Day One on the Monarch of the Seas

Happy Birthday to me (and Aric!).  Today was my second favorite birthday gift ever.  Aric being the first and ultimate best of course!  He was 21 today, and it was odd to celebrate without us being together.  I still think of Aric being like this:

Wait a minute, I still think of *me* being like this until the mirror sets me straight.  Not sure how he became an adult so quickly though, but he is!  We will celebrate with him after the cruise.

We work up early today and headed over to the place where we parked the car.  They drove us to the port and that was the last we did any work for the next four days.  We were there early enough that we boarded the ship very quickly and easily.  We headed up to the buffet first thing so we could eat before it got super crowded.  Then we walked around the ship to explore and take pictures while it was still fairly empty.

There is a lot to see on a ship this size.  Each deck has different things and each one looked like lots of fun would be happening there.

We then headed to our room.  We laughed as soon as we saw it because online people commented on how tiny the rooms are on this particular ship.  We thought it was huge!  I mean you can actually walk alongside the bed completely on the one side.  There is room for a desk and there is a big closet.  And we did not have to duck down while getting out of bed.  I guess this is one time our low maintenance living gives us an advantage in living in other spaces.  On the other hand, we get weirded out a bit when trying to stay in regular size houses so there is that trade off.

We went to the pool deck, sat in lounge chairs and read and watched the boat leave from there.  We stayed there until dinner.  Dinner was a wonderful experience.  Our waiters were Putu and Dwight and they were the best.

When we were back from dinner, we met our room attendant.  His name is Arson and he was fabulous too.  We took it was a very good sign that the staff we encountered so far were great and we hoped that it would be the case across the board.  I'm happy to say that it was.

Our nighttime fun for the first night was Karaoke and listening to the cover band Eclipse.  We were very impressed with them!  At the end of day one, we decided if this is what cruising is like, count us  in.  We decided we may still want to do cruises even after we get back to our vacation free life.  It is a great experience even if not being used as a "vacation".  We said we'll see what we think at the end of the cruise.  We headed to bed somewhat early because I wanted to be on the first tender that headed out in the morning. It was a wonderful first day.