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The ship pulled into Ocho Rio, Jamaica on Thursday, November 1st. It was a cloudy day with periods of rain throughout the day. One of the first things we did was to sign up for parasailing through a local company. My two oldest kids were game, but my youngest one decided to watch instead.

The kids took off right from the boat:

Just as my daughter touched down back into the boat, it started to pour. We took shelter near the shore and ran into a group of deaf Jamaicans. They were very friendly and welcoming. Many of them left their place of work to see the “big ship with deaf people.” Gloria, the woman in yellow in the photo below, is the president of the Jamaica Deaf Club. She lives in Kingston, over three hours from the port. Kingston is the largest city and the capital of Jamaica.

On the way to the shopping center, we were stopped by a local woman offering to braid hair. As she braided my daughter’s hair, she explained that jobs were very hard to find on the island. Many of the locals had never been off of the island. “It is too hard to obtain a visa to leave,” she explained.

I was amazed at her beautiful command of English. “What is the official language of Jamaica?” I asked her. She explained that there were three languages spoken there: English, Broken English (which is known as Jamaican Patois and is a creole of English and African language)and another language that I could not understand but that started with a “B”. From searching the internet, I think she meant Bongo Talk.

Just listening to her describe her life on the island made me appreciate the freedom that we have to come and go in America.

On Wednesday, October 31, we pulled into Grand Cayman on the other side of the island. Our original stop was supposed to be near the shopping center, but due to high winds and rough seas, we embarked on the other side.

The line to get off the ship went all the way up to the fifth floor of the ship. Rather than waiting in line, we jumped into the pool and did some more boogie boarding. I discovered a hammock in the solarium and took a much needed nap. In the afternoon, we decided to grab a boat ride to the island and do some swimming at the beach. The line going back to the boat was much quicker:

One of the fun games in the evening was the show “Accept or Accept Not” based on “Deal or No Deal.” Each contestant competed for an upgrade to the owner’s suite on the boat and various other prizes. In the photo below, Peter Artinian from Sound and Fury is shown trying to decide which case to open:

Every evening, the fifth (not fourth, as Fookem noted) floor of the Promanade deck was filled with people:

The two most popular spots on that floor were the coffee shop and the pizza restaurant. Both places offered sandwiches, coffee, cookies and pizzas at no cost. A few of my friends were able to stay up until four in the morning. I couldn’t keep my eyes open past two a.m. on my best night!

Every day, the line at the Flowrider grew longer and longer. Certain times of the day were set aside for surfing and the rest was for boogie boarding. My youngest son is shown above on the boogie board the first day.

While watching my kids take turns at boogie boarding, I spied a guy sitting on the bleachers reading a book about female “G spots!” So of course, I just had to have a conversation with this guy and find out why he chose such a book.

I sat down and inquired about the book and he wasn’t shy about sharing the contents of what he was reading. His name was Dylan and he explained that he was reading the book in preparation for marriage. Dylan was on the cruise with his fiance, Jackie. The two of them are from Canada and will be getting married in June of 2008.

I wish him luck in finding the G spot!

As we pulled into the port at Cozumel, Mexico, the Freedom of the Seas passed close by another ship. A lady on the other ship began signing and had a conversation with several of the Freedom passengers. She was amazed to discover that there were 3,800 deaf passengers on one boat!

Cozumel is definitely the place to purchase jewelry as we were able to bargain the prices down quite low. We spent the day shopping and eating Mexican food. We were disappointed that we didn’t make it to the beach that day and when we got back to the boat, it seemed as if the best excursion (and the most expensive!) that day was the dolphin swim.

On the way back to the ship, we encountered the “frozen in place” natives:

The bronze guy at the bottom was so good at standing still that he really looked like a statue. He scared several people by jumping into motion as they passed by.

It is no surprise that the most popular place on the ship was around the pools and hot tubs at the top. On the afternoons that we were at sea, there were several pool games. One woman from Minnesota was beating guy after guy at pool jousting, a game where one has to balance in a sitting position on a floating log and knock the other person off. Another afternoon game consisted of pool relay where a team of five girls competed against five guys. Each person had a large t-shirt provided by the ship. Once they completed their laps, they had to take off the t-shirt and place it on the next person. The last person had five t-shirts. The relay ended in a tie, but later footage by DeafNation showed that the guys actually won.

One of the most popular games was the Belly Flop contest on the last day:

A lot of people ended up badly sunburned, mostly because they couldn’t tear themselves away from the pool!

Oh gosh.

Where to begin?

We just arrived home and I’m already wishing I was back on the boat. A whole week of non-stop food, a great bed to sleep in, constant entertainment and wonderful service from staff members that made every effort to please.

I’m going to have to post this over a couple of series of blog entries this week. Despite the threat of Hurricane Noel, Royal Caribbean managed to steer into good weather for most of the trip. We were able to stop at Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Jamaica. Haiti was hit badly by the storm and that stop was cancelled.

Here we are at Miami Beach on Sunday morning, just before taking off for the ship:

The Freedom of the Seas is the largest cruise ship ever built. According to our waiter, there are two more larger cruise ships being built right now which will expand the Royal Caribbean fleet to 24 ships. The ship is as high as two Statues of Liberty and weighes as much as 34,000 elephants together. The ship’s propellers can rotate 360 degrees and move the ship into tight spaces. The Freedom has a thruster system that keeps the boat relatively stable, even in high winds and rough seas.

Sailing on the Freedom of the Seas was quite a different experience than the cruise we took on our honeymoon eighteen years ago. For starters, we weren’t separated into twin beds (yes, twin beds on our honeymoon!) and the queen-sized bed was incredibly comfortable. The kids were in the room next door with a door between the rooms. Each night, our cabin steward shaped several towels into various animal shapes. The kids really enjoyed coming back into the cabin after dinner to discover a new animal each night.

More tomorrow–there’s a ton of laundry to unpack!

What a cruise! 3,800 deaf and hard of hearing people on one boat. The first two nights were quite a mess with seating arrangements not confirmed. We’ve finally straightened out our seating arrangements and should have a permanent place to park our family for the next few night’s dinners.

We have just docked in Grand Cayman and the winds have calmed down a bit since last night. The boat is amazingly steady despite 50 mph winds at times. We’ve had three days of sunny weather so far. The ship’s crew turned the route around and we stopped at Cozumel yesterday. Haiti has been cancelled and there’s talk that we might not tour Jamaica tomorrow. No matter what, we’ve got thousands of people to chat with and lots of nice activities on the boat.

Till later!

On Sunday, October 7th, I headed down to Nashville for the “Investing in Family Support” conference. I met up with Libby and Don Matlin, (Marlee Matlin’s parents) and joined them for dinner. Libby was scheduled as the keynote speaker the following day.

The conference opened with a panel of parents and professionals lead by Leeanne Seaver from Hands & Voices, titled “Issues Worth Raising: Parents & Professionals Speak Out.” I participated on the panel and one of things I shared was this: I’ve learned that professional opinions are just that–opinions. I’ve learned that I could take those opinions and use them as I saw fit, rather than having those opinions direct my decisions as a parent.

The next day, Libby spoke about “Raising an Empowered Child.” Her message was a simple one: love your child. Libby spoke about parent support, noting that today’s parents have access to a variety of information, choices and unbiased support via organizations like Hands & Voices. Back then, information was harder to come by and parents were often limited to the information given by the professionals in their area. Libby recalled that she and Don attended regular meetings where they could meet other parents and obtain face-to-face support, something that today’s parents may find harder to do with both parents working.

After the presentation, we gathered with Libby and Don for a picture. From left to right: Karen Putz, Janet DesGeorges, Libby, Don and Leeanne Seaver. Janet is holding a copy of “Marlee Matlin, What My Parents Understood.”

One of the most often searched for topics on my blog is the one about Tinnitus–The Roaring in my Head. Since so many searches are leading to that topic on this blog, I am guessing that quite a few people are affected by tinnitus.

In Healthy Hearing, a recent article, “Brain Imaging May Hold Clues to Ringing in the Ears,” focused on tinnitus. The article stated that scientists are exploring the causes of tinnitus in the brain. Research currently shows that people with tinnitus seem to have a lower amount of gamma aminobutric acid (GABA) than people without tinnitus.

Imagine popping a GABA pill before heading to bed to make the roaring go away!