We just got back from vacation and I gotta tell you: It was cool! Let me fill you in.
We went to New Orleans for a cruise on the Carnival’s Fantasy and from the get-go, things were not quite what we were expecting. Biggest reason was the oil spill in the Mississippi due to an errant apprentice operating the tug pushing the oil-filled barge into the tanker. Needless to say, they had one hell of a mess on their hands.

We were constantly updated with what Carnival was up to more or less due to their online message boards and a late email telling us we would be bussed to Mobile as that’s where the Fantasy had been redirected. We would then board and start the cruise from there.

Once we were onboard and were wandering around taking pictures and such, I came across their internet cafe. Sweet I told myself. Let’s check this out.
They had several computers to use and logging on was a breeze after you setup your online account. The page rendering times were close to dial-up sometimes but hey! It was access, right?

Well, I had my trusty new Lenovo laptop that I had ordered from Tiger Direct and it was ready for business. I had already transfered all my files over from the Toshiba and some from my desktop so it was ready for any image editing that needed doing for our trip.

I wanted to have the laptop on hand to download photos each day so I’d have them just in case something happened to the camera. That would be a lousy thing to happen and if all the photos were still on the camera….well, stuff happens just doesn’t cut it.

Accessing the internet was easy using the wireless on the Lenovo and once I had all my images edited for uploading all I had left to do was connect with the Fantasy’s wireless, load up Picasa in my Firefox 3 browser and send my photos to the new album I’d created.

After that, I sent emails to the ones I wanted to show the album off to and then logged off. All that from the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. How cool is that?!
Even from our hotel in New Orleans’ French Quarter we were able to connect with the wireless plan the hotel had and keep friends and family updated with more photos of the trip.

So, technology while vacationing is a cool thing to have. Nothing new for most but to be able to access the internet from sea via satellite was a first for me.

How about any of you out there? What kind of vacation technology have you run into?