After our last vacation to Cancun last December, we've made it to our next vacation that has been planned for quite some time. This one is a cruise, our first cruise to be taken since the shutdown in early 2020. Our last cruise was in Nov/Dec 2019, so we're long overdue for some boat time. Our plan was to drive to New Orleans the day before and spend the night with some friends at an old mansion turned hotel before making our way to the terminal to get on the ship. We drove the trusty Scion down to NOLA since it's only a few hours away, and the Scion logs about 180 miles a day during its use as a food delivery vehicle. Anyway, we had most of our luggage pre-packed, as is our routine so the only last minute preparations to be made are packing some stuff for our overnight bag and loading up some hygiene items into the luggage, since we won't keep such items stashed in a luggage bag for months at a time, especially things like vitamins. With everything ready to go and things at the home front straight and ready for our absence, we headed out to NOLA. On cruise day, we bid our adieu to the Magnolia Mansion and headed to the terminal in the morning. After parking the car and unloading our luggage, all of which we would take on the ship ourselves, we ran the gauntlet of going through the terminal at the port, going through the security and passport checks and all that other shit before finally making our way to the main Carnival terminal where we were checked in. Once we were finally checked in, our boarding went pretty fast. Once on board, we were allowed to drop our bags off at our room, even though it wasn't technically ready yet. From there we took advantage of a port lunch, hitting the buffet to get us a bite to eat to kickstart the trip, even before the ship even left the port. Once all boarding was completed, which was probably a few hours later, we finally started to back out from our mooring at the Port Of New Orleans. We headed to one of the upper decks overlooking the Lido deck to oversee the Glory's departure from the port. Music was played as everyone had a good time dancing and celebrating the departure of the ship and its trip down river towards the Gulf. This cruise is special due to the fact that it is Carnival's 50th birthday/anniversary in business and part of this cruise is going to be a ship meetup off the coast of Mexico near Cozumel by our ship and several other Carnival ships. Of course as is the case on these ships there's going to be music and dancing and celebrating with some words from Carnival's representatives and the ships will sound off their horns in recognition of the 50th birthday. There's swag that'll be handed out as well as up for sale in the gift shops, one time only items with the 50th birthday logo on them so these items will probably go fast. My main thing is that I'm just happy to be able to take another cruise again after so long. Our port stops will be Cozumel, Costa Maya and Belize. We only had one excursion planned for this trip, with us really hanging out with our friends and just winging it for the most part. Stay tune for more to come as we hang out on the cruise ship.
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