ANGELS FAN CRUISE 2012

Sorry for not being able to post here over the weekend. I know you guys were all looking forward to it, and actually, so was I, but, to be honest, trying to type while drunk was NOT happening. I had a feeling that this would be a great trip, but even in my wildest dreams did not have a clue HOW great it would be!!!

Friday morning, I was the first person on the ship. I had booked a suite, and this gave me VIP status, so I didn’t have to go through the long lines inside the ‘golf ball’ that is the check-in building. Once onboard, I went up to the Lido deck to grab lunch and my soda card and the Drink of the Day. Originally, the plan was that I would be sober all weekend and be the designated "babysitter" for my friends, as they are normally the drunks. Normally, this is my ONLY drink of the cruise. This did NOT happen. At 130, when we were allowed in our cabins, I went down and sat outside on my balcony. I was 1 floor down and 3 rooms over from the gangway, so could watch all the people getting on the ship. My friends and cabin-mates showed up about 5 minutes after I got in the room, which meant that SOME of the alcohol that we had smuggled onboard arrived with my friends, and we continued to drink right then, we proceeded to "greet" all the new people getting on and when we saw the Angels players, lets just say that the greetings were not all one sided!!

We had the muster drill at 430, and that took about 45 minutes. Boring, but necessary. This was the first time that I have been in the muster drill where it wasn’t a social hour. Since the Costa Concordia wreck a few weeks ago, people actually paid attention and listened when the cruise director spoke about life jackets and lifeboats. Someone said to me to make sure I let Hank, Mark and Peter onboard a lifeboat BEFORE I got on, cause they were more important than I was… Does that tell you how much my friends love me??

Once the muster drill was done, we went back to the room to refill our glasses just so we could go to the first Angels Activity. This is the only time we had to go back to the room to refill, as one of my friends is in a wheelchair, and the basket under her chair was the "bar" for the rest of the weekend. This was our free cocktail party and this is where we would get our opportunity to take our pictures with the players. For me, this would be just be the first of many, and, for now, lets just say it wasn’t the best picture of the weekend with the players!! There were about 7 premade drinks offered to us, including all of what Carnival calls it’s "drink of the day" – there were blue margaritas, some version of rum punch, some yellow thing make with more rum, champagne, beer, or you could ask the bartender for anything made out of the standard alcohols and mixers, but no name brand liquor, and it was all free. Let’s just say that a friendly bartender is a GOOD thing.

Next thing we know, it’s time for dinner!! We all go down to our assigned dinner table. Food is good, service is excellent, but why does it have to take so long?? The LAST place on a cruise where I want to spend 2 hours is NOT having dinner. Out of the dining room at last, we went out to the comedy club to watch an "adult" show. Ok, so the only thing different about the adult show (we find out) is that the comedian swears and talks about sex. Been there, done that, we’re outta there!! Went into the dance club, and hello, who’s all there?? Well, besides us, there’s Mark Trumbo with his group of friends that came with him, Peter Bourjos and Hank Conger, who looks like he’s ready to take a nap… Lots of dancing and drinking taking place until late that night-or should I say early Saturday morning??

Saturday was the day we got to spend in Ensenada. Oh, I wish I had taken my video camera, but, as I was told, "What happens in Ensenada STAYS in Ensenada".. unless you’re Hank and you Tebow on the roof of a taxi cab and tweet it.. The boys showed at the same place where we were. Have to edit here, as let’s just say, I want to stay on good terms with people!! Let’s just say a good time was had by all. Our group is NOT beer drinkers, so the bar offered us a deal for $100… They gave us a liter of Absolute vodka, and these huge dispensers of mixers along with lunch for all of us. Well, that first bottle only lasted 2 hours, if that tells you anything, and it was only 1130am!! The shuttle was coming back to get us at 430, so what would any normal person do?? We drank some more and ended up drinking 3 LITERS of alcohol between the 7 of us. If any of you read the notes that Marcia Smith posted for the OCRegister, you read about the people that offered money to Dennis Kuhl for Angels Baseball Foundation. Well, guess who those people were?? There’s a permanent sign over my head that reads "guilty" from this weekend. I hope it’s gone by Spring Training. Anyway, let me tell you guys the story.. it was VERY warm in Ensenada, and Hank had taken off his shirt. But hell, we’re females, and we wanted to see the others take theirs off, too. So we had this idea that we’d offer Dennis Kuhl a donation to the Angels Baseball Foundation if he would get Trumbo to take his shirt off. Dennis said to talk to Steve Soliz, Steve took our request to Mark, and Mark said if we would DOUBLE it, he would get Peter to do it also!! Well, $140 later, all 3 of our players were shirtless and taking pictures with us!! And what else did we get for our trouble?? They stole our bus back to the ship, and we had to wait another half hour for our driver to come back and get us!!

We got back to the ship, and had to shower and change because Saturday is "elegant night" for dinner. Instead of going fancy, we cheated and all of us wore black pants with a pre-printed tuxedo tshirt. Never have I received so many compliments on what I decided to wear as I did this night! We went to one of the ship’s photographers and got a cool group shot. You don’t wanna hear about dinner, but we all went to the dance club later and drank and danced until the wee hours of Sunday. Last I saw at 3am, the boys were having pizza up on the Lido Deck and were on their way back to the casino, and I went to bed.

Sunday was the official day for all the rest of the Angels’ activities that were included as part of our cruise. Mind you, note again what time I had last seen the players—that was 3am, and they were NOT YET going to bed.. and our first activity was at 830am!!! So here was our question and answer period and autograph session. 2 hours later, after everyone was satisfied, we went and took the group photo. There had only been about 100 last year, but we tripled that number this year, and therefore needed both sides of the circular stairway in the Atrium. The photographer stood on the floor above us and shot the photo to get everyone in!! You can barely pick yourself out of the pic, but I know where I was, so it wasn’t too bad.. Had lunch after the picture taking, and a bunch of us went to sign up for the Slot Tournament in the casino. I went to the cashier to purchase my entry, and saw that they had pull tabs. These were $5 each, and also included an entry into a raffle for a free cruise. I filled out the bottom and stuck it in the barrel, and started to rip the pull tab. I pulled the first one, nothing.. pulled the 2nd tab?? Guess what?? 3 suns—I had just won $1500.00!!!!! Played my round of the tournament and lost, and then it was time for the trivia and Pyramid game. We have normally played Match Game, but this year, we have Roger Lodge instead of Terry Smith, so we got a new game, too!! It was a blast, but didn’t take a lot of time, as the rounds went REALLY quick. I think I took a nap, and I KNOW I went in the hot tub at some point after this and before dinner, and all I really remember is I know the sun was setting, and I got to see some whales from the hot tub.. Hey, where else can you whale watch while sitting in a hot tub with an alcoholic beverage at your fingertips?? Then it was dinner, then the same old casino and dance club stuff we’ve been doing for the past 3 nights. I don’t remember much at this point, just that I know I danced. Got to bed around midnight, only because I couldn’t stand anymore and knew I’d have to get off the ship in the morning, and the endless announcements would not make me a happy camper, but these were at least easier than the ones we got a couple years ago, when we SWORE we kept hearing the cruise director say Zone 3 (which was us) get the fuck off my ship!!!

I was home by a little after noon yesterday, and I’m still trying to recover. I think yesterday I was still drunk and today I’ve got the hangover from hell, and when will this ship stop moving????