by Arthur Gibson

Created on: March 06, 2009

Early in 1999, my parents called to tell us they wanted to take all of their children and spouses on a cruise to celebrate their 50th wedding aniversary. They were going to pay for the cost of airfare, and the cost of the cruise, all we would have to pay for would be any sourveniors or other expenses. Did we want to go? Well, I didn't even have to ask my wife to give them the answer to that question. Of course we would go with them. When should we pack our bags? 2 or 3 weeks later they called to let us know the cruise was on for the the first week of September. Great! We circled the dates on our calendar and started to make our plans and save money.

My wife's youngest sister and her husband agreed to take care of our 11 year old son for the week. We stopped mail and newspaper delivery and we were ready to take off for a much anticipated vacation. The 10 members of our family met at the airport and boarded the flight from Kansas City to Miami on Saturday morning. Once at the Miami airport we were met by a representative of the cruise line, led to a bus, and taken to the pier. After going through some check-in procedures, we found ourselves boarding the ship at about 3 in the afternoon. With the exception of my parents, and 1 sister and her husband, this was the first cruise experience for 6 of us. Expectations were high and there was a little nervousness involved too, for those of us who had never been to sea. Would we get seasick? What was the food going to be like? Would we be bored on a ship in the middle of the ocean? What would it feel like to be on the ocean with no land in sight? These questions and more were running through our minds as we waited for the ship to leave the dock.

The first order of business was to find our cabins and see what our accomadations were going to be like for the next week. We had been told by my parents that the cabin was going to be about the size of a normal bedroom with a small bath included. Once in the cabin, we found our luggage had arrived before us and were laying on the bed. After unpacking, we put our valuables into the wall safe provided and set the combination. Then we all met in my parents cabin and began planning the coming week. At approximately 5 pm everyone was summoned to the boat deck for our mandatory abandon ship drill where we found the lifeboat we were assigned to and spent about 20 minutes listening to some basic instructions from a crewman. About 30 minutes later we were leaving the docks. It was a thrill

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