Saturday

Jan's turn..... Saturday morning I awoke the first time about 6:45. Audrey was already awake and immediately wished me a Happy Birthday. I wasn't even alert enough yet to realize that it was my birthday!

Esther was still sleeping and I was dozing but Audrey couldn't wait to get out and about. She said she was going for a cup of coffee. Imagine my surprise when she came back very soon with  huge plate for me – breakfast in bed! She had been up to the 11th Deck to the Windjammer and did a great job of choosing for me. Eggs, bacon, sausage potatoes, pastry, fruit, some wonderful tropical juice. It was a great way to start the day! What they say about food on cruise ships is true – there's lots of it and it's delicious! And while I don't normally eat breakfast I think I ate it all. J

Meantime, Audrey had gone off again to find someone to eat with, and Esther and I eventually realized that we should get up. The beds were actually very comfortable.

We saw that we were in port at Ensenada, next to a Carnival ship. Esther and I went up and found Audrey and the three of us decided to try the hot tub. There was pretty much no one on deck – everyone seemed to have gone ashore. The hot tub was delightful and then we swam in one of the salt water pools. There were two pools, one on either end of the deck with the two hot tubs in the middle. One of the pools was a bit cool but the other one was quite nice.

It had rained overnight but was very nice on Saturday. The day was a little cloudy but not cold The last week before the cruise we had worried about the weather; both California and Mexico were not having typical September weather, but fortunately the weatherman came through for us and we had great weather.

We eventually got lunch – the Windjammer has huge amounts of food to choose from. Roast pork was the 'main' item that day (on Friday when we boarded it was roast beef), with potatoes, rice, salads, hamburgers, hot dogs, tacos, breads and rolls, every kind of fruit and dessert – and drinks before going to the meeting room for our Saturday afternoon events. (For $18 at the beginning of the cruise one could get unlimited soda for the entire cruise; trust me, I got my money's worth of diet coke!)

We got to the Voyager Room and taped the table runners made the night before to the walls. They made our room look very festive! Warbrides have a large Cary poster which has been to several Caryventions and it was also on the wall. And Jenny made a gift to warbrides of a Welcome to Caryvention sign which we also had up (they all fell several times – lol; it got to be a bit of a joke).

We laid out our afternoon games... Cary's favorite, Spite and Malice, Backgammon and Cary paper dolls were on a table on the upper tier and down below we opened up the warbrides' own game of Caryopoly. A small group collected in the room; several were ashore, some at the spa, some just out enjoying the ship. But the group that was there had a great time. We played and visited (mostly laughing) and then we moved on to our next activity.

Sometime while we were playing games, Renee came in; she had been to the spa and had the works! She came up to each of us, saying, "Feel my face." And it DID feel nice; made me sort of wish I had taken the time to go to the spa myself!

Next Amanda gave a fascinating presentation about Houseboat. She had a booklet of information that she had created and showed stills and some video. Amanda grew up two houses down from the house used for the opening scene where Cary 'rescued' his children from their aunt and grandparents. (Alas she was born after the filming of the movie.) It was fun to then watch Houseboat (one that I've always loved) and see some of the scenes in a whole new light. Thanks Amanda!

We did have a small glitch when it developed that Houseboat would not play in the ship's DVD player – wrong region! Presumably this is because we were on a Norwegian cruise line; no one had mentioned this little issue to us however, and it never crossed our minds that there would be a problem. Thankfully Audrey had brought her laptop and the woman available to help with convention problems got us back on track and we were able to project the movie through the computer. Crisis averted!

During the movie I snuck out for a few minutes and checked email at one of the Internet Cafes and found a nice Happy Birthday email from son Matt. He had tried to phone but didn't get through. By the time the movie was over, it was time to get ready for the formal dinner which was going to be followed by the Captain's Cocktail Party.

Esther, Audrey and I organized a little bit for the evening events and then rushed off to change. While we were back in the room, Audrey and Esther gave me their birthday gift...a Spanish lobby card of Houseboat! Audrey had mentioned that she had it for a prize and remembered that I had said I would give Jim's left arm for it. Such a cool surprise!

Three of us getting ready in the tiny cabin was interesting, but doable. Since I had stubbed the same toe on my left foot about 10 times by then (Esther would usually start laughing before I had even reacted because she'd see it coming...lol), I was a bit wary and let Audrey and Esther get ready first. But get ready we did and off we went to the dining room. The warbrides were one gorgeous bunch of people. Helen and Irena in their finery! Caren below.

     (Many more photos in the photo section.)
 

When our waiter came to take dessert orders, I declined, knowing (the advantage of being one of the hostesses!) that we had cake coming later...so I was very surprised when a whole group of waiters and all the warbrides were singing Happy Birthday (and Sandy, right there at our table was adding to it! Thanks Sandy!) to me – and there was a delectable piece of cake complete with lit candle. I asked what would have happened if I had ordered dessert and Audrey simply said then I would have had to eat two! On Friday when the flowers had arrived from my brother and sister-in-law, there was also a nice card with a check... so I was celebrating in style. This was the second Caryvention over my birthday and it is definitely the way to go!

After dinner we made our way to the Captain's Cocktail Party... our captain was a woman which intrigued us a bit. Amanda had watched her dock the ship that morning in Ensenada and was quite impressed. As we passed though the line to meet her, Amanda told her about our group and gave her some Cary post cards that Tina and Diane had made – and the Captain said that she had seen our ice sculpture of Cary (that item was probably the talk of the ship!).

Leaving Audrey and Esther at the cocktail party I rushed back to our cabin. We had decided to do Caryvention water bottles, never realizing what that would entail! Esther says it took me six months to settle on the right paper for the labels and that's nearly right. I picked the brains of a woman who sells water bottle labels on eBay and in the end found my own solution... Great stock which prints out well and then waterproofed them. (Jim was very understanding and tolerant throughout the whole Caryvention planning process. He didn't mind that for the last month the kitchen table was solid with Caryvention stuff, the dining table and buffet were solid with pages for the program, the coffee table had trivia prizes on it – but he was not crazy about the waterproofing process! I took over the kitchen counter for that and the house reeked for a couple of days. We were a little concerned that our cats were getting high from the spray!)

The catch was not only could I not carry full water bottles on the plane, but the ship would not allow us to bring full water bottles onboard. So I bought the bottles that I'd made the labels to fit, emptied them (!), hauled them from Arizona to California. Once in Long Beach I affixed the labels. However, they were still empty! So back to the room I rushed to find that room service had indeed delivered the requested water. I changed into yet another Caryvention t-shirt and capris, then started filling water bottles. As I was doing that Esther raced in to change... The birthday cake had been delivered and instead of Happy Birthday Helen, Jan, Vi and Doris (Helen's birthday was a few days before CV and both Vi and Doris were right after), it merely said Happy Birthday Helen.

As you can see in this picture (meant to show water bottles), during the day TCM showed North by Northwest! We didn't see it but heard That Touch of Mink was shown another day. You can also see that our room was a bit overfull with three people's personal items, plus Caryvention 'stuff.'
 

When I got to the room our porter had been there and turned down our beds... and not only left chocolates for each of us (because we hadn't had enough to eat all day!), but he'd left a cute towel buddy for us.
 

Esther then (I would so love to have a picture of this!) got to walk through the dining room's 8 pm formal seating in her CV t-shirt and pj bottoms carrying the cake, so that they could fix the boo-boo! The good news is that they did a nice job and the next night the head waiter came over to apologize and make sure that it had turned out okay. Esther got the cake back to the Voyager Room and Audrey and I got the water bottles up there. Whew!

Our first event of the evening was to award prizes for the Trivia Game we had going for the last 40+ weeks. Irena and Nancy were awarded prizes as well as some others for participating. Irena was also given a bio on Cary for having come the furthest to join us for A Cruise to Remember.                                           

Rikki Dawson (known as Audrey most of the time) made an appearance, with her black suit and striped shirt, vest and watch. Rikki took over and introduced the Family Feud game to everyone. A few months ago we had asked all warbrides to answer a series of questions (things like, "What was Cary's best movie with Hitchcock?" or "Who is your favorite of Cary's leading ladies?" or "Which character would you most like to be stranded with on a desert island?"  Audrey tallied the answers and gave Rikki the information to use for the game.) We had two teams, the Mr. Smiths and the Mock Turtles. The Mock Turtles had a stuffed turtle and the Mr. Smiths had a stuffed dog (each with sound effects) to use as a buzzer to determine who would go first or who knew the answer. After getting off to a slow start, the Mr. Smiths won handily and fun was had by all.

Because it had been an hour or two since we'd eaten we then served the birthday cake and Audrey and Esther had presents for the four birthday women!

After birthday cake, it was time for our movie feature of the evening. We continued our water theme and watched Father Goose. At 11:25 we took a break and went to the Deck 11 for the Midnight Buffet. It was out on the pool deck; they had a wonderful array of Mexican food: make your own tacos, burritos, etc., fresh fruit, you name it. Delicious! We met again downstairs and eventually broke up a bit after 1 am.