Packing to cruise again

Yesterday we had our monthly NARFE meeting.  It was a fun one, an auction of white elephants to raise money for Alzheimer's.  We took two gifts and brought back five at a cost of $150 total!  I love an auction!  Not as many people came to this one as the usual.  Maybe it was the bad weather, rainy and blustery, or maybe they were afraid they would spend too much money!  LOL!  Despite the fact that there were only 15 of us, with the auction money and extra money people donated, our chapter raised about $1200 yesterday to donate to Alzheimer's research.  Not too shabby.

Then we had to go get a new printer.  I broke our old one a few weeks ago, so I promised Mark that I would buy him a new one.  BJs had a nice one on sale, so I only paid $50 for a better one than I broke. LOL!  We got some cash at the bank, and Mark bought a new hat, an Aloha shirt, and bought me a bathing suit cover up and sunglasses at the Cove for the trip.  Once we got home, it was PACKING time.  OY!  I NEVER thought I'd get everything into the two suitcases. 

This is a two week cruise,  a five night back to back with a nine night, on the Celebrity Constellation.  It's our favorite ship and we will be in room 3104, next door to "our" room.  It's the one Saul and Phyllis were in when we sailed with them for our anniversary.  We just love that ship.  They have the Thalassotherapy pool and AquaSpa Cafe that we just love.  The Persian Gardens are also fantastic, and Saturday night we will have a specialty dining night at the Tuscan Grille.  It's going to be great. 

We will be going to Key West and Cozumel with two sea days on the first cruise followed by CocoCay (Bahama private island), St. Bart's, Guadeloupe, and St. Maarten with four glorious sea days on the second one.  I LOVE sea days, so this is six glorious days at sea out of the fourteen.  Of course, that doesn't add up to fourteen because the other two days are in Miami when we sailaway for each cruise.  Cruises always count that sailaway day as the first day of the cruise because it's the first night.  Does that make sense?  I think so.

Packing was crazy.  Yesterday.  We were trying to pack smart and reuse clothes on both cruises while avoiding expensive laundry charges.  I am only taking four pairs of slacks for all fourteen nights at dinner with 8 tops to rotate with them.  I have three pairs of shorts and four pairs of capris with 8 t-shirts for daytime wear.  Unfortunately, I also packed a bathing suit, two pareos, three beach cover ups, NINE pairs of shoes.  OK, don't hate me, but I just couldn't leave any behind.  There are white and black dress shoes, two different pairs of sneakers, water feet for going into the ocean, three pairs of sandals, and a pair of flip flops for the pool area.  Ridiculous, I know.  I packed three nightgowns and a bathrobe as well.  Honestly, I didn't even think I owned 16 pairs of underwear, but it turns out I do.  I smashed and squooshed and squashed.  I managed to get it all in my two suitcases AND zip them up.  I don't know what's going to happen when I unzip them!  LOL!  No room for bringing back any souvenirs either.

Mark is still working on it. He only wants to take one suitcase, even though he has a smaller one.  I have looked at the stack this morning. If it were me, I'd give up and get out the second suitcase.  Well...it's not me. 

As for weight, I and 269.2 this morning.  Sigh....I did not lose all of the six pounds, just half of it.  Now I'm off for two weeks.  It will be terrible if I gain 10 or more pounds on this cruise.  It's just so easy to do.  We'll see when I get back.

We will be taking our computers and buying some internet time.  I probably won't write too many blogs, if any, but I don't rule it out.  Two weeks just seems like a long time to be off line.  I'll check email and Facebook briefly now and then.  I won't listen to the news!  That's one of the things I enjoyed about our week long cruise in January. I did not listen to any news for an entire week, and I did not miss it.