An Amazing Working Vacation

(Watch this slide show first)

On January 27th, our entire family flew down to Miami, Florida, to travel and work on the 2008 K-Love Friends and Family Cruise. This was my 3rd time working a Premiere Christian Cruises event, but the first time my entire family was able to go with. Very cool.

Monday morning we boarded the ship, Carnival's Fascination, and headed out to sea.

On Tuesday, we spent 4 hours in Key West, Florida (the southern-most spot in the United States), and then reboarded the ship to set-up for my show that evening.

My first show was in the Ritz Lounge, a nice room, but a low ceiling. I was on right after Earl & Kimberly Long finished their first show. My show went really well, with about 100 people in attendance.

Throughout the cruise, wherever there were people gathered while waiting for something else to happen (concert, dinner), I performed close-up magic for them. It is a great time to face-to-face interact with not only the kids, but the adults too.

Wednesday was spent at a hotel/park/resort just outside of Cancun, Mexico. It was terrible for me to have to imagine all of my friends back in Minnesota, bundled to the gills in the frigid temperatures, and there we stood in our bathing suits. Alright, maybe not "terrible". Maybe more like unbelievably cool. :)

My fan club, made up of our 6 family members that were on the cruise, all showed up at both of my programs wearing their very limited edition "DonB! Ministries" polo shirts. I was honored.

My second show, in The Palace, was filled with amazing blessings. A camera crew, onboard to film some other comedians, agreed to leave a camera set-up to film my show the next day. For very little $$$, he gave me a digital copy of my entire show! I hope to have some of it up on my website fairly soon. AND, Tom Wilson, the audio/lighting guy, hung a beautiful scrim backdrop for my show, and had it lit with some simple, but elegant lighting. Another blessing, for sure. Finally, as my show was coming to an end, many more people were filing in to the Palace to hear the debarkatiopn talk, and were able to see the Unicycle Medley at the end of my show.

As I carried my stuff backstage, a Carnival employee, affiliated with the entertainment department, came backstage and talked for a good 40 minutes about the possibility of having me cruise more often with them. If you want something to pray about, read this paragraph one more time, and imagine the door that would be open to me for ministering to the crew and other guests. Wow!

SIDENOTE: As great as it is to perform for and meet the guests on the cruise, I saw something that I felt I had to do something about. Since it was a Christian cruise, the casino and the bars were not very busy at all. There was one main bar, in the hallway where everyone has to walk to get from one of the ship to the other. The two people behind the bar (one from Romania, one from Peru) were always smiling, but seldom had any customers. Well, with all of the magic tricks I was loaded down with, I stopped and started showing them a few routines. 20 minutes later, when I was finishing up, there were at least 20 other bartenders and wait staff gathered to watch the magic.

Why do I tell you this? Because on the last day of the cruise, I asked one of the wait staff if the guests on this crew were any different from other cruises. "Oh yes, much happier, more polite, and when something DOES go wrong, they don't cause a scene" said the waiter. I asked if he knew why, and then simply explained "...that the love we try and show is only an extension of the love that God has for each one of us, including him." He thought it over for a moment, and asked when we would be coming back again. I told him I would be back in May, and he became really excited. He was probably excited about seeing more magic tricks and being treated politely. I hope for it to be another opportunity to tell him the reason for the hope that I have. - 1 Peter 3:15, Romans 5:1-5

So who was on he cruise? Other than 2500 guests from around the world, we travelled with MercyMe, Jeremy Camp, SuperChick, Natalie Grant(our next-door neighbor on the cruise), Sanctus Real, Big Daddy Weave, Aaron Shust, Nicole C. Mullen, Jeremy Riddle, Shane & Shane, Stellar Kart, Bebo Norman, Starfield, NASCAR chaplain Lonnie Clouse, Bob & Lary (the VeggieTales) and a crew of some of the funniest Christian comedians ever gathered on one ship. Ever heard of any of those folks?

We arrived back in Miami on Friday morning, and headed up to Fort Lauderdale to pick up a rental car. We then spent Friday night at the home of the Greg Philips family near Melbourne, Florida. A nice, relaxing visit, preparing us for the day to come.

Saturday we headed over to the beach. Cocoa Beach to be exact. We made a stop at the famous RonJon's Surf Shop, where Dale purchased a "Skim-Board" and Deanna bought a "Boogie Board". From there we right to the beach and tried them out. As much as the kids loved the cruise, they were in their absolute prime playing at the beach. The water was cold, but they gradually convinced themselves it was worth it to try out their new boards.

We then drove up to Palm Coast, Florida, to visit with some of our best friends, Kevin & Laura Bechard and their 2 kids, Rachel & Joe. What was intended to be a dinner visit ended up finding us leave there a little after midnight. As tired as we all were, the kids slept in the truck while I drove back to the Orlando Airport.

We returned the rental car, boarded our plane at 5 AM, and headed back to reality: Minnesota.

It was such a great trip. We've created memories that our kids will remember for a long, long time.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Please look at the pictures of the cruise in the slide show above.

DonB!