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THE SSQQ
MARDI GRAS CRUISE
(And Cozumel Too!)
aboard the Royal Caribbean Rhapsody
Depart 5 pm, Sunday February 22 -- Return
8 am, Sunday February 29 |
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Travel Coordinator
Marla Gorzynski email questions to
Marla@ssqq.com |
Phone
questions to 713 862-4428
Fax your Registration Form to 713
862 2550 or bring the form to the studio. |
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Prices are $775 for an Inside
Cabin and $855 for an Oceanview cabin double occupancy |
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$250 will secure you a spot.
You can cancel if you
need to with a full refund until
December 13th. We
only have 25 cabins reserved.
This means as it stands only 50 people can go on this
trip. |
Following in the footsteps of the most successful cruise in SSQQ history
- 144 passengers on the 2003 July 4th Cruise - we next sail into
New Orleans to celebrate the 2004 Mardi Gras!!
The Mardi Gras Cruise has been a highly requested trip by many of our
group. Accordingly we have scheduled an exciting 7 night Cruise on Royal
Caribbean's Rhapsody of the Seas.
Leaving Galveston on Sunday at
5 pm, we dock
in New Orleans at dinner time. This leaves the entire Monday night
to visit Bourbon Street for Blues, Booze and other
forms of adventure.
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Then comes Fat Tuesday, the
main event of Mardi Gras. This is the infamous day of beautiful
parades and chaos. The streets are packed with
revelers bedecked in shiny beads (and sometimes not much else!!)
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On Wednesday if you have even the slightest bit of energy left, we
still have all day till 6 pm to make yet another foray into the epicenter of
debauchery. This will be a trip you will never forget...
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The
SSQQ Rhapsody Cruise is the Perfect way to celebrate
Mardi
Gras!!
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Mardi Gras is
notorious as the largest annual city-wide party in the history of
the United
States. At any given time there might be arguably a hundred
thousand people going completely nuts and somehow living to talk
about it.
Take a Walk on the Wild Side. The majority of people read
about Mardi Gras or see clips on TV, shake their heads and tsk tsk
about the total stupidity of it all... but in a deep
corner of their mind they secretly wonder what on earth this Bacchanalian Celebration is
really like and why it is so wildly popular.
Well, maybe this Cruise is the time to find out... This is your perfect chance to
see the debauchery up close and personal.
Get a mask, find a wig, put
on sun glasses, then get out there and make up your own mind.
Leave your inhibitions behind
and experience first-hand the amazing antics that Mardi Gras
is infamous for.
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Join the SSQQ group on Fat
Tuesday to catch all the sights and sounds of the marvelous
Parades. Be sure to look out for beads and doubloons which
might be thrown at you as a Parade Ship passes by. See wild
intoxicated men and women behave in ways you never thought
possible in public.
Catch
beads, throw beads, take pictures,
have a drink in the French Quarter, bump and grind to smoky blues on
Bourbon Street, and stare in shock as people everywhere misbehave and
cause trouble!!
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And maybe you will decide to create a little mischief of your own...
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Some of the Advantages of
Joining the SSQQ Cruise on the Rhapsody:
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- Safety
- Fun
- Convenience
- Cost-Saving
- Recovery.
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Safety: You can venture out with a group of your dancing friends -
There is tremendous security having friends around. Someone is
bound to be sober enough to guide you back to the ship. And
no
one is going to bother a large group of people. Don't be
embarrassed to admit the safety in numbers is an attractive
point. Safety is a good thing when the world is going mad
around you. And talk about Sanctuary - you can return any
time you wish to the ultra-safe confines of the
Rhapsody, rest up, get a meal, take a shower, put on some fresh clothes,
share a war story with a friend over coffee and prepare to make your next move.
Fun: Mardi Gras is the adventure of a lifetime. Most
people don't try it because they don't want to go it alone. Now
you have the companionship of your friends. When crazy things
happen, the fear factor dwindles because you feel safe and you can
enjoy it more because you have friends to share it with.
Convenience: With the Cruise, you don't have to fool with reservations at a
hotel. And the whole travel hassle is avoided: you save round trip air
fare or you spare yourself the exhaustion from a long drive and
the worries about your
car being stolen or vandalized. And you certainly don't have to worry
about getting in some accident with a drunk...
Once we dock, transportation is easy. The Cruise industry is so
important to New Orleans that they built the cruise ship docks
right on the edge of downtown. Then they proceeded to build shops
and new museums right next door. The ship is basically a floating
hotel in downtown New Orleans!! Many venues are so close to the ship you
can actually walk to them. Otherwise there are cable cars
everywhere - just hop on! You can't actually use a car anyway.
The streets are very narrow and the crowds jam them shut.
Accordingly New Orleans has set up a system of mass transportation
to make Mardi Gras accessible from anywhere in the city.
Cost-Saving: In some ways you can actually save money.
Think about it. For starters, the Marriott is currently renting
rooms for $270 a night and the Hilton is listed on the Internet at $274
in August. You can be assured these numbers will continue to rise every day
as Mardi Gras looms closer. $300 in September? $350 in
December?
For that
matter, are you sure you can even find space available in a decent
hotel?? And what if they overbook the place or someone
mishandles your reservation?
Two nights in one of these hotels,
long lines and long waits for over-priced meals in crowded
restaurants, air fare, car fare, cab fare - suddenly you find yourself spending
practically the same
amount you paid for a week's trip on the luxurious Rhapsody Cruise.
And they won't throw in Cozumel for free...
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Recovery:
The old joke is you need a Vacation to recover from your
Vacation.
After Mardi
Gras, you get to spend your next day at sea letting people take care of
you!!
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You can stay unconscious as long
as you wish, there's coffee everywhere, and rejuvenation is only a
step away in the warm sparkling waters of the beautiful Solarium.
Can a return to Sanity be any more pleasurable??
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And More!! Just about the
time you get some energy back, we dock at Cozumel. In the middle of the winter, you get to spend one
glorious, balmy 80 degree
day basking in the sun at the wonderful Chankanaab Beach
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(Click
here to read the story of Chankanaab Beach from the
Jubilee 2003 Trip)
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Slow
Dance and Romance.
The Rhapsody will provide the perfect chance to dance
your evenings away. The magnificent Centrum (aka the Atrium) has a wonderful Band
every evening that plays Big Band music, Waltz, Foxtrot, Swing,
Cha-Cha, Rumba, and famous Slow Dance standards from all eras.
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And the Rhapsody's "Shall We Dance"
Lounge is a marvelous dance facility. It is a beautiful,
comfortable room with a
spacious floor about the size of Room 4 at SSQQ.
There will be many opportunities to dance on this trip!
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Day 6 is Cozumel. Snorkeling,
Shopping, Sight-Seeing.
You can join one of the many excursions such as Jeep tours around the
island, a trip to the ruins of Tulum, scuba diving, or Club Med-style
water boat romps. Everyone is welcome to If you still have
enough energy to move and your hangovers clear, plan to join Rick and
Marla as we coordinate our very own snorkel trip.
Snorkeling is one of the easiest sports imaginable. If you can swim, you
should be able to snorkel. Since Cozumel is an island, they are
able to protect their waters from any mainland pollution. The water
right below our ship is so clear you can almost see the bottom.
We can taxi to Cozumel's
crystal-clear water spot known as Chankanaab Beach and snorkel the afternoon away.
Chankanaab is so close we could probably simply snorkel our way back to the
ship if we had to. For $10 or so you can rent your snorkel gear
right there on the beach. And there are many other wonderful
sights to see on land as well as at sea.
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Cozumel has a terrific shopping center just a short walk (a quarter of a
mile)
from the ship. You can purchase t-shirts, onyx chess sets, jewelry,
liquor, beach towels, sun dresses, post cards, you name it. The mall is extensive and ultra-safe.
We saw police everywhere. And there were no panhandlers either. You can
bargain with everyone and get some excellent deals.
Marla Gorzynski will be our travel coordinator this
year ( email questions to marla@ssqq.com).
She has a direct phone (713 862 4428) and fax line. You can fax your Registration
Form directly to her at 713 862 2550.
The timing is right and the ship is right. We should have the time
of our lives, so hop on board and join us before the ship sells
out!!!
Royal Caribbean will allow us to reserve only 25
cabins, if you want to be a part of this trip YOU CANNOT WAIT!
SSQQ is in a definite
"put up or shut up" position. This means we have to start
getting some people to commit to the trip right away or our reserved
space will be taken away from us.
If everyone waits for someone else to make the first move, you have
missed the point. If you want to go, there is no risk to sign up now and
relax while you see how the trip fills up. You can receive a full refund
all the way to Dec. 13th. Royal Caribbean's refund policy allows anyone to reserve a cabin by
credit card for $250. REPEAT: This money is completely refundable as late as
Dec. 13th.
In other words you can put down a deposit to hold your cabin for over
THREE
MONTHS at no charge. There is no risk of losing your money,
but there is a risk that we can lose our reservations if everyone waits
till the last minute to make their move. Let us say this one more
time: If you sign up now and something unexpected comes up, you have
till Dec 13th to get your entire deposit back.
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Travel Coordinator
Marla Gorzynski email questions to
Marla@ssqq.com |
Phone
questions to
713 862-4428
Fax your Registration Form to 713
862 2550 or bring the form to the studio. |
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Prices are $775 for an Inside
Cabin and $855 for an oceanview cabin |
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$250 secures your spot and you can cancel with a full refund until
December 13th.
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In the meantime, if you have questions about the trip,
contact
Marla at Marla@ssqq.com
Phone her at 713 862-4428
Cruise Registration Form
We hope you will join us!
Rick Archer ssqq@houston.rr.com
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