Emergency Airlift, Fun By the Pool, Winning in the Casino and So Much More

A day at sea can be relaxing, calming, serene and peaceful … or you could be with this group.  In that case a day at sea would be wild, funny, at times loud and certainly festive.  With several guests having barely recovered from the wedding, the Bloody Mary’s started to flow at about 8:00 AM.  The day dawned clear and sunny and everything was going as it should, happy campers, great time – rock on.

About 10 AM there was an announcement from the Captain that an emergency evacuation would necessitate turning the ship around so that the Coast Guard  could airlift a passenger for medical treatment.  Not something I see every time I cruise!  Most of the happy campers stayed put and kept doing what they were doing. Not moi, I’ve never seen this; I grabbed my video camera and went for the money shots.  The ones I could sell to the news at eleven guys.  I guess we were out of helicopter range, so the ship made a U-turn and piled on speed for an hour and a half while the crew prepared the aft deck for a helicopter landing.   

It never occurred to me how much work this entailed.  Security and crew members piled up over 200 lounges and tied them down so the rotor wash wouldn’t blow them around, they pulled down the lights strung from the funnel to the stern, roped off sections of about four decks to keep the decks clear, and kept back the curious (guilty as charged – I’m a cruise specialist, I need to know these things).  

First a reconnaissance or escort C-130 plane came over the ship, then the chopper circled the ship once (making sure the landing area was clear – I guess?) before they came in a second time and landed.  The escort C-130 circled the ship throughout the operation, which took about half an hour. It was fascinating to see these guys helping us out.  What professionalism!  It made every person on the ship proud of our Coast Guard, they really are there when you need them. Videos when I get back to land, they're not exciting enough - I didn't get the money shots - to spend half an hour uploading them.  Internet connection on ships is VERY slow, and expensive.

The excitement over, it was back to the pool and the party.  From what I understand some of our crowd closed the disco at about 3:00 AM.  I wouldn’t know, after the Captain’s night dinner of lobster and prime rib I wandered around the casino a bit (so far my crew has won over $850 between them), took in part of the comedy show, and called it a night at about 10:00.  Oh to be young and bullet proof again!

Carnival is known in the industry for its towel animals.  Here’s the towel animal of the day:

Cozumel up next and while some of the group will go off swimming with dolphins, a good number are heading for Carlos & Charlie’s.  Party on dudes!