First Stop: Warnemunde, Germany

We walked out to the beach and dipped our toes in the Baltic Sea, which was FREEZING and full of jellyfish.  No swimming for me! 

Our first stop was at Warnemunde, Germany.  Many ambitious cruisers used this stop as a starting point for a train-ride to Berlin (about 3 hours away).  We were much less ambitious that day (and lucky enough to live in Germany and see Berlin whenever), so after we toured tiny charming Warnemunde, we took advantage of the quiet boat and spent all day soaking up the sun and celebrating our friends' David and Meghan's wedding anniversary.

Meet the Cruisers: Brandon, Margaret, David, Meghan, and you know us...

These guys were like the 3 stooges...

 Back on the boat, the guys whipped out their Euro Style swim trunks and we enjoyed some drinks!

And really, what is more interesting than Warnemunde is revealing the sort of things that happened to us that day and in our first few days at sea...  

Notification from the Cruise Ship: "Article III states that no liquor may be brought upon the ship."  What??  ;)

When you board the boat, the staff takes your luggage, screens it (apparently) and then places it by your door.  Well... David, Brandon and Colin's suitcases were all missing from our rooms on the first night... evidently thats how they get you to 'fess up to the booze in your trunk.  They left these letters on the outside of our doors indicating there had been a bit of a violation of their alcohol policies...

Next up, we decided to attend a Cruise Critic Meet And Greet to meet some other folks on the ship as well as the crew.  Oh, and maybe get some joking material for the rest of the cruise.  Prior to leaving when we were doing research on the ports, we got a kick out of reading the message boards and seeing all these people with their "cruise alias" names and their extensive cruisin' history.  Well, not to be outdone, we decided to make up our own cruise names and join the group to see what Cruise Culture was all about. 

When we realized that these aliases would have to go on our name tags, some of us had to alter them to be more appropriate.  "Cruisin for a Bruisin'", "Cruising for the Boozin'", "I'm on a Boat", some which will remain unnamed... all of us were in attendance!

Cruise Critic Meet and Greet Crashers

Something else that happened during those first days at sea was I got stuck in a bathroom stall.  Fun!  The door just wouldn't unlock and the stall walls were too big to climb over or crawl under!!  We think the cruise staff was a little nervous about it because it took about 20 minutes to get me out, and after all, we had attended the Cruise Critic meeting!! ;)

True Story...

Help Me!!  Good thing this was post anniversary party dinner and a sufficient amount of wine!  And Meghan was with me and got some help fast!