1st time Carnival cruiser (DREAM) complete review & pictorial (from a NCL cruiser)
Day 8: Sea Day
Our last full day...and a sea day. We were going to make the most of it and probably spend most of the day at the pools. We really hadn't swam at the big pool or the pool in the back, so it was my goal to at least spend a little time there today.
We actually got up a lot earlier than I had originally planned, but that was because we (they) got so much sleep the previous day and night and I was ok with that.
Up, showered, then headed down for breakfast. Today I would pass on the omelet station and just have some french toast and waffles plus my usual bacon. Now one thing I TRULY missed about NCL was their "cream" that was used on the waffles and their crepe stations. They are to die for. I couldn't find this amazing cream anywhere. It's my favorite and I have even tried to find something, anything, that comes close to it and I can't. It is just so good. (Maybe I missed it? If I did, please someone correct me so I'll know next time).
One thing I did notice, which was neat but I didn't try it, was they had different flavored "butter". Every day I would notice something different. Blueberry butter, strawberry butter, well you get the picture. I imagine it was pretty yummy, or at least it sounded like it, but I just have never been one to put butter on my waffles or pancakes, so I didn't start now. I have never seen that on any NCL ship.
So we decided it was time for some pool fun and we started at the water park and slides. Yes, it was only like 9 in the morning. LOL
We did the water slides over and over and over again. When mom and dad had to rest, Sakari would head over to the kiddie water park area. On the top little deck (a few steps up on the platform to the small slide) they had a control wheel that you could turn the water coming up from the floor on and off. Sakari loved "surprising" the "new" swimmers of the day with blasting them with water as they climbed up the steps on to the platform.
They also had areas that you could pull a cord down and water come down on you (remember the picture of her giving Brayden a drink?).
Some of the kids had showed her the improper way to go down the slide and she took full advantage of it and so did the other kids.
I would continue to take picture after picture that day of every angle of every area of the water slides and park...you know, just to make sure I got a few that I liked. I took tons of videos too. I plan on putting them all together and making 1 video. I should have thought about this sooner, but I'm really not a "video" person although I use to be. My husband was the one that had to keep reminding me to capture some video.
Today would be the day that we went on the Twister more times than I think I have ever went down a water slide. Before long, Sakari was climbing all the way up to the top and going by herself. I was just wearing down quickly. My knees can't handle going up the steps the way they could a year ago. I have some crepitus in my right knee and although it doesn't hurt yet, the sound bothers me and I tend to baby it some.
About that time, we ask Sakari one last time if she wanted to go play with her friends. I was really interested in knowing what her answer might be this time. She answered yes. Hmmm, ok. We would see how this goes. It was about 11am I think and we got her fed and dressed and went to drop her off. They informed me that I was to pick her up at 12:45 because they were closing for most of the day. :eek: What??? "Most" of the day? On a full sea day? Are you serious? Who does this? Obviously just Carnival I guess. When I ask them what time they would be opening, they mumbled sometime around 7pm. "Sometime? you don't know?" I thought this was ludicrous and couldn't believe what I was hearing. They were going to be closed, on a full sea day, for 6+ hours. Wow...definitely a F- Carnival. Do you realize what money you could potentially be losing by parents not being able to drop their children off on a full sea day and being able to head to the casino or drink or whatever? We confirmed with her one last time if she was sure she wanted to stay awhile because she was only going to get to play for less than 2 hours and she said yes. We signed her in, I gave her a little "Have fun with your ACTIVITIES today" loud enough to be heard by the counselor speech, and we went on our way.
However, we would continue to "spy" on her during the time that she was in there to see what "activity" she wasn't participating in while she was there. We wanted to be prepared in case they told us something and then we could confirm whether or not it actually occurred.
Now, we had went by several times to check on her during the week, both inside to the door where you pick them up and also outside and peeking in the windows (because the deck you walk around and chairs are out there) and I have to admit, I didn't actually notice this until I started thinking about it after our little "talk" with the counselors. But...every single time that we had came in or looked in, the children were ALWAYS sitting in front of the tv area either watching a movie or having a book read to them. It was always quiet in there and the kids were always SITTING, doing no activities other than listening and watching the tv. Now of course I KNOW that's not all they do, but I'm just saying they seem to be doing a lot of it whenever we checked up on her. This time would turn out no different. When we peeked in on here, she was sitting with the group.
***MAKE NOTE*** Doing this review has made me pull out the Cruise Activity Schedule that I ended up getting for the kids club and I'm looking at Friday: A Day At Sea and the times of activities and I just discovered this....it specifically states on there that they CLOSE AT 3PM!!! Not 12:45 as they had me pick her up at. It states to pick up the children at 3pm. From 3-4pm they are closed for the Beary Cuddly Workshop, which cost money and is done with the parents. Closed from 4-6pm for the Fun Force Show and cleaning. Yes, this so called show they told the parents that their children would be dancing in and mine wasn't. Then it states from 6-6:50pm is a "Kid's Only Dinner". Um ok, so you are telling me that my child isn't invited to this? Because you just told me not to bring her back until 7pm. This makes no sense at all to me now that I'm looking at it. No sense at all!!! Now I do take responsibility of not checking out the schedule like I should have, but I can tell you that NCL not only gives you the schedule, but will inform you of upcoming events that day as well and ask you if you'd like to participate. If you tell them yes, they tell you what time to drop them off. Camp wasn't telling me of any events and I guess I should have been reading the schedule a little better and I could have questioned them about the things on there...like telling me I couldn't bring my child back until 7pm when in fact they were having a child's dinner at 6pm with the children. :mad:
Another incidence that occurred during the week was I had dropped Sakari off at the Camp and we ran in to Kendra about an hour later. I told her that Sakari was at the Camp and she said she was going to go drop Brayden off as well and would meet back up with me. Well, she came back WITH Brayden and I ask her what was going on. She told me that they said they were not open until x:xxpm (I can't remember the time or day, I would have to ask Kendra) and not to bring him back until that time. Um what? If they're not open then where is my daughter? Are you serious? I'm confused again. So she dropped him off at the instructed time and she said "Sissy was just standing there and she looked bored". :confused:
We headed out of the Camp and around the corner. There is a hot tub there and we found Kendra and family in it.
I snapped a picture and should have known by the "darkness" of the picture that I was on the wrong setting. However, I didn't bother to check and just thought the photo was a little "off".
So we chatted for a few and told them we had been at the slides and waterpark all day and had just dropped off Sakari and would be back to pick her up in about an hour or so.
We decided after awhile to walk over to the window to see what Sakari was doing and when we peeked in, she was sitting down and they were reading a book to them...or that's what it looked like.
About the time we walked away and started to head toward the back of the ship, we heard this LOUD, VERY LOUD, SUPER LOUD sound and all I wanted to do was hold my head and duck. I felt like the world was about to end. Oh my gosh, last year I was on NCL's Star on the day the world was supposed to end (LOL) and now I had talked myself to going on a Carnival Ship where if the world WAS going to end, it would be there. (haha, Carnival joke). Just before cruising the Dream, the Carnival ship lost it's engines and they were stranded, then the Dream was stuck in St Maarten with the back up generator not working and those "poor people" were forced to be stuck in St Maarten to explore the beautiful island for days and could come and go and then flown home with their transportation paid for a another cruise in their pocket (I would have given anything to be on that poor cruise), then a ship caught fire, then I was thinking there was something else in the news right after that...now...now we were all going to die on the Dream and we were about to blow up!!! How did I convince myself that it was ok to try out Carnival? What was I thinking. The beauty a great time we had all week was just a cover up. We were about to die.
Well it turned out being some type of jet fighter plane, now I'm not a plane person, so I have no idea about them, but this thing was FAST and doing tricks and was flying super close across the top of the ship sideways. It was actually a little amazing. My mom use to have property in South Carolina on Edisto River and we would visit her in the summer months and these jet fighter planes would fly over and the sound would make you drop to the ground thinking you were going to die any minute now. It's so neat how you don't hear them coming and then they break that sound barrier and the sound is so loud following them.
I was hurrying to get my camera out, still on the WRONG setting and we headed to the back of the deck and waited. Everyone that was sleeping on the back deck was now wide awake and it had brought every person back there to a standing position. We all sat around and waited...then out of the sky it came again. I was video taping...poor quality. I knew that I would never be able to get any pictures...it would turn out a big blur and I wasn't going to miss it.
So these shots are from my video instead. Ignore the poor quality.
Once it got past us, it shot straight up in the sky to where we could no longer see it and then all of a sudden it come flying out of the clouds headed straight down for the water twisting and turning, doing circles all the way down and then darted off back in the other direction. They were definitely putting on a show for us. I say they because Mr Jetfighter Spotter could spot them in the clouds from a very long distance (I was standing beside him) and he was counting them...I believe there were 3. He would let us know when he seen one coming (I swear this guy had xray vision or something) and we would all prepare to take pictures.
One last visit within our viewing range and then they were gone.
Here's a really crappy video of them going by. I think my camera got on the timelapse function or something and a dark setting. It turned out horrible but oh well. They didn't pass by enough times for me to discover this mistake so it is what it is.
We lived to tell about it and I guess Carnival was a good choice after all. :D
The jet fighters had just gave us a show and I was pretty upset that Sakari had missed it. She would have loved to see them and I know it would have excited her to no end.
We would take another peak in the room and then go pick her up early.
Then it was back to pool time. I told you we were having a day at the pool. I don't even know why I actually dropped her off at the time. I really only wanted to ask her if she wanted to go because I was sure she would say "no" after the night before of being so upset about not getting to color her shirt. But, she shocked me, so I had to at least let her go for a little while.
We decided that we wanted to head to the "big" little pool in the middle of the ship. Every day that we had even considered it, it was super crowded with no place to swim. For some reason, it wasn't too bad at the moment. I'm not sure where everyone was since it was a sea day. I would hope they weren't on some excursion I didn't know about in the middle of the sea.
Sakari jumped right in and I pre-warned her that the pool would taste like the ocean so she needed to keep her mouth closed. On our previous cruise, she jumped in the pool and it shocked her so much to find out it was sea water that she flailed her arms around like she was drowning and the staff thought I was the worse mother ever by watching such a small child just jump in to the deep end. I got the evil eye for a long time from them because they didn't realize that she could swim. After awhile, they figured it out and they were more at ease and I recovered from the "terrible moma" award of the day. So today was different thank goodness. She jumped in and swam and knew ahead of time that it was not going to taste good if she opened her mouth.
She swam everywhere while I seen much older and bigger kids that didn't know how to swim while I over heard a few parents say "Well, she's probably about 7 years old or so and can swim." Um ok, she JUST turned 5 two weeks before the cruise and she hardly looks the size of a 7 year old. Their children looked to be about that age, if not older, so telling them that she is about 7 should not have brought them comfort if that's what they were trying to do. LOL I don't know, I just thought it was strange, but yet I'm so proud of the things that she can do at her age. She just has that adventurous I can do it by myself attitude and she does. All she needs is her goggles. You take her goggles away from her and she will act like you just took her site and she can't swim. Weird.
Then we decided to head to the back of the ship for some pool time in the even smaller pool. Since my husband had reminded me most of the day that I needed to get some video footage, I then forgot to take pictures. So, these pictures where once again pulled off the video. Sorry for the quality.
Yep, she ended up with several bruises from the first sea day and the water slides. We were pretty banged up by the end of the cruise. But it didn't stop her, nor did it make her want to stop going on them.
Tell me that isn't the face of a happy water kid!!!
Swimming out to mommy
We hadn't been in the hot tub since we got on board and we would like to at least say that we did. So we got in one of the hot tubs beside the pool there in the back.
After awhile, just plain swimming was getting old. We decided to head back to the water park and slides where we would literally close the park down!! LOL
Along the way, we grabbed a sandwich to tie us over for awhile.
Sakari doing the beauty queen wave while elegantly holding her grilled cheese sandwich:
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Then a mad dash to the slides again where we would continue to beat ourselves up some more before we ended this cruise. This time I video taped of course. It's hard to pull anything off going down the water slides...it's pretty much the big blue and yellow hole of water up the nose events.
Now on the last time that I taped it, I fell going in to the hole. I told you guys, if somethings going to happen, it's usually going to happen to me. (Broken hand on our Epic cruise, slammed into a tree while ziplining on our Spirit cruise and the list goes on). (But Sakari has a pretty good track record so far with being bitten by a monkey on our Spirit cruise and being bitten by a parrot on this cruise, so she's catching up). I was trying to get my camera situated in my hand right to video as I went down the twister and when he said "go" I did...fell right on my tush and slid into the slide and kept going. Yes, I got this on video and when I slow it down, it's kinda hilarious to see the looks on the peoples face who were standing behind me when I did it. See this was the trial run of me turning the camera around, toward me, to watch me as I went down the slide...so I manage to catch a picture of the people still waiting in line behind me when I fell. Remind me never to turn the camera around again on myself...once again, the most unflattering picture ever. You know how some camera phones have those weird settings that you can warp your face? Well I have a new way to warp mine without needing any "special" settings! Just turn camera around, hold it at a low level below your chin, then look down on it and create a double chin, or maybe even triple chin, and an elongated face. That'll do the trick. See? No fancy schmancy picture settings needed. You can do it all on your own.
Well we told Sakari that it was about time to head back to the room and get ready for the evening. She begged for "one last time" and held up that 1 pointer finger signifying that she meant business and we caved in and let her go. She got up the first flight of stairs and bam, her dreams were shattered. The gate was now closed. The last set of twister sliders had already went up and she had missed out. They were now closing it down. She frantically came down the steps and headed to the mini-racer slides, oops, they now had the gates closed. Oh no, what would she do. The only thing she could at this point...go to the kiddie area where there was still water running...but it didn't last long before they turned it off too. I guess our decision to leave was backed up by the Carnival staff...thanks Carnival, how did you know? So you can add Carnival as being mind readers as well and they are there to help you with getting your water child pulled away from the water when they know it's such a task every time. A+
So at some point tonight, we (Kendra and I) decided to head down to the place they had all of the pictures they took of us all week on and off the ship. I feel this needs some discussion here!!!! :rolleyes:
No, this was not the first time we went, but it would be the last. Carnival needs a different system...my goodness gracious heavenly pete. What a cluster flark. I mean for real. They need a different system because this is by far the worse ever. The photo place almost covers the entire deck by the atrium on deck 4. Man the place is massive. Bigger and more spread out than I have ever seen on any other ship.
The first few days, we easily found our pictures. By the third and fourth day, not so easy. When we would find a picture, we would gather it, as we always have on the NCL ships, and put them all together for quick find later on and easier to make our "final selection" in the end. Well after a few days, we would go back and they would be gone. Um...ok. So here we go again, looking for pictures, this would go on for about an hour before we would get frustrated and give up.
Once we ask one of the employees what could have happened to them. We were informed that they had to move the pictures around to make room for the new pictures. Um ok again. So where are the old pictures? Oh...they were moved to over here and points down and around the corner a few isles. Now what significance is this to move all of the pictures to another location? Why not just add the new pictures to the location that was empty and keep going? Seriously? Who thought this out? Obviously not a person who ever spent hours trying to find all of their pictures.
We ask the guy to help us relocate ours and he helped. We found that some were still together and others were missing. "So what would have happened to the others that were with these then?" He said some times they would put them in boxes, which were located around the railing. So you just pick and choose which you'd like to put in the multiple boxes? Especially when they were all together and you could see they were the same family? Shame on you. You just wasted several hours of my life I can never get back. :(
We would continue to locate what pictures we could and at that point I purchased the pictures I was interested in so far. I believe the prices were $9.99 for the regular pictures, $11.99 for the candid shots...which I never actually could figure out what the difference was and some ungodly amount for the bigger pictures (which my daughter would later by after having them do their family portraits). You see, I was the "smart" one, mom always knows best I tell ya. Kiddies listen up...MOM ALWAYS KNOWS BEST! Ok? Got that?
As each day passed and pictures were taken as we got off the ship, we would look for them later that night, again wasting precious hours of our lives. Some times we found them, some times we didn't. But when we did, we once again put them together. Ok, so we were idiots and figured they just screwed up the last time when they moved them by not keeping them all together. We were proven wrong once again. They were indeed idiots and separated them again causing more chaos the next day. :mad:
Now as for the pictures...Carnival you completely lost a good 80% of my hard earned dollars because 80% of those photos had Sakari's EYES CLOSED!!! Really? Do your photographers practice snapping pictures at that perfect moment when you have your eyes closed? I would think that most photographers would usually take a few shots of each family to ensure that you got at least 1 good photo in hopes that your consumer would purchase them. We had an awesome shot taken of us at the MDR one night. We were all dressed up, perfect hair, perfect make-up and man did I manage to come out looking young in that picture. I LOVED it and so did my husband...but, once again Sakari's eyes were closed. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
So it's now the last night of the cruise and Kendra is in a mad dash to try to relocate all of her pictures. We spent so much time in there that the hubby decided to have a seat and watch people dancing as the music played in the Atrium. He had given up on finding our pictures and Kendras. We looked in every location along the walls. We looked in every box along the railing...and there were thousands...I'm not exaggerating either. Think of over 3600 passenger with several photos being taken each day and then take your palm and bash your forehead with it. Seriously. This SUCKED!
Carnival have these touch screens that you insert your S&S card and it will bring up all of your pictures from the cruise...or at least it suppose to, making things easier on you so they claim. We tried it several times during the cruise and got nothing. It would give us this message that we had not signed up for the program. We were at our wits end and ask the employee how to "sign up" to save some time. He said when you board the ship, you are signed up automatically and our information is already in there. He had us show him what it was doing. When it didn't work for him either, he said "Well it must be because you had to have your picture retaken during your check in then" Um what? We had our picture taken once (other than the family picture prior to boarding) but he was talking about the GREEN screen photo, you know, the one I got mad about because I couldn't have my family in there with me? He told me this is the only time that it will not pull up you information and if you had your picture taken for their records with the green screen and for checking in and out and then it was messed up and we were required to retake the picture, that's when this system doesn't work. I reassured him that this was not the case and we only had our picture taken once. So he was stumped, but he did help us locate "some" of the pictures. Grrr
I guess it could be a good system if it worked. But I didn't get the chance to see how it worked. I'm not sure what it does. Does it show you every picture that you have taken with them? Do you pick from there and they print it off? Or does it give you a location on where to find them? I'm not sure. I just know it was the worse experience ever.
So that's that. I just had to discuss this. It really ticked me off. LOL I have never had this problem on any NCL ship and I have never come across employees that move the pictures around on a nightly basis. The only ship that I have ever been on that had the face recognition was the Epic and they had a system. They not only recognized your face, but the gave you the location to find all of the pictures together in. It was like a lock box with just your stuff. It was pretty bad-arse if you ask me.
So obviously it's after 7pm and once again, I ask Sakari if she wanted to go to the Camp and she replied "yes". So we took her and dropped her off...phone in hand to flash it to them as proof before they could ask. They made it a point to let me know I was to bring back the cell phone when I dropped her off, with the charger and in the box, otherwise I would be charged $200 for it. :rolleyes: Do you really think I want your Cisco 1980's huge cell phone with the 3" plether protector around it to make it by far the bulkiest phone I have ever carried since having to lug around my very first car phone in the bag cell? Really?
On the way out, we noticed a box sitting on the counter where you first come in. Hmm, what might this be? It was filled with tons of "activities and projects" that the children had done during the week. This is another area that you are lacking in Carnival. Really? You just take everyone's pictures and projects from during the week and throw it in one huge box and have the parents dig in it trying to desperately locate some type of project done by their child to keep as a memory? This really shocked me. Think of it this way. The kids in Sakari's camp are ages 2-5. TWO - FIVE. How many of those kids know how to write their name? Seriously, how many do you think? Well I can tell you by looking at all of the work that was in there, not many. Not many at all. Why would you take everyone's things they worked on during the week and just put it in a box for the parents to never be able to figure out which artwork belonged to their child? Sigh. F- Carnival.
Now Sakari knows how to write her name. Remember, she is the one with the pencil, pen, crayon or whatever in her hand all the time. Brayden however refuses to learn to write his name. So Kendra was one of those parents that will never know what projects he really did and came home with nothing. I was able to tell what she did because she had her name on everything. Yes, I said "everything", as in she HAD stuff in there...as in she actually DID projects. Wait, wasn't I told that she didn't participate in the activities? If she didn't participate why does she have so much in this box?
Now looking at these projects, I see all kinds of things that would indicate that she took a lot of "time" on these projects. There was a VERY long snake that had all kinds of shapes all over its body. It started out as a piece of paper. You color it, then you cut it out and it makes it curly when you hang it. She took the time to color the entire snake and it wasn't just a scribble. The colored each individual area and used different colors, then cut it out. Most of the "snakes" I seen in the box were all one color, I didn't see one that colored each area different, most were not even cut out and they even put pages in there that were blank. Really? Blank? Why?
Now I know this is not her best work, but it did show me that she took some time and thought about coloring it by doing each section and using different colors. This proves to ME, as her mother, that she didn't sit around and not participate.
There were other things in there like this penguin. It was on black construction paper and she colored some white, it also had eyes glued on it. She made a set of bunny ears. She colored them and they were attached to a strip that fit her head. I mean come on...tell me that my child did not participate again? I have a bag full of stuff. :mad:
So I convinced myself this was the last night that I would ever have to deal with these people that had no business watching children in the first place and went on my way.
We went on our way to do the above photo searching scavenger hunt and then to the casino, we settled up our bill, I raced back to the room at some point to pack because my daughter informed me that she had their bags already packed and the papers said they needed to be out by 11pm for pick up. GASP. I was in full panic mode and I hadn't even started packing yet. NCL has a late pick up and we usually put our bags out before we head to bed and they magically disappear in the middle of the night (hopefully by someone that is a staff member)<--just kidding, we have never had a problem yet.
We have always done the leisure-get the heck off the ship whenever you want package with NCL. I mean it's the last day on the beautiful ship and we want to savor it to the end or until we are drug by our big toes off. Plus we are normally flying out and we take a late flight and honestly, we're in no hurry to get off the ship so that you can get on that day and start your vacation. :p
But, Carnival assigned us a certain "time" for our departure and it was 10:15am. Hmm, not bad Carnival. How did you know I didn't want to get up early or leave? I don't know what I would have done if it was one of those early morning times. I guess I would have still showed up late and maybe they would sick the Camp staff after me for being a late arrival. Who knows. Maybe you can pick your own time if you want? I'm a newbie, so I'm unsure.
So wait, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. We did a quick S&S check of our accounts...this is where Kendra showed me what the Kiosk did and how she had been using it the entire week to print her statements and add money to her account. I seen that I still had about $68 to spend. So off to the stores I went.
I did get me a "Got Cruise?" Carnival shirt. It was the only shirt that I could find that had the Carnival symbol really small on it. I'm not sure I'm ready to announce to the world that I have went over to the dark side. Can you imagine how long it would take to explain that it's not so dark? I'm just kidding, that's just the way the shirt came and I liked the saying and wanted it.
Kendra had went shopping prior to hooking up with us that night and told me they were having this big "sale" at the shops and she had purchased these picture frames 2 for $6, which is nice, and not something that I wanted, but it did remind me that I needed to go get my "Carnival scrapbook" stuff before it was too late and so I did.
She had also purchased a "Freddy" for Brayden. For those of you that don't know, this is a stuffed Freddy the Funship doll that I had heard Sakari say those famous words earlier in the cruise "I like this Freddy. I wish I had a Freddy." I didn't even know what his name was so obviously they had taught her that at the Camp. I had wanted to buy her one, but there wasn't any price tags on them and they were all in a barrel, which also didn't have a price card on it, so I figured they were pretty expensive being Carnival merchandise and all. She informed me they were only $9.99. Hmm, I had to get one and surprise Sakari with it...and she was. She introduced him to her new Pink Whale and they lived happily ever after.
Now I also have to inform you that when ever I'm left alone on a cruise, I have a tendency to spend money. This happens every time since I have been cruising since the 80's. As you all know, I was left alone the night before and I headed to the casino. (It was a good outcome that time around). But after the casino I also went shopping and purchased myself something that I normally wouldn't do. I'm not really a jewelry person other than my wedding ring. But my eye caught one of their charm bracelets and it reminded me of the Pandora bracelets you see everyone wearing these days. I kinda like them. Well, these weren't Pandora bracelets, but they were pretty. They had all different prices on them from $24.99 and up. Honestly I didn't see the difference between the $29.99 and the $39.99 one. So I splurged and got the..........$29.99 one. HA, gotcha. You guys thought I went out of my mind and made a big purchase didn't you?
So check out the price tag on this baby, and to think I only paid $29.99, tax free, out the door, and on my wrist. Yea baby. That's what I call a deal. LOL I had to have this one, just because it was the only one with a cruise ship charm on it. hehe
I believe I had done all of the shopping I could. Really, there wasn't anything else I wanted. So I believe I had a small $20 and some change left on my account and I went and settled it with the front desk. I told them "I tried to spend it all" and flashed them all of my bags and said "Really I did, but I just can't find anymore." Their reply was "I'll help you, you can buy all of us back here drinks." My reply "I don't have THAT much money left over. I might be able to buy 2 or 3 with it unless you want to give me some 2 for 1 deals." Well that ended that conversation abruptly. LOL
So the frantic packing began as I just shoved everything I could in to the bags. (We stopped at a little til 10pm so that we could pick up Sakari from the Camp but I'll finish that later). Once I was done packing, it was about 11:15pm. I looked outside the door and there were still luggage in the hallways. Whew, I was safe! I pulled them out the door and lined them up in the hallway. I headed down to Kendras room to give her our left over luggage tags, because she was 8 rooms down from us, but for some reason she had tags for an entirely different time (early in the morning). I'm not sure why?
Ok, back to picking up Sakari. Honestly, it was not eventful. We stood in line as people picked up their little ones and others dropped off their munchkins for the late night sitting. We turned in our dinosaur phone, whew good thing because I had already cleared out my account and there wasn't $200 on there for you to charge me Svetlana. HA! They gave Sakari a "goodbye thanks for joining us" gift. How amusing...you gave her a drawing/project/activities set. That's ironic. What do you think my daughter who doesn't like to do things like this will do with it? I however am joking, you all know that the minute she got home and I unpacked her luggage, it was the first thing she went for and put it to good use.
When I returned to the room, we sat back and watched a little bit of tv. I took my shower and started to get ready to call it a night. For some odd reason I opened up the closet (as I was use to doing to get clothes out) and ALL OF MY CLOTHES WERE STILL IN THERE! Are you serious? I packed everything in the room and all the luggage were full and put out in the hallway and all of my clothes were still sitting on the shelves? Have I lost my mind on this cruise? I think I was still pondering over the entire kids club thing. That has to be it.
So I threw open the door, not caring who might be in the hallway to view me in my jammies. I didn't care at this point. It was life or death. Well, not really, it would just save my shoulder from having to shove everything in the 2 carry on bags that I still had with me. Whew, the luggage was still there. Or is it whew, I didn't have to scare anyone in the hallway? Either way, I was good. I quickly drug in a bag, loaded it up and out it went again. Thank you Carnival luggage picker uppers for not doing your job on time. I appreciate it.
Sakari got a turtle for a towel animal and Mr Monkey had disappeared. We managed to get a towel animal every night other than the night we took a nap. What had really woke me up that night (otherwise I probably would have slept through the night like the hubby and Sakari) is that the maid kept coming in the room to clean and turn down the bed. We got 1 knock and while she was knocking she had the key card in the door and opening the door. No chance for a response. It happened about 3 times that night and I finally got up. Make a note to yourself, if you don't want them coming in the room, keep door locked. They don't give you a chance to answer or run for cover if you're in your birthday suit.
Kendra informed me that they only got, I think it was, 3 towel animals during the entire cruise. I'm not sure why.
We watched ourselves on the Carnival video on the tv one last time (and I taped it shhh) and off to bed we went, dreading the day to come.
Just a few extra pictures that I meant to throw in to the review during our last day at the water park.
I found a few different settings on my camera that I hadn't tried out. I told you, I took a LOT of pictures that day. Some were using the weird settings on the camera.
This is the watercolor drawing setting. I don't know, but I kinda liked the way this one turned out for some reason.
Does this one blow your mind or what? LOL it's a mirror image setting:
I took one of the hubbys face on the mirror setting...oops. We won't share that right now.
The Twister right before I fell going in to it.
One of the view of the ship from up at the Twister
Ok, I made it to 1:45am. It's time to head to bed. Hopefully everyone has enjoyed todays postings. :)
I will do my review of our last and final day on the ship and how things went getting off of the ship. Then a short summary of the ride home and what we encountered, and then a summary of my thoughts about Carnival and even a comparison of Carnival and NCL.
Stay tuned....