First days at sea

Setting Sail--April 20

We arrived at the port, parked our car, and rode the shuttle to the ship. This is the Carnival Magic in all her glory.

We boarded the ship and had lunch on the 10th deck while they finished boarding and loading everything.

Here we go!

We watched from one of the top decks as we set sail.

We went to the front of the ship and saw dolphins just out front of the boat, jumping out of the water. Sadly we were sooooo high up that we couldn't get a good picture of them.

There were two full-sized water slides and a fun splash pad place right on the ship!

That yellow bucket it refilling in preparation to drench the next unsuspecting get who runs under it...

Colton at the dinner table. We had three other young couples at our table. The two at the end were Sam and Lauren.

After dinner that night, we put on a light jacket and walk around the top deck to see the stars.

When we came back to our room, our towels were folded into an Easter Bunny wearing Colton's sunglasses.

First Sea Day--April 21

After grabbing some breakfast, we headed to watch the ice sculpture demo.

In lest than 20 minutes, this guy carved that block of ice into and indian chief with only hand tools!

Then we headed to the top deck.

The water was pretty blue and the boat left a cool, bubbly-white wake.

We tried our hand at the ladder ball competition. 

We won second place and the other guys one first place. We think they won because they were so tall and were level with the 5th rung. 

Then we explored the ship a little and found this huge brass sea turtle on the wall. We also attended our first art auction just to see what it was about.

All dressed up for the captain's dinner. We went to the show before dinner. One our way to the show, we were walking down the hall away from our cabin and there were three men standing in the hallway. Two of them were struggling with neckties. As we approached, I saw their eyes lock on to Colton's tie and they said, "He's got one. Let's get him to tie them." We stopped and Colton took one of the ties and quickly tied it like it was nothing. The other guy tried to follow, but he was about half drunk and had the small end going over the big end at one point. So Colton took his and tied it too. They laughed and thanked us. As we walked away, we heard them say, "Let's tell 'em we tied them."

This was their really cool theater on the ship.

On our way to fine dining.

Entrance to the dinning room. We were assigned to eat in the upper part.

After dinner, we went for a walk on the top deck to look at the stars again and notice another cruise traveling along side us.

When we got back to our room that evening, our towels had transformed into a frog.

Second Sea Day--April 22

We went to the top deck to look out over the boat. It was rather windy, but still sunny and warm.

The water was still really blue and leaving a really cool wake. They also made an announcement while we were having breakfast that a passenger was in need of medical assistance so we were changing our course slightly so that we could go by Mexico and drop him off later that day.

This picture shows our course over the last couple of days and were came in close to drop the guy off.

We didn't dock in Mexico to drop the guy off though. They had that special little medical boat pull up along side us, and we just tossed him off the side into their boat... Just kidding! They pulled up by us and the opened the gangway door and took him off one of the lower decks, but as you can see, about half of the ship was watching the whole event with more than a little interest.

Then we attended the towel folding demo. It was to teach us how to fold laundry better.... ;)

Actually, they were teaching us how to make some of the towel animals. Colton has his critter in a head lock or something...

Mine came our looking suspiciously a lot like a rubber chicken...

But don't worry, we followed every step and both ended up with puppies in the end. 

These are our first two puppies--too bad they didn't last very long.

We took them apart and made and elephant next.

Then they showed us how to make a bear.

After the towel folding, we decided to check out the ropes course. We didn't get pictures of us on there because they wouldn't let us take our cameras with us and we were on there at the same time. But we did get a picture of one of the employees holding the hand of a lady and helping her across the balance beam because she was too scared! They are the two in red. It was pretty funny!

Then we checked out the giant chess set in honor of Tory S. And that is part of the ropes course behind me along with the tail exhaust of the ship.

Then one of the ship employees popped in for a bit.

Next we played the 9-hole course of miniature golf. We started out keeping score, but lost track about half way through.

Then we watched the sunset.

At dinner, Colton got this appetizer of alfredo and bacon (left), which was a very large dish for an appetizer

Malea got this strawberry bisque (right) and it came out as a bite-sized jello square. 

It was very funny.  

A few minutes he came back by and poured the bisque into the bowl. Then we understood what was going on. 

When we got back to our room that evening, there was a towel monkey hanging from our ceiling.