This cruise was for my friend, Debbie, 50th birthday cruise. We had it planned for nearly a year and it was finally time to jet off to Fort Lauderdale. We wanted to have dinner at my favorite place there... Charley's Crab... but the annual Winterfest Boat Parade was going on and all the tables were $200pp for steak and lobster and a front row viewing of the boat parade. We figured "why not?" SO... we ate great food... watched the boats all decorated with lights... and we knew in the morning it was going to be time to board our ship!
Just the four of us went to dinner and then we hit a huge wine store because the cruise ship we were getting on allowed us to bring on as many bottles of wine as we wanted! YAY! Dan drank WAY too much wine at dinner, so we left him in the cab to sleep while we went into the wine store. I highly suggest a trip into Fort Lauderdale's Total Wine store. WOW! Of course the meter was running and Dan was passed out in the back of the cab, so we hurried. Debbie and I each got a case of wine for the week. That should do us, right? yeah sure...
Well, it was the sailing before Christmas, so I figured it was time to be festive. I brought a blow-up Christmas tree with me for our cabin (A suite that we upgraded to at the last minute) and even little lights were hung all over the cabin. After the Muster Drill we had 18 people over to our cabin for a wine tasting party. We had met a bunch of GREAT people on the CruiseCritic.com and I had preplanned a party. It was a blast!
Here are our Happy Hour empties...
One specialty on Holland America's Westerdam is their flaming Spanish Coffee. It is so cool to watch! We had to come here for Debbie each night.
Dan always seems to make friends with the bar tenders. A good skill if you ask me :)
Here is our last night Happy Hour party. This is Paul and Sharon and they live in Fort Lauderdale. They were so fun to meet. They really made the cruise special.
Dan's first ever experience playing Bingo! He didn't like it.
Here are some of the Happy Hour girls.
We had happy hour on our balcony almost every night. We invited anyone that wanted to come from our roll call on the CruiseCritic. It was so much fun. We ordered up cheese and crakers... Debbie brought nuts and stuff for the week... it was such a great time every night.
Here is the ship in Curacao. I had been to all these stops several times and didn't take many pictures. As you can see, it was another gorgeous December day in the Caribbean.
