A Very Long Day

I am excited to share some of my adventures of the last week with the thoughts community. Today, though, I will share the not so wonderful parts of the last day of our vacation. The beginning of the day was eventful but it climaxed by 10:30 that night.

I am an experienced cruiser. Friday night I was up dancing until 3:30 am. I knew that Saturday would be a day at sea and would be relaxing.

Saturday morning I woke up to the boat rocking with great intensity. I thought it was just a few small waves or the my lack of sleep but I couldn't shake the foreboding feeling about the day. We all got up and dressed and went to the Lido to have breakfast. My kids started moaning so we hurried back to the room to get them some Dramamine. The room was already made up for us so we unmade our beds and had them crawl into it to rest. (I have been on 7 cruises this is not typical)

We saw outside there was a great storm and they announced that there were eight foot waves that the boat was fighting. Fortunately by that evening they would be gone. At this point my son started puking and most of it made it into the trash can. I cleaned up what I could but had to call out room steward to clean the carpet and change the linens.

We went down stairs to give them room to clean up. I suggested the 3rd floor because the lower middle of the boat is the most stable. The place was covered with green looking people laying around. There was a nice lady with some medicine that you rub into your wrists to make them feel better. It worked instantly so they went into the theater to watch "Tangled".

We managed to keep them feeling better and get some lunch in them. I went to lay down in my now clean room. I napped until 5. We went to a cocktail party that was a special invite event. They were serving drinks two at a time. I really didn't feel like drinking.

Around 6pm we went to eat dinner and I just watched them eat. We heard an announcement break in saying that they don't normally break in unless there was an emergency. (Remember the boat is making giant rocking motions) They were sorry to have to make this announcement. My hairs stood up. He said "One of the main pipes broke. We have been working on for the last hour with no luck". I looked at my husband with panic in my eyes. After a pause the cruise director said, "...so there will not be hot water for the next two hours." I shook my head and complained to my husband that that wasn't an emergency and how needless it was that he announced it that way.

We dropped our kids at the kids area because it had been a long day and we wanted them to have fun. We hung out at the pub and socialized.

We walked down to the comedy club and sat down. The boat had finally stopped rocking. We were looking forward to letting our hair down when the boat just stopped. (around 10:30) Then then emergency announcement came on again. The cruise director said, "I know you are tired of hearing my voice today. This is a sad moment. I regret to announce that a passenger just jumped overboard. We have alerted the coast guard and are turning the boat around to see if we can find this person." I sat there dumbfounded for a moment. My husband went to get the kids.

I raced down to the cabin. Met the family there. I grabbed my jacket and went up to the top of the boat. They had spotlights out and we were all looking to see if we could help spot the man/woman. We saw a blinking light in the waters quite a ways out. Several of us thought we saw movement from that area.

The spot light found the spot and we all held our breath as the rescue boat was deployed. I was crying and so were many of the other passengers. (Some were videoing which I made very clear to the teenager next to me was gross considering this was a life not a friend putting on a play)

As the rescue boat deployed a movie started on the big screen. Free Willy's theme music was playing in the back ground almost as if planned. As they made their way to the beacon of light they stopped and pulled something from the water. Then they moved to a second location and were there for longer. This time they pulled something from the water and we were pretty sure it was a person/body. They started hightailing it back to the boat.

The announcements came on again and they said that they had in fact found the person. They couldn't confirm or deny the condition of this person but finding him/her was in fact a celebration. The majority of the people yelled and hugged each other. We knew the likehood that this person was okay was slim. The lowest floor they could have fallen from was the 5th.

Then the rumors started. On my way to my room I heard it was a 14 year old girl. Then an older man that lost all his money in the casino. I heard that it was a man that was drunk who was fighting with his wife and she pushed him. It took moments for all of this to feed the hunger for knowledge and answers.

The next morning we got conflicting reports but we still understood it was a person who jumped. Now I read up on it there are conflicting reports coming from the cruise line. 


 x,


Rebecca