(A wopping one photo in this one..)
After a few busy days, I was kind of looking forward to having a day to do nothing. Since we were at sea all day Thursday, Andy and I had booked two massages for 9:15am. I grabbed a light breakfast at the Park Cafe, and we went to the spa. We each had separate appointments so we were in different rooms. I was slightly disappointed with the massage. The woman was very nice, but it was a very light massage. And I remember not liking the music they played. Give me sounds of nature, not 70s disco. I'm spoiled because now I compare everything to our Hawaii trip. Our couples' massage there was heavenly and we were right on the beach.. Oh, to be back there..
After the massage, I waited for Andy in the spa lounge chairs overlooking the ocean in the back of the boat. How peaceful. Then we found his family at our usual place on the pool deck and started to soak up the sun. It was so darn hot. The pool deck is completely exposed to the sun, but there are other decks above that go around the pool area, so you are completely blocked from wind. Here is where I should discuss the accomodations for the pools. I have mentioned a few times the Solarium, which is the adult pool. It's in a completely separate area and is for adults only, but is not very large (maybe 10' x 15'). It's mostly shaded with a part glass ceiling so you don't really get sun exposure/a tan. The outdoor pool area consisted of two pools about the size of a standard family pool. However, the outer half of each pool had water only 1-2 inches deep - just enough to get your feet wet. So that leaves an area about 8' x 12' (?) that's actually deep enough to submerge.
I've said before that there were 3000 people onboard. How in the world do you take turns being in a small area with that many people? You don't. So I maybe spent 10 minutes total in the outside pool. I also should mention here that 340 Argentinian girls were onboard celebrating their Quinceaneras (15th birthdays). So there were teen girls everywhere being rude and wearing thongs. They took up an entire pool on their own.
Mid-afternoon I heard there was a Harry Potter trivia contest. I was all about it, because let's admit, I'm a bit of a super fan/HP genius. First off, the event was incorrectly advertised so I was in the wrong room and was late. I'm disappointed in my 16/20 but will note that everyone who did better than me was on a team of like 5 so if we divided HP knowledge by person I would've wipped everyone (I'm competitive and a sore loser). The ones I got wrong were only wrong because of technicalities (yes I'm explaining/making excuses to make myself feel better about the loss)...
Back to the pool deck to just hang. Most of the time I was on this deck I was in the shade because of the heat, so I didn't get a very good tan. We all showered and got ready for our last night eating at the My Fair Lady. This night I had a starter that was advertised as pita and hummus and ended up being something totally weird. It just happened to come with a miniscule pita stick and a teaspoon of hummus, but I ate it nonetheless. I had a lamb shank which was good, and finished with chocolate ice cream. Then we decided to walk around the boat. There were a lot of parts that I had never gone to, and it was a great sunset to watch.
The photo above is probably the closest I got the edge of the boat the entire trip. I don't think I ever even touched the railing and literally would stay a good ten feet away from that thing.
We had some time in the room before heading to the 9pm theater show. It was the RC singers and dancers doing various numbers from musicals. This was right up my alley and I quite enjoyed it. Not sure anyone else did but I was entertained. Immediately following the show, the comedian was set to start. He, like the magician, lives on the boat most of the year. He was an older guy with very adult-focused humor. It wouldn't be something I would actively seek to do again, but it was okay. He was funny, but I don't think a 23 year old girl and a retired aged male have the same sense of humor.
Then there was some kind of interactive game show that we checked out. I was pretty tired and wasn't really interested in the game, so we headed back to our rooms and packed up. We had to set our luggage outside to be checked by security. We wouldn't see it until we were off the ship. Thankfully, we had a carry on, so we kept everything we needed (toothbrush, makeup, clothes). Not sure how that worked for everyone else.
We woke and were already docked at the port. We got a quick breakfast, finished packing, and met the fam at our check-out point around 8:40am. Again the process was pretty efficient, but a lot of slow moving lines. We made it to the baggage point and found everyone's luggage pretty quickly. We loaded up the van and were on our way by 9:30.
At this point, we weren't sure what we were going to do the rest of the day. We had our van but no real plans. Our flight wasn't leaving until 4:55pm. Somehow we ended up at a camping park with air boat rides. We had to wait an hour for our turn. It lasted about a half an hour and we saw one alligator. It was okay.
We dropped off Andy's brother and SIL at the airport for their earlier flight before grabbing lunch at Chili's. We made it back to the airport about 3 hours before our flight. It was the longest wait ever. Finally we were boarded. The take off, flight, and landing were incredibly turbulent. I usually enjoy the thrill of flying, but not this time. I really thought we were going to fall from the sky and die. Andy's arm probably still has nail marks from my grip. Thankfully, we landed. It seemed forever for us to get luggage, find the bus driver, and drive home, but we made it to our house around 10pm. It was a good trip, but was also so nice to be back in our own bed!
We will probably never cruise again. I'm glad we did it once though so I could see for myself what it's like. My main dislike is that it's a very busy and crowded experience. I remember being worried about germs/getting sick (have you heard of meningitis?) and people breathing/touching the food on the buffet. I enjoy isolation - peace and quiet. I don't really get the thrill of being on a boat vs. a hotel, although the ports give you a variety of things to do which is nice. It was nice that all the food was included, so walking up just to get snack was convenient. There was a good amount of entertainment provided, if you need a schedule of activities to be satisfied on vacation. All in all, it was a good trip because we were together as a family.
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