embark day for Dancing with the Stars-At Sea finale

January 12, 2014
Another embark day. I didn’t have anything to do today, so despite agreeing to go ashore with Courtney to go shopping, I called her and told her I was sleeping in a bit longer and would see her later in the day (she wanted to go out around 8:30). So, I ventured out on my own. I wasn’t on my own for long though, because while I was in Publix getting some snack-food, I ran into Stef. She is the wife of one of the band leaders over the summer, the band leader that is Emilys best friend and ‘big brother.’ Emily had told me the other day that he was on the Eurodam, but I didn’t know his wife was. So, we both finished our shopping and agreed to get lunch/wifi together and catch up for a bit. It was nice, we went to a smoothie place and got a smoothie each (mine was strawberry and yoghurt, yummm) and some food. It was a nice long lunch. Then, I introduced her to Plato’s Closet and we both shopped for a bit before I decided it was time to head back to the ship. Of course, once back on the ship, I went to the Bow and called Mom and Dad and Mom again and talked until we left port.

The night was a bit eventful. We had 5 kids show up, and they were all just a little bit awkward. One has a mom who’s part of corporate, two others have been on 22 cruises (one has special needs so that was stressful for me), and the other two were just really really shy. It went fine though, they made friends with each other once we got them doing something and the night went by somewhat quickly.

Meghna and I went to the show afterwards. It wasn’t the normal “Listen to the Music” first night introduction show though. Well, it wasn’t JUST “LTTM.” In the middle of the show, where they normally announce the On Location Team (the librarian, DJ, and party planner-and YPC depending on the cruise director), they took the time to introduce all of the Dancing with the Stars-At Sea ship finalists. Because this cruise is the finale cruise for 2013, one winner was voted on each cruise on each ship on HAL (the last night of the cruise) to be in the running, but only one winner from each ship was chosen to get a free cruise and be part of this DWTS At Sea finale cruise. They introduced all of them and then had one of the pro couples give a demonstration of the Viennese Waltz just to get the excitement up for this cruise (not that this crowd needed it, they’d all obviously come just for this; the showroom had standing room only, and I’m pretty sure the ship was leaning forward because all the people were there and not spread out over the whole ship! This cruise is going to be eventful, I can already tell!