Honey... I'm Home...

Yep. I am back from my vacation aboard the lavish and luxurious Caribbean Princess Cruise ship. Wow!

I was always terrified to do one of these vacations. First off, as someone who is Sabbath observant and keeps strictly kosher, there just seemed to be way too many cans of worms that needed opening. Second, when you put together all the recent news about fat people on air planes being treated terribly with everything I had heard about how tiny staterooms on cruise ships were, I just did not think that I would "fit in" overly well.

Being as this vacation was a family thing and was decided on for me I just needed to suck it all up and make it work.

And wow did it work.

I had NOTHING to be nervous about. The seats in all waiting rooms at both airports were wide enough and then some. Even at my size I had no trouble with flight seats (although my travel agent insisted that I would, forced us to pay full fair for a 2nd seat, and then the airline did not even give it to us. Even the 3 we did get were seats A & C then D across the isle!)

I did get a belt extended, but I needed to ask for it. No one assumed that just cause I was bigger than "normal" I needed any extra help. It was actually a very pleasant experience, and now I know that airplanes are not the horror houses I thought they were.

Not only that, but on our flight home we had a fat (not chubby, not big boned, FAT) stewardess.

I would like to take just one second to thank Air Canada for a wonderful, fat friendly, courteous, and relaxing flight that was way beyond what I expected.

And now on to the rest of the trip.

The stateroom was enormous compared to what I was led to believe. I had no trouble with the shower, or other facilities at all. The beds were terrible, but as that was a common complaint I suspect that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with lousy beds.

As I am orthodox I do not swim in public without a long t shirt (I maintain my personal standards regardless of where I am, my knees are always covered as are my upper arms... it is a modesty thing... not an "I hate my arms thing" as my upper arms are not half bad as I spend most of my time working on those muscles while sawing, filing, etc!) but there were loads of people, my size and larger, swimming with no comments, dirty looks or discrimination that I could see.

Deck chairs were very (VERY!) roomy and comfortable. In fact, I never had a problem with ANY chair, including the arm chairs in the formal dining-rooms, throughout the entire cruise (Although I was asked at one point discreetly if I would prefer a chair with no arms and said no).
Even the robes were an okay fit! In fact, everything they sold in their ships stores went up to a 4x standard, and it was a large 4x.

So, to make short that which is already rather long. This entire trip turned out to be such an incredible, fat-friendly, self esteem boosting, comfortable trip that not only would I recommend the cruise line/air line and give them both a full 5 stars for comfort and courtesy, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.