginia. This concludes mine and Michelle's fifth cruise giving us 35 days sailed at sea so far.

By the time this posts we will be back in the Bay and I will have cell phone reception for the first time since last Sunday evening. Hopefully you have enjoyed the pictures that we have shared on Facebook with everyone and enjoyed our vacation with us.

Take Me Home Country Roads.

Embarkation Day

As Michelle and I embark upon our fifth Cruise and enjoy our vacation, I will also be taking a little break as a blogger and writing some pre-written canned blogs. You can check more of what we are into on mine or Michelle's Facebook Page.

Well today is Embarkation Day, this is when all of the people who are on my ship right now get off and we get to get on the ship. This is the day we go through customs and sit and wait. We'll get on the ship around 1:30 and about 4:00 we'll have the required safety briefing that you have to sit through before you go out in the Ocean. It's just the standard requirement you do before every cruise.

It's going to be a day of waiting, but this is where the fun begins.

Tonight we will have our first dinner on the ship and we will get to meet the other couple with whom we will be dining throughout the cruise. We have been blessed to have dined with some great couples on each cruise, each of which we have remained in contact with.

Bon Voyage

Travel Day and Start of Vacation

As Michelle and I embark upon our fifth Cruise and enjoy our vacation, I will also be taking a little break as a blogger and writing some pre-written canned blogs. You can check more of what we are into on mine or Michelle's Facebook Page.

Today Michelle and I will jump on the interstate and spend this evening in Baltimore Maryland. We will be staying at the same hotel we stayed at the first year, as the one we have had booked the last three is completely booked up and unavailable.

We are probably not going to run down to the Inner Harbor this year, we've seen it enough times that the excitement is gone. Guy Fieri has a Kitchen and Bar that we have reservations at Saturday Night. Caesars has a casino next door to our hotel, when we stayed there a few years ago it was an empty lot.

Wish us Luck.

Debarkation Day and Returning Home

As Michelle and I are on Vacation this week aboard the Carnival Pride, you can track our Ship Location and watch for us on the Ships two cameras in the Aft or in the Forward Cameras. I am obviously absentee and will be writing my blogs absentee as even bloggers need a vacation.

Well here we are, by the time that this starts to post I will probably be available by phone as we will be entering the Chesapeake Bay and docking this morning at the Port of Baltimore early this morning.

Today is the end of our cruise and time for the next set of cruisers to enjoy their time on the Carnival Pride as we have.

We will be Debarking hopefully mid morning and going through customs with our luggage and everything else that we will be bringing back.  Hopefully we can get out of downtown Baltimore early this morning, but that really doesn't matter. Last year we were leaving right as everyone was trying to get to Baltimore's M&T Stadium which is right by the port.

Fortunately jumping on I-95 to return home is a very easy task for us and it should not take us too long to get out of here. I think last year we were eating lunch in Hagerstown around Noon, we'll probably be carrying our luggage off once again plus we have "Faster to the Fun" which pretty much gives us priority getting off the boat today and getting through customs.

Hopefully we should be getting home some time this afternoon.

I hope you have had as much fun following our vacation as we have had on it. We are both off of work tomorrow as well to get all of our chores done, hopefully I will put the rest of my pictures up on Facebook of this years vacation for all to enjoy.

By estimate, we have covered about 400 miles by car and about 2,600 by ship for a Grand total of around 3,000 miles during this vacation.

Wish us a safe trip home, enjoy your day and tomorrow's blog should be the first live blog that I will have written in a while.

Embarkation Day

As Michelle and I are on Vacation this week aboard the Carnival Pride, you can track our Ship Location and watch for us on the Ships two cameras in the Aft or in the Forward Cameras. I am obviously absentee and will be writing my blogs absentee as even bloggers need a vacation.

Well it is Embarkation Day for Michelle and I. We will be leaving the hotel later this morning and driving right past MT Stadium when the Baltimore Ravens Play and giving our one finger salute once again as we make our way to the Port of Baltimore to embark upon the Carnival Pride.

We will be moved to the Gold Level VIFP this year, we will pass our 25th day at sea on this trip and they always advance you to the next level if you achieve that level on the cruise you are on like us this year. It's the next level where all the real perks kick in for free, but this year we purchased Faster to the Fun as we did last year and bypassed all of those long and absolutely ridiculous lines that people have to wait in.

Once we are on the boat we will be enjoying lunch somewhere on the Carnival Pride, I personally want to hit up Guys Burger Joint, but there are a number of other options for us to choose from.

One thing we will be excited to see today is the new and revamped Carnival Pride. It went to dry dock last fall and was upgraded to a Funship 2.0 since our last cruise. We are already very familiar with this ship, even though everything has changed. There will be very little time spent figuring out where everything is located.

We will be dining with one of the ladies we dined with last year. She and her husband will also be taking this cruise and we are already booked as dinner companions again. The couple we dined with two years ago are also on this cruise, but are traveling in a large group of people and we will not be dining with them, but are looking forward to seeing them.

Enjoy yourselves today, we intend to.

We Are Off to Baltimore

As Michelle and I are on Vacation this week aboard the Carnival Pride, you can track our Ship Location and watch for us on the Ships two cameras in the Aft or in the Forward Cameras. I am obviously absentee and will be writing my blogs absentee as even bloggers need a vacation.

Well today starts our 2015 Cruise and Vacation. Like we have done in years past, I would imagine our day will start with a trip to the IHOP here in Morgantown before we start our Journey to Baltimore Maryland this morning.

Along the way there will probably be stops at Sidling Hill for a rest and of course we can't go through the area without visiting the Hagerstown Premium Outlets for a little shopping. Both stops break up the monotony and give us a nice little break during the trip. The Outlet stop is a nice break before you have to start dealing with all the traffic in Downtown Baltimore.

We will once again be staying at the Holiday Inn at the Inner Harbor, which is right across the street from Camden Yards and about three blocks away from the Inner Harbor itself. We love to go down there and eat dinner, the last couple years we have eaten at Bubba Gumps.

Having been there the past three years, we are very familiar with the Inner Harbor and all the shops and stores there. It will be a nice relaxing start to our vacation and preparing for tomorrows embarkation process.

Have yourselves a great day because we intend to.

Hump Day

Well that's two days down, now if you just look over this noon time hump, just on the other side of a photo flashback you can see the dawn of another fun filled weekend off in the distance.

Well actually since we are off tomorrow for Michelle's surgery, Michelle and I are already up overt that mythical hump. We'll have to be at the hospital tomorrow morning for her fourth follow up surgery, but that will be tomorrow.

Has anyone been paying attention to what has been happening in Baltimore? Wow do you believe all of the rioting and stuff that is going on over there. I did see some news footage right outside of the hotel that we stay at, which kind of hit home for me a little as I can relate to that exact spot. All of this rioting is not proving and thing and is quite counter-productive to their main objective, unless their main objective is to just create chaos for no reason. It's just an ugly situation and is getting worse. They were actually cutting fire hoses from hydrants trying to put out fires.

I'm glad I live in Morgantown where all we do is burn an occasional couch after a big win by one of the Universities Sports teams or the announcement that Osama Bin laden had been killed. Our students can get a little wild, what is happening in Baltimore is downright scary.

Have a great day.

Hi ho hi ho.

We are Doing It Again.

Carnival Pride

We waited long enough, I was waiting to hear something about our contract, but something tells me that there is going to be another extension and waiting so we went ahead with our Cruise 2015 booking.

We are now once again booked for our 2015 cruise which will be in 189 days (let the countdown begin) and we will be taking the same cruise once again for the fourth year in a row. We absolutely love this cruise and the ports of call, and the Carnival Pride was just updated to a Funship 2.0 this past fall, so we are once again setting sail to Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay and Freeport the Bahamas this September.

Dani and Roy Marsh

We are also taking a couple of first time cruisers with us as Michelle's Sister Dani and husband Roy will be joining us for this years cruise. We both booked and paid for our cruise last night and we are all set to go. We helped them through their booking  last night as we booked ours and we will be in side by side rooms, meaning we can have the partition on the deck between the two rooms opened up and we can have one big deck to all share. Because we booked this weekend and Carnival has a special going on, we already have $50.00 worth of on board credits to use.

Michelle and I are all set to go, agreed to everything and filled out all the information including our passport information and our online account. All we have to do is print out our boarding passes and luggage tags and get ready to go.

We will be assisting Dani and Roy as they prepare for their first cruise. Our dinner companions from two years ago Jim and Pam have also booked once again on this cruise and we are looking forward to meeting up with them once again.

This year the Carnival Pride has installed not one, but two deck cams for everyone to watch.

Cruise 2015 is set and ready to go and we could not be any more excited. Anyone else want to join us?

Vacation Day 9, Back in Baltimore and Back Home

Well this is my last pre-written blog that I am writing for the 2014 vacation. The next blog that you read will in all likelihood be a live blog from me as we are now heading back into Baltimore and getting ready to get back in pearl and head back home to Morgantown.

Our 2013 vacation was a whole lot of fun for us, the only problem is I am not paying for internet fees out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and I had to pre-write all of these before we left (yes I wrote them in August). I shared our vacation from last year with everyone, and hopefully you the reader were able to share with us what we were going to see each day based on our 2013 experience.

One thing that we will get to experience this morning is kind of an unexpected honor. Francis Scott Key wrote our Nations National Anthem on the night of September 13-14, 1814 by what he witnessed at the Battle of Fort McHenry in Baltimore. This is the Bi-Centennial of the authoring of that song and there will be a big celebration this morning at Fort McHenry. We will have a prime view as our balcony will be facing Fort McHenry as we pull back into Port.

We will be debarking and going through customs one final time this morning, before packing pearl up one last time to make our return trip back home to Morgantown. I hope we had as much fun on this years cruise as we had last year, we are already planning next years.

Next blog today will be a live one.

Vacation Day 2, Embarktion

During our 2013 vacation we did a video log each day. This year instead of writing about where we are or what we are doing, I thought I would share with you our previous years experience. I am on vacation this week and since we are doing the same trip and are staying in almost (next to it) the same room, I'm going to post the previous years video blog. Enjoy.

Vacation Day 1

During our 2013 vacation we did a video log each day. This year instead of writing about where we are or what we are doing, I thought I would share with you our previous years experience. I am on vacation this week and since we are doing the same trip and are staying in almost (next to it) the same room, I'm going to post the previous years video blog. Enjoy.





PS, Don;t forget to watch us on Steelers Trivia Tonight, it is the Championship round, see if we can bring it home.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend, and a Big Ole Hairy Friday.

Every year when we go on vacation, last year especially when we stayed right across the street, there is some kind of convention going on across from our hotel. I tell everyone there are literally hundreds if not thousands of people dressed up on costumes. I can't explain it, but I found some picture of some of the people in costume. Imagine being in a group of 40 people crossing the street and being the only ones NOT dressed up. Enjoy some pics from last years event.

Well we are due for another cold spell and snow storm over the weekend and into early next week. My wife quit dancing a couple of months ago so it has to be someone else doing that snow dance. I'm not sure if I have ever mentioned it before, but I Hate Snow. Don't care for it at all.

Weekend, nothing really planned for us, but who knows what we may or may not get into. We should be finishing up Season 2 of House of Cards tonight on Netflix. We're both saddened that we have come to the end of another season and eagerly await season 3 next year.

Hi ho hi ho

Back in Baltimore

I will be writing a series of absentee BLOGS while Michelle and I are on vacation. I'll be letting everyone know where we are and what we will be doing each day.

Well as this posts we are probably getting ready to head back under the Cheasapeake Bay Bridge once again as we head back to the Port of Baltimore and get ready for disembarkation.

Last year it took us a while to get off the boat, but we learned if you are driving and park at the terminal, you will be the first to be let off the boat and go back through customs one final time before returning to our car Pearl.

It has hopefully been a great vacation and you may see a live blog from me this morning after this one posts to discuss how our trip really did go. I can tether my phone, something I could not do at this time last year with AT&T, so I'll have internet available to me once we hit the bay.

We will be returning to Morgantown today and spending the day getting unpacked.

I'm already looking forward to next years cruise, but we're talking about flying to Miami and departing from there to find some new and different ports to visit.

We're back.

Bon Voyage

I will be writing a series of absentee BLOGS while Michelle and I are on vacation. I'll be letting everyone know where we are and what we will be doing each day.

Today is embarkation day. This is the day when we have all of our paperwork, boarding passes, luggage tags, passports and everything else we are taking and head to the terminal to get processed. This is a couple hour process and involves a good deal of waiting as they restock the boat that just returned.

We'll be leaving port at 4:30 PM and traveling through the Chesapeake Bay as we make our way out to the Ocean. It'll be tomorrow morning before we actually get out into the ocean, so tonight will be our first dining experience  of the trip when we meet our new table mates. Last year we had a wonderful couple we sat with, I just wish we could have both done it again at the same time.

It'll be a day of getting on the boat and getting situated. Maybe take in a show or the Bon Voyage show which is always a whole lot of fun. I promise that there are no boring times on a cruise ship, we'll have plenty to do. Since we already know this boat, less time trying to figure out where everything is. There is a Lido Deck Ice Cream machine that is calling my name.

Bon Voyage

Baltimore

I will be writing a series of absentee BLOGS while Michelle and I are on vacation. I'll be letting everyone know where we are and what we will be doing each day.

Today's Blog, we're heading to Baltimore, cause our cruise ship pulls out tomorrow afternoon. We went down and stayed in Baltimore last year, so we decided to do it again this year, we'll be staying just a couple of blocks away from the Inner Harbor, but this time we'll be within walking distance and in a much nicer part of town.

The image you see is the Mt Vernon Monument, our hotel is right beside this, these are all located in the inner harbor. Last year we visited the National Aquarium, but  we're going down a  little later this year and will probably try to do dinner at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.

We will be right across the street from Camden Yards and also from the Convention Center. Last year they were having a comic book convention and there were hundreds of people dressed up in costume.

Wish us a safe journey.

Carnival Pride

Same trip we're taking, it you look at the 2:35 mark, the guy below the camera. That was our room for our trip last fall.

Cruise 2013

We enjoyed ourselves so much in 2012, that we booked and paid for our 2013 cruise yesterday afternoon. Carnival Pride here we come again this fall. We will be doing the same trip during the same weekend, on the same boat we went on last year, only this year we used last years experiences to determine exactly what we wanted.

Yesterday afternoon we booked and paid for in full our 2013 vacation. We had contemplated a few other options, but this is what we wanted to do and it really is the most cost effective vacation you could ever do. We semi-considered departing out of other ports, but that would have shortened the actual cruise time and made it more costly. We were in heaven last year at Half Moon Cay (shown in picture) that we really wanted to return this year.

We changed a few things up this year, with a little first hand education last year we realized that the back end of the boat really is not the view that you would think. The Sun rises on the port side and neither sun up or sun down was visible from our room. We didn't make that same mistake this year. We're not on the top level this year, but we opted for midship, that way you are not far away from anything.

We're both excited!!!!!!!!!

The Return Home

Disclaimer: This week I will be on a week long vacation with my beautiful wife. These blogs were pre-written to keep a flow of my blog going and to let people know where we are that today and what we plan to be doing.

Today we will once again arrive at the point of our departure. We weeks worth of a marvelous vacation is now in our memories and that starts to close out at about 9:00 this morning when we are getting off of the Carnival Pride for the last time on this trip.

Today it's going to be repacking and exiting the ship, it's going to be a day of going back to the hotel and getting out car and starting our drive back to Morgantown. A morning that I woke up in the middle of the Atlantic and will go to bed this evening in my own bed.

It has been the memory of a lifetime for both Michelle and I. It will be the ending of the longest and most fun filled vacation of my life, let's see if we can match or top it in 2013.

Thank you for reading along this past week. We will be home this afternoon, and off of work once again tomorrow, but I imagine there are a number of chores we'll have to do.