cruise food

No food pictures, Dylan and the "walrus" towel creation in our cabin
Food and lots of it. If you're hungry on a cruise, you must be a real picky eater. Granted its not gourmet food, but it is good. I ate omelets every morning, compared to my normal breakfast of yogurt and granola. Lunch and dinner were experiments in whatever looked good and if it wasn't, going back to try something else. I really counted on gaining a couple of pounds, but didn't. Not because I'd be pigging out, but because of less runs and less volume. Only ran 3 times on the ship for 5 miles each time and once before we left for a whopping 21 miles for the week. Did weights twice. Would have run on the treadmill on the ship, but they require a shirt in the workout room. Geez, I sweated like a pig for the short time lifting weights, no way I was going to do 40-45 minutes on the dreadmill.

Ate lots of fish, broiled, fried and baked. Dylan and I had lobster on one of the nights we ate in the main dining room. Lots of different desserts. That's one item where I overindulged. Each night, they would have at least 3 different desserts. I tried them all, each night. We never made it to the midnight buffet, that probably would have packed on some pounds, eating that late and then going to bed. We did stay up each night way past my usual bed time. No montezuma revenge issues with the cruise food. We didn't eat at any of the ports of call. Only one meal went through me and drained my entire digestive tract, but only before tying it up in knots. That was a mexican dinner the day before we left in Tampa.

The kids pretty much ate the same thing every meal. Pizza or hamburger, plus, ice cream or frozen yogurt. Ryan was eating ice cream before every meal, and the little boys were trying to keep up with him. Dylan did try some sushi. I thought it was pretty good. I had a few of the octopus, mahi mahi and spicy mackerel. Dylan tried the octopus and spicy mackerel and didn't like it at all.

The cruise line makes up for all of the food you eat, by charging you for cokes/sodas and all alcohol. Every day is a new "fun" drink with a souvenir glass for $6.75. I didn't drink on the ship, just the ports of call. The servers were everywhere, no excuse for not having a drink if you wanted one. Dylan caught on real quick with getting the servers to bring him another coke. Thought he was big stuff.

The 3 runs on the ship were on the upper deck "track". Eleven laps equaled one mile. It was the kind of track that is rubberized. The first day I gave up counting after 5 laps and just ran for 43 minutes. The turns were tight and the straights couldn't have been more than 50 meters long. I ran after the sun was up and it was probably already 70-80 degrees. I would have actually preferred the treadmill, only because the wind was so brisk and the turns were so tight. The next 2 times I counted the laps, 5 x 11. Good thing for the Ipod. The open ocean doesn't change much and dodging the walkers isn't much entertainment. Most of the walkers would walk the outer perimeter, except for a few who wouldn't budge from the inside lane.

This morning I ran 5 miles easy on the road and gravel, plus lifted some weights. Sure is different from the 5 miles on the ship. Even though the sun didn't come up until I'd already finished 3 miles, the time went by a lot quicker. Didn't even have my Ipod, it ran out of juice about the same time I did on my long run on Sunday.