MITSUGIRLY BREAKAWAY's 1 last time for the year-review/pictorial
DAY 8: Sea Day heading back to the U.S
DAY 7 on the ship sea day
Well I have absolutely no "notes" from this day. So, I guess I'm going to wing it. LOL
We got up and I knew one of the perks of being Platinum now was a free bag of laundry. Now this is something I would NEVER pay for. But, I figured since we got a bag for free...I'd give it a shot. Our room steward Ruby was outside in the hall and I inquired what to do and she said since it was the last day to get everything together and leave it on the bed when we left the room and she would take it with her when she cleaned and have it back to us before the end of the day. She told us to fill out one of the forms inside the room, put the clothes in the bag and that's what I did.
I have to say I managed to shove quite a bit of clothes in there, mostly Sakari's since hers is so small. I didn't put anything in there that could "possibly ruin" or that should be hand washed...such as dress clothes, bathing suits or a lot of Sakari's shirts that have the sequins on them.
We had managed to pick up some "goodies" for Sakari when we were shopping in the port yesterday and we had sent her to the kids club to make it a little more simple to do in a hurry. This morning, I gave her all her goodies to keep her busy while I was packing my laundry bag.
We were all starving and wanted to go get breakfast. I decided I wanted to sit down and relax and be served...after all, all that packing had worn me out. hehe
We headed to O'Sheehans.
Sakari was still painted from the night before. She loves to have her face painted and she refuses to take a shower at the end of the day after returning from the kids club if it's painted. I had someone once say something to me about her having it on the next day (a counselor) in a very rude mannor...like "Oh my gosh girl. Did you forget to take a shower last night? You still have your face paint on." (It wasn't from this cruise, but it pissed me off because they tried to make me look like a bad mom for not washing it off). I will never forget this. I think about it every time I allow her to leave it on. Sigh
It looks like others had the same idea as us, but I never really find it too crowded in here (on any of the ships) during breakfast.
Breakfast came and it was yummy as always and our bellies were full.
Off to the next adventure....which would last most of the day.
You could tell that it was starting to get a little cooler than it was the day before. However, Sakari could care less about the temps. She will probably beg to get in the pool/hot tub if we ever take an Alaskan cruise. That's just her.
She begged and begged and I finally gave in. We headed up to the kids water area to see if we were the only crazy people on the ship allowing their kids in the water. Nope, we weren't (and there were even adults in the pools). So, that made me feel better. However, I knew I was not about to get in there. It just wasn't warm enough for me.
Like always, Sakari makes friends easily.
Sakari's Patrick imitation. She insisted that I wait for the perfect moment to get his "arm pits sweating out".
I ran into my friend from the ferry again and we sat down and talked for quite some time. She was so nice and we had some great conversations. I had only wished I had met her earlier in the cruise. It was so nice to be able to chat longer than our short convo in St George. It kept me occupied while Sakari did her thing instead of me being bored sitting there.
I managed to spot Kendra and Brayden walking down the isle and I threw the pool towel over my head and tried to hide. It didn't work. I guess the rest of my body hanging out gave it away.
She was telling me that they had some neat carved food in the buffet and I needed to go check it out and get pictures...you know, for my review. So that's what I did.
Now of course I was not hungry already, but...one is never too full to get ice cream right?
I figured if I would come back with ice cream in my hand that Sakari would want some and we would be able to ease her out of the water to dry off and ease our way back to the room. But no....she could care less. Water=more fun.
She started begging to go to the pool...so momma gave in to that as well.
Off to the pool area we went.
I have to say I was SUPER nervous about this. I have never allowed Sakari in the pool by herself before. I either have to be in the pool with her or she has to have her puddle jumper on. This would be the first cruise we went on that I didn't bring the puddle jumper. This would be the first cruise I didn't get in there with her. But I sat on the side (of course there's no actual chairs) and watched her like a hawk never taking my eyes off her and gave her strict rules about where she could and couldn't go. Sakari learn to swim when she was 4 and she's pretty good for the most part. But still...being on a ship with unpredictable kids around her and not knowing what they might do worries me. She's super good at swimming under water. Not the "greatest" on top of water. But she did learn how to tread water on the Pride 2 cruises ago (in April), so she's perfecting that.
Before long Brayden would be joining us. Now he just learn to swim "somewhat" this year. He's getting pretty good at it, but still not strong. He can only paddle for a little bit before he has to stop. I would NEVER trust him in the deep in of any pool that he could not reach. Sakari, she can dive down to the bottom with no problems of a 9' pool and then swim back.
There were a few times that Brayden tried to test my authority and jump over the thing they have in the middle of the pool that leads to another side. Under no circumstance was I allowing this. He was scolded by mawmaw and was threatened to have to return to sit on the sidelines by his mother...who was back at the lounge chairs resting comfortable. Sigh
Now a big subject on these boards is always brought up during a drowning. There have been way too many children drowning on the ships...after all, 1 is too many. It brings about great debate, speculation, nastiness and pointing fingers. To my knowledge, Disney is the ONLY cruise line that has life guards posted at their pools. Speculation is that it becomes a liability issue. Parents are supposed to be the ones watching their kids.
However, I can tell you on the last 3+ cruises with NCL I have seen several employees watching the kids in the pool. I don't think they make it so obvious to many that they are keeping an eye out on them and they trade off quickly. But I do believe they have people watching. This time I would be able to get a few pictures of 2 of them (I wish I would have gotten some on the other cruises since this comes up regularly).
I know that the cruise lines probably don't want to employee people to watch the pools because that is the parents job. But I always say the more eyes the better no matter who it is. I always keep my eyes out on any children (or adults for that matter) around me. Maybe that's the nurse in me. Yes, the parents should be watching their kids, but that doesn't always happen and I couldn't live with myself if a parent wasn't around watching them and I wasn't paying attention and could have prevented a drowning.
Another issue that is brought up on the boards is the lay out of the kids pool and water park area. There really isn't many places to sit down around this area and speculation is that they don't want parents sitting down when they should be up watching their children when swimming. However, I feel that if there are parents that are determined to sit, they will sit...even if it's away from the pool area. I find this a concern and it bothers me. I hate the design of this pool myself for that reason. Even though I'm a parent that is right there with my child and I will watch her like a hawk, I still would like to sit down and watch at times...right beside the pool.
So, people have asked where there are chairs. I have replied before in other threads...but now I have a picture. At the entrance of the pool at the end, there's a walkway. This time there were some chairs there. I have to say before on the Getaway, there were not any chairs there when we were on it. People were pulling chairs to that area and sitting. However, being down in this area does not allow you to watch your child. It's up and over a wall and the pool is down. It's also at the area that is very small before the wall that leads to the bigger area. So you wouldn't even be able to see over the wall at all when sitting.
Eventually Kenny & Michelle found us. Kenny was having an "ok" day and not as sick as the ride to Bermuda, but still a little queasy according to him. At least I was able to get a smile out of him.
At this point, I'm ready to leave the pool area...but the munchkins have a completely different idea...
They were off to try out the water slides.
...and it was a hit!! (Like I didn't know that already).
Sakari, being the daredevil she is, begged to go to the "big slides". I just knew this was coming. I did inform her that she would not be allowed on the BIG slide that drops and she was so disappointed. She really wanted to go on that one and it's so hard to explain to a 7 year old why she was able to do it before on the Carnival ships, but this ship won't allow her. At this point you all kinds of "but why, I did it before, why is this different....." the list goes on.
She settled for going on the twister slides instead. Well, it was the only choice she had of course.
She went up and down and up and down...over and over again, rotating between the two. She loved it.
It took awhile, but Sakari managed to talk Brayden into going on the bigger slides. He's not as daring as Sakari to say the least.
It wasn't long before the rest of the kids found me up on the floor watching the munchkins coming down the slide. The slide ends 1 floor up from where the pools are. You can't get out that way due to a glass wall and are forced to either walk back up to the slides again or down to the pool area when you are done sliding. In order to see them come out of the slide, you have to walk up 1 flight and stand behind the glass walls to watch.
I believe the kids were heading to get something to eat...late risers.
After awhile I was tired of just hanging out at the pool and knew I would have to demand that Sakari needed to leave in order to get her to get out.
I decided I wanted to stop to get a Toasted Almond before leaving and I made a deal with her since she complied with leaving without an argument. She had been asking during the day if she could get in the hot tub. I managed to spot a hot tub that had children in it. I told her she would be allowed to get in the hot tub for a few minutes (I knew she had to be cold because at this point it was getting cold outside and we no longer had that beautiful Bermuda weather), while I was getting my drink, under one circumstance. She used the steps, she sat down on the side that I could see her, she was not to go under the water at all (I have this fear of hot tubs with long hair getting caught and actually use to keep a pair of scissors beside our hot tub before we sold the house), no splashing and once I signaled her, she was to get out.
She agreed and off she went...
We headed back to the room and we have been greeted with this...
I am NEVER happy to see this. It signifies that the end of my vacation is nearing and it brings great sadness every time I see one of these.
But hey, we are priority...Sigh
Now I have never used this priority debarkation before. I have never needed it, nor did I ever want to immediately get off the ship earlier than I have to. However, this would be one of those "I have to get off right away" times. We had a flight at 11:20 (I think it was) and I had heard that their could be a traffic jam when leaving and getting away from the port. We also had to wait to call our transport service until AFTER we get off the ship. I have never had to do this before. We always just tell them what time we want picked up and they are usually waiting. I had no idea how this was going to work. There's also the fact that we knew we had to walk away from the port to be able to be picked up. I had no idea where this was or how far.
We decided to do self-assist. This would get us off the ship the quickest and less risk of making it to the airport too late.
I turn on the t.v. and seen this sad sight.
I decided we would take this opportunity to start our packing. I usually try to do this during the morning-afternoon hours so that I'm not forced to be throwing things together in the late hours of the evening...instead, I can be enjoying my night. However, Sakari had us at the pool a majority of the day, so I was a little late on this task that has become a ritual.
I dropped Sakari off at the kids club, finished my packing, the hubby fell asleep....and off I went. :D I have a habit of sneaking off and it's become a game to see if he can find me at times. :p
I headed out with the girls and we started bar hopping. I mean it was the last day of "free drinking".
At one point we stopped outside at one of the waterfront bars. For the second time, Courtney was once again denied a drink and told it wasn't her card. Once again, she was pissed. Me, Kendra and Michelle received ours and I told her not to fret. We would just head right inside and try there.
SUCCESS! I think even the lady next to her was happy for her. :p
I did a little shopping because I still needed to buy all of my cruise pictures and I always purchase a scrapbook and the scrapbook kit.
However, they were OUT OF SCRAPBOOKS!!! Say what?!? How are you out of scrapbooks? Now this was something new to me. I know that the Dawn was out of a lot of things and not much of a variety and now this? Is it just something with the ships that are located on the east coast? I'm not liking it. But what could I do?
I purchased the small Breakaway scrapbook kit and decided to forgo the scrapbook pages kit since I've used them so many times in the past and it's getting a little old.
After a few hours, we decided to pick up Sakari from the kids club and head back to the room. We had an early dinner reservation to see the Cirque Dreams show and I knew this was something I didn't want to miss or be late to in order to get a good seat.
I would return back to the room to find the hubby gone. Oops. He would return a few minutes later with that look on his face and a "Why do you do that?" out of his mouth. I told him I had been sitting around waiting on him for hours..."Where have you been?" (He didn't buy it, but yet I'm pretty convincing at times. :D
We headed to the show and of course Kendra and the kids are no where around. Late as always. We got in line and the line started moving. Once we made it to the desk to check in and told them a party of 10, they ask if all 10 were here. Um.... "they are headed down the steps"...yea, yea, that's what it was. Hey, it sounded good to me at the time. She said she needed all of us to be together because they could not hold seats. Plus with a group of 10 people, it would take up an entire table.
Well, I was there on time, so go ahead and seat us and we'd take our chances that we'll be able to have our family at the same table.
"Well, looky here...here they are! I told ya they were coming down the steps." Whew, that was a close one. We all walked in together and managed to get GREAT seats right in front and along the isle...which would be awesome for Sakari.
I have to say along our way in and winding around to our seat, there were a few tables with 4-5 people there and they were saving seats because the seats were tipped over and leaning against the table. So...obviously people were saving seats!
The menu. Just so you know, you don't pick anything on it. There's really no choices. You get what's on the menu so no ordering.
The stage and our view.
Our waiters:
The waiter took our picture
I had no idea until just now that Sakari decided to be a clown in this picture and stick her tongue out. LOL I'm pretty sure it's because Kolin was taking the picture and this is usually what she does to him.
Loved the jungle decor in here
I have to admit, I'm really not sure the deal with the meals at all the Cirque shows. From the one on the Epic, the Getaway and the Breakaway. Not many people like them. I thought parts were "ok". People mention that "at least we have the option to go get something else to eat after or before the show". Why can't they get this right?
I do not really like meat like steak or anything "chewy". Some of the family don't like sea food, like the shrimp on the menu. We all compromised and when the food came, everyone was passing food around like it was Thanksgiving.
But everyone liked the bread. hehe
We thought the show was amazing...like always. It has the jungle theme of course and everyone had amazing costumes on dressed as animals.
The awesome thing about sitting in the isle was that the "animals" would interact with Sakari as they were coming or going. This would be the path they took to enter and exit the stage. They would appear in her face or tickle her with their feathers or touch her as they went by and she was LOVING it.
The only incidence "I" had (always me sigh) is that there is a "line" of tape in the "path" and your chair has to be passed the line. At one point, before the show started, I guess 1 leg of my chair was a tad bit over the line and the waiter ask me to scoot up. When I did, my hand slipped off the chair and my nail didn't. I yanked part of my nail off passed where it should be and man was it painful. I took a deep breath and told him to give me a minute to compose myself as my nail just hung from my hand. He waited...............until I finally moved and then he walked away. What, did he think I wasn't going to move?
The show was over and we were very pleased with it. Awesome show. Worth the money, not for the food but for the show itself. I highly recommend it.
After the show, the kids headed to the kids club and it was time to adult!
We headed to the casino to donate our last bit of money we had brought for these purposes.
However, tonight would be a decent night. I played some of my favorite games and managed to hit bonus rounds on most of them. Although they may have not been "big" hits, I walked out with about $389 that night. (More on this later)
I took pictures of some of my favorites when I hit the bonus rounds. Although they weren't any big wins, I like the look of the coins going crazy and everyone wants to see what's going on...."haha, just kidding, it's not that big of a win but had you fooled" is what I want to say to them when they turn around.
This game the hubby did pretty well on earlier in the week. I think he put in $10 and walked out with around $80+ when he stopped playing.
I did pretty good on this boogie 70's machine during the week. It was always hitting bonus rounds and never disappointed me. However, it was never a really big win.
This was another jungle game like the one I played on the Dawn and won over and over again. But it did not treat me as well as the last time. But I'll take it. I came out ahead.
So back to my winnings. I probably won about $120 that night. However, with it being the last night of gambling, I made sure I had brought all of our "winnings" tickets so that we could cash them in. It's always a big game we play with the kids, especially Courtney on every cruise, because I'm always winning and she's always losing. So, I took my winnings from that night and also put in the winnings from the rest of the week and printed off 1 ticket. I waited for her to come over and hit the cash out button. BOOM! I just won almost $400 Courtney. :D To this day, she doesn't know I didn't win all that on that night. LOL Kendra knows, but not Courtney.
So while we didn't really "win" this time, we managed to not really lose a lot of money. We brought $500 for gambling and walked away with around $389 and some change I believe it was. So both of us gambling, all week, every day, and only walking away about $111 in the hole, I'll take it I guess.
I took a picture of Kolin & Courtney on the GA by this beautiful light at 678 and I told them they needed to pose for an "updated" picture. They gave me the "Are you serious? We are not dressed for this right now." "Yep, you're gonna do this no matter what you are dressed in not pose!"
We gathered the munchkins from the kids club and stopped to get a bite to eat. Then it was back to our rooms to finish packing and cry a little of course.
Sakari had a bug kinda night (sorry, I had to blur out some writing that was all over it where I had wrote down some numbers and she decided to draw on that page lol)
She also decided to try (for the first time) to draw an octopus since we had seen one at Snorkel Park.
I guess one of them was from the 70's. :p Or maybe Sakari just decided to bedazzle it.
I remember telling the kids goodnight and that we would be getting up early, heading to breakfast, and getting off. I loved them and didn't know if I would be seeing them in the morning because I was on a mission to get to the airport. Of course they drove in and didn't have to be off at any certain time.
Well that ends our last day on the ship. I hope you enjoyed it.