LIVE Onboard Carnival Glory | Day 1 of Our Cruise

Originally, they believed that the ones going on the cruise would be of course, them as well as my family, and my mother-in-law’s sister and husband.  What they didn’t know was that my mother-in-law’s brother and his daughter would also be coming as well as my husband’s brother and his family.  So we had to carefully plan every aspect of the cruise and the arrival of six secret stowaways without my in-laws ever finding out.  I should add that I do not like to lie nor do I like lying and I am pretty bad at keeping secrets.  This proved to be extremely difficult and so for the past month I avoided speaking to my mother-in-law for fear of spilling the beans.

I arranged to have everyone spend the night at the Seaport Hotel in Boston and any possible suspicions were soon extinguished when they saw our small party at the hotel.  This morning we all piled into our vehicles and headed the few minutes toward the cruise port.  I should say that this was after I discovered that I forgot to pack our passports!  Yes, folks – I did the cardinal sin of forgetting to pack my passport.  Luckily, we only live a few minutes away and I was able to drive home and back without anyone ever noticing my absence.  Once at the port we had to park in the alternative parking off site and take a shuttle over to the ship.  As it was after 12 pm, the lines were starting to form and so we had a little bit of a wait to get in.  I always carry a water bottle that I refill and that was dumped out at security, which I have to say is the first time that has ever happened to me as I’m about to get onboard.  We were able to get right to check in and that went quickly but for one small issue.  I noticed that all of the key cards were identical.  This is not that big of a deal but for my son who is under 21.  Usually there is some distinguishing mark to make those under 21 different, be it a hole punch or that the color of the card is different, but that was not the case here and I was told to go to Guest Services on deck three.  There I was told that when the card was swiped they would see he was under 21, but I haven’t encountered this before.  Maybe it’s a Carnival policy, but a visual deterrent is often good enough in this type of situation.

As we were sailing out at 5 pm, we waited for the muster drill, which for us was taking place on deck 4.  We finally were able to begin the muster and everyone lined up and the claustrophobia began.  Less than 30 minutes later we were done and we were now on our way out of Boston and onto Canada.  Sail out was after 5 pm and with dinner reservations at 6 pm, we knew we had to hustle to get moving for dinner.  When we first arrived on the ship I discovered that despite linking all of our reservations between the five cabins for dinner, we were not going to be seated at one table.  I was deeply disappointed because our group has not had the opportunity to get altogether like this in many years and we were split into two groups of six and seven.  Hopefully, for dinner on Saturday, the evening of their anniversary, they will be able to accommodate us as per our initial request.  Cross your fingers for us!

We all headed down to dinner in the Platinum dining room on deck four and our waiter was Freddy who was extremely efficient, friendly, and helpful.  One of our young diners is on a gluten-free diet and despite being told repeatedly by Carnival’scustomer service that gluten-free options were available, we are already discovering that this is not the case.  There were no gluten-free bread options nor were there gluten-free pastas.  I’m hoping that they will have some choices during the cruise other than grilled chicken and vegetables or this young man is going to be really hungry.  I had the Indian entrée, which included rice and three vegetables, one of which was actually Indian.  One ended up being some kind of beans while the other was peas and mushrooms in a white cream sauce – neither Indian at all.  Bummer as I really enjoy Indian food.  Others seemed to enjoy their entrees, which included beef brisket, tiger shrimp, and salmon.  No one was complaining about service or even the strangely erotic dinner performance by the waiters.  I can now say I have seen it all.

After dinner we all ventured over to my in-laws Grand Suite to watch the sunset and people are trying to figure out what to do this evening.  There are many choices from music to comedy to the casino and then some although I can’t honestly tell you which I’ll be doing as my husband has pocketed the Fun Times for today and so I will have to wander off to find him and our possible choices for tonight.  Our cabin attendant, Aldrin, is an absolute gem as he was able to open up all of the balconies between the three cabins and now we have one monstrous balcony and we can all hang out together if we desire to do so.  If you are interested in doing this you’ll have to call Guest Services and they will notify your cabin attendant that they can proceed with opening up the balcony area.  I’ll try to have a picture of our huge balcony for you tomorrow during the daylight hours.

Tomorrow is our sea day so I’ll fill you in on all of the fun and adventures happening onboard the Carnival Glory!