John Sheda

The Sheda family took off from Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday, January 4 for a cruise on the “Grandeur of the Sea,” Royal Caribbean Cruise line. It’s the smallest of the four ships of their fleet but still was quite large from my perspective. The entire crew consisted of about 800 crew members, who catered to our every whim and desire. Approximately 1800 other passengers were on the ship with us and their names were, Bob, Susan, Todd, Ramona, Winston, Fred, Wilma and others that I simply can’t recall all their names. Our little family group included Kaye, Kieryn, Annie, Ben, Jasmine, friends Bob & Jen as well as Deb and myself. Our oldest daughter, Sarah and her family out in Seattle did not go with us. Maybe next year!!

I know many of you have been on cruises so I shan’t bore you with the details, but we did have a lot of fun. Cruises are all about food!! No matter the time! Cheeseburgers & hot-dogs all the way to turtle, alligator and escargot. And everything in-between. I’ve been told that many people put on about a pound a day from all the food. Not sure about me as I’ve yet to step on the scale. But the pants do seem to be a little more snug. Could they have possibly shrunk? Hmmmm, maybe!! I didn’t ask Deb about this and I’m (ahem) not about to. I’ve not been happily wed for fifty years without learning a few things along the way. Weight gain being at the top of the list!!

Out two “port-of-call” stops were the beautiful countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Several in our group went zip-lining, (not Deb or me), several went climbing & hiking, (not Deb or me), and a few of our group went “four-wheeling” (again, not Deb or me). So what exactly did Deb and I actually do, you may ask? Well……………..to be honest, not much. We enjoyed eating, (breakfast, lunch & dinner), as well as several nice snacks between our three square meals each day. Heck, Deb took back to our “huge” cabin several apples & pears to snack on, (I guess), while I generally brought back a lot of cookies. Ya know, just in case one got hungry late at night. It could’ve happened.

The weather was beautiful with temperatures in the mid to upper 80’s most of the time. One little rain shower one morning which was kinda nice to watch across the ocean. Other than that the weather was great. We spent our time off the ship basking in the sun on the Royal Caribbean’s private islands, just soaking up the sun, while our kids went about doing their thing. It’s amazing that from one generation to another, people’s perspectives of what fun is drastically changes. That younger generation was always on the go and ready to try just about anything while the older generation, (Deb & myself), preferred to just relax, nap, relax some more, eat fairly often, nap again and so on and so forth. Our kids looked at us, thinking us crazy NOT to be all “get up and go,” when actually we simply preferred to truly use a vacation for its true purpose, “relax, unwind, recharge and so forth.” AND WE DID JUST THAT!!!

To close with, it took us about a half day or so to figure out how and where we were going to spend all our money. Ha ha ha!!! My goodness folks, we seemed to throw around money just as if we actually had it. Everyone wanted our money. The natives enticed us into their island shops and then the “bartering” began. Does anyone ever get a bargain during these times? I’m sure we didn’t but we still had a lot of fun. And finally our cruise came to an end. Thank God! Our money came to an end about a day or two prior to the end of our cruise but, what the heck. After all, “it’s only money, right?” So let me know a little about one of your cruises at jsheda@indytel.com or give me a call at 319.327.4640. “Oh, if you call, can I borrow a couple of bucks?”