Bonney's
Vacation Sagas

We were able to sleep in for this day at sea. Katie, who is used to getting up at 5:30 am snoozed until 9:00. I was still having trouble breathing, so didn't get to sleep very early. We went to breakfast in the Windjammer and met John in one of the lines. He was ladling cream of wheat into a bowl and Katie asked if it was grits, that she'd been looking for them all week. He told her no, but they had them sometimes. We sat together to eat and then we were both ready for the 11:00 am Bingo game.

Katie and I bought the $32-for-4-games packet and got our extra blackout strip for "free". Neither of us won. Abracadabra! $32.00 and the value of our "free" strip for blackout disappeared in no time at all. Meanwhile, Debbie was busy loosing at a second slot tournament.

We used the rest of the day to recover and explore areas of the ship we had not yet seen. Katie and I ate lunch in the Windjammer.

Debbie purchased a fancy purse onboard, but kept the cost a secret! John and Debbie went to a Crown and Anchor lunch where each table had a ship officer dining with them. Friday night was our second formal night, but since John and Debbie had had a nice lunch, they didn't plan to eat in the dining room this time, preferring to order in their suite.

I swam for a while until it was time to get dressed for the next Bingo game at 4:00 pm. Debbie used the Bingo machine again and won the first game that paid $109.00. Prize money is determined by how many people play. It was either the second or third game that Katie won $185.10. Abracadabra! You might have been a winner, too. Bonney didn't win! Bummer! While we were playing the Bingo games, John was playing Texas Hold Em poker and qualified for the playoff round to win a free cruise.

When dinnertime arrived, Katie and I were dressed in time to waddled to our table after having already eaten enough food to feed a third world country. Bruce arrived a little later and Page was a few minutes behind him.

Katie, Page, Bruce and I walked to the photo gallery to look for our latest photos, but couldn't find them anywhere. Bruce and Page were looking for other photos of themselves. When Katie and I asked for help, they took us to an area where black and white photos were displayed. We had posed separately and ALL of the shots they took of both of us were the ugliest pictures you've ever seen. A different photographer had taken some good photos of us previously. Katie and I were laughing so hard we had to show Page, before dumping them in the reject box. We even thought the box might have a melt down because the photos were so bad! Maybe you had to be there to see the humor in the situation. Wish you were.

John, Debbie, Bruce, and Page went to the Knight Magic show at La Scala at 8:30 and really enjoyed it.

I wandered with Katie to the casino and donated my $20 allotment for the day to the unfriendly slot machines again. When we went to our cabin, we decided to take our own photos. It's obvious from the light and hanging towel critter in the background that we aren't professionals, but the poses are acceptable. Abracadabra! If only we could make some things disappear and others appear.

We got a call saying John, Debbie, Page, and Bruce were at the Pig and Whistle Pub, and did we want to join them? Katie and I had already changed our clothes and she was in bed. She hopped up and put shorts and a top on and we went downstairs to meet them. I took 3 flavored cigars that I had purchased in Jamaica to give John as a thank you for bringing me on the cruise, and also gave Bruce, Debbie, and John some extra caramels that I brought. We went to the Pig and Whistle Pub, listened to the singers, and visited. This time we were all pretty much considered fuzzy pigs on the patio. This helped us avoid getting called on.

Debbie left in time to attend the Adult comedy show, so this pretty much broke up the party for the night. The rest of us returned to our rooms. When we got there a few minutes before midnight, Katie filled up our water glasses, so we could brush our teeth when we were ready, before the water was turned off AGAIN before midnight. In my cruising experience this is not the norm.

We found this cute swinging monkey in our room.

Katie finally found her grits for breakfast and returned to the room so we could go to Bingo at 11:00 am...again. The four games this time went fast. The first straight Bingo was claimed in nine numbers. The second, four corners, I think, went in seven numbers! The third game went in nine numbers, also. Then there was the black out. Debbie used a machine again, but none of us won. Are we in a rut, or what? No one won the Jackpot within the designated numbers called, so there would be one last Bingo that had accumulated to over $8000.00. Those who wanted to rent a Bingo machine to play for the big pot needed to line up at 1:30 pm, so that didn't give us time to go for a swim, get in line, then go to the Bingo game at 3:30. But after we reserved our machine for $83.00 each (Debbie reserved two), we had time to feed the slot machines. They get hungry and have to be fed daily.

When the next Bingo game started, John had been playing in the final round of Texas Hold Em'. He came in 4th out of 70 Texas Hold Em' entries. He was very depressed and mentioned something about that first position after a prize being called the "bubble" spot, not winning any money

We girls were in our seats ready to play when the time came. The first game came and went a loser. Katie had a Bingo on the second game, along with one other person and split a pot, receiving $385.49. Notice the BIG grin on her face!

Katie.	Bonney.	Debbie.

When a person was down to needing one number, they were supposed to stand. Several were standing when Debbie stood for the blackout Bingo. I needed 2 numbers, B4 and B15. They called B15 and just when I was ready to stand, someone else Bingoed! And won the $8000.00! B for bummer. Lost again!

The loser.

Now fully in practice, Katie and I were the first to arrive at the dinner table. After dinner and before dessert, the waiters performed with another song for us, this time "Deep In The Heart of Texas," again circling the room, white napkins twirling around and ending on the staircase for their rendition. This ship had three dining rooms that were one on top of the other with a 3-deck opening in the center, so all diners could enjoy the performance.

John, Debbie, Bruce, and Page attended the final Variety Show. After that, Debbie, Katie and I had our last shot in the casino, playing the quarter slots. I started with a $10 bill that had not very many quarters left when I hit something that was flashing and paid 384 coins. That's $96.00! Sometimes it doesn't take much to make me happy. I continued to play and loose some before I cashed out at $77.00 profit (for that one event).

While I was losing some of my earnings, Katie had hit on a machine and won $100.00. We were both excited when we returned to our room, with our profits, so we could place our packed bags in the hallway before 11:00 to be picked up and readied for our disembarkation in the morning. Warnings go out to remind people to save something to wear in the morning so they're not walking out in their PJs.

At 10:45 pm the Voyager had what they called a Party Around the World Parade. We joined John, Debbie, Bruce and Page, who had saved us some seats in front of the Pig and Whistle Pub where we watched the parade go by.

Our cute towel stingray greeted us when we went to finish packing.

We had made arrangement for all of us to get baggage tags for departure at the same time, which was between 9:00 and 9:30 in the morning. That gave us time to load our carry on bags and grab some breakfast before we queued up for customs. We arrived curbside to flag a taxi from the queue, but since we were only returning to the condo in Galveston, the first taxi driver refused us, claiming he was waiting for another fare. While our porter was arguing with him, the second taxi in the queue sped away! They are not allowed to do that, so our porter radioed in two complaints to the taxi police. The third taxi driver wasn't happy about having to take us locally, but he would have plenty of time to line up again for another fare. With all our bags and six people we had to use the next taxi (4th in line), too, to fit everyone and everything. That worked out fine.

At the condo, Katie and I loaded our bags back into my car. Bruce and Page went upstairs to shuffle the content of their bags before their late afternoon flight back to Denver. We went up to the condo to say goodbye. Katie was anxious to return home because her son had returned for a furlough from Iraq on the Sunday we set sail and just had one week of leave left. He had been working as a contractor for the past six months and had another six months to go. Since it was Sunday and the condo had free donuts and coffee, we stopped by for some before we headed home.

In Conroe, we stopped for lunch and met Allen Hoffer again. This time was at Subway since the donuts had barely had time to settle in our stomachs and we didn't need a big meal. In the week we were gone, Allen and a friend from the American Legion Lodge had purchased a dune buggy, but that's another story.

I didn't mention that most of Friday and all day Saturday I was in severe pain from my rib, shoulder, and elbow that had been making the fingers on my right hand numb. I'm sure it had something to do with all the suitcase shuffling again because I had started my packing on Friday, getting rid of dirty clothes. I asked Katie if Shewould drive, but said I would drive us from Galveston to Conroe so she wouldn't have to navigate through downtown Houston, something I've done many times. Well, we got stuck in stopped traffic a few miles before the I-45/I-59 north split for about an hour. Once we cleared the problem, I begged off somewhere around Spring where I stopped to fill up with gas and asked Katie to drive the rest of the way home. I took two of my pain pills, something I've never done before (usually one is enough), on an empty stomach (if you don't count the donuts), when we left the gas station, so by the time we saw Allen, I was playing the ditzy, drugged blonde. It was fun. More act than fact, but I believe this is where I mentioned to Katie that my chiropractor needed to go on my next cruise. I managed to get a little caught up on my sleep after lunch when we left Conroe.

Katie did a great job driving except maybe the time I looked over and she was going 80! I think I mentioned it. We got to my house, did the luggage transfer again, mine to the house and hers to her car, and she drove the few blocks from my house to her son's house where everyone was waiting for her.

This saga might sound a little sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek, but we had a great time. Did I mention we both pre-booked another cruise on RCCL? We received a coupon discount for $100 to $200 off, depending on the length of the next cruise. So, it won't be long before we're off again.

Abracadabra! Hope you'll be there!