Mitsugirlys MITSUGIRLY decides to CONQUEST new ports-complete pictorial review
Day 3: Easter and a day at sea
DAY 2 on the ship-SEA DAY-SUNDAY-EASTER
Since it's a sea day, I didn't bother to set the alarm. We slept in until 9am and the ship was rocking and rolling today. We got dressed and headed up to the buffet to check out our options.
I normally don't mind the scrambled eggs they have on the cruises (I know a lot of people complain about the "fake" eggs, but it has never really bothered me too much...unless they are runny and not cooked). However, this time they were really bad. Chunks of eggs and had a really weird texture/consistency. I approached the bacon police with my normal "keep it coming, keep it coming, is there a shortage of pigs on this ship?" The one thing that NCL can't get right is their biscuits. They are like hockey pucks! Thank goodness Carnival's isn't. They have mini-biscuits and they were pretty good. I tried the french toast, but I love the whipped cream that NCL has (sugary goodness), but Carnival didn't seem to have any and it just didn't taste right. I opted for bacon, biscuits and fruit for breakfast when it was all done and over with and didn't go back for seconds. (That's a first for me).
Now some may say I'm crazy for thinking like this but...
I feel really bad for Sakari because every Spring break we are on a cruise. So...that means that she has missed out on "Easter" every year. No coloring Easter eggs, not being able to go to the Easter egg hunts and party, not having Easter dinner with the family, and not having the Easter bunny come that night. I just feel bad about it. Some would say...but she's on a cruise...what could be better?
In the past, Kolin has went out and got her an Easter basket so that when she returned home, it was set up and waiting for her as if Peter Cottontail had came to her house when she was on vacation.
This year I decided I would do something about it. I was going to find a way to let her color Easter eggs on the ship. I was on a hunt to try to find coloring tablets that only required water and no vinegar. I swear I thought I had found something like this years ago...but no luck this time. I was able to find the little containers for dying that came with the coloring tablets and figured that would be perfect (instead of using glasses). I purchased a little bottle and filled it with vinegar and hoped that my luggage wouldn't get flagged thinking I was smuggling booze in it. I was determined to make this happen!
That morning at breakfast, you can see in the picture on the previous post of our food, I grabbed 5 boiled eggs. I would like it to be known that it was a REALLY big task to find eggs that weren't broken or cracked. I managed to find 4 unbroken eggs and opted for the "least" broken one I could find as the 5th egg (there were 5 colors to be used, so figured I'd have her just do 1 of each color).
We headed back to the room, looking like we had just robbed a chicken on the ship.
I set everything up, became a mad scientist measuring the right amount of vinegar versus water and gave her the tablets to dissolve. This little table in the room came in handy.
She was so excited to be coloring eggs. I was so excited that I was able to make this happen!
The finished product:
A few cracks later, but hey, she had managed to color Easter eggs on Easter after so many years. We were all happy.
We headed out to the shops to see what they offered. I did manage to find a really nice white and black diamond ring that caught my eye and would be stunning with my current collection. The hubby tried to talk me into it...and of course so did the sales rep. But, I still had the break-in of the shop from the night before on my mind. I just couldn't make such a big purchase at this time knowing that we have no idea what we were facing when we came home. I decided to "sleep on it"...during the entire week...which eventually turned in to keeping myself from going back in there for fear of folding and getting the ring.
I always buy a "ship" tee shirt and found that they had limited sizes for "fluffy" people in the style that I wanted. I did end up eventually finding something, just not the color I was pursuing. Their "sale" consisted of 1 tee for $20 or 2 tees for $20! Um ok. There really wasn't anything more I wanted, so I opted for Sakari a shirt. She could always use an extra tee to cover up when swimming to keep the burn away. (It's just always a battle to get her to wear it).
We also bought Sakari her ship ornament. She collects these for every ship she goes on and at Christmas time, she has her own tree in her room and she decorates it with the ships.
Her current collection:
If I haven't missed any cruises, this makes her 16th cruise according to her "ships".
We headed to the main pool to see how crowded it was (since my little fish was having a bit of water withdrawal) and discovered that it really wasn't too crowded. Sakari ALSO discovered that there was something blue laying on the side of the pool. It looked familiar to her. She screamed with joy! "THERE'S ANOTHER MERMAID ON THIS SHIP MOMMY!!!!" Yes, yes it was true. We had another mermaid cruising with us and she had one of the same fins that Sakari had (however we didn't bring that one this cruise because she managed to get 4 new ones from her brothers and sister for Christmas and brought those instead). At that point she was jumping up and down and said "See, I told you that mermaids can swim here on the ship". I had never let her do it before and made her wait until she was at the beach in port. But it looks like she was about to morph into a mermaid this time around with a friend. I'm pretty sure she grabbed my hand and pulled me like a dog on a leash back to the room.
After wobbling back to the room, like we had been drinking (d/t the rocking of the ship), we put our purchases up, put the bathing suits on and headed to the pool. There wasn't any lounge chairs, of course, so we opted to sit along the side.
She immediately morphed into a mermaid (Nemo this time) and off she went.
A short video of her swimming:
They started having a "mixology" (???) contest on the pool deck and they had someone there recording the whole thing with his huge t.v. camera. In the past, we know that when they do this, it usually gets put on the t.v.'s in our rooms and Sakari must have remembered this. She wanted to be a star. She wanted to be recognized. She moved around from place to place trying to get her small minute of fame on t.v. She was totally cracking me up. .
Although Sakari is an excellent swimmer now, I still keep a very watchful eye on her. It's not that I don't trust her abilities, I don't trust those around her. I watched 2 couples with a go-pro that were filming and having a good time. Nothing wrong with that. What was wrong with it was the "way" they were having a good time filming. He was jumping into the pool backwards, really high, while the girls filmed. Not paying any attention to see if any kids or people were in the area he was jumping in before doing it. They started a segment where he stood on the edge of the pool and did the Lipton Iced Tea plunge into the pool. I don't know how many times I watched him do things like this and never once seen him look back to make sure there wasn't anyone behind him before doing it. It made me nervous. He was an adult. He should know better. He came really close to hitting a child behind him once. This is how accidents happen, people get hurt, and drownings could possibly occur. Just too many people in these small pools not paying attention. My heart was pounding and I decided to get Sakari out and it was lunch time.
We decided to head to Guys because at this point, I truly felt like I hadn't ate in days and hadn't had any actual "good" food since being at home. I knew this was a sure thing and off we went.
I opted for the Pig Patty, because one can never have enough bacon right?
After lunch, it was time to head back to the room to get ready for more activities around the ship and off we staggered to the room.
When we returned to our room, we found this...
Well that is odd. It's not even night and we have our towel animal? Sakari was excited to see a stingray and it was as if the room steward knew our plans for tomorrow (more on that later).
Sakari hopped (since it was Easter and all) in the shower and when she got out, she told me "come look at this mommy". She had wrote "I love mom and dad <3 Sakari. Aww, she's so loving and kind.
I knew that they always have some type of Easter "hunt" and read that they were having a "Golden Egg Hunt" and you could pick up the papers at the Cafe Fans Coffee shop on Deck 5 outside the casino area. We staggered out to the Cafe Fans to get our paper. Instructions said there were 12 Golden Eggs hidden around the ship. You had to find them all and write the location on the paper and put it in the box located at Cafe Fans. We were off to find the eggs with the first being at Cafe Fans in their display cabinet with the cakes.
I knew that the Easter "party" was going to be in Henri's at 4:30 (I believe it was) and we had to hurry. We raced around the ship, in and out all of the venues, finding the golden eggs. However, we were unable to find them all. We were missing two. We finally gave up and headed to the party.
There was a huge line to get into the party at Henri's and one of Sakari's kids club instructors approached her and ask where her candy was. We told her we were unable to find all of the golden eggs and gave up. She then informed us there was another hunt going on (one just like the one she did on the Pride for Easter where you go around to different stations and get a sticker when you found it and a piece of candy). Oops. I had missed those details. She told Sakari to follow her and she provided her with a bag and started giving her handfuls of candy. More than any "hunt" provided in the past on ships. She was super excited now. Actually getting the candy without doing the hunt...that's what I'm talking about! I had walked enough already looking for the golden eggs. The party was starting, complete with a cake.
The last time they had fruits and other things to snack on. This time, only the cake. I guess the budget didn't allow for "extras" this time around because the candy took all the money. Man there was a lot of teeth rotting candy being passed out!
The kids danced and had a good time. Sakari would pop up every so often to let us know she was having a blast.
They had a "dance-off" where Thrilled's son won for the "little man" contest and got a ship on a stick.
After the party, Sakari would display all of her candy for me to take a picture and show Kendra back home.
At this point, I think Sakari had had enough fun involving her parents watching over her and begged to go to the kids club. I let her know that this is Carnival and they had "dinner" with the kids on this ship and she was welcome to go if she wanted, but there was no playing at this time. I absolutely LOVE that they have this included in the program. They offer the kids "child" food that most love and at least I'm able to make sure she gets something she'll like at least once a day with them. She also enjoys eating with her friends instead of us every day.
Off she went to eat dinner, which is located on deck 10, above the buffet area, and at the BBQ place.
We headed to the casino to donate some money. I like that Carnival gives you this springy contraption to put your card on it for the slots. Without it, I would probably walk away and forget my card in the slot machines 99% of the time. I did notice this time around that our cards already had holes punched in them. Nice!
After playing at the casino for awhile, we managed to walk out still ahead and still playing on our original $20 donation from yesterday. Not too shabby!
When we didn't feel like playing anymore, we went up to the kids club to see if Sakari wanted to leave. She said she wanted to stay and back out we went.
I started hearing this noise. It was a growling type of noise. Was there a monster on this ship of some sort? No wait, that's just my belly. We haven't ate since Guys earlier. Oops. I guess it was time for dinner. It was too late for the MDR and when we got to the buffet, it was closed as well. Well darn! Pizza time it is then.
By the time we were done eating, it was time to pick up Sakari. When we staggered to the door, we noticed a child having a bit of a problem keeping his guts inside (vomiting if you didn't figure that out). Then other kids, unknown to them, started stepping in it when walking. Oh what a mess. I yelled at Sakari right before she became the next victim to step in it. I guess the rocking of the ship was getting to some at this point.
We headed out and I get the "What's for dinner" from Sakari. Well, I guess we are heading back to the pizza place again so that she can eat.
We returned "home" and Sakari spotted this egg in our room. It was a plastic egg. It was filled with money. Hmmm...where did this mysterious egg come from?
Then she spotted another...then another. Mr Bunny had came!
Then she noticed her colored eggs were missing. Did he hide those as well? Yep, he sure did.
Mr Bunny had also brought her a small Easter basket. She was super excited. She had a total of 10 plastic eggs, her 5 colored eggs, and several plastic eggs given to her from the party earlier today. Not bad for a small room. Mr Bunny did good!
After the excitement of the egg hunt, getting all sugared up from the candy, and talking to my son more on the shop robbery details, I packed our bags for the port tomorrow and we all headed to bed.