DAY 4: FALMOUTH JAMAICA

Well we said we were going to sleep in after last night but the kids were calling US by 7:30am telling us to get up they wanted breakfast. Wait, how did you manage to get up so early? They said they had set their alarm for 6:30am and had been up getting ready. For what??? We aren't doing anything today. There was nothing we could do with "Karl" at this port. It all involved activities that couldn't be done with a wheelchair. I was wanting to sleep in. "Karl" informed me there was stuff to do...get off the ship and find some drinks. #faceplant

I threw some clothes on and off we went to Hudson's for breakfast. The kids said at least a sit down meal would kill some time.

Various items ordered for breakfast and we all dug in:

Sakari goes to a sit down restaurant and orders.....cereal. Are you kidding me? Well I guess she was real happy about it because she was wiggling and clapping when it came.

We headed back to the room so I could get a shower and be presentable when I got off the ship.

We would be in port with RC Allure today and that meant 8500 people. Our hours in port were from 7-4pm

We were walking off the ship by 10am and ready for our port picture to be taken.

Now lets talk about this port picture. There was no "swamp" behind us. There was either a ship or a port or water. The photographers took it upon themselves to put this background on our picture. When we went to look at the pictures the hubby is like what the heck. We had ask them to put another background there and they came back with a concrete wall. Um....looks like we were stuck with a swamp picture instead.

Ok so let me tell you a story. I had the "NCL excursion and things to do in port" channel on in our room before leaving. There was an advertisement saying there was a pool at the port. The kids must have seen the same thing and Sakari had put her bathing suit on. We walked that port twice over and let me tell you, there's no pool. We ended up asking a local there who said they use to have a restaurant there with a pool but it was shut down. Well, I guess this day is going to involve walking around, shopping, eating and drinking. Oh lovely.

I mean the port is nice and all but honestly there's nothing to do here but shop and eat. I hate that we can't go do anything while here. They just don't offer anything for people in wheelchairs. You have to be able to transfer with walking short distances.

They did have a Craft Market here HOWEVER...almost everything each vendor had was the same thing. I found some cute painted wooden sea animals that I thought would look nice to add to my travel area at home and every vendor there tried to convince me that they hand made these. Eventually I ask if they had flown over to China to make them and bring them back. "No mon, we hand carved them". Um "No mon you didn't. Everyone carves the exact same animal the exact same way with no differences?" One guy was really trying hard to sell me what I was looking for. He kept telling he would carve my name in it. I told 3 times I didn't want my name carved in anything. He just kept on so I took my business to the next vendor and purchased 3 things I wanted. No carving needed. They are cute and come completely apart "for shipping" they said. That should be fun trying to figure out how to put them back together when I get home...which I did but I will need to consult with Sakari to see if I did it right.

There was a guy along the outside that was chiseling away at wood to make something but it wasn't what they were trying to sell inside to me.

"Karl" convinced me he was already hungry. The rest of us wasn't but I guess we might as well sit and have a few drinks. This is not something I would normally do in port. I don't care to pay for over priced drinks. These kids are a bad influence on me. Just saying...

"Karl" was really wanting some authentic jerk chicken so he ordered a meal. He said it was pretty spicy, which meant he needed to order more drinks to wash it down. Ahhh, I see what you're doing there. We had the Sex on the Beach, Miami Vice, Dirty Banana and you know we had to try the Bob Marley as well. Then picked what was the favorite for seconds...or thirds. FYI drinks were $15/each and "Karls" meal was $22.

There was also a guy walking around on stilts to get people to take pictures for tips.

Although I wasn't hungry, I did see they had cheesecake on the menu and it was calling my name. Sakari ended up with some type of ice cream and the hubby went all out and also ordered one PLUS a strawberry milkshake. In his defense, it was very hot out.

Let me just say...this was no cheesecake. Not even close. It was cake for sure but no cheesecake. It really wasn't that good either but for $10 I was eating it no matter what. At least the ice cream was only $5. The service was EXTREMELY SLOW. Our waitress would bring us drinks with no straws. Food with no forks. She was just terrible. We'd ask for another drink and it would take forever to come. Girl, we pulling out of here at 4pm. We gonna miss the ship. (Just kidding it was only around 11:30 when this all started. Plenty of time...but still it was a long experience). They also didn't have any restrooms at the restaurant which meant I was walking to the opposite side of the port for a potty break. Get those steps in I tell ya. Imma need it.

Once we were finished, it was time to head back to the ship. There just wasn't anything to do here. I wish I had planned a better vacation with things to do with "Karl". Bamboo rafting, climbing the falls and ziplining just isn't in the cards. I did reach out to someone regarding a tour but they take you to Montego Bay and the items he listed as "points of interest" just didn't look interesting at all. Not to mention there were stairs involved and complaints of not feeling safe in the area. Yea, no thank you.

Can you believe not one person ask to braid mine or Sakari's hair while in port? Is this not a thing in Jamaica anymore?

We headed back on the ship and called it a day. I would take some pictures of the port from our room and one of the decks after we got back.

It was now up to Sakari to decide what to do and we headed to the Atrium for games. They were having a "golf" tournament and since the hubby did so well up at putt putt, we decided to volunteer him to enter. 😁

He said it took awhile to get used to. You had to putt the ball hard enough to make it up over the lip to the thing they had on the floor and get the ball to stick to one of the round circles. They even had an actual golfer playing and he was struggling as well. Well, the hubby didn't win but as time passed by, he was getting better.

We would also discover that the bar in the atrium would give you complete cans of diet Coke. Before we left I managed to pocket one and take to the room so that I would have one the following day when needed before leaving the room.

We were now about to be pulling out and I went upstairs to take some pictures while they continued to play games. Then came the announcement that the winds were too high and we would have a delay. Wait, what winds? Weird. It ended up being a 1 hour delay and then we left.

When I came back, I was spotted from below:

The next game was a memory game called Mastermind and Sakari decided to play. I'm not sure how she's going to manage this because she can't even remember where she lays her keys down and had to put a tracker on them.

Now the rest of us was hungry and "Karl" said he could still put some food down. (I think he's getting back to his old self). So, we decided to go back to The Local and go to the actual restaurant since we figured out where it was. It has to be the smallest EVER! Who planned this? Seriously. It took awhile to get a seat and they handed me a beeper.

The hubby had something like loaded chili cheese nachos or something like that and a cheeseburger. I had the fish & chips...yummy! "Karl" ordered a chicken salad sandwich and fries and when it came out it was a chicken sandwich that they had to correct. Sakari only wanted a Cobb Salad. The girl just isn't eating much on this cruise. I'm not sure why. She's not a big eater to begin with but I swear it was next to nothing most of the cruise or only taking a few bites of her meals.

The one thing that the restaurant has that the bar doesn't was...you guessed it...cheesecake! Yep, REAL cheesecake. I was making up for not getting the real thing in Jamaica. And of course the family didn't get enough ice cream either and another round of sundae's it was. Why didn't we just wait to get back on the ship for all of this and not have a $150+ bill at the restaurant?

After all this food Sakari wanted to go back to the room to nap. I wasn't opposed to it either as I was about to sugar crash. We decided we'd all meet up again later tonight and go to the comedy show.

Once back at the room our VIP Chocolate covered strawberries were waiting for us and Sakari had some in her room too.

As much as I tried to nap, it just didn't happen. The hubby was watching a movie, the tv was up loud, I was hot then cold then....yea, just no. Sakari would tell me later that she didn't get to nap either and they watched a movie as well.

We headed down to Improv but we were too late and there wasn't any place to sit. It's such a small room to begin with so we ended up leaving. "Karl" said "Let's go to the casino!!!" I think I heard this phrase from him at least 10 times a day. So off we went to kill some time before going to dinner.

I did start playing a little higher bet and didn't do too bad. The hubby did decent as well. But "Karl" OH EM GEE! He came back with a ticket for $950!!! Of course he would rub it in "You gotta play big money to win big money" which is true, but what if you don't win. He was playing a $6.60 bet each time. I'm sorry I don't have money to throw around like that...I have vacations to book. I do it all in the name of fun.

Sakari kept encouraging him to cash out and go but he wouldn't listen. He got cocky. He said he was on a winning streak. Nothing could stop him now. He was going to double that money. What do you think happened? He lost ALL OF IT!!!! Well, he walked away with 0.59¢ Every last penny! See this is what happens when you get too confident. Did he learn his lesson? No, his reply was "I'll win it all back tomorrow". 🙄

We decided to go to Indulge tonight for dinner and try ordering from the pads on the table. There was a lot to look at and pick from and I feel like we ordered so much food but did end up eating every last bit of it.

I can tell you that if you want FAST service you have to eat here. We hadn't even put the ordering pad down and the first round of food was already at our table. I'm not even joking. We were amazed.

I tried the gnocchi and it was the best I've ever had. I will definitely be coming back for more on this cruise!

Although NCL does offer some sugar free desserts, I feel like there wasn't as much variety as Carnival has. Not that it matters at this point because my keto diet was thrown out with the trash the day before the cruise started.

We headed out to family karaoke for awhile as we had some time to kill before the adult comedy show. It was very interesting to say the least. Oh, and along the way another duck was found...a small duck on a keychain. These things are so hard to see! Who decided this was a good idea? I will tell you that the 3 ducks we've found so far would be the end of our duck hunting streak. This was the most DUCKLESS cruise I've ever been on.

At 10pm we were off to the Levity show. At least they have a handicapped section at the top and we could all sit together. The guy was "ok" but nothing to write home about honestly. He did mention staying in the port area today and how it was compared to being at Disneyworld on the inside....until you walk out of the port. It was so cold in the theater that I couldn't wait for the show to be over.

One of my concerns on a large ship with 3100+ people on it was catching an elevator that a wheelchair and 3 of us could fit. I figured we'd be waiting forever and each time the elevator door opened, there wouldn't be enough room for all of us and we'd have to wait on the next...then repeat. I was pleasantly pleased that this only happened 3 or 4 times during the ENTIRE cruise. It seemed like we almost always had the elevator to ourselves or only one or two people in it when it opened.

Tonight we were waiting on the elevator to come and seeing how you can't really see the numbers on them from the bright shiny lights, you don't really know which elevator to stand at. The door opens, we're not going to make it, Sakari is pushing "Karl", the door starts to close, she runs to throw her hand in it to make it open back up...but Karl is still moving from her pushing it and he slams into the wall. Oops! When he's with us, he usually has an incident of being thrown out of his wheelchair but not this vacation...it would be the toes. By the next day he would have a bandaide on it and said it was a little banged up. She thought he would put his hands on the wheels and slow himself down and he didn't. It all happened so quick he probably didn't think to. She felt so bad after this. It's the little things you don't think about in the moment because you're not used to it. It's so different when they completely depend on you. 😞

Our white boards for the day:

Time for bed. 💤