Cruisin' for free?

For those of you who follow downhere's schedule, you'll know that downhere is going on a cruise February 11-17 with Come Alive Cruises abord the Carnival Liberty. The best news is that I get to go with them, in particular, with Glenn. A FREE cruise during the week of Valentine's Day... Doesn't that just sound wonderful?

Well, we were on the wrong train of thought when we were thinking about it as a free adventure. The expenses for our "free" cruise are really adding up!

We've got to buy/pay for...
-new swimsuits for each of us - Glenn had a nice one, but he left it in the United States of America somewhere, sometime... (My bathing suit was paid for with Christmas money though! Woo hoo!)
-my flight to Florida
-formal attire... Glenn doesn't even own a decent suit, but he's got to wear one to the "Captains Dinner" and I only own one dress... If I can get away with wearing it, I will at least need to buy a pair of shoes (I used to wear a pair of "fancy" flip flops with the dress but they broke) and a sweater (it's a flimsy spaghetti strap dress, and I get cold easily... Captains Dinners are air-conditioned, right?)
-excursions? Things we can sign up to do when the boat stops in 1) Freeport, Bahamas, 2) Grand Cayman, and 3) Costa Maya, Mexico. We have friends who recently went on a cruise who recommended we just by some snorkelling gear instead of paying someone else to take us snorkelling and rent their gear. So we did it, because we had been given some "cruise money" for Christmas.
-tips (yes, at minimum, we need to tip waitors while on the cruise, and I still need to read through my cruise info to get a good handle on this topic)
-souvenirs? There won't be too many!

Ahh, but this will be the nicest "vacation" Glenn and I have ever taken! It will beat our last free vacation taken thanks to the band on South Beach, Miami. And Jonah will be well taken care of by my parents and brother. So we have to fork out some bucks... Vacations (AKA mental health breaks?) are worth the cost now and again, right? And Glenn and I haven't been away TOGETHER from Jonah since September of 2005.

Did I mention we leave for Florida NEXT Saturday. We're NOT ready! We don't have any US cash yet, plus we need to get shopping for the abovementioned clothing.

And there's one other serious issue... My passport!

I started the process of renewing my passport back in December. They told me two weeks ago that my passport would be mailed to me during the week of January 22nd.

But passport Canada has recently gotten significantly busier due to a change in rules... Up until now Canadians could enter America via Canada/USA borders with just birth certificates or sometimes driver's licenses. But it has changed. Now, when FLYING into America, you must have a passport. So LOTS of people are having to get passports, and it's really slowing things down.

So what does all of this mean?

My passport is currently waiting to be printed. Because of how the process works, they aren't sure if my passport will be printed in the next hour, or the next 2 or 3 days!!? Once it is printed, it will be sent to me via courrier within 48 hours. I HAVE to HAVE it on Friday!!!!

If I don't?

Well, we could change our flights. Right now, we're flying out of Toronto. But we could drive to Buffalo (showing my driver's license at the border) and fly out from there. (Hmmm... I wonder how late we can make that decision?)

BUT I'll need my birth certificate for the cruise... and where is my birth certificate? With my passport application of course!!!!

SO, I've been doing some online research, and I could possibly order a new birth certificate. They could rush it to me. It will cost me about $175! And I'll need to get started on that EARLY in the week.

So, could you please PRAY that this all works out for us? I'd really like to call passport Canada on Monday morning, get through on the FIRST try, and have them tell me my passport printed over the weekend and it's in the mail!!! I'm assuming the passport-printing machine works through the weekend...

Pretty rough, eh? Whining about my free cruise?!?!?

Missing my free cruise would be quite a hot topic for next year's Christmas letter though, eh?

p.s. Should I go ahead and buy some shoes and a sweater to match my dress, or should I wait until I know for sure that I'm actually going on the cruise?!

p.p.s. Here's another thought... Are Glenn and I allowed to skip the Captains Dinner and take advantage of the free 24-hour room service instead?!?!?

Update:

A Passport Canada employee with a VERY thick French accent called me on Saturday. He seemed to be trying to assure me that they would do their best to get my passport to me. He confirmed my departure date and said he would send an email to himself to remind him to do something - I'm not sure what... perhaps check on the status of my application frequently? Anyway, I will try calling them again Monday for an update.

I'm going with the dress I have and I'm hoping to borrow a black wrap/shawl kinda thing to keep me warm. I will plan on buying new shoes... since I don't have any dress shoes I suppose they will be a good investment.

Last night at 10pm I got a huge lump in my throat and I didn't sleep too well because of congestion way in the back of my throat. I'm not feeling so well. Jonah has been breaking out in hives randomly over the last two days. I wondered if it had to do with the carpet upstairs, but it's probably not that since when I went into his bedroom to get him out of his crib this morning his face was totally broken out and his legs too, and he was itchy. I gave him Benadryl right away and it was gone within 20 minutes... But I have no idea what the cause of it is. Frustrating! GrRrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!