Cruise 2010 Day-by-Day Recap: Sunday

I was awakened by two things around 8:30 Sunday morning. The first was a god awful stench. My first thought was "Why does my pillow smell so bad?" But it wasn't the pillow; it was the whole section of the ship. (We found out later that a sewer pipe had burst, or leaked, or something. So it smelled like that.) The second thing was a knock at my door. I thought it was our expected room service, but it turned out to be much better: @yikes77 coming to visit with a bag full of chocolate! When I opened my mouth to greet her, I discovered that I had no voice left. The best I could do was a squeaky whisper.

Shortly after our actual room service showed up. Be warned: when you order toast on Carnival, they mean "toast, singular." Malina and I had a lovely picnic on the queen bed we were sharing, then got up to get ready for the 10:30 photo op.

We lined up right at 10:30. Things seemed to go much more smoothly this year. For one, most people had come prepared in groups of 10. We also started a lot closer to the scheduled start time than last year. The boat cooperated by not lurching in all directions as it did Sunday morning 2009, and I wasn't super hung over as I had been the year before, which helped (mostly me). Some people did not like the set up of the pose, but I liked having half sitting and half standing. I especially liked getting to sort of hide in the back by standing.

For the first time ever, I stood next to Jordan in a photo. My reasoning was this: I have about 8 pictures with Joe and 1-2 pics with every other NK, but zero pics with Jordan. I wanted a shot at a croppable one. Here it is (and here are the rest):

It kind of worked out for me that Jordan decided to grab Linda's head in the middle of the photo. I never said a word to him, just stood there dorkily. I probably should have kept my mouth shut entirely, because that would have prevented the conversation I had with Joe.

Me: Hi, can I hug you?
Joe: Ok.
Me: I'm going to stand with Jordan though.
Joe: Ok, Jordan is over there.

Really? REALLY? Sigh.

After the photo, we had a leisurely brunch upstairs, and then we kind of found ourselves at a loss for what to do. We weren't down for the Back Rub (which already had a crazy line anyway). Normally I would have used the afternoon for pool time, but the last thing we wanted to do after a day at Half Moon Cay was spend time in the sun, so we kind of bummed around. First we walked through the halls of a few decks looking at doors and saw some really awesome ones. My vote would have gone to the cruiser who mounted a video player to her door showing a loop of her performing NKs songs in 1991.

Then we checked out the photo gallery of all the pro shots taken during the cruise. This was my first brush of just missing NKs (so much so that by Sunday afternoon I was being called a curse), as we found out Jon had just been by a few minutes earlier.

Eventually we found ourselves on the shaded area of the pool deck. I had (another) plate of cheese fries and managed to get cheese sauce on my dress. I went downstairs for the Tide stick and to change, and who shows up to have a 10 minute chat while sitting in the seat I was just in 30 seconds earlier? Jon. He had gotten up to leave just as I got back to the Lido deck.

And then, the kicker. Around 4:45, Elizabeth and I decided we were going to go down the water slide. We get up to the Sun deck to find Jon having his own personal meet and greet. I tried to get in line for a photo. Nope, they weren't taking any more people. Ok, so I guess I only had a curse with running into Jon, but I was starting to think the curse was real!

Have you ever failed at a water slide? We have. Elizabeth went first, and we could hear her laughing from inside the slide. She had gotten stuck. A lot. Sorry Biff, but I thought "She must be doing it wrong." The operator must have thought so too, because he kept saying "No, put your head down. Your head down!" I got in thinking, "Watch me put my head down. I got this."

I got about 6 feet. Then I stopped completely. The operator helpfully turned up the water, which did nothing except splash past me as if to say, "You're supposed to be sliding down, like this." I went down the entire slide by sticking my legs out and then pulling myself forward with my heels. It was less of a ride and more of an ab workout.

By the end, we were all laughing like crazy, including the slide operator, who then decided to tell us that the water gets shut off at 5:00 p.m. and that's why we weren't moving. Thanks buddy!

We went back to our table on the Lido deck to listen to Danny's 5:00 fitness talk, which was another of the mystery events. It probably had an official name. I don't know what that was. I had been picturing the Carnival gym staff on stage demonstrating various exercise techniques under Danny's guidance. Not so much. It was just Danny with a mic taking questions from the audience. I could not hear what any of the questions were, but we could hear his answers. Some of the advice was good (although nothing I hadn't heard before from my trainer), and other parts were. . .  odd. Among other things, we learned:

• All the NKs like to floss
• Jon gets bloated during concerts because he eats too close to showtime
• Danny pees several times per day

We had to leave before it was over to pack and get ready for early dinner. Then we changed into our white outfits before our concert started at 9:00 p.m. I'm not going to get into a full review of the concert. It was the same as the Casi-no tour, minus Close To You (anything else missing?). I managed to find enough voice to scream with. Oh, and Joe's solo? No words. I was frozen in place with my hand over my mouth the whole time. This is the only photo I managed to get.

It was about 10:30 when the concert finished, and the deck parties never really got going till after 11, so we went back to our rooms for a bit. I was headed up to the Lido deck around 11:15 in the glass elevators in the atrium when someone said "Is that Joe?" My immediate response was to hit every button in the elevator trying to get it to stop. That didn't work, so I ran down two flights of stairs and then strolled casually over to where the crowd was assembled.

Much like Jon had done earlier, Joe was having his own photo session with a bunch of fans. Yay! I waited my turn, and then made up for my conversation that morning with this genius statement: "Hi, I have 100 extra moxie points because I'm mac pack number 3100-something." Joe: "Ok." SMH. I really should not talk. I'd be much better off just smiling and nodding. Anyway:

I said thank you, walked slowly away for about 10 ft, and then took off at a dead sprint back to my room where Malina, Jaime, and Melissa were still getting ready. Like some kind of sitcom, I burst in the door, screamed that Joe was upstairs taking pics right now, and go go go! Malina ran out with her shoes in her hand.

With those girls taken care of, I finally got up to the Lido deck to meet everyone else. It was pretty empty so we decided to walk around and see if we could find any more NK photo ops. We strolled around for about 20 minutes and ended up at the Atrium bar for a drink. I told the bartender she had gotten a cute pic with Joe earlier.

Bartender: I wish he was performing down here. There would be a big crowd.
Me: Um, yeah, that would be good.
Bartender: But he's in the piano bar.
Me: Hmm (not paying attention)
Bartender: Didn't you want to watch him perform?
Me: I'm sorry, what?
Bartender: Right now, up in the piano bar
Me: (Already running away)

We raced back upstairs to find that Joe had been singing in the piano bar since just after I had gotten my photo. They weren't letting anyone else in, so we had to stand outside, with me pressing my ear to an opening in the partition to try to hear better. Thankfully they let more people in and we were able to get a spot in the very back and saw at least 30 minutes of the performance. This was the highlight of the cruise for me. I was in absolute heaven. My pics didn't come out and I didn't even try to get video, but Malina got some:



He finished around 12:30 or 12:45. I really didn't know how the night was going to get any better, but up we went to the party. The deck seemed extra crowded that night and people were paying more attention to the balcony than other nights. There was barely room to dance. Drank enough Sunday to be level 2 drunk: tipsy but not in danger of falling in the pool.

(You'll notice I haven't said anything about VIP. I never went up there so I don't really have anything TO say. They seem to have changed the set up this year. There was some kind of bracelet system, and the whole VIP area was much bigger. It looked like there were as many people upstairs as downstairs, and that was in a much smaller area. The biggest benefit I can see would be open bar, and lord knows I had had enough of that Friday. However, I have seen a lot of people who have solo pics with NKs in tuxes, and I can't pretend I wouldn't have liked that.)

Highlights of Sunday night included the world's longest (and worst) conga line around the pool, Jon leading a chant of "the roof is on fire," Joe doing Here We Go Again with the other 4 NKs as back up dancers, and Donnie and Jon dancing to La Bamba.



I called 4 a.m. my bedtime again and had my last sleep of the cruise.

Monday

Monday morning I awoke at 8 a.m. to the entirely-too-chipper PA announcer and looked out the window to see we were in port. We had a lovely long breakfast next to the pool and then said our goodbyes.

Andrea and I shared a cab to the airport and just happened to leave at the same time as NKOTB. When our cab driver saw them get escorted to their town cars, he said "Who are those men? Did they get arrested?"

My flight to Boston (for work) was packed with BHs but sadly no NKs. Meeting everyone on the plane was a perfect ending to a perfect weekend.

I'll miss you all terribly in 2011, but I already have my fingers crossed for a 2012 cruise. If it is within your means to be on the boat in 2011, I cannot recommend it enough.

Cruise 2010 Day-by-Day Recap: Saturday

When we left off, I had fallen into bed in a drunken stupor around 4 a.m. We had to be in the lounge for the first tenders at 9:00 a.m., so I was planning on getting up at 7:30, but my body decided it did not want to sleep past 6:00. Helpful!

You may remember that one of my favorite things about cruise 2009 was the room service breakfast/coffee delivered after a night of drinking. I was really looking forward to it Saturday morning this year. Too bad it never showed up. I called twice and they just said they were really busy. All I wanted was some coffee and a piece of toast! Yoi.

We eventually made it to the Dynasty Lounge. Wow did I feel awful. My own fault, I realize. All I wanted to do was lay down. Unfortunately there was a delay with . . .  something, and we ended up waiting in the theater until after 10:30. From the conversation around me, I could tell that I was not the only one who wanted to curl up in a ball somewhere, which made it even more entertaining when they called for wristbands "red one," and there was a spontaneous, albeit quiet, "red one!" from the crowd.

If I thought waiting in the lounge was rough, it was nothing compared to the tender. This was about the point I was vowing never to drink again. Eventually, though, we made it to Half Moon Cay, which was so gorgeous you could hardly believe it was real.

Our first order of business was to rent clamshells, and I collapsed onto a beach chair for a bit. Eventually the island started to fill up and the fresh air cleared my head, so I walked around on the beach finding all my friends who were on later tenders. There was a stage on the beach set with 5 microphones, and rumor was there was going to be some sort of performance at 1:00 or 1:30, so off we went in search of lunch.

I had been worried about vegetarian food at lunch, but it was for nothing. The Carnival reps on the phone before we left told me there'd be nothing but salad, but there was actually a ton of stuff including veggie burgers, which the cook offered to prepare on a separate grill for me and then delivered to my table fully dressed. Our lunchtime entertainment was a family of chickens scurrying under the table.

After lunch, we went back to the beach where nothing was happening, but a crowd was gathering around the stage anyway. Eventually we were rewarded when the NKs sped up to the beach in their own boat, like something out of Miami Vice.



I thought there was going to be some kind of performance, so we went up to the side of the stage. Standing in the full sun was almost unbearable. It was scorching hot. That worked out for our benefit, because almost as soon as they hit the stage, Joe and Jon declared they were going swimming and ran off toward the ocean.

I decided there was no way I was going to remain sweating my face off near the stage if there were two NKs frolicking 30 ft away in the water, so off I went too. I didn't swim after them or even bring my camera (above photo is courtesy of my roomie Malina), but it was nice to be swimming in an idyllic setting in the vicinity of New Kids.

I went back up near the stage for a bit and enjoyed the view of Joe walking around in his swim trunks (as he did for the whole day), but after 10-15 minutes I was just too hot up there and had to retreat back to the water.

Elizabeth and I watched most of the beach games while neck-deep in the ocean. That meant we couldn't see much. We were aware people were limbo-ing, but that's about it. I missed the races. Not sure what the other games were. I didn't mind not being able to see because where we were was perfect. We decided we'd like to watch all NKs events from the waters of HMC.

By then it was maybe 2:30-3:00. The rest of the day was centered on staying out of the sun. We had been applying super high SPF throughout the day, but Andrea was bright pink. We walked around looking for shade (which was no longer available under our rooted clamshell) and water. Around 4:00 we decided to head back to the boat, not realizing NKOTB had just done the same. This meant we had a nice welcome party upon arriving back at the Imagination.

I intended to nap before dinner. It didn't work. So we went to dinner. Then we tried to nap again, unsuccessfully. Every time I shut my eyes on the boat I worried I was missing something. Group B had their concert that night. We only had to get ready for PJ night. Beach day followed by PJ night was a great idea. The last thing I wanted to do was put on heels.

So, okay, I was a little bit in love with my PJs. Back when I was hoping for an 80s night, I was planning to dress as Lucky Star Madonna. When that didn't work out, my PJs became the next best thing. A t-shirt featuring -- wait for it -- Lucky Star Madonna, along with the giant lace hair bow and 80 jelly bracelets I had bought for the original outfit. (Who says I don't sleep wearing 80 jelly bracelets? I don't, but I could.)

Saturday was the antithesis of Friday. We drank Diet Coke (and one vodka-based drink, but just one!). And the theme ended up being a mashup because we were in PJs, the NKs for some unknown reason wore togas, and the DJ played a lot of 80s music. Loved it!

Sadly, the PJs were a lot tamer this year. Not just tamer, nearly Puritan. In my t-shirt and shorts I was among the least dressed. Not much entertainment people watching, but there were a couple fun ones.

Joe performed, Donnie performed, there was random group + audience singing to Summertime. Keeping in line with the rest of the day, it was disgustingly hot - still - all night. Dancing to the non-stop dance marathon that was DJ Cheapshot had us overheated, so it was nice to cool down with self-serve ice cream.

After 3:00 the crowd started to thin, and it was around 3:30 that one of the most awesome parts of the cruise happened. Jon decided he was tired of watching everyone sing and joined in himself. He did three or four songs. The best was One Song. Here are the others.


Then Donnie took off half his toga and started talking about Cruise 2011. Not too long after that, we decided things couldn't possibly get better so we went to bed. Best deck party ever.

Cruise 2010 Day-by-Day Recap: Friday

Friday! Cruise day one! How great it was to wake up and already be in Miami. By the time I woke up at 9 a.m., my roomie Malina was already at the port and checked in. Andrea and I were much slower moving. I even went to the hotel gym (for a $15 fee, wth?) and we waited at the world's slowest Starbucks before heading to the port just before noon. And there we hit . . . the line.

Hey Carnival. You know when people are getting on your boats. Maybe you want to have enough staff such that every check-in desk is in use. Just an idea. We were in the check-in line for at least an hour and a half.

And then, suddenly, everything was made right. We were on the Lido deck for 30 full seconds when a nice man brought us drinks with fruit and mini umbrellas. (Note* that this was drink #1. This will come into play later.)

It was disgustingly hot, and luckily our luggage was delivered really quickly, so we were able to change into our swimsuits and take a dip in the pool before the muster drill.

From my Qik stream (sorry I was yelling, the music was quite loud):


Did ANYONE pay attention in the muster drill? I have no clue what they said. As soon as they dismissed us, everyone took off at a full sprint to the Lido Deck for the sail away party. We had a nice spot along the rail above the stage, but I guess we weren't paying enough attention or weren't vicious enough because next thing I knew there were three girls between me and the railing. So Elizabeth and I watched the sail away party sitting on the ground looking between a forest of legs.

Worth it.


Also at this point, another nice man brought us drink #2. I was really starting to like the cruise.

We put up our door decorations, and then off we went to dinner in the dining room. This cruise, thanks to no waiting in line for events, we ate in the dining room every night. After a stop in the merch room for our zip hoodies (and a failed attempt to buy shot glasses that *someone* may have found and opened), we went back to get ready for Casino Royale night. This was a fun theme, like dress to impress but (mostly) classier.

But first, the sort of game show! I say "sort of" game show because the game was "sort of Jeopardy," wherein there would be a question, but you would still have to answer in the form of a question. In other words, at no point were there answers. I freakin love the game show. It was my favorite part of the cruise last year. Can't tell you how nice it was to stroll in 15 minutes before the 10 p.m. show time and sit down in the second row. (And yet from the second row, there was still a pole directly in front of us.) Since it was classy night, I had a glass of champagne, i.e., drink #3.

The game show was a riot, due in no small part to Jon being at least medium drunk. He really stole the show with his comments about singing in bed with Tiffany and man pipes. Here he is calling "the pair of boobs to the stage."


Other highlights:

• Danny continually pulling the podium backwards to check his score.
• Jordan mimicking the air horn and using the small mic to make drive thru orders.
• Joe saying "You drunk bitches better hurry up and get these answers right if you want to see me in my f*cking tux."
• Donnie performing the first verse of Ice Ice Baby and then making up his own verse.

By the end, my face hurt from laughing. And that was only the beginning because it was time for open bar! Elizabeth and I, in our brilliance, decided we'd better drink really quickly because open bar was for one hour only, from 12-1 a.m.

Here we are at 12:05.

Then around 12:20.

12:45? Things started to go downhill.

Around 1:00 (I think?) the boys came out all looking like danger in their tuxes. It was great! I tried to tweet about it:

Boys ate tuxedo hot 1:23 AM May 15th via twidroid 

Translation: The boys are in tuxedos, looking hot.

My tweets that night also included gems like this:

Malina hads pbeen peeinbg a long tipme. I habbe eliabeyhad shors. 1:21 AM May 15th via twidroid 

Translation: It's been a while since Malina said she had to pee. Elizabeth left her shoes here and I'm keeping an eye on them.

I also have video that is unusable due to my narration. Example: "Hi Donnie. Hey, where are the New Kids? There's Donnie. I got the premium. What's that? You ain't gotta be nervous. Hey, there's Donnie." (frantic pointing at him from the side of the screen in case you missed him directly in the middle of the frame.)

Around 2:00 we ate pizza. I didn't go to bed till around 4:00. I don't remember what happened between pizza and bed, but my phone never worked right after that.

Those boys sure did look hot in their tuxes.

*Note: I think the final drink tally was somewhere between 6 and 8. Let's hope it was 6.

Cruise 2010 Day-by-Day Recap: Thursday

Ten months of anticipation had come down to this. Cruise weekend was finally here. Last year I made the rookie mistake of flying into Miami Friday morning, so I missed Danny's party and was exhausted by Friday night. This year I booked flights for Thursday afternoon (ended up on the plane with @nikkibop!) and landed in Miami around 3:30 p.m.

I made my way to the Intercontinental where I quickly met up with Andrea and Malina. Andrea and I had tickets for the Fillmore show that night, and Malina was able to score some later as they were giving a bunch away near the venue. We got concert-ready and headed over to the venue, where we arrived about 45 minutes before doors opened and met up with Marlene, plus started to see all of our friends and met new people from Twitter. My live Qik stream:


Since some girls had been in line since 4:30 a.m. and we had not, we went straight for the balcony and sat front row center there, which was great except that it was blasted hot. We were having a dance party up there and I was sweating like I had just been to the gym. I loved sitting next to Marlene, who had not seen a NK show since January 2009, so she was ecstatic about everything. You should have seen her face when I pointed out the B-stage right below us and explained the NKs would come out there during the show.

After the show, our plan was to go to South Beach to a club called Bed, where you lay around drinking on giant beds. Best club idea ever, right? But apparently clubs don't open till 11 p.m. and it was maybe 9:45, so we decided to do some pre-drinking before getting into a club that charged $15+ per drink. After stopping in the hotel for a minute, we went to Wet Willies, a bar that has nothing but dozens of liquor-enhanced slushies. OMG so good. We walked with the drinks the 2-3 blocks to Bed, chugging as we went so we'd be done by the time we got there, and chugging a very large rum-based slushie in 10 minutes = somewhat drunk Katie.

Turns out, Bed would not let us in because some of our party were wearing flip flops. Boo on them. Didn't matter because we made our own party for free on the beach. We drew in the sand, hugged palm trees, danced like ballerinas, ran in the water, and sang Whitesnake. Beat that Bed!

Called it an early night and left SoBe around 1:00 a.m. We wanted to get one last night's sleep in before the non-stop party of the cruise.

Friday recap coming soon!

NKOTB Cruise 2010 Playlist

Thanks for all your help remembering songs!

It's just not the same when you hear the full song and there's no WAAAAHHHH WAAAHHHH every 30 seconds. . .

A selection of cruise photos

Detailed blogs coming soon, but for now, here are some pics!

(Cue music) It's the Final Countdown!

Have you ever tried to write out the instrumental intro to The Final Countdown? It can't be done. So play this while you read ; )



After months of anticipation, the day is almost here. The suitcases are packed and all that's left is to get to Miami and have a fantastic time!

If you're not cruising but want to keep up with the action, follow my twitter list: http://twitter.com/ktsummer/cruise-2010

Twitter capped the list at 500 so unfortunately I can't add anyone else. But there are several cruise lists out there, so between all of us we should have the boat pretty well covered. If you're not on the list but plan on tweeting extensively, comment below and I'll bump someone for you.

One last note: if you want to reach me during the cruise . . . you pretty much can't. Unfortunately I really didn't get to read my @replies last year and I never got email to load. If you're on the boat with me, leave a post it on my door. If you're not, and for some reason there's big news I need to know right away, DM, comment here, or leave a message on my ning page.

See many of you in Miami! If there's anything I missed or you have last minute questions, please leave a comment!

Itineraries! Yay!

My brain is overwhelmed by all the cool stuff on the itinerary for this year's cruise.

Have you seen it? NKOTB: Cruise Itinerary & Cabana Rental

Too much to process! Where should I even start? Friday night open bar? A whole day of beach games (with medals!)? "Mystery event" Sunday afternoon? It's like an overdose of awesome.

There was some slight confusion at first because Group A was listed for both photo sessions. However, that has been corrected, with Group B slotted into the 1:30 p.m. session. I also saw some people asking if NKOTB will be on the island with us Saturday. Rest assured, they will be.

Those selected to play in the poker tournament received emails today. If you didn't get one, I think that means you didn't make it, but names will also be posted in the casino.

Not really knowing what "beach games" would entail, I did some research. There are too many options to really guess, but this is the most interesting one I found:

Piranhas: For a lively, heart pumping game, tuck a bandana into the back of everyone's swimsuit. In a predetermined area on the beach, everyone is tasked to "live" as long as possible (keep their bandana) while trying to collect the bandanas from the backs of their opponents' swimsuits. Be sure to clear the area of sharp shells or other objects that could cause harm before beginning. This game is sure to bring out both a competitive spirit and plenty of laughs from all involved.

How many girls would be after the shorts of a New Kid? Ha!

I have one concern and one concern only about the entire schedule: I'm worried about the HMC buffet. Yes, my #1 concern is constant access to food. Really. I called Carnival to inquire about vegetarian options, since the buffet is most often described as "barbecue style." I talked to two reps and both told me the options are burgers, chicken, hot dogs. . . . and fruits/salad. There is a Ben and Jerry's stand on HMC, but from what I've read it's only open about half the time. Somebody watch me and make sure I do not drink 5 pina coladas if all I've eaten for lunch is lettuce and a piece of melon.

For ease of reading, I divided the schedule into Group A only and Group B only, if you want to print yours out.

So what are you most excited about? Any guesses on the "mystery event"? Who's planning to be out for blood in the beach games?

Update: I'm back to researching food. What can I say, I have a one track mind. Here is what I found for the Half Moon Cay buffet menu:

BBQ Lunch Buffet with selection of two salads, grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, fresh island fish, barbecued chicken, brownies and cookies.

Ok, so I'll be eating salad and brownies. And possibly ice cream. So far I've packed three power bars and a handful of ziploc bags that will be filled with items from the breakfast buffet that morning.

How much face time should you expect?

I got this topic last week when I did the call for stories, and I've been trying to figure out how best to address it. The short answer is: none outside the photo op. Your photo is the only guaranteed New Kids encounter while you're on the boat. It's just enough time to say hi to your favorite Kid and tell him you're having a good time.

Other than that, I guess it's half timing and the other half's luck. You likely will run into at least one NK over the course of the weekend -- in the elevator, near the pool, walking down the hall -- but that doesn't mean they'll be able to stop and chat. When Joe walked past several of us Saturday afternoon, he said he couldn't stop because he was on his way to an interview. Earlier that day, though, girls ran into him next to the pool and got photos.

The other factor is how bad you want it. Each night (and probably during the day), there was a small contingent of girls that followed the guys around like puppies. I wouldn't recommend that.

I saw everyone except Jordan at some point over the weekend, and I did not talk to anyone. If you are more forward than me, I'm sure you could have progressed to some form of conversation. I tended to act the same way passing a NK as I would passing our room porter: just said "hi" and kept walking.

Of course at the other end of the spectrum was the Katie we all saw in the DVD Easter Egg. Which makes the final answer "somewhere between saying hi in the hall and making out in the casino."

2009 cruisers: please post your face time stories!

Wondering what to wear to the photo op? Best of the 2009 photos

Just a quickie since I get this question a lot. My standard answer is: whatever the heck you want. People wore anything and everything last year.

Don't believe me? Check out the 2009 album.

Some of my favorites from that slideshow (click to enlarge):

Attack of the couch cushions

Jordan blending in with half the men on the ship

Yes, you can wear your bikini for the photo op. Why not?

Everyone wants a lap

I don't even know what's happening here

Anyway . . . what are you planning to wear?