At Sea
Another beautiful day….sunshine…a little windy….not too hot; in the upper 70’s. Almost chilly if you sit in the shade.
After getting up, I headed up to Deck 12 to walk two miles around the pool with Dear Hubby. This was around 8:15 am – and the chair hogs were already out in force. Amazing. So many books and towels already laying out, catching the sun, with nary a person in sight. I did watch as one woman put her flip flops on the chair beside her – and her beach bag in the chair on the other side – was she saving the chairs for friends??? No – she just didn’t want anyone sitting beside her – she had a space issue. I know because I was on Deck 11 with her most of the day and no one even came up to talk with her – she just wanted the space around her. Three chairs for one person. Unbelievable.
After grabbing a quick breakfast, I headed to Deck 11 at the bow – there was a nice quiet area where I could sit on a lounger and read a book. It got extremely windy – I mean, so windy, your towel would blow into the ocean if you weren’t sitting on it.
Around 11:00 am, it was time to go get our passports and so I left Hubby with our deck chairs and I went and found our receipt for the passports in the room. With receipt in hand, I headed to Deck 5 and stood in a long, but fast-moving line, to retrieve the passports. I noticed that quite a few people did not have their receipts; it would hold the line up, but it didn’t stop them from retrieving them. I headed to the room to secure the passports away when Hubby walked into the room, stating he was tired of fighting the wind and decided to bring our belongings inside.
I wasn’t quite ready to give up on the weather so soon – so I went back to Deck 11 – forward – and although my lounger from this morning was gone – there were plenty of others. I sat on one and watched as the ship sailed near Sicily and through the Straits – it was beautiful – albeit windy. After awhile, it really did become too windy – even for me – and I gave up.
By now, it was close to lunch time – and although there was a poolside BBQ buffet, the line was horrendously long – so Dear Hubby and I ate at the Windjammer.
After lunch, I went back to the pool to see if I could find a single lounger by the pool. Single loungers are always easier to find than two loungers side-by-side. I did a thorough search, and managed to snag one on the first row – poolside. Amazing. It was nice because it wasn’t too windy here.
At 1:00 pm, it was time for the International Belly Flop contest. Kieron came out and said they needed 5 women to judge the contest, so I hopped right up there. We had about 10 men who competed – with the winner doing a backflip into the pool. Come to find out, he’s a professional gymnast. No wonder! The good news for me, was that I FINALLY got a coveted keychain!!! My quest for the official Royal Caribbean Rubbish is finally over!
At 2:00 pm, it was time for “Guest vs Crew Dodgeball” on the Sports Court. I went with the intention of possibly playing, but after watching the first few minutes, decided it was too intense for me. The balls would do serious damage if they happened to hit you in the wrong place – as in, your face. This was “killer” dodgeball – so I just watched. I think they needed to tone down the intensity just a bit.
Eventually, I decided to just head back to the room and lay on the lounger on the balcony and snooze. Heaven. No chair hogs on a balcony.
Tonight is our last formal night – so, we got cleaned up and showered and dressed and then went to the Concierge Lounge for drinks. As we were getting ready, a tray of sweets was delivered to our room. You can never have too many sweets, dear readers, so of course, i indulged. I didn't want them to go to waste, and no - they did not ruin my dinner.
At 6:30 pm, we headed down to the Dining Room. There were 11 of us again – one more than they like to seat at a table, but we squeezed everyone in.
After squeezing in, the ship's photographer came around for the usual paparazzi shots. He was always present - especially on formal nights - and tonight was no exception. I decided to turn the tables on him and take HIS picture. He was always telling us, "back, back" in getting us to pose - so I've told him, "back, back" - and here's the results:
We had Jackie and Mark.
We had Larry and Kathleen.
Also joining us was Susan, Pete and Ian.
Last, but not least, we had Thelma and Joe.
I had the cold salmon with dill weed cucumbers for appetizer – and then the tiger shrimp with mashed potatoes for dinner. Okay – not spectacular. The tiger shrimp was in lieu of lobster, which they do not offer anymore on this sailing. Dejan explained that the lobster for that ONE night would cost more than all of the food put together every other night – it’s that expensive in Europe. He said the chef would get angry when people would order multiple lobsters – apparently, the record stands at one man, ordering 26 lobsters. That’s just gluttony. Sorry. For dessert they had a “sampler” with a dab of chocolate mouse (yummy), soaked rum cake (yuck) and some kind of yellow sponge cake. Not too impressed.
After dinner, I snapped a picture of Erhan, the guy who worked the My Time Dining Reservation table each day and would set us up each evening for the next day's reservation. He was wonderful - always smiling.
At 8:15 went to Colony Club for Classic Rock Trivia – we finally won! We got 34 out of 40 – they played 20 songs and we had to name that tune AND the artist. Our team of four got 2 keychains, a highlighter and a wallet. More RCI rubbish!!! Woo hoo!
I had to make a detour to Guest Relations (again) to get a new Seapass card – I think they keep trying to check me out early or something as it was once again not working. This is the 3rd time this cruise where it quit working. The line at Guest Relations was long - I'm not sure why.
After trivia it was time for the show to begin. The first show had been at 7:15; we were going to the 9:00 pm show. It was entitled “Big Time Swing” with the Dancers and Singers. The show was pretty good – apparently this is the first week together for this new team of performers – so there were a few kinks/problems – one of the main dancer’s dresses had an obvious tear in it – some people were out of sync – but over all pretty good for the first time. With practice, it will get even better.
After the show we headed back to the room and discovered a monkey hanging – he had mardi gras beads around his neck and was “reading” the art book – I have a wild zoo going on in my room now – and we’re slowly running out of space with FIVE animals in there now!
We hung out in the room until 10:30; at 10:45 pm, it was time for the 70’s Dance Party in the Centrum. They’ve removed all of the sofas and couches and made room for dancing – the “Brilliance Macho Macho Men" came in to perform – the dance floor was packed with people making it hard to dance. Kieron, the Cruise Director, threw t-shirts from the balconies above to the crowd below, as well as yellow rubber bracelets that say “Have a Nice Day.” I caught the first t-shirt thrown out – it turned out to be a 2XLL “Bingo” shirt. I guess it will make a nice sleeping shirt. We caught 2 of the yellow bracelets - one for each of us. Hubby said “It’s like New Year’s Eve” because the floor was so crowded – and then they released a bunch of balloons from the top of the Centrum - so it really WAS like New Year’s Eve! I think people were having a great time – but it was a little too crowded for me. I don’t like crowds – so we danced a bit and then worked our way out of the crowd.
There was a night of classic Frank Sinatra music being played in the Colony Club beginning at 11:30 pm until 12:30 am - but we were too worn out from doing "The Hustle" - so we missed this. It sounded like fun - martini specials and tasty delights were offered.
We headed back to the room where we began pulling things out to begin the DREADED packing we must do on Friday - our last day. Ugh.
Finally went to bed around 12:45 am. Very tired. Seas are very, very smooth.
Tomorrow: Last Day. At Sea.
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