Backstreet's Back Alright! - Day 2

So our day began in sunny Key West. What a nice change from semi-cold, rainy Miami. Ew. Key West was beautiful and warm. So nice. So Megan and I got off the ship and went to explore Key West. It's pretty small so we could walk everywhere. We found Duval Street, the original Margaritaville, and the sign where the interstate system began. No lie. Mile 0 starts there. Kinda crazy. The southernmost point of the United States is there too but it was a little too far to walk to. Anyway, we went to an internet cafe for a good hour haha. I had some key lime pie. It was good. That's about it. We met some BSB fans from California that took our picture for us. They were super nice. Back to the ship we went.


We went to the Question and Answer session once we got back. It was about an hour and a half long. Fun stuff. Not much to say about it honestly. It was formal night on the ship that day too, plus the BSB Masquerade party. So we got to wear our fancy dresses. Vanity night as Megan called it haha. I was excited. My dress was new with pockets! So we got all dressed up and went to dinner. P.S. Carnival has this warm melting chocolate cake that is unreal. No lie, I got it 3 nights for dessert. It's like brownie soup. Amazing. I want it now. Anyway, after dinner, we went to the Masquerade which was a lot of fun. Everyone was dressed up with fun masks. Megan made both of ours and they looked amazing. So awesome. I can't believe they turned out so well. So, let me just tell you, these deck parties that were every night, didn't start til midnight or later. So we were dying by that time and weren't super pumped to party. But we stayed til about 2am I think and decided to call it a night. We weren't sure when the boys would start door knocking anyway.






That's another thing! A staff guy told us in the hall that Nick would be coming around to knock on fan's decorated doors to meet them after the Masquerade. Well Nick even told us this during the Q&A session earlier. So we were super excited. Well, we didn't wanna stay up all night and no one show, but we also didn't wanna take off our makeup and be in our pajamas if they did come. Solution? Sleep in our dresses. That's just what we did haha. It was so funny. Here we are in our formal dresses with hair and makeup done laying in bed with the covers over us. So the hallways and walls weren't sound proof, so we heard people all weekend long up and down the hallways. About 3:30am I hear someone next door somehow. I jumped out of bed and yelled at Megan to get up! I went and opened the door to look and there was security guard standing next door. He said, "Shhhhh....Shut your door." So I did and ran back in the room and got Megan to zip my dress up, fixed my hair, and for some reason realized my breath probably stunk, so we both stuffed some mints in our mouth. By that time, someone knocked at the door. We both opened it and it was AJ! Simultaneously we both gave a high spirited "HI!" It was so surreal let me tell you. So he came in and Megan went to shake his hand, and he took it and kissed it, along with mine :D Then, he looked around and told us our room was messy. I wanted to say, well, I'm sorry, we don't have a suite like you, but I bit my tongue haha. he asked if we wanted a photo and for some reason we didn't bother getting individuals, we got a group shot, but it was SO good! I was very pleased. After that, I said, "Hey, do you have a second?" and he said sure. (side note) All cruise long they were rushing them here and there to do stuff so we never thought we'd get actual time with any of them, thats why I asked beforehand. Anyway, I had my BSB pages out. I almost didn't give them to him, but I thought, Cortney, you've been working on these for your entire adolescence almost, give him the f-ing pages. You said you were going to all of those years, now grow some kahunas and DO IT. So I did. I prepped him by saying, "Now, you're gonna think I'm insane, but...." And he stopped me and said, "No, trust me, I won't" haha. So I started flipping through the papers and told him in a round about way that I had written I Love BSB 100,000 times and had counted them all. Megan, God bless her soul, she thought to take a picture as I was talking to him, now I have actual proof. Love her. Anyway, about this time, I started to shake. When he first got there I was just really excited, but not nervous. Well, I could feel my hands shaking and see it in the papers. I was anticipating his reaction and thought, what if he hates it? Well I didn't have to worry about that because he responded with a "This is pretty fucking cool." I could not of asked for a better response :) So after that I somehow found the page that has like 3,500 on one side and showed him. I don't know why, but I did. He blinked a few times and said, "That hurts my eyes." Haha! I said, "I know mine too, I don't know how I wrote that small back then." I think that was all. I wish someone could of filmed the entire thing. So then he signed some autographs for us. He signed Megan's cd and I didn't have anything, so I got a piece of paper out of my purse and he wrote, I Love You 1,000,000,000,000 times. SO GREAT! After that he left and handed the pages to the security guard. I kind of handed him him the manila envelope I had them in so they wouldn't get messed up and he took it graciously and said that would probably be a good, safe place for them. He was quite nice about it, I was surprised.





After he left and the door shut, Megan and I both screamed! Ohhhh we sat and reveled for a good 20 minutes about it. We replayed the entire thing over about 5 times. She took a picture of me with my autograph too. I look so giddy haha. We were so glad we heard it, woke up, and had slept in our dresses. Such an amazing experience. And of all of the members to come knocking, AJ came, and I got to give my pages to him. I don't know if Nick's reaction would of been as good as AJ's. Who knows. I was thrilled with the entire thing. So, we put on our pajamas and went back to bed about 4am. I think I laid there a good hour, not sleeping, running on adrenaline.

Backstreet's Back Alright! - Day 1

So I definitely forget I even have this blog until I go on a trip somewhere and want to remember every detail. The Backstreet Boys cruise is one of those trips. AMAZING. Such an unreal experience I tell you. Jesus was on our side the entire trip. Everything was in our favor somehow. Praise God for it!

So our trip begin Wednesday night. Megan came to the house and we got stuff ready for the cruise. I was quite nervous about this because we're only acquaintances, not even really friends, minus facebook. She went on my trip to Italy and Greece with me, but we didn't really talk. She was with Interior Design. But we became facebook friends regardless and I saw that she loved BSB as much as I did! So other than facebooking each other, I saw her last April when she came and gave me a check for her airline ticket. Then she came Wednesday night. Haha. I prayed we got along alright and we did :) So anyway she came and we got stuff together for our door decorating contest and talked for a while then went to bed early since we had to get up at 2:15am. Ugh. It was more of a long nap than a night of sleep. We went to bed around 10pm I think. So then dad took us to the Groome Shuttle place for our shuttle to Atlanta. Our ride was good, only us and another guy so we had plenty of room. We made it to Atlanta fine, no issues checking in, finding our gate, etc. Our flight went well and we made it to Miami in one piece WITH luggage intact. I was so afraid we'd lose it and have nothing for the cruise.

We got a taxi to the ship then and checked in. We were early so we had to wait about an hour and while we were, we heard screams! We jump up and see Backstreet walking by! Ah!!!! We about crapped our pants with excitement. We were taking pictures along with other fans and some people next to us asked who that was and we told them and they said, Oh crap. Let's go home now. Haha. So we checked in and went to eat lunch. About an hour later, we see Howie waltz in the door, no big deal right? We were like WTF!??!!?!?! ITS HOWIE! He was with his wife and child obviously but there he was eating like anyone else. We just kind of assumed beforehand that they'd be under lock and key the entire cruise and we wouldn't see them unless it was at a scheduled event so it was crazy to see them out and about. Well then not 20 minutes later Brian walks in too! We were sitting next to some Latin American fans and they FREAKED OUT. Woah. Like me and Megan were excited and were giddy, but these girls about had a heart attack. One went over to Howie to show him something and came back weeping. That would of been me 8 years ago haha.

So Brian starts signing some autographs and taking pictures so me and Megan run over there to wait. Well then he stops and says he will a little later. Well we wait about an hour and he starts again. We had been there the longest and somewhat expected to be first, but people kept crowding in from all sides. No lie, I was kinda scared. I couldn't move and people kept pushing. So finally Megan gets to the front and pulls me up there for a picture. I apologized since I almost stepped on Brian (he's short) and I said, I'm so sorry, thank you so much, we've been waiting a while. And he said Oh I'm sorry and I didn't want him to think I was complaining cause I wasn't, but I said oh no no no you're fine! So our picture is UBER close to our faces since the security guard was right there and there was no room either. But it's good and I love it!


So after all of the excitement, we had to go check in and get our wrist bands and stuff. That was an incredibly long line that we got to the front of luckily. Afterward, we go to our room and wait for our luggage. While we waiting we see the cruise has put on a BSB channel full of interviews, concerts and music videos. We watched like little girls for a while haha. Then it was time for some BSB events. It was Backstreet Boy Family Feud and the Dating Game. We went to the theater that all of the events would be at and we had the last row, last 2 seats. No lie. Plus the seats weren't real, they were folding chairs and hurt like crap. But any seat was pretty good since the place was so small. But they had picked girls out of the crowd to play these games and stuff beforehand apparently. We thought it was random but it wasn't.

We went back and decorated our door for the door decorating contest. SO much fun! Our door looked awful compared to other doors we saw. People put so much effort into them and we just didn't plan like they did. We'll know better next time.


After that we got ready for the cocktail party that was on the deck outside and for dinner. It was fun, but not a lot going on. We sang to songs and took lots of pictures. We got lucky and Nick, Howie and AJ all walked right by us and shook Megan's hand! We went to dinner afterward and were greeted by 6 other people at our table. Weird people. I joked with Megan that if she had turned out weird, I'd been stuck with weird people the entire trip haha. We had a mother and daughter from Florida, two girls from Virginia who were yankee transplants, another mother and daughter from Pennsylvania, plus a weird creeper dude who was middle aged from New York, on this trip ALONE, AND had been on the New Kids cruise before. Woah. We got him moved the next night lol. So during dinner, we were about to fall over from exhaustion. No lie my face almost landed in my food. So, the deck party didn't start til 11pm and we opted out because we figured if we didn't sleep again, the next day would be shot too. So we went to bed.