MITSUGIRLYS EPIC CRUISE--2nd time around-1st from Port Canaveral
Day 7: Sea Day
THURSDAY: SEA DAY Day 6 on the ship
It was officially "sleep in" day so I didn't wake up until 9:30am. Sakari was up shortly after that and we tried to wake daddy up, but obviously yesterdays activities wore him out. So we left sleeping beauty.
Sakari and I headed out and had breakfast because that's a meal I refuse to miss! After that, we met up with Kolin, Courtney and Kendra and decided to wonder around for awhile. It was a sea day. We were bored. It was raining outside. Yuck. Nothing worse than a rainy sea day when you can't go swimming. Everything was closed...like it had been the entire week when we went to things.
Kendra looked at the dailies and tried planning our day out. Well, I had noticed they were having a "Canvas By U" painting class that morning. I had REALLY wanted to do this, so we headed down to Headliners to sign up. It was $35 per person. When we got there, we were told that they were on "standby". Oh my. I mean I don't know why I would be shocked since you have to stand in line on standby for everything else on this ship, why not to paint too right? Ugh! They took my name and I ask if Sakari could do it too. They said "Um, well, you would have to pay the same price as an adult and be here with her the entire time". Well duh, I planned on both of us doing it. I know she would just LOVE this and I really wanted something to bring home showing we did a painting. These people looked at me like I was nuts for signing up a child. They just didn't understand. :(
The "wait list" was long and we sat down with our fingers and toes crossed. Others were on the standby list before us and I was losing hope. One of the reasons that no one got to do this is there was a family of like 8 people that were taking up the original seats. I don't know how many people they have per class, but it looked to be about 10 desks set up. But, this family was missing 2 people who were "on their way down". Well, they had a certain time to start by and the guy gave them 5 minutes. The countdown began. They did not make it. He said times up! YES! So...then he replaced those. However, the first 2 people on the list got the spots. I was devastated. Sakari was devastated. Sigh. No painting for us. Darnit. You would think that NCL would realize the popularity of this event and create more seats. They could potentially make a lot more money. $$
So we headed to O'Sheehans and Kendra decided we were going to watch the towel folding demonstration in the atrium. So watch we did.
Of course Kolin wasn't really into the towel folding demonstration and talked Sakari into a little more air hockey.
The demonstration was over and they had about 10 different "species" on the table. Ok, cool. But, on Carnival at least they hand out the towels and you get to follow along with them and make them yourself. Much funner IMO.
We headed outside to see if it was still raining and it was. This would be the first time I even went out on the deck, other than stepping foot onto the ship on day one with no welcome party or greeting.
So shuffleboard it was. Now we have never played this game before, but it "almost" looked like it was self-explanatory. You take this stick, with branching fingers, and you push the over sized checker. If you get on a number, you get points? If you knock someone's off, they lose points? Kolin decided you go in the negatives. LOL I'm not quite sure that is right.
Notice how wet the deck is? It made for an interesting game. Push, move a few inches and the suction would make it stick. Try again, it got air on top of a rain droplet and would make it all the way down the hall to the other game. Sigh. It wasn't working out very well.
In the end, we decided it's not the best choice to try to attempt to play this game on a wet deck. We gave up after several laughs and me almost peeing my pants over it. We walked on down the deck, slipping and sliding and found that we were not the only crazy people out there trying to play in the rain on the deck. I think they were having the same issues as us.
Well, Kolin is hungry again. I think I have seen him eat more food on this cruise than he's had at home the entire year.
We were going to be brave and try O'Sheehans out again. LOLOLOLOLOL
Let's start this out with a drink because I have a feeling we are going to need it.
Tick tock, tick tock...waiting on the waiter to return to take our order. Let's all take pictures and look like we are having the most boring, I mean best time ever in this beautiful hot sunshine, I mean rainy cold weather.
The waiter finally took our order and we waited and waited and waited. Then our wings finally came out.
But, that wasn't our complete order. We had ordered some of that scrumptious fajitas again. Once again, waiting and waiting and waiting and drinking and waiting.
Finally the rest of the food would arrive and although good, it didn't quite taste as good as it did the other day. I'm not sure why.
I finished off with desert because I had not ordered desert the last time and I wanted to get some cheesecake. There has been talk on the boards about them changing the type of cheesecake over the years. I had never noticed any change in the past, other than they offered it with strawberries on the top with syrup and I have always requested that they leave that off.
This time, it said something about a brownie, marshmallows and caramel syrup. Of course I ask if it could just be plain and they told me no. I can completely understand this if everything is premade. However, if it's already made, why does it take them 15 minutes or longer to bring it out? Kolin said he had tried this cheesecake the other day and it was good. So, he talked me into it.
This time, we spent 2 hours in there again but hey, we had Kolin to entertain us.
We headed upstairs to, once again, check out the weather. There we would run into the boys...all of them, sitting by the pool and having drinks. It was mid day (maybe 2 or 3) and the hubby had that look on his face like he had lost all hope of finding me that day. He said he looked in all my normal places (I totally forgot to ask him where these places are because I had no idea I had "normal places").
He breathed a sigh of relief that we were reunited only for us to decide we (the girls) would head back to the rooms to get socks on and try out rock climbing again. I had promised Sakari that she would get to do this again today after she had her water-works flowing the last time when she didn't get to make it to the top. Well, today was that day to redeem herself. Off we went, back to the rooms and left the boys back at the pool bar tending to their drinks.
Well, all of a sudden Kendra yells "WAIT! I HAVE TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING!!" Her and Courtney start to giggle and then before I knew it, we were on a wild goose chase. We got off the elevator and walked way down the hall to the other side of the ship..."Wait, this isn't the right floor", got on another elevator, stopped at the next floor, they peeked their heads out of the doors when they opened, "nope, not this floor" and this ritual would continue for several floors. Ok, what they heck were they doing or looking for. Kendra squealed with excitement and jumped up and down while clapping her hands (no seriously, she did and does this a lot) and said "Just wait until you see it". Well, we wasn't finding "it" and honestly, my legs were getting tired.
"No wait" she said, it's on the other side of the hallway by the other elevators. BOOM! Found it. And she presents me with this picture.
"See????" she said. "I told you I wasn't the only one that does the socks with the flip flops. I'm a super star". Oh my! I did all this walking for this? Geesh. Imma get her back one day! (So this all comes from our last rock climbing adventure where she would walk around with her socks and flip flops on, because you have to have socks for the rock climbing...remember that day and picture?).
She was so proud of herself.
We made it back up to the pool deck, hubby giving me this look like he thought he had lost me again forever because we had been gone too long. I look at him and shaking my head back and forth and said "don't ask".
We (the girls and the kids) headed to the rock climbing wall..............CLOSED! Wait, what? Why? It's not raining anymore. Things are dried up? Why????? The worker said "It's too windy". Wait, what? There's no wind back here at the moment. The day we (and by we I mean the kids) did climb...now THAT was windy. We didn't feel anything now. What a disappointment. Is anything ever open on this ship?
We headed up to the Spider Climbing Contraption and the Trampoline Bounce You To the Sky, But there's a Bungee Holding You Down....CLOSED. Sigh. This is ridiculous. What is open???
As we hung our heads, listened to Sakari moan, we passed the "water" (lol) putt putt, which was never a water putt putt because they never had it on. Hmmm, ok, let's play putt putt minus the water. That'll work.
Sakari started the game out and then the rest of us joined in.
All of a sudden I see Sakari slam her putter down and starts stomping and says "I'm not playing with you guys ever, I'm done" and trots off back in the direction of the guys still holding their spot steady at the bar. Um....ok. I have no idea what just happened and when I tried to stop her she ran. Alrighty then. I.have.no.clue
This was a major meltdown. But I had no idea just how major this meltdown would be...until later.
We continued to play because when her meltdown involves not allowing me to talk civil to her about it, then it's no longer considered my meltdown problem solver. Dad can deal with it. I've had her all morning entertaining her. Play ball.
We are in the "tunnel", still playing putt putt and we catch Sakari out of the corner of our eyes and see her playing her own game of putt putt at the beginning. Ok, she must have recovered and daddy babied her and she's back.
I went over to ask if she wanted to join in with us and.....SHE STOMPED OFF AGAIN. What the heck is wrong with this child? She wouldn't talk to me. She ran. She hid under the stairs where I couldn't reach her because there were bars and lounge chairs stacked up against it. So now I'm getting pissed. It doesn't happen often, but when she acts like this, I'm not going to deal with it. I can't reach her, I can't hug her, I can't talk to her. Adios.
I walk back to the bar with the guys and tell daddy what is going on. He tells me that she was crying because B told her that she couldn't go on to the next round of putt putt while we were still on the first putt. Um ok. THAT caused this? Because B told her she had to wait on us to finish before starting another? I find this hard to believe...but whatever. I told him I wasn't going to chase her and he's on "daddy duty" now. Daddy makes everything better.
Before long, we would see her climb out from under the stairs, when she noticed we had all left and wasn't about to baby her or climb after her...and she slowly started making her way back to the bar area....slowly...walking a slow pace, waterworks starting to come on, she was mad that no one was taking the time to chase her down and baby her, tear drop, drip, drop, POUR....oh geesh. So now she's walking, crying, has her arms up to her face like she's scared. Great show kiddo.
We are all just sitting at the table and watching her. Then something I hadn't considered happened...people feeling sorry for her and thinking she was lost started approaching her. Oh my word! Just the attention she was looking for. They thought she was lost and crying. They were running to get a staff member. Oh Geesh! I wasn't about to go chase her because I knew she would run off again in an attempt to get me to chase her. So, I sent Courtney and the hubs. Yea, now she had made us look like bad parents for not watching our kid. Just great. Who on here came back and reported the wild, rampid kids running free on the ship while their parents weren't watching them? Yea, I'm sure they thought that I was that parent. I assure you, I never let her out of my sight but she also knows I don't deal with this behavior and it is unacceptable and I won't chase her.
Daddy sat her in his lap and loved on her and babied her, like he always does, and momma gave her that eye and told her that if she didn't straighten up, she would just go back to the room. Well, she perked right up. It's a miracle. So now we were going bowling and everything was good in Sakari's world.
Off we went to O'Sheehans again. Bowling is $7 pp for 1 game. They killed the bank when we played that day.
They only had 2 lanes open for some reason. Yep, another thing not working. Maybe if they could just fix their shiznit and had things open...that would be nice.
Well looky there, she wants to hang out with the family again.
Kendra, I'm pretty sure you dropped that ball way before you should have.
Billy is a crazy bowler. He's one that will throw the ball half way down the lane before it hits the floor and get a strike. He's one that spins the ball and does all kinds of crazy crap with it. I've seen him bowl close to 300 before. Tonight was not his night. We kept yelling at him to stop with the craziness because people were watching every time they heard the loud THUNK on the floor from the ball when he hurled it.
Sakari is trying to do impressive things like Billy now. Between the legs it goes...and it rolled down the lane so slow that it knocked all but 1 pin over.
Sakari elected herself to be the ball watcher and organizer. She would organize the balls each time they came up. She could name each size by the color of it. "You need a 7? It's purple". "Here Kolin, you need this ball?" Kolin-"Just let me get my own ball Sakari geesh". He needed another Angry Orchard obviously.
Well isn't that the worse game you have ever laid eyes on? I'm sure it was all the drinks and the motion of the ship. Yep, that's my story and we are ALL sticking to it. I can tell you that the hubby won and I came in second place and Sakari was third. LOL
We had RESERVATIONS tonight, on this FREESTYLE cruise, to see Burn the Floor. We headed back to the room to freshen up and then off to the theater we went.
I can tell you I honestly don't remember what this show was about. I really don't care for just a song and dance show. Yes, the dancers are talented and amazing, but once you see a show with it, you feel like you are just watching the same thing over and over to different music.
The only thing I can remember is during one of the routines, there was a girl that got her dress caught in her heel. It was real obvious because the dress was ripped and hanging down low at the heel only in that area (the rest was short). We were all watching her the entire dance. She didn't miss a beat, nor did her dress come undone. It was pretty amazing at that point. She gave new meaning to "The show must go on" and it did and she never stopped. I can't believe she didn't rip her dress completely off. At the VERY END she did this huge, strong kick...off it came and they dipped her and the routine was over. Isn't that a bunch of crap that it stuck until the very end? Poor girl.
After the show we all headed to the buffet for some dinner.
Somehow I ended up with pizza and giant shrimp. What a combo right? I didn't really care for the pizza that night, but Sakari was still living on it. The shrimp looked good, but was a little bland to me.
Honestly, not much was appealing to me tonight and my appetite just wasn't with it. I decided to head to the crape station.
That would end up being dinner.
After "dinner" we headed out to the pool for some drinks.
I really wish Blue Man was still on this cruise. This cruise, we'd have Blue Sakari instead.
I had overtime built in today with my munchkin and it was time to off-load her on the kids club. The hubby took her around 9:30pm and when he returned, I ask him if he told them that he wanted after hours sitting. He said "No, but I did mention that I was going to the White Hot turned into the Glow Party and they didn't say anything". Um ok. Let's try that again shall we? This is actually something you need to TELL them and SIGN UP for. As in on-a-list. You don't just assume that they assume that you need sitting.
We all headed back to the rooms to get ready and the hubs headed back to the kids club to make things right...not like it was far. It's our neighbor on the same block as us.
I did not plan for this party. I did not bring anything for this party. I did have a white shirt I could wear but guess what? I sent my Platinum laundry off that morning to be washed and it was in that. So...nothing for me to really wear. Normally we have always sent our laundry off in the morning and they return it to us in the evening...unless they happen to lose some of the things or decide not to do the laundry. (Long story, different review).
At 10:45 we headed to H20 to see what was going on.
Closest thing to Blue Man I'll see on this ship now. Everything and everyone was blue.
They were handing out glow sticks to everyone. They were huge and made out of syrofoam and you turn it on at the bottom. There's several different settings to make them flash different ways.
We were having a good time.
Kolin was getting creative. "Let me get a picture of your shirt all lit up Kolin." "Well crap, that didn't turn out because of the flash. Do it again Kolin." "No wait, I'm not sure that turned out. Do it again Kolin" He kept falling for it. It went on for awhile, then he caught on. LOL
The funny thing about these glow sticks is that you can remove this little plug in the bottom (to replace the batteries), but everyone was jumping up and down and waving these around and all of a sudden Kolin looks down and noticed all these "plugs" all over the entire floor. I mean they were everywhere. I should have taken a picture. But, when we discovered them falling out, all we had to do was reach down and grab one off the floor to plug ours again. It was like those bubble parties they throw...only with styrofoam instead. LOL
Our professional picture.
I always hate that they have these parties on a night before a port. Like it's the dumbest thing ever, but that's what they ALWAYS do. If we want to stay out late at a party, it should be a sea day the following day so we can sleep in.
The DJ and CD "claimed" they were partying all night until they arrived at Nassau the following day. Yea, I wonder how that worked out for you. It was already clearing out when we decided to leave after being there for 1 1/2 hours.
I was now out of my stock of pop in the fridge and we stopped by to grab one out of the game room, which is right there by H20. Only problem is, they didn't stock that vending machine with diet. I would be forced to drink regular (yucky to me and leaves a bad taste in my mouth forever), but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.
We headed back to pick up Sakari from the kids club and it was now going on 12 midnight. Normally the kids club will either charge you on the full hour or for that half hour. So, sitting services are $6 per hour. It starts at 10:30pm. We picked up at 11:50. Not quite a full hour and a half. Most kids clubs would round it down to 11:30 and charge you 1 hour and the rest you can donate to tips. If it's over the 1/2 hour mark, they would round it up to the next hour. Or...some will charge you for the half hour at $3. However, this time they charged for a full 2 hours. Weird...but that is the rule I believe. Just most don't do that.
When we got back to the room, this was our towel animal. One that we had seen earlier that day in the towel demonstration.
I would head to the shower and come out to find other towel creatures were being born.
A wolf according to Sakari.
Half bird half frog? It's a hybrid.
She was definitely busy coming up with different creatures and I guess even though Kolin had pulled her away from the towel folding demonstration, she did pick up on some of it.
I packed our beach bags for the following day, called the kids to give orders about tomorrow and say good night, then off to bed we went.