MITSUGIRLY lets the BREEZE flow through her hair-Spring Break Review/Pictorial
Day 9 April 2: Sea Day
DAY 7-APRIL 2ND SEA DAY
After hearing the banging-clanging at 4am, I did manage to drift back to sleep again and at 7:30am, I hear a different kind of noise...what now? It was the phone ringing. Now who in the world is calling me at 7:30am? Really? As ticked as I was about the phone now waking me up, there was a nice sweet little voice on the other end of the line reminding me of the Dr Seuss breakfast this morning at 8:30am. WHAT?!? Oh my! Thank you so much for calling and letting me know. So obviously they must have 2 different days they do breakfast. Maybe because it's such a big ship with so many people on it or maybe they just had so many people sign up. Whatever the case, I was glad that we were going.
I rushed to get the family up and Sakari was super excited. She put on her Thing 1 outfit and we rushed to breakfast.
When we got down there, there really wasn't many people in line. This was way different than our Pride cruise where people were lined up down the hall.
They had a table waiting just for our family and I was glad about that.
We were served our very own bread and danish basket. No grimy stranger hands in there this time.
The menu:
I have to say that I think they did good when they decided to team up with Dr Seuss. NCL did have Nickelodeon, but they have now abolished that contract.
They give the kids a "kids menu" that has activities for them to do and on the back, the characters come around and "stamp/sign" their books.
The "Things" came out.
Thing 1 was a hoot and very feisty. Since they are known for their bright blue hair, that was the one thing that Thing 1 seemed to go for with everyone...the hair. It would rub Sakari's head in circles and mess it up and back and forth. It's too bad we were unable to locate her blue wig prior to the cruise for her to wear like last time.
She was so excited and happy.
The helper kept telling Thing 1 to come on to the next table, but it was too busy still messing with Sakari. From past experience, I have seen the people from the kids club in these costumes (by mistake) and I think they get especially close to the children even when dressed up because they actually know who they are.
Oh yea, our food had came just prior to the Things showing up. They thought daddy needed a bib and put it on him.
Sakari's breakfast:
I went all out for the teeth rotting goodness. I couldn't imagine what it would taste like, but had to try it.
Cat in the Hat came around next. I really like that they allow you to use your own camera to take pictures at this event.
Then along came Sam I Am. The one that daddy had been waiting for!!!
Our desert
When we were done with our breakfast, one of the waiters told us not to leave because there's a "show" they did at the end. A huge majority of people had already left, but I have never seen a show before at the end and I wanted to stay. So, while we were waiting, Sakari want to go around and have her picture taken.
This is the show they were talking about. I'm not sure how much of a "show" it was...and now after watching it back, it's "I do not like green eggs and ham, Sam I am", but Sam was not in it???
After breakfast and the "show"...does the fun stop here? Heck no! Let's go watch a movie!!!
We raced off to catch the Thrill theater movie. This time we would watch a very short documentary (which was "ok", but of course Sakari LOVED it because of the animals). She ask me if the birds were going to hit her feet again. They didn't, but something else did (I can't remember what it was, maybe butterflies or something?).
Sakari headed to the kids club for awhile...why? Because she WANTED to. That was a shocker. I told her we were going to watch another 4d movie and she decided it was time to play with her friends. I guess she had had enough adult time and off she went.
We ended up back at the Thrill Theater and watched a cartoon movie, which was neat and I really wished I would have forced Sakari to go to it because it had a new effect this time around. There were bee's stinging and all of a sudden it stung us in our BACK! Something came out and poked us in the back of the chair. LOL That took everyone by surprise.
We headed to the casino for about an hour to see if we would have any luck today. After all, it was our last day to make up for lost wages.
I won $24.55 on my second spin on a game I had never heard of or tried before.
Another small win
It just couldn't give me that extra heart could it???
This 3D game was pretty neat, except for the fact that I didn't win crap on it.
It had been 4 hours since we put any type of morsel in our mouths and that was unacceptable. (Especially if we knew we wouldn't have much of this tonight).
We headed out the Jimmy's BBQ to give it a try. I had seen others with plates and it looked good. But every time we had went out on previous days, the line was half way down the ship.
Today would be our luck. There was no line and we stepped right up. Give me one of everything because I'mma storing food like I'm a bear about to go into hibernation for the night.
The food was super yummy and I wished I would have had more earlier in the week.. We were stuffed and felt like we would never have to eat again on the cruise.
We picked up Sakari from the kids club at 2:45pm and of course the buffet had closed by 2:30pm. Sigh. So, hmmm, what should we feed her? Wait, I see something open at the buffet. Could we have lucked out? Of course not...it was a chocolate buffet extravaganza. Ick, I absolutely hate chocolate (not that I was eating) but Sakari isn't that found of it either. Actually I have several kids that don't like chocolate. But, that was her choice and she said she wanted to try it out.
We got in line and one of the workers jumped in line behind us with a sign saying it was closed. He would turn away multiple people trying to get in line reinforcing that the line was closed now. However, there were a few people that decided they were going to get in line anyhow and he didn't say a word to them. I kept thinking there were so many people trying to eat that this should tell them something...these times DO NOT WORK FOR PEOPLE! I heard complaint after compliant about no food on the ship and the early closing times. They complained to him, they complained to others in the line. I would see people grab a plate and when he told them it was closed, they would go up in the line and jump in or someone would let them in. At this point, people didn't care what he said, they were going to eat!
Just the site of all this chocolate made me wanna hurl.
I think I would rather lick this ice sculpture than to taste this chocolate stuff.
Wait, is that fruit???? Yep, Sakari lucked out. She had found fruit. Of course it was fruit for dipping into chocolate, but we took the fruit and told them to hold the chocolate.
I seriously hate those "diet cakes" you see on the ships that look as if they are made from foam. It just looks so disgusting.
Sakari said she had these marshmallows during dinner with kids before and liked them. (Pink & Yellow squares) Ok, two things she found that she would like. Not much of a lunch, but hey, it was only another 3 hours and she could be assured to get a good dinner.
We headed back to the room to do a little of this...
I always hate that last day and packing. It was a sign that your wonderful week of being served, not cleaning your room, no cooking or cleaning and fun filled days were coming to an end. The one good thing I can say about this cruise is with it being our first 8 day cruise it ROCKED! It definitely felt longer than any 7 day cruise (of course it was obviously) but it felt L-O-N-G-E-R! Like much longer and I loved it. I found a couple years ago that going on a 7 day cruise then getting on another cruise for 5 days was just too long for us. We couldn't wait to get home. I knew that anything between 7-10 days would be perfect. Well now I know that 8 days is great.
I kept finding myself looking this way while packing:
I just couldn't help myself:
Before long I had wandered out onto the balcony and was dreaming of how great the cruise had been...even with Sakari not wanting to hang out at the kids club as much as we'd liked her to and even after not having dinner as expected, it was still a great cruise.
I noticed we had company in the near distance:
The Dr Seuss door decorations came down and were neatly packed away in their storage container...then out came our final sign for the cruise:
Since I had given up on packing, I figured we might as well go have some more fun. I couldn't concentrate on what I was doing and off we went to the Ocean Plaza/Reg Frog Pub area.
Sakari noticed the Foosball tables were taken. She stood around watching a few much older girls playing. Before long, they let her join in and they played teams. I thought that was really nice of them to allow her to play. But honestly, she was doing just as good as they were with hitting the ball and scoring. I guess they were lucky to have her on their team.
Then I noticed she wasn't at the table. (We were sitting outside by the glass watching her) I went running in to find that she had a new friend and they were sitting up against the glass at a table right in front of the Foosball tables doing this...
Although the girl was much older, Sakari had met her match...
Sakari left, other girl on the right
They had several things they had decided to draw, each with their own style, but the same animal. I could tell they were having a good time. She would much rather do this than play. It's funny how they can come up with things when they are limited with supplies (like the napkins to draw on).
Me and the hubby stood around playing a game (not sure what it was called, I think the ring and hook game) and it took awhile to win. Sakari tried and was actually able to do it a few times too.
Once it was getting close to 6pm, we told her she had to tell her friend goodbye and she was heading up to get a real dinner with her friends.
We hit up the local casino in hopes to spend a little more, win a little more. Last chance for the Breeze to make things right with us.
I went all out and bet $1.60 on my spins hoping to win big. You see how big I won right? It's down to 0 now. Sigh
$27.51 made up for it a little I guess (another game)
We ended up cashing out about 1 hour into being there and figured we'd call it a night.
We headed to Pixels to see if they had our Dr Seuss pictures processed so that we could get them before the night was over.
We made our purchases and headed to dinner. I was not about to miss dinner tonight!
I had a feast tonight. I guess I was making up for not eating dinner all week. There was just so much that I couldn't decide!
Then we headed outside and found that we still had another visitor outside, only it was family this time.
When it was time to pick Sakari up, we ran into a bit of trouble. We couldn't find many of the elevators working. They were all taken up by the staff getting luggage. Ugh!
Every elevator we went to had a sign on it.
We were a little late picking up Sakari and I dared them to say anything. The elevators in the forward and aft also had a few out being used for luggage and of course that meant an entire ship was left with maybe 3 elevators for all the passengers...so they were not moving fast at all. I can walk down steps, but going up is a no-no with my cracking knees these days.
When we went to pick Sakari up, she BEGGED us to let her stay. Are you fricken serious child? We have ask you to stay late all week long and the one night that you can't stay late, you beg to. She had a little friend in the kids club that ended up hanging out with her in port at the beaches a few times and they became close. That friend was staying late and wanted her to. Now I know that the friend has stayed late on the other nights, but the counselors told us that she falls asleep. So, maybe this happens before it's time for us to pick Sakari up and that's why she hasn't wanted to stay later? I'm really not sure. But this was not the time. We had to finish packing (and that meant stripping everyone's clothes off to pack except what we had planned on wearing off the ship). We needed to be in bed early so that we could get up early. So, it's a definite no this time.
We returned to our room to find this...
See the little stingray in the picture above? Well, he's turned upside down, but they gave all the kids one of these rubber stingrays on the last night as they left the kids club. I thought that was so cool. They also gave them cookies to take with them and they got to pick their usual toy out of the box. I thought that was really neat. NCL doesn't give you any parting gifts on the last night. The Stingray isn't just a stingray either, it has Carnival's name on it too!
We finished our packing, I put our luggage out and I headed for the shower. Sakari had fallen asleep and the hubby was watching tv.
After my shower, I checked outside of the rooms and seen that the luggage was picked up already. I looked around the room one last time and then discovered it.....!!!!!!
Son of a gun )*^$$%$(&)*&^??<<!!!! Sakari's clothes had been packed and she has nothing to wear tomorrow other than the underwear she has on!!! What the heck was I thinking??? Well, I'll tell you what I was thinking. I wasn't sure exactly what to leave out...for anyone actually. I knew it was going to be hot out and we should keep shorts out. But, we were going home to Ohio where it's cold out and we needed pants. However, we were spending the entire day in FLL after getting off the ship and it would be hot out. Sigh. I remember I couldn't make up my mind what to leave out and then I started day dreaming out the window and then would later drift my way out to the balcony and completely forgot about it. Sigh!
I got dressed, ran down the hall, yelled for the luggage guys and frantically explained the situation. I spotted two of our luggage and begged to please look in them for something for my daughter to wear. I can only imagine what they were saying about me. They started talking to each other in another language. Just like any other circumstance, when you are looking for something frantically, you'll never find it. I swear I looked in both luggage and couldn't find one thing for her to wear, whether it be dirty or clean.
I kept searching and found the other luggage going down on the elevator and stopped him. Grabbed the luggage, threw it down on the ground and started looking. I was desperate! Of course the only thing I could find was probably the dirtiest outfit from the entire week. A dress that had chocolate ice cream stains on it all up and down the front. Now Sakari is not a messy eater and this would be the one day that her ice cream melted on her dress because she made it too big for her little mouth and it was just so hot outside that she couldn't keep up with it melting. Ugh! Well, it will have to do. She's not going to be happy about it in the morning. But, tis life.
I held my head down in shame and went back to the room, took my melatonin and told the hubby I didn't want to talk about it. Off to bed we went.