January 15 - 19, 2007
Fort Lauderdale to Grand Turk on the Carnival Legend

Our surprise Embarkation photo with the band!
They actually stood there for FOUR hours and took pictures with EVERYONE.

Hands down, the BEST vacation I have EVER had in my life. Four days on a boat with two of my favorite bands, lots of friends, and some excellent music! I actually cried when we touched down in Rochester, because I really, really did not want to get off the boat. Of course, the fact that it was 18 degrees out, and not 80, with 6" of snow on the ground and 1/4" of ICE under that snow on our car MAY have influenced those emotions a tad... or maybe it was the extremely turbulent flight... MANY reasons not to want to come home!!

The other "emotion" we experienced was pure exhaustion. There was so much to do on the boat, with so many concerts, that we really wore ourselves out trying to see as much as we could... and we STILL missed a lot! I really wanted to see Joe Pisapia, but they changed the venue, and I didn't know, so I missed it. On Wednesday alone, we saw FIVE bands perform... and that was AFTER we spent the afternoon on Grand Turk, shopping and snorkeling. Yeesh! We were up from 8 am to 2 am! I don't think we got to bed before 1 am on ANY given night.

The weather was gorgeous, though apparently the ship was a little rockier than usual, so we really got our sea legs. In fact, I am still "ebbing and flowing" as I type this, and it's making me a little crazy. I keep having "moments" of feeling like the floor is moving, or I'm floating. It's freaky. Thursday, the water was sloshing out of the pool like crazy -- that's why they have the wall around it with an overflow area! I swear one time it dipped a full 24" on one side. People were stumbling everywhere, trying to walk in a straight line. At first it was annoying, and then I started enjoying it! Wee! By the way, stairs are challenging in that situation!

Luckily, I did not get seasick. I know I can't read in the car, so I brought ginger pills just in case, and took them every day. Considering how rocky it was, I guess I did just fine! Some people really had a hard time. Of course, I didn't even TRY to read on the boat. In fact, I don't think I will be able to read again until this weird flowy feeling goes away! I'm getting woogy trying to proofread this...

There were so many great moments, I can't even begin to list them all here. All I can suggest, if you REALLY care, is to go over to barenaked.net and read the Ships & Dip section of the forum! Be warned, though... the guys were in rare form on this trip, so it's not all family friendly! Ha!

Now it's time to start saving for Ships & Dip III - January 6 - 10 on the Carnival Victory!

We took a LOT of photos, though maybe less than some people. I didn't upload them all, but I chose the best, and tried to organize them by date and event. We actually didn't do much on Tuesday... we explored the ship and enjoyed ourselves. Most of the ship photos on the first link were taken Tuesday.

The Carnival Legend - In all its garish glory. Embarkation, ship exploration, etc.

Barenaked Ladies Show #1 & The Vanity Project - Monday, January 15

Grand Turk - Wednesday, January 16

Barenaked Ladies Show #3 - Wednesday, January 16

Trippin' Balls, Brothers Creeggan, Guster and Thinbuckle - Wednesday, January 16

Barenaked Ladies Show #4 - Thursday, January 17

Note: I watched the simulcast of BNL show #2 in the Firebird Lounge downstairs on Tuesday, so I do not have pictures from that show. I wasn't able to afford the $100 charity donation to obtain tickets to the other show (we chose ONE show to attend when we booked, first or second, and I picked second). Oh well. It was fun watching it "on TV" one deck below, though, with lots of other people who didn't have tickets. I can't quite figure out why people were taking pictures of the projection screen, though... LOL!

TourPhotographer.com - David. Bergman. Kicks. Ass.
Ships & Dip Official Web Site
Ships & Dip Photo Gallery
Ships & Dip Forum
Barenaked.net
bnlmusic.com