Turkey Dinner on the Epic

I've had a few untraditional Thanksgivings in the past.  There was that one year when I was little and Shan and I ate giant hot dogs in Las Vegas for Thanksgiving dinner.  Or that one year where we spent Thanksgiving with our insane aunt and her cult of talking-in-tongue worshippers who spent the day striking the movie "Backdraft" to hell because of all of the curse words.  Or that one year I spent half of the day stuck in a restaurant parking lot with a dead battery.

But this--THIS--is definitely going to be my favorite untraditional Thanksgiving up to date.

Shan and I are going on a cruise to the Caribbean!  I can't believe it's happening, because the cruise is SO expensive, and as of now Clint's not going with me.  But my parents twisted my arm.  They're going to celebrate their 25th anniversary, and they want their family there with them.  I happened to have some money in savings from working at the college last summer, so I decided to go for it.  I booked my flight to Florida from Los Angeles on Sunday night.  I got the very last seat available for that flight!  Crazy.  Since our cruise is on Thanksgiving week (which is summer weather in the Caribbean), the flights are filling up super fast.  We're traveling on a huge ship--the Norwegian Epic--as pictured above.  My mom has always drooled over this particular cruise liner, and now for her 25th, she finally gets her wish.

Jeremy, Shannon, and I are bunking together in a balcony cabin.  Yep, I get to be their little third wheel.  But it's all good, because they made arrangements for my parents to babysit me whenever they need a little--ehem--privacy (haha, like I can't come up with a thousand and one ways to entertain myself).  Sharing a cabin was actually Jeremy's brilliant idea, because with the three of us, we can afford this:

We have our own private balcony with non-stop views of the ocean.  This is a touch nicer than the little hole I slept in for our Carnival cruise five years ago.

Clint just got accepted into engineer service for his job, which means a huge raise as soon as he gets through the six months of training (training starts in August).  But it also means he can't go on the cruise with me.  Even so, he is desperately trying to think of a way he can go.  If he does decide to fake pneumonia or something, he and I will have to fly out separately since my flight is full.  In fact, LA's flights are all filling up, which means he will most likely have to fly out of Vegas.  Sort of ironic that we'd have to take off from different states to get to the same place.  Also, if he ends up going, my room gets downgraded to this:

 
It's a 10 x 10 studio cabin.  In other words, a hole.  Just a cute, nicely decorated hole.  That little window doesn't even face the ocean--it faces the corridor.  As in, the hallway where the people walk.  It's like an exhibitionist's dream come true, complete with shagadelic lighting:

There's blue and green, I think, too.  I can practically hear the bonky music playing in the background.

Honestly, I don't care if I sleep in the storage deck, because I'll be too busy enjoying this:

 And this (an ice bar!):

And...

Okay, I better stop now.  This cruise doesn't even set sail for another four months.  But man it's awesome to have something to look forward to.