DAY 4 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 9-4pm April 18th

I set my alarm for 8am and we got up and showered and headed to the buffet for breakfast. I think you know the routine by now...but guess what? I'm changing it up. The hubby and I discovered the omelette station had smaller lines than the regular lines and we would head there hoping for a better experience with the eggs. BOOM! We won! Delicious eggs this time around.

Ahh, real eggs never tasted to good. It was a little more crowded this morning than normal, so I opted not to stand in the buffet line for all the "extras" because it extended on both sides and around the corner and down the hall.

I did discover the pastry "buffet" and these little tasty treats:

I don't know what they are called, but they were yummy and I had a second since the only thing I had was an omelette.

We watched ourselves pull into La Romana and this is our first time here.

We were off the ship a little after 9am, once it was cleared, and off to face the obligatory photos for my scrapbook

So today we were going to do an excursion with Seavis Tours going to Saona Island. I had read on the cruise boards it was a beautiful island with good snorkeling so you know I had to check it out right? To find my review, click the following tab:

After our day at Saona, we headed to Starfish Sandbar:

On our way back to the port...me attempting to get pictures along the way

I was very happy to see the port when we pulled up and 2:34.

If you look in this picture, you will see a guy dressed up in what appears to be Michael Jackson? I'm not sure what he was doing. On our way out of the port, I did see him standing on a stage or box or something (I can't remember exactly) and people were taking pictures with him. This time he was just standing there and had a tip box in front of him. I don't know if he was acting like the one's that you see in Cozumel that stand real still and you don't know if they are real or not and then they jump and scare you???

There's shopping to be had inside there...and we're off.

I was on a hunt for a tee shirt and magnet and Sakari was on a hunt for a parrot that she would later convince us that she couldn't live without.

She won the parrot battle of course. She's the proud new owner of this parrot, which is now hanging in her living room in the basement and watches over her.

It was really hard to find a wide variety of tees in this port. The one's that I did find, the price was non-negotiable (and expensive). I walked away several times (not because I was trying to haggle the price, but because it was all that I had left after buying Sakari's parrot and my magnet). They were just unwilling to budge.

The cute magnet I ended up with:

The last shopping building before heading back to the ship....I finally found the tee I was wanting and for the price I still had left in my pocket.

Then is was time to head back to the ship. 

We took pictures along the way.

The sand I had collected from Sanoa Island

Back on the ship and here was our towel animal for the DAY.

After a quick shower and change, we decided to head to the Build A Bear workshop. 

Now in the past, this was held in Camp Carnival and you pick out your animal, you get a box that has the stuffing in it and the kids stuff their own animal. It took awhile and killed some time. However, this time it was different. It was more like the real BAB and you picked out your bear and then took it to the employee (kids club staff) and they put it up to the machine and filled it with stuffing. Then you take it to the staff that "sews" it together.

So...back track a few steps.

When you walk in, a staff member was asking for your room number. Then you were told to "Have a seat and listen for them to call your room number. Meanwhile, enjoy some refreshments".

We walked over to the refreshments, since we were skipping food when we got back on the ship, and they had some cute bear cookies.

The hubby didn't want cookies, he wanted chips. However, the bags were not opened yet. I told him "open them if you want chips". But, he wouldn't do it. Momma bear had to go over and be the first to open the bags of chips so that everyone could have some. After I opened it, everyone started coming up to get chips. Really? No one was brave enough to open chips? LOL I mean they said help yourself...I helped myself.

We walked in at 4:18pm and our room number was finally called at 5:02 and she was standing on the stage picking our her "bear"...only it wasn't a bear, it was a turtle.

Putting her "heart" in the turtle to give it life.

Putting it some guts in.

Getting his back surgically stitched up.

The end result:

I swear I thought the last time we did this it was under $20 without clothes. But this time, I believe just the animal was $25. Oh well, small price you pay for your kid not to play with the animal yet to date and it's still sitting in the original BAB bag it came in on the basement floor. (This is VERY strange for Sakari not to play with an animal like this. It usually keeps her entertained for HOURS if not DAYS).

After BAB we were on our way back to the room and decided to stop and get some pop. I had to use the restroom, so the fam sat down to wait on me. When I returned, this is what I found. Where they tired? Where they hiding from me? Nope, they were trying to stay out of the sun because we got a little red in Grand Turk the other day.

We put the new member of our family up in the room and headed to the BBQ area to drop Sakari off to eat "dinner #1" with her friends.

We really weren't hungry for some reason, even though it had been since 11:30am when we last ate, but decided to stop at the buffet and just make a salad.

After that, it was off to the casino to still play on our $20 donation from day 1.

This is the frog game that I liked to play and always did decent with hitting the bonus round, but always contributed my winnings back into the game.

My favorite was still Alice and I always did well on this game and hit bonus games. This would be a $51 win for me on a .50 bet and my third spin.

Meanwhile, hubby is over here on his favorite game...Money Rain where it was definitely raining money that day for him.

Now this was a .02 game, so his points was 13,035 which meant he just won $278.04! Boom! And we were done for the night. LOL

Notice at the end of the video above, he says "well, there's my door"...meaning it should pay for the glass in the door that would now need to be replaced from the kids breaking into the store while we were away.

Off to the Atrium we went to check out the 80's trivia. This is my favorite era and I knew all of the songs but 1 and I love to just sit around and watch (I don't play). But the cruise director was a lot of fun and man she can actually sing. She really got the audience pumped up and even serenaded someone. It was a lot of fun to watch. Then of course Phil Collins came on...the entire video is hilarious and the drums...ahhh the drums. Everyone at some point and time has played the air drums to this song. She was bringing down the house!

When this was all over, we decided to pick up the munchkin and head to the deli and the pizza place to eat dinner #2.

Sakari was excited because she had a new "shark" medal necklace, since she's officially 9 now and a shark.

We ended up with a chicken wrap and also I tried the quattro pizza. Man was that good! Four different cheeses, I believe, and garlic. YES!

We sat down and ate in the very loud Sky Pool location where the teenagers ran rapid and screamed with every jump into the pool. I watched a girl run toward the pool, slip, fell into the pool striking her back and bouncing into the pool. I gasp. You could tell it hurt, but she played it off in front of the boy she was with. She would manage to disappear for a good 20 minutes or so and then she returned.

Then...back to the room to pack our beach bags for tomorrow. 

As I packed, Sakari was still on a bird kick...she entertained herself until it was time for bed.

She said "mommy, what type of ending do you think this will have?" gasp

I set the alarm and we headed for bed. Only I haven't mentioned just how loud it is on this floor. The engines, pulling into port, the slowing down and turning of the ship...it's just so loud and noisy. Tonight we would hear sounds that I can only describe as a cat scratching the carpet over and over or someone with a comb running their fingers over the bristles. I have no idea what it was. I do know that it drove me nuts!