DAY 7: SEA DAY

No time frame to get up today...so it was a pretty late breakfast (almost 11).

Then I bet you can't guess what came next.....????

Sakari hanging with her friends came next of course...and in the pool....almost all day. That water child just can't get enough.

So while Sakari was hanging with her friends....we were hanging with our friends as well.

Our friends kept us company most of the day.

I just couldn't get over how much this kid looked like my grandson!

I have to say...the weather...although a sprinkle/rain here and there throughout the week, was perfect and this had to be one of the first times I didn't feel ANY movement on the ship...ANYONE WHATSOEVER! The ocean was smooth almost the entire time and looked like this:

At some point in the day I needed to do the dreaded deed. This is when reality hits you in the face like a bad punch.

Sakari and her friend Daniel decided to play some putt putt while I was packing.

That morning I got super excited because (like every other day) I had been checking the specialty restaurants for any openings to use my coupon up. Well La Cucina had an opening!!! Yippee! But it wasn't until 9pm that night.

Now it was later in the day and we hadn't ate lunch, but yet since it was so late we didn't want to fill up that we wouldn't want dinner.

So as we were walking around, we came across the MDR and I looked at the hubby and ask if he wanted to grab a quick bite for lunch and we'd go "light".

It was pretty dead in there with only 3 other tables filled. I was informed that it was dinner time and not lunch. Ugh. I was hoping for something not so filling. LOL But here we are and we were gonna see how this turns out.

I ordered the onion soup. I always enjoy this. However, this time I only ate a few bites because it was a little different. Like super strong different. Like the strongest I had ever had it and I just couldn't eat it.

For the main course, it was hard to find something that wouldn't be so "dinner-y" like. And I believe it was Italian night at the buffet so that usually pours over into all the other food venues I believe.

This would be what I decided on. I didn't eat a lot of it and was trying not to be rude (not wanting it to seem like we didn't like the food or wasteful) so I ate in the middle, spread it out some, let some over flow onto the plate that the bowl was on and hoped that it looked like I had ate more than I really ate.

I don't remember what the hubby had to start with but I know he ordered a salad as well. The waiter kept giving us weird looks and asking what else we wanted.

At some point I told the waiter that we had dinner reservations for that night but hadn't had lunch so that's why we were going light on the food. He then understood and smiled like we were no longer the "weird couple" eating next to nothing. We opted for no desert. 

I headed back to the room to finish some packing and found my 2 bags of laundry sitting in my room waiting for me to pack. This is the one thing that is so nice about being platinum. Coming home with less laundry to do. But, how you shove a bag full of dirty clothes in and what comes out is a nicely pressed, in a basket, set of clothes about 2x the size of what it was when it left...is beyond me. It always comes back looking like you didn't send much out.

After returning to the room, I picked up my coupon for dinner at some point and noticed that it did not have La Cucina on the name as the restaurant. Oh crap! Now back when I was cruising before, you could pick whatever specialty restaurant you wanted. We would usually pick La Cucina twice because we didn't really care for the other options. I guess that has changed now as well and they give you 2 options on 1 coupon and 2 options on the other. Well wouldn't it be my luck that the coupon we already used for Moderno had the La Cucina on it as well. The only way to use our other coupon would be to pick between Cagney's or Le Bistro. BLAH! So not fair. Neither one of these were open the entire cruise.

I decided I would personally walk down to La Cucina (which was NOT full) and explain to them my mistake and see if there was a way I could use the coupon there. Well, of course, I was denied. I was disappointed in this. It's just not fair that they have empty spots in the restaurants but appear to be all booked up and my platinum status meant nothing and I wouldn't get a chance to get my second dining in OR be able to get my free bottle of wine either. I also know that last time we cruised you always got a free bottle of wine with EACH meal. That no longer seems to be the case and you only get 1 and only if you are dining with Cagneys or Le Bistro. Why do they get to pick which specialty restaurant you want wine with? Anything to make things harder to get your "freebies". It was so disappointing I tell ya. So many changes.

At some point that night we headed back to the casino to play a little bit and/or cash in any winnings. This would be the absolute first cruise that we didn't play every night and didn't play our allotted amount that I brought for us to play (I want to say we only went maybe 3 times and for not very long). I usually bring $400-500 each for us (I know we are not be spenders but that's enough for us to spread out during the cruise to have a good time on and we usually go every night) and I probably played a total of $100 and the hubby played $40 (he was always busy watching the card tables that he'd forget to play his before it was time to leave).

I was having a decent night.

We didn't stay too long...well I didn't. I had some decent winnings and then I started to feel bad and decided I would just donate it back to the lovely ship. Honestly, had the hubby not stood there watching the card table and said let's go, I would have walked out with a decent amount. But, I was trying to kill time waiting on him. So, we are going to blame this on the hubby. 😉 Once my winnings were gone, and with the hubby still watching the tables,  I went back to the room to get Sakari. 

Sakari and I went to go pick up my memory stick from the photo shop (I had bought pictures earlier in the day and I picked out just the right amount that would make it a "package" deal, which included a free memory stick) and it needed picked up around 8:30pm. We would do a little bit of last minute shopping as well.

Sakari was saying how she was hungry and since we hadn't "officially" ate dinner, we went up to the buffet to see what the offerings were. 

Like I said earlier, it was Italian night.

I wasn't too hungry to opted for something not-so-dinner-like:

We started to head back to the room and found the hubby along the way. He said he watched the card game for awhile and then went out to look for us. We must have kept missing each other because all the places he had named, we had been, but not at the same time.

So now he was hungry too...but the buffet was closed. 

I was tired and wanted to get my luggage out and plan for our departure the next day so I told him I was going back to the room. I told him he should stop by O'Sheehans and place an order "to go". Well he would return to the room pretty frustrated because they told him they couldn't give him a meal to go. He had to stay there to eat or told him to go back to the room to order room service with them. They made it sound like he could order O'Sheehans from the room.

He would call room service and it because a frustrating next 30 minutes for him. He would be put on hold and transferred and then put on hold and at some point, they hung up on him and and he had to call back and start all over. In the end, they told him he couldn't order anything from O'Sheehans even though they had told him he could. How frustrating. We have always stopped by O'Sheehans to order something to go in the past and they would put it on a plate with a cover over it. I guess that was another change.

He ended up ordering pizza and since he was going to encounter the same room charge no matter how much he ordered, he decided to order 2 pizzas. I know from the past that their pizza was never good. I have always tried to figure out why it tasted so bad and my only conclusion has been the cheese. The mozzarella cheese they use (on just the room ordered pizza) was always so fake tasting and gooey and just nasty. I could never get one piece down in the past. But, this time, it wasn't like that. It wasn't the greatest, but it was edible.

Hubby's pizza

Sakari's pizza which she shared a slice with me just so I could try it out. Even though Sakari and I had just ate about an hour prior, she can always eat some pizza.

We got our bags out and I checked and double checked that we all had clothes to wear and wouldn't have to get off the ship in only our underwear (did that to Sakari once...true story). And then we headed to bed.