I am so in the mood for a little beach getaway.  How about you?

We are going skiing this month, which will be so much fun, as usual.

But still, I am a wee bit jealous of those who are heading south for Spring Break instead.

When we went on our Girls’ Cruise a couple of years ago, we went to this wonderful place in Cozumel called Nachi Cocom.  It was the most perfect beach day you could imagine.  Everything was wonderful.  The food, the chairs, the drinks and of course, the company!

On dreary days, I dream of going back there to sit in the sun under an umbrella with a book and  fruity drink.  Also I still dream about the coconut ice cream we had that day.

My friends, Whitney and Sarabeth,  have both previously blogged about our wonderful day in Cozumel.  I visit those pages often and sigh.

Where do you wish you were headed today?

The post Caribbean Cruise Notes: Hanging in Cozumel appeared first on Alison Chino.

One of my favorite parts of our girl cruise last year was dressing up for dinner.

At first I wondered what to wear to dinner on a cruise, but then we planned it all way ahead of time at our cruise meetings.

Also, I should mention that both Whitney and Sarabeth did a beautiful job covering our dinner attire on their blogs when we returned.

But it was so much fun that I love to look back at these pictures.  Also, Mary Polly has been going through past cruise pictures to plan what we will wear for her first cruise!

Let’s review, shall we?

Our first night on board was Feather Earring Night.

Wear whatever you want, as long as it goes with feather earrings.  Skeeter won the award for the longest feather earrings!  Go Skeeter! (bottom right)

Next up was Hat Night.

Big hats, fascinators and headpieces of every kind.  As long as you are laughing, you look great in a hat!

We went all out on the ship’s official dressy night with Little Black Dresses, Feather Boas and Tiaras.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you whose idea the boas were. (Ahem, Stormy.)

Maxi Dress night.

Before the cruise, there were lots of discussions about how maxi dresses got their name and on how tall you have to be to wear a maxi dress.  But after we spent our day on the beach in Cozumel rolling around in the sand and getting a wee bit sunburned, everyone was glad to be wearing long comfy dresses!

Our last night on board was Short Dress night.

My dress might have been the shortest.  Whoops.  That was unintentional.  I’ve since passed that dress down to Mary Polly.

This is the sixth in a series of posts about a super fun birthday cruise that was planned by my friends, Sarabeth and Rhonda.  Read the the other parts here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

Did you enjoy this post on cruising?  Visit other posts about cruising here.  Or subscribe to the Chino House via RSS or by email in the box at the top right of page.

The post What to Wear to Dinner on a Cruise appeared first on Alison Chino.

This is the fifth in a series of posts about a super fun birthday cruise that was planned by my friends, Sarabeth and Rhonda.  Read the the other parts here: part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.

The Story of 12 Women Who Went on a Cruise, Part 5: Cruise Karaoke

One of the many pleasant surprises for me on our cruise was how much we enjoyed Karaoke.

We would wander around the ship after our late dinner, popping into the different bars.  Eventually we would make it to the Karaoke lounge and stay for a few songs.  We sang along and laughed, sometimes with and sometimes at the different singers.

Of course, we quickly determined what I can only hope will one day become common knowledge, which is that all Karaoke would be greatly improved by playing only 90 seconds of any given song.  Unless the person singing is really hysterical, he or she is really only fun to watch for about a minute.

However, we happened to have among our cruisazy crew, a Karaoke star.

It’s difficult to even explain the special combination of skills that Mercedes possesses that enables her to be so great at Karaoke, because they are sort of intangible:

fearlessness, naturally

a really good memory

a confidence that translates to not caring what other people think

a great love of a party and all things fun

some funky dance moves

Our first night on board, Mercedes put her name on the list to sing Baby Got Back.  I have heard her sing all the words to this song before, marveling at the way she does not miss a single syllable.  In retrospect, I think what is amazing is that basically, Mercedes has taken a 7th grade party trick and wielded it into something that can be pulled out periodically over an entire lifetime to mesmerize a crowd.

Do you remember how in your adolescent days you could listen to the same song 1000 times over and you gave entire days to memorizing every single word?  Until your parents would rue the day they took you to the store to buy that tape or cd?

All those lyrics are long gone for me.  I will hear and remember a song, but sing every word?  No way.  Or maybe I just memorized the wrong songs.  My daddy’s musical taste won the day at our house and Bob Dylan just doesn’t translate the same way in Karaoke.

Needless to say, Mercedes brought the house down with Baby Got Back.  We all stood up on the front row dancing and cheering her on.  And laughing hysterically.

Pretty soon strangers were coming up to her during the day and asking,

Are you Mercedes?

Are you going to sing again?

Where?  What time?

Seriously, she created a scene.  The Karaoke guy would see her coming and move her name to the top of the list.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Whoop! There it is! up next.  Sung by, Merrrrrcedes!!!

I don’t even need to tell you the amount of fun that this was for the rest of us.  Every time someone recognized her we would all be in hysterics.

We also all felt that it would never be the same to go on a cruise without Mercedes.

This past winter I went on a little short escape cruise with my mom and sister and we would pop in on some Karaoke here and there.  For the most part it was just mildly entertaining, but one night we were in a lounge where several adults with Down’s Syndrome were taking turns singing.

Now we had watched this group for a couple of days around the boat.  They had other adults with them that were helping them enjoy their time on the cruise with a little gentle supervision.  We loved watching them because they were so delighted with everything and the adults with them were so patient and kind.  They kept up with their towels, shoes, hats and sunscreen.  There seemed to be about four or five adults with Down’s Syndrome assigned to one helper adult.  One guy in particular grabbed our attention right from the beginning of the cruise because he was so gentle with his group of men.  We called him Cowboy Hat.

Look, there’s Cowboy Hat picking up everyone’s shoes again. 

or

I think Cowboy Hat forgot to put on sunscreen yesterday.

He was fairly soft spoken and would take forever just to coax someone into the swimming pool so they wouldn’t miss out on the fun.  It just felt like he was super committed to each person in his group having a wonderful time and he never seemed to get frustrated.

So when we were listening to all the different adults sing Karaoke, one of Cowboy Hat’s guys got up to sing.  I can’t remember the song, but it was pretty apparent early on that that he didn’t know all the words and he was struggling to get through the song.  After a few long, awkward pauses, Cowboy Hat went up on stage and leaned in to share the microphone with him.  He was clearly a little timid about it and he definitely could not sing, but both of those things just made it all the more precious that he was willing to stand alongside the other guy and make it more fun for him.  We all were tearing up for the sweetness of this moment.

So, it wasn’t Mercedes singing Baby Got Back, but still.  Such a beautiful Karaoke memory!

 Next up, What to Wear to Dinner on a Cruise

The post Caribbean Cruise Notes: Cruise Karaoke appeared first on Alison Chino.

The Story of 12 Women Who Went On a Cruise, Part 3: Road Trip to Our Cruise Port

The day finally arrived for us to leave!  Lots of us put our kids on a bus that was going to Kids Across America (a camp in Missouri) early that morning.

Then around 10am we met at our church (NOTE: This was NOT a church trip!).  Whitney and I had matching shirts.  Sarabeth surprised us all with feather extension clips for our hair that she and her very talented daughter, Elizabeth had made.

We all squealed as we picked out feathers to match our hair and outfits.  Then we circled up, said a prayer and took a picture before we loaded up in 3 cars to head to Mobile, Alabama.

Two hours down the road, we made our first stop at a restaurant about which Rhonda had heard wonderful tales.  I later learned it has also been featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

It did not disappoint.  We all LOVED Rhoda’s.  We also loved Rhoda, her husband and her daughter.  One of us even changed her cruise name to Rhoda while we were there.

The hamburgers and the fried pies were out of this world.  And the tamales.  I could get in my car right now and drive the two hours just to taste them again.  Out. Of. This. World.

We filled up the place, not just because it was small but also because we were becoming a presence.  The 12 of us.  Between spouting opinions, shouting out cruise names and laughing VERY loudly, we began to be somewhat noticeable.  Plus we just kept exclaiming, We’re going on a cruise!!  And then we would all yell Whoop! Whoop!

Somehow this Whoop! Whoop! chant sort of evolved.  What began as one or two people saying, Woo Hoo! here and there started to sound like a pack of siamangs calling back and forth to each other all over the cruise ship.  By the end of the cruise our wait staff Whoop Whoop-ed us as we came into dinner, which thrilled us to no end, but back at Rhoda’s, we were still whooping in smaller tones.  However, I could say peach fried pie to any one of the other 11 girls this very minute and she would definitely give me a Whoop! Whoop! with a hand in the air.

After Rhoda’s we had our first conflict.  And that my friends, is a miracle.  We were pretty far into this adventure already as a group of 12 opinionated Southern women and we were just now having our first conflict.

The gist of the conflict was this:

To stop or not to stop.

And more specifically, to stop to shop or not to stop and shop.

This conflict simply stems from some of us doing road trips with people like my father who are not above handing you a can to pee in so that he doesn’t have to make an extra stop and others of us doing road trips where when their mama said,

Ooh, honey, there’s a cute little antique store right there!  Let’s turn around and go back.

well, their daddy would actually turn around and go back.

In recent years, I travelled with a family who did not fuel their car and go to the bathroom at the same stop where we ate lunch and so we had to stop about 30 miles later to take care of those things.  This behavior was completely baffling to me.

My daddy would no sooner turn the car around for a surprise outing than he would pay 50 cents more for a 12 pack of diet coke at the grocery store when it’s on sale for less at the drug store.  It’s just nonsense.

So, you can guess which side of the conflict I fell on.  However, we all decided to stop at the first shopping destination.

Because we were on vacation.  Relaxed.  Not in a hurry.  Playing nice.

The first shopping stop was  a home furnishings store that was only about 10 minutes from where we ate lunch, which is not even far enough down the road for a refuel I tell you.  We all 12 went in.  But in less than ten minutes, eight of us were back at the front of the furniture store.

As an aside, I should mention that none of us had packed light for a week full of fun in the sun, so we had no room for furniture anyway.

In some way I don’t really remember, the eight of us who were not meandering around the furniture store managed to load on up in two of the three cars and start on down the road.  We weren’t leaving the other gals really.  Just getting on down the road bit.  They had yet another stop they were hoping to make to purchase special kinds of flip flops so we thought maybe we’d head on in that direction.

Only somehow we miscommunicated (12 women.  A miscommunication.  No!) and our two cars went one way and the third car ended up leaving the furniture store and taking a different route.  Apparently there’s more than one way to skin a chicken.  Or drive to Mobile.

However, much to the delight of the ladies in the third car, who were smarting a bit at being left behind at the furniture store, even though in their extra hour there they did not purchase even a candlestick, much less any real furniture, we were soon stopped in stand still traffic because of a wreck.

Of course, we only KNOW we were stopped because of a wreck because after we had been sitting for some time, Mercedes (I am using her cruise name to protect her identity) and I got out of our car to see if we could walk up and over a hill to see what the problem was.  I’m not sure why we thought this was a good idea but we all just got tired of waiting.

So we walked for a while on the side of the road, passing the other car of cruise ladies.

We’re just going to see what the problem is.

Now it was June.  In Alabama.  On the interstate.

We did not anticipate how hot it was.  So after about 100 yards, we looked like we were dying.  After we walked about a half a mile, we were able to tell that it was a wreck and they were starting to get the traffic shuffled over to the median so cars were slowly beginning to move.

We turned around to walk back, and by this time we were beyond hot.  Strangers began to offer us rides.  Mercedes looked like she might keel over right there on the median. She was hoping we could get to the car and get to a service station quick for a drink.  And maybe some ice cream.

Soon, we saw Stormy’s car which was travelling a few hundred yards in front of ours and was just beginning to merge into the lane of traffic that was starting to move.  We thought we’d just hop in with her and catch up to our car at the exit ahead, so we headed for her car.  But she waved us away.  She would not even let us in!

We totally thought she was kidding but then she locked the doors and pulled on ahead and away from us.

Later she explained that she felt that she was just getting her car rolling and she was afraid that if she stopped for us she would miss her opportunity to get into the line of moving traffic.

This of course did not stop us from teasing her mercilessly all week about it.

If you are ever in a tight spot, don’t count on Stormy to help you out.  She would not even pick her friends up from the side of the road!

We finally made it back to our car and soon we were in an air conditioned service station guzzling cold beverages and eating jamocha almond fudge ice cream.

Once back on the moving road, we conferred with the third car to see how much time we’d lost.  We figured out that they were just enough ahead of us to make their flip flop stop and still arrive in Mobile just ahead of us.

Thank heavens for that.  I did not want to stand between Isabella and her flip flops.

But we were done stopping.  Mobile, here we come.

It was beginning to get dark as we all came into Mobile.  And somehow car number 3 took a wrong turn and moved from being first to the hotel to last.  Once a meanderer, always a meanderer.

By 8pm we were walking from our hotel to a restaurant around the corner and we were all tired and famished.  We split plates of shrimp salads and seared tuna.  We had drinks and laughs and all the days’ crazies were smoothed away.

Soon we were giggling in our hotel rooms.  We crammed six of us to a room so we’d only have to get two rooms at 20 bucks each.  Mercedes prank called the other room just as I was drifting off.

Then we laughed for 30 more minutes.  Snickers and giggles finally turned to snores. I dreamed of summer camp and laughing with friends until late at night.

The next thing I remember was Elle coming in the room with cups of coffee for all of us and when she opened the door she said,

Y’all!  I have seen our boat!

Next up: We actually get ON the Boat!

The post Caribbean Cruise Notes: Road Trip to Our Cruise Port appeared first on Alison Chino.