MITSUGIRLY lets the BREEZE flow through her hair-Spring Break Review/Pictorial
Day 8 April 1: Sea Day
FRIDAY-4/1 APRIL FOOLS DAY & SEA DAY
BANG, CLANG, BOOM...4am and these are the noises coming from outside my balcony. Could this just be an April fools joke someone was playing on us? Nope, it sure wasn't. It was time for the nightly "dropping of the pots and pan symphony". I popped a few melatonin, dug my head under the pillow, and started counting anchors in my head trying to fall asleep. This crap was really ridiculous. Seriously. It would be another restless night for me as I stare off into the darkness, getting chills rushing threw my body each time I think the banging has stopped and it happens again. Every time feels as if it's the first time I have heard it before and it catches me off guard every time.
I must have drifted off again because the next time I woke up to banging was 7am. This can't be real. PEOPLE, GO TO FRICKEN SLEEP SOME TIME WILL YA?
By 9am, I decided sleep just wasn't in my cards for the night and I might as well get up. I look at the Funtimes and see that the Dr Seuss Breakfast is listed. Wait, what? I was told when we signed up that it would be the last sea day, on Saturday. Could I have misunderstood? Was this an April Fools joke? I looked again at the date of the Funtimes and flipped the paper over again...it clearly states:
FOOD:
Dr Seuss Breakfast $, Sapphire Restaurant, 3 Fwd...8:30am
Dab-nabbit! Seriously? Sakari didn't want to participate in the Dr Seuss Parade, she didn't want to go to the storybook time, she didn't want her pictures taken in her outfit with the characters. THIS was the one thing that she DID want to go to and now we had missed it! I was so sad and wasn't sure how I was going to break the news to her.
We headed to breakfast in the MDR. I was tired of the same thing every morning in the buffet and we usually try to do the MDR on sea days. Also, what better way to drown your sorrows than with food right?
This time I decided no matter what, we were going to tell them we wanted a table for 3 and we would wait if we had to. However, we were quickly seated with no wait and no table for more than one family without asking. Maybe it was because everyone else was at the Dr Seuss breakfast. Ugh.
I decided to order the cheesy grits. I'm from the south originally and my parents use to always make grits for breakfast. I loved them. I don't get them often and I can't say I have ever had them with cheese. I know others, on here, have mentioned they are good. So I gave it a shot and liked them. Of course I can put cheese on just about anything and love it. After ordering, our food came so quick I didn't have time to break the news to Sakari about the Dr Seuss breakfast.
After her meal came, I figured this was as good as time as any to tell her. I think her heart was broken.
We were in and out of the MDR within probably 45 minutes. That was the most amazing service I think I have ever had before in any MDR.
I decided it was time to stop asking Sakari if she wanted to go do ______ because her reply was always no. From here on out, we were just going to go do it and surprise her.
I noticed they had the towel animal theater. We were going to head there and see if she liked it. But not before stopping at the jungle to tinkle.
When we arrived, we discovered they were having a towel folding display going on. Daddy wanted her to go up and gets some towels to participate, but I told him the show is supposed to start in about 7 minutes and they were probably at the end of the folding. From looking around, everyone had already made the entire body of an elephant and was already working on the head. There's no way we can catch up. But, he insisted and went and got the towels. As I said, it did no good because they were already done. He would put his tail between his legs and come back and sit down and wait for the show.
The towel animal show started (we had never been before) and Sakari seemed to like it.
After the towel theater, I ask the hubby what we should do next. Oh I know, we haven't even went to the 4D movies yet and that's one of the main things I wanted to do on this cruise. How could I have forgot to do this already? Oh that's right, every time we passed it, it was either closed or we didn't have Sakari with us and I wanted her to do it because I knew she would like it.
We headed to the theater, paid for our admission, then waited in their waiting room for them to let us in.
We were the first ones there and sat down to watch the "commercials" on the tv in the waiting room. People would pile in after us and by the time the theater opened up, since we were sitting, we were almost the last in the theater! Lesson learned, don't go in and sit down if you expect to get a good seat either in the front row or enough seats to sit together if you are a bigger group. You might want to stand by the door instead.
We managed to get seats in the second row on the end and noticed there were several chairs that were "out of order". They only have 24 seats total and I believe there were at least 5 not working. If you have a big crowd waiting for the show, that puts a damper on things even at 24 seats working.
They say a show starts every 15-30 minutes, but they could probably fit a lot more shows in if they'd just start the movie once the theater was full instead of waiting so long.
We watched a movie called "Just the Rides" and it simulated being on a roller coaster but it was cute because it was a cartoon type coaster with movies that are currently out. I felt like I was actually in some type of Sonic the Hedgehog game. The seats moved, water hit you in the face, air blew on your legs...and Sakari was amazed! At one point birds were flapping their wings hard on the screen and you all of a sudden felt their wings flapping on your legs. That just blew her away. After the movie, she would look under her seat several times wanting to know where the birds were at. It was hilarious. I'm glad I found something she liked.
We then decided to head to the water park for the day. That's one thing Sakari will never turn down...ever.
She was super excited.
Once we made it out to the deck, there was absolutely no place to sit, no place to even put our things along the edge and all the seats around the pool were taken too. It was a mad house. I told her the only way we were going to get wet is if we went back up to the water park and up we went.
This is usually what the pools looked like unless you went much later in the day after everyone left to get ready for dinner.
After arriving at the water park, again, no place to sit. We circled several times and 3 different decks with no luck. We decided to put our things down by one of the outside walls and a nice family told us they would move their things down some and we could at least have a portion of their long plastic chair. How nice. That doesn't happen often.
Then Sakari was off with a flash of the eye and I don't even think I had my shoes off yet.
Sakari learned her lesson last time and today she would NOT be sliding around on the floor on her belly. No more rash marks for her!
This kid loves her water!
It was seriously hot out today. Like you could go get wet and go back to your chair and within 5 minutes you couldn't take it anymore and had to head back to the water.
I decided I would just find a spot along the back wall and sit in the water. The best of both worlds!
This is my view, watching the water bucket dump, and every so often Sakari come flying around the corner dodging the water. The hubby soon joined me and Sakari was busy splashing him.
Then off she'd go...
She came back to tell us she was going on the funnel slide. Now last time she did this on the Dream, she was sitting up (not sure if I mentioned this from the other day or not). When you come out of the funnel tube, it slings you back if you are sitting up and it can give you whiplash. She was hurt last time and vowed to never go on one again. Now, 3 years later, she wanted to try it again. I reminded her of what happened last time and how she HAS to lay back and not sit up. We went over her posture of crossing her arms in front of her and crossing her feet at the ankles. "Got it" she said and off she ran.
Daddy & I headed up the steps to get a good shot of her coming out of the tube. He would spend the rest of his time up there squirting people as they came out of the tunnel and tried to scurry down the steps in the middle of the funnel. Big kids gotta have fun too.
She shot out of the tunnel and at least she has part of it right...she had her arms crossed and she was laying down.
Daddy was squirting her on the way out of the drainpipe.
This slide is fun, but I really wish Carnival would make them like they do on NCL. With NCL's Epic, it has the drainpipe too but you shoot out of the tunnel, into the drainpipe, spin around a few times, then where the opening is (the steps on Carnival), you go down again on a slide to the bottom and end just like you do at the end of regular water slides.
We spent almost 3 hours here today. I was getting hungry and we decided to go hunting food.
So today the buffet would be open during the time we decided to have some lunch...but what do we do? We headed to Guys Burgers because it just sounded good!
I got my pig patty on and then we finished with an ice cream cone.
We still wanted to try the ropes course out and seen that they were open. We headed back to the room to change and get our tennis shoes on then headed upstairs.
The line was kinda long and it seemed like we waited forever. It didn't seem to move fast and the sun was so hot to stand in. The bad part is, they only allow 6 people to go at the same time??? Geesh, this is going to take forever.
We finally hit a spot with some shade and we cherished every minute of it.
The next thing is that they allow you to go around twice. However, they can't seem to find a way to keep track of this and kids would go around and around again and not want to come off. They would ask them how many times they had been around, some would lie others would tell the truth. I heard one group of kids say 6 times!!!
This is where they suit you up for the adventure.
These are the lockers they have you put your things in. However, they don't allow you to take the key with you??? They tell you to just shut it and it would be fine.
It was finally our turn and Sakari was getting suited up.
I remember seeing the Breeze back when it first came out and thinking "wow, this ship is amazing" and I couldn't believe it had an actual ropes course on it. Then later NCL would decide to build their newest ships with a ropes course too. After being on NCL on both the Breakaway and Getaway, they totally blow this small, square ropes course out of the water. This ropes course was nothing. It was just a square with a few different things to do. NCL has a ropes course that takes forever to go on and goes so many different ways, winding back and forth, down both sides and across the middle. Then they also have the zip line. Nothing big, but still fun to know you zip lined on the ship. It takes awhile to make it around their course. Carnival, not so much. I guess I had never really noticed this until now.
The first time Sakari "became of height" was on our Breakaway cruise last year. She did well, but she also freaked out several times and had a break down at one point, with her sister (I believe it was) rescuing her, and had me down below talking senses into her to keep going. She claimed she loved it after it was all done and over with. So, I figured this little ropes course would be nothing compared to that.
She had her moments that she freaked out because she was trying to pull her rope above along while holding on. No matter how many times I told her that it would follow her and she didn't need to do that. The only time you need to pull it along is at the end sections to make it go which direction you wanted it to go. She just didn't get it and would swear that it is not moving.
It seriously took us FOREVER to get around once. Once was enough for me and I said I was heading out. But wait...Sakari wants to go again? Seriously? Ok daddy, you're staying with her and I'm going down stairs for pictures then...see ya. I left him hanging with his mouth open and that was that.
People had lapped her several times, new groups had started, and she was only on lap 2. But hey, what ever makes her comfortable I guess. I think the second time around she was getting the hang of it. She actually had a smile look on her face at times and did her second lap in about 1/2 the time it took her the first time around.
Other times, not so much and the worried look returned.
Still trying to pull along that harness rope.
I watched a little girl way smaller than Sakari just run this course like she was walking on land. Eeek.
Daddy playing batman. "I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky."
All this hard work watching them go around a second time was making me thirsty. I decided to head to the bar there in the middle of all this and get a Hurricane Wave.
Yep, this is hitting the spot.
She's in the home stretch now...
She made it out alive...twice actually. She was proud and said she enjoyed herself. Well hey, that's all that matter I guess, not the 10 hours we just spent on you making all the way around the "fun" "enjoyable" course.
The steel drums were playing on the pool deck while the DJ was also doing some mixing with them.
We dropped Sakari off at the kids club so that she could eat "dinner at 6pm" with her friends and we headed upstairs for the hubby to have a cigar.
Here you will see someone taking up the chairs, just laying there on your phone...which CAN be done in other areas you know!
We headed to the casino for about 2 hours. It wasn't treating us too bad today.
I won me $42 on this spin. I'll take it. I did $1 bet so I must have been brave that day. Fisherman Bob always give me something good while I'm sitting there, but he didn't catch any big fish this time around.
Little Red Riding Hood never gave out big money, but it was always fun to play and I would say at least 3/5 spins would hit "something" that changed into money. So it was always a fun game.
The first time I played this game and hit for $24 on the first spin, I cashed out and got up and walked away.
Bob gave me a little over $10 again. Just treat me good Bob and I'll be back.
$18.55 this round...thanks Bob, I'll be back.
After 2 hours in the casino, I was burned out. We decided to do a little shopping and I picked up a scrapbook, some inserts, then headed to the candy store...where my hubby had been eyeballing some candy all week.
We ended up with around $30 of sugary goodness and decided if we couldn't find dinner for the next 2 days, at least we could rot our teeth out.
We picked up sis at the kids club and she was sporting a new style this time around.
I ask her why she didn't color her shirt this time (she has several different Carnival shirts at home...all not colored) and she said because I was busy doing this...
Now I know she's young, but on Carnival, age doesn't matter. They tatted her up! She had them put her tat the same place mommy has hers.
And another on the wrist
We headed up to the pool deck and watching Transylvania (which we had already seen at the movies, but really liked the show and Sakari wanted to stay).
We sent the newbie with the red card over to get popcorn AND pop. I wondered how he would handle all this, but he managed.
It was hot out tonight, so no need to rent blankets, but they always had the cutest little towel animals at the stand. I wish I would have taken a picture of them each night.
Well, it's our dinner time and guess what...that meant if we were going to eat, it would be pizza.
We headed to the Pizza Pirate and stood in the long line. By the time we got our pizza and sat down, Sakari was drifting off as she was eating. Before long, this would be our company for the night. Not much conversation going on here.
When it was time to go, we woke her up and it was like she just had a power nap. We walked around for awhile and some how ended outside of the Red Frog pub in this neat little swing chair where we would spend some time just "chatting". I love doing this with the hubby. We talk about anything and everything...life, life goals, improvements we can make, where are we going from here. It's just a nice quiet time for us and no one was around but us.
We headed back to the room and watched some t.v. Tonight's towel animal was....
Good night...I'll see ya around 4am when the pots and pans start up again.