Happy Floating (the card du jour)

We say goodbye to Newport Beach, hop in the car, head up US 1 (the beach route) to the airport to drop off the car. We are early..very early... Its that Swiss sense of timing (did I mention we are Swiss?). We stop in Huntington Beach and walk the pier. Erica says "let's leave a few more dollars in California" as she makes another purchase. The US Championship Surfing Competition is going on and that is really thrilling to watch. We could have spent a bit more time here...but we don't want to miss the boat! Definitely a fun spot! We get into the whole beachy shopping and carnival atmosphere.

We stay as long as we can and finally head north again to Long Beach Airport where we return the car and taxi to the cruise ship. We are VIPs with Carnival so we get a free liter bottle of water!!! Each!!! The music is rocking and rolling and so is the ship. Oh well.. It is what it is. First, we eat, of course....then unpack and head for the deck for a little vitamin D and music therapy. We like to pack in as much fun as we can. The task of acquiring the perfect tan has begun. Everything is a job these days...we all know that.. Sporting the swimsuit (OMG!), slathering on the sunscreen ... and the hair...well, that's another story...maybe a hat is in order. In fact, not maybe---definitely! "Friday nights and the lights are low...looking for a place to go....you are the dancing queen !"..we start singing! Having the time of our life! Cabana boys come around with umbrella drinks and, of course, we order. Muster station exercise is next. It must have been the first one they've ever practiced, it was a new version where you don't need to bring your life jacket but it was not performed well...I'm being nice. The guy in charge had a foreign accent and we could barely understand him..we tried but he lost his audience. We stood on deck for approximately half an hour, everyone started talking and complaining, the Captain then blew the horn and everyone made a mad dash for the stairwells and the bars. Oh well, that's behind us now...the big decision at present is where to eat for dinner, what time the show is tonight and make sure we get to the Casino! We are not super hungry and we don't feel like getting dressed up tonight so we decide on the buffet for dinner and now we are headed for the Casino. $40 each gone pretty quickly...but then.....we start winning on the penny slots! We reach $145 .."whoo hoo! Baby Linda needs a new pair of shoes!" Maybe flip-flops..we play down to $85 and decide to come back tomorrow. Funny thing happened on the way out of the casino...as we were on the way out ...we were walking and talking and not paying much attention as usual...we thought we were exiting the casino but as we opened these metal doors (which should have been our first clue..everything is open on these cruises..no doors) screeching sirens and alarms started going off and there we stood like two deer in headlights. The two of us staring at these men who were staring back at us and frantically waving their arms not to proceed any further! We did exactly what a couple of deer would do...we hi--tailed it outta there...back to our rooms..laughing all the way. We may now be on the "no cruise list". We still don't know what happened. Happy floating!