Adrift: Day 1

Monday morning, 6:00am:

I awoke to a sudden lurching and was instantly alert. "That's not normal...", I thought to myself. Moments later the Captain's voice, along with a cacophony of alarms and sirens, came over the PA system, "Alpha team, Alpha team, Deck zero Engine Room".

Yup...that's really not normal (during our safety drill the night before, the Cruise Director had made a point to mention that announcements would never be made within the cabins unless it was an emergency). Then came the smell of smoke. Aw, crap! We grabbed socks, shoes, and jackets, and began herding our trio of trouble-makers up to our designated Muster Station...you know, the place where they have the life boats. As we stood there, my nephew turned to his mom and asked, "Mom...was the Titanic a cruise ship?" (Yikes!) After a short time we were invited to "relax" in the public dining areas rather than hang out near the lifeboats. Okay, so we're not sinking. That's good.

It didn't take us very long, however, to realize that the ship was in bad shape. No engines, no electricity, no water, NO FLUSHING TOILETS! We spent the entire day in our pajamas, on the upper decks, waiting to hear the final diagnoses. It wasn't until that evening that the Cruise Director, John, announced officially that our trip was "terminated". Terminated was good. Terminated meant that we wouldn't be picking up the cruise halfway through and skipping our ports of call. Terminated meant a refund. Wahoo!

Unfortunately, it also meant that the engines were finished. Toast. Kaput. Done. We were officially "dead in the water". Solution: They would be calling in a couple tug boats to come and drag our 113,000 ton ship back to land. Holy crap! We were then informed that we would be stuck on the boat until Wednesday. That when I wanted to:

(Note the spelling: "Vomid" We laughed for hours)