Vacation: Carnival Freedom day 1

It's cruise day! We woke up bright and early this morning to start our cruise day. After getting ready and packing up, we headed out for breakfast at Star Drug Store, a quaint soda shop type place near the Strand in Galveston. Nick and I both had omelettes. They were pretty good, and the atmosphere was great. We could even see our cruise ship from the street out front.

Once we finished breakfast, we headed to the terminal to drop off our luggage and then over to our parking lot for the week. We always use Galveston Park 'n Cruise because it's right across the street from the terminal so we don't have to bother with a shuttle. 

Dad was pretty anxious and nervous this morning. He's still not used to doing things on his own so feeling a little out of control has him kind of anxious. Good thing this wasn't my first time or we might have all been a ball of nerves. 

Check in went smoothly, and once we got our sign 'n sail cards it was time to sit and wait. Nick and I used that time to call Kate once more before we left for the week. We sent her a couple of photos and told her we loved her. I'll sure miss that sweet little voice over the next several days!

Boarding started shortly after 11, which was a little bit early. That's exciting! It didn't take us long to board and we headed straight up to our cabin to put our stuff down and I began unpacking. I love the perks of buying Faster to the Fun. It's so handy to have you luggage already at your ready-to-go room as soon as you walk onto the ship. 

I unpacked everything and got all of my standard organizers hung up around the room. Command hooks are your best friend on a cruise ship. I have serval hung in the room to keep track of purses and lanyards, hats, and one for our shopping bag of photos that we buy throughout the week. I also have my shoe organizer hung that is holding not just my shoes, but other miscellaneous items as well. 

Nick and Dad had already gone out to Lido deck to eat some lunch, so I joined them and had a Guy's Burger without the bread. I had lots of mustard and veggies, but I did splurge and have some bacon on it as well. I didn't eat any fries. 

We quickly did the spa tour so we could enter for a drawing of spa services, which I guess we didn't win. Our cruise group had a get together planned for 2:30 in one of the pubs on board, so we headed there and met several people from the group. There were various door prizes that people had brought, and I won a door prize which ended up being the mixed drink ornament I had purchased and brought myself. Good thing I like it! 

We left the pub quickly because it was so loud and really not our thing. Muster drill was next on the agenda, which took forever because of some people who didn't think they had to attend. Then it was finally time to sail away! 

I danced a little during the sail away party, and not long after it ended we were all starving. We headed to our dining room for some food. For tonight's appetizer, I ordered cured salmon with candied tomatoes and a shrimp cocktail. For my main course, I had grilled salmon with roasted carrots, broccoli, and red potatoes. It was all amazing. I had already decided that I was going to splurge tonight and had a chocolate melting cake for dessert. It made me feel a little too full, but happily I didn't have any ill side effects from it this far. I was worried about it making my tummy upset, since it's been so long since I had anything with sugar. 

After dinner we headed to the main lounge to watch the Welcome Aboard show with Mom, Richard, and Coleen. Our cruise director is Malcolm and he is awesome!! He's so funny, and pretty much a big dork so he just doesn't care what anyone thinks. It didn't take long to love him so I'm excited about all of the shows and activities he will do this week. 

The welcome show turned into a traveling party throughout the ship with Malcolm, and we made our way to the Atrium for a lip-sync contest, to the casino bar for and air guitar contest, then on to the dance club for some line dancing (my favorite!), the piano bar was next for a sing along (where Malcolm gave Coleen and me free drinks because we were singing along and messing with him-I gave my drink to a friend), and finally back to the comedy club for a few minutes. That was a lot of fun.

After wandering around the lido deck to get some fresh air and taking a very windy loop around the track, we decided we were tired and are now in our stateroom getting ready for bed. Tomorrow is a sea day!