through sunshine and rain…baby, we keep on smilin’

The announcement that the New Kids were going to have the honor of playing Fenway Park came in late January. I’m not going to mince words or dance around the truth: had I not been $800 into my cruise payments (or, even so, had I had the option of finding a roommate replacement without jeopardizing the reservation for both of my girls), I probably would have had to think long and hard about cancelling my spot on the cruise just to be at Fenway. Why? Simply because, as excited as I was about the cruise, I felt fairly sure that there will be (at least) one more to come in the future. Fenway, however…not so much. Of the seventeen concerts that have taken place at Fenway Park since the first in 2003, only one artist (Dave Matthews Band) has been honored to play it twice. NKOTBSB? Perhaps, but that’s quite a gamble. (more…)

Edited: June 22nd, 2011

i’ll be trippin’, can’t wait till the next time

When I got on the Destiny, I was pretty sure it would be my only New Kids cruise. Why? Because what I want to do is be a travel writer. I already do it, but I want to get paid to do it. In the meantime, though, I travel and write to get experience. And I do that with money out of my own pocket. So, one New Kids cruise gives me enough Miami/Bahamas fodder for my travel blog one time, but can I do it multiple years and still rationalize spending the hard-earned money I should be using traveling somewhere new instead? Probably not.

I know lots of girls work 40 hour work weeks, Monday through Friday, and get a week or two of paid vacation a year, so they can afford to make this their annual vacation. Believe me, I’m rife with jealousy. I just didn’t have any real designs on doing this more than once. And then…the cruise started… (more…)

Edited: May 25th, 2011

baby, don’t let this be the end…

Waking up on Sunday was bittersweet, since it was our last day on the boat. We had the photo op first thing (well, not early, but it was the first thing we had planned), and unfortunately, so did everyone else on the entire boat, so it went really long. We only had half a photo group, so we decided to just get in where we fit in and not really worry about it. We were pretty sure that since we were group B, by the time we got to the guys in any group, they’d be beat.

We ran into Amanda and Nina, who had somehow miraculously found room for us in their photo group. One of the girls gave up Joe for Donna, which left Michelle and I to Jon and Danny (but we were both pretty much okay with whomever). We sat at the bar near the end of the line, deciding to be last. After a drink or two, a little relaxation, and some nice conversation, a Rose Tours employee started barking that if we didn’t get in line we wouldn’t get our photo op. (Who knows if that would have actually turned out to be true…we obeyed and got in a line.) We stood in a line that was moving at a decent pace for the next hour, working our way from the casino into the room where the guys were all standing, and already obviously exhausted, having been meeting fans and smiling for pictures for hours on end (and the line was still out the door behind us). Girls who’d made it through before us had been so excited to report that they got hugs and conversation with all five guys, but there wasn’t a chance for any of that at this point in the day. Some of the guys were stretching, others barefoot, all clearly already wiped out. I asked Jeannie from Rose Tours why they schedule all the photos for the same day; we were told that that is all handled by NKOTB’s management. (What the…? Wouldn’t it make more sense to break it up & do a few hours each night? If I ruled the world…) (more…)

Edited: May 25th, 2011

you’re talkin’ to my heart without makin’ a sound

Prior to waking up on Saturday morning, two things happened: we debated at some length about whether or not we even had a ton of interest in getting off the boat and seeing Nassau (without making a final decision), and we forgot to make decisions on our room service breakfast for the following day. Because I made it back to the room before Michelle & Donna, I hastily scribbled a few choices down on the room service list, stuck it on the door before 5 am, and forgot all about it. (By the time they came back 10-15 minutes later, it was gone, but they were both just happy to have anything in the morning that was ready to go, so yay!) (more…)

Edited: May 24th, 2011

let me take a mental shot of this moment

Before I make a big statement, a little qualification: I’m not married, and I don’t have children. So when I say that from start to finish, day 2 of the cruise was quite possibly one of the most perfect days of my life, please believe me.

Before crashing the previous night, I’d managed to get the girls to tell me what they wanted for breakfast and put the request thing on the door, so we woke up to a little room service: fruit, coffee, and toast. It wasn’t much, but we were happy to have it and we didn’t have to make it (and better still, it was free)! We put on our swimsuits and coverups and made our way to Deck 0 to get on a tender (a smaller boat that would carry us to the private island of Half Moon Cay, because the Destiny would stay anchored a bit of a distance from the shore instead of docking at an actual port). From the tender, you can see how unbelievable the color of the water is: it looks like it does in the movies! It’s light turquoise, and surreal. I didn’t do anything to enhance the color of this photo, if this helps:
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Edited: May 23rd, 2011