Mitsugirly needed to ESCAPE from the cold weather
Day 2: Our first sea day
DAY 2: SUNDAY
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This would be our first real full sea day. I honestly don't care for sea days, unless it's the very last day so that I can get things packed up, and try to pick cruises with as many ports as possible. But, it is what it is and we would try to keep ourselves busy.
Since we weren't on any type of time frame, I believe we slept in until around 9:30am or so and then decided to head out to breakfast. I wanted something different than going to the buffet because I knew we would be stuck going there on port days for a quick bite to eat.
O'Sheehan's it was then and off we went.
We arrived, gave them our room card, and were led to a table. I requested that we have a booth and they said "certainly". The place was not crowded at all, so I didn't feel bad about taking up an entire booth that could have fit 6 people in it. If it was crowded, I wouldn't have done that knowing that others may have needed to use it.
We were seated and they filled our glasses with water as we pulled out our soda card and presented it to them. Everyone knows I'm a popoholic and if I paid for that card, I plan on using it as much as possible.
Our food arrived minutes after we ordered! I couldn't believe how fast it came.
My meal
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Sakari's meal (she used to be a scrambled eggs kinda girl but has recently changed things up and loves herself some omelettes with bacon and cheese).
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The hubby being cute with his meal....do you see it?
It's a happy face! 🤣
The hubby's meal was supposed to come with a variety danish basket...which never came. I had also ordered an extra danish basket...which never came. I ended up having to flag our waiter down, when he was at the table behind us, and tell him that our danish baskets never came. He went and got one and put it on the table as he flew by to the next table shouting "fresh for you" and I was left there with my finger up in the air, as in wait a minute, and my mouth open with nothing coming out because he was just too fast. I never did get my danish basket...so we shared.
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The danish basket comes with a variety of items and just like the bread basket, there's always those certain items that everyone likes and wants, and those that no one likes or wants. So, two baskets, like I requested, would have been nice.
Also, it was not "fresh for you" and not even warm. Plus, it had one muffin in it and all of the rest of the items were all the same!!! I glanced over at everyone else's tabled and they definitely had a "variety". We just ended up with a "vari" and not the "ety". Blah
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After breakfast, Sakari shouted "ropes course, ropes course, ropes course". She really wanted to do it yesterday, but by the time she was done swimming they were closed.
So, off to the ropes course we went. I asked her if she thought they would let me do it in my boot? "No mommy, are you crazy? You'll fall and break your other leg!" I guess she had a point. LOL So, it was just her and daddy this time around and I would sit down below to take pictures of their wild adventures that I was missing out on.
Did I mention I decided to strap my walking boot on and walk today? Whew! I walk pretty good in the boot, but it's just really heavy. Plus, I can't walk long distances because I tire easily. But, I managed to make it up to the ropes course and if anyone has been on these particular Breakaway class ships, you'll know that there is NO seating anywhere on this sports deck. However, there is several large heavy duty boxes under the stairs leading up to the basketball court and I would gladly use that as a seat for this adventurei'mnotapartof. 😕
They waited and waited and waited in line. They were almost there for an hour. At one point, I decided to waddle back over to the line to see what was going on. The workers said they allow groups to go and until that entire group was DONE and off the course, the next group couldn't go. 😲 Say what? Breakaway and Getaway wasn't like that! When people came down, others went up! So this meant A LOT of waiting time for everyone!
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Then all of a sudden, after I had went back and sat down on my box, the hubby and Sakari came walking around the corner. "They shut it down saying it was too windy!!!!!!" Sakari says. She was so upset that she wasn't going to get to go and they were next in line and the hubby wasn't too happy he waited all that time either. Honestly, it wasn't that windy!
So, what could make it better? Water rides of course!!! I hobbled down to the next deck to try to find somewhere to sit. I managed to snap a lounger right under the water slides and in the shade. I'm a sun loving goddess...but only if I can get in the water to cool off. This wasn't going to be one of "those" cruises, so shade was good!
Sakari and daddy made it up to the DROP slide. We knew in advance that they don't allow you to wear ANYTHING on that slide. That meant the hubby had to remove his wedding ring (which was quite the task) and Sakari had to remove her necklace, bracelet, glasses of course, and lanyard. Ugh, they make it so hard on you!
Sakari peeking at me from the stairs.
Almost there!!!
THEY MADE IT! Here we go!!! Sakari is waving and I knew she was excited. Not nervous at all. I'm so proud of her. Her fears that she managed to develop over the last few years has finally subsided.
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She had a blast. Not so sure that the hubby enjoyed it as much because he was worried about water getting in his ears and developing an infection. (If anyone remembers, the hubby has no eardrums from an injury when he was a teen so any water in the ears becomes an instant problem for him). He managed to cross his arms in front of him, like they make you, and the minute he dropped...plugged his ears on the way down instead. LOL
They came back and Sakari let me know how much fun it was and she was ready to do the next...daddy was not. She pouted about him putting up a fight about not wanting to go again right away and I gave him the "you're on daddy duty and must oblige to your daughters request to have fun" and he hung his head down and away they went with Sakari grinning from ear to ear.
Next up was the blue tube!
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Meanwhile....it was time to take my walking boot off and get my leg propped up.
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Here's a short video of them on the water slides:
While I was sitting around, I decided to try to make reservations for our specialty dining that we get for free for being platinum. On the Getaway 4 months ago, everything was COMPLETELY booked up...like the entire cruise. I only managed to get in because there were some cancellations during the middle of the cruise.
This time, it was a different story. Everything was open every single day! Who Hoo!
My pick for this cruise was La Cucina (since we didn't go last time) and I decided we would go tonight since it is a sea day.
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Then I also picked Cagney's Steakhouse, which we had never been to because I don't like steak.
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After all of the fun activities at the water park, it was time to head back to the room to change into dry clothes and relax for awhile.
Sakari was busy checking out everything in the room and discovering all the little hidden places to store things. Then all of a sudden she opened up the cabinet that had the hidden refrigerator behind it. "What's this?" She opened up the refrigerator and BOOM! All of a sudden I heard a loud pitched screech. Pop was spewing out everywhere. I made a mad sloth rush to get to it, locate the pinhole, plug it with my finger and ...... now what? "Ok, grab me a glass to put this in. We are not wasting it!"
That was a mighty expensive blooper there. Did they rig that thing so you are forced to pay over inflated prices for their pop? Ugh!
Here she is enjoying that pop she managed to get. "Well, I was thirsty anyhow mommy!" LOL I told her she better savor the flavor of every little drop of it and not waste any!
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While we are on the subject of the mini bar...here's the menu:
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Notice how it lists Pepsi $3.00 above? Also in the book was this:
Do you see the difference? The price of soda is listed as $3.45 above. Did prices go up and they didn't remove the other sheets?
Room Service: Order and place on your door by 4am. $7.95 fee
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All day menu:
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Special Occasion menu for additional prices:
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Guy Harvey is one of the world's finest marine wildlife artists and known for his involvement in ocean conservation. He designed and painted the Escape hull. The in room tv's actually has an entire channel dedicated to Guy Harvey and his foundation. It has a lot of information about his interest as a young child, what started his paintings, becoming a marine biologist, diver, and photographer and shows a lot of Grand Cayman at the Stingray sandbar. There's a lot of interesting information about him and his paintings on this channel. Of course, this had Sakari VERY interested!! So much so that she spent A LOT of time watching this channel...to the point she was educating me and she could probably recite the entire thing.
ART GALLERY
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After awhile we decided to head out and get lunch. Sakari wanted to be festive. They had so many Christmas decorations around the ship. It was so pretty.
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I was in the mood for a cheeseburger and fries today. NCL has some of the most amazing and crispy fries ever! They are so yummy!
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Then we stopped and did a little bit of window shopping and headed back down to the room. I decided to make use of our balcony since we normally don't spend a lot of time in the room and this cruise would be the exception. The water was so calm...I almost wanted to take a nap.
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Sakari continued to educate herself on the Guy Harvey channel. Of course watching how he got interested in painting made her want to do some ipad drawings herself so she pulled out the ipad while she watched Guy.
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As the day progressed I decided I wanted to go for a "stroll"...what was I thinking? I was just getting the heebie jeebies and needed to get out of the room.
Sakari is such a homebody and would rather spend her time in the room (just like at home, she never wants to leave the house...not even to eat!)
We strolled along the waterfront and snapped a few pics.
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We weren't gone long before we headed back to get ready for dinner at La Cucina.
Sakari was already dressed up and ready to go and we quickly changed and headed out.
The menu:
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I could not for the life of me figure out what dish it is that I always eat when we come here and it's SO YUMMY!
I ended up deciding that it was probably the Carbonara, but decided I would opt to try something completely different this time. I mean I'm different this time around so why not BE different totally right?
Now if you think that our waiter at O'Sheehans was fast...that was slo-mo compared to our waitress here. She was zipping back and forth and it was hard to get her attention. Finally she came over to see if we were ready to order.
I ordered the Insalata Con Pere, which was mixed greens, pear, walnuts, and gorgonzola cheese. The hubby ordered the same thing.
We waited and waited and I flagged the waitress down when I seen the puff of smoke coming our way from her burning the rubber on her feet as she zoomed by. "Hey, can we get some bread?" She went back, grabbed a loaf of bread and we didn't even catch a glimpse of her as she dropped the bread and ran. Hmm, ok. So next go around was "Can we get some of the bread plates to put our bread on please?" Zoom, she was gone again to bring them back. She said "Do you want some butter?" Um sure I guess. I mean I certainly didn't intend on eating it dry.
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We waited awhile on the butter and it came out about 2 seconds before our actual dinner came out. I was kinda disappointed that we didn't have any bread to munch on prior to our meal.
I ordered the Rigatoni alla gorgonzola noci. It came with a gorgonzola blue cheese cream sauce and almonds. Now it looked good, but I didn't have any silverware. Ugh! That meant flagging down the waitress again as she zoomed by.
It was pretty good but I could have done without the almonds, which were kinda soggy and not appealing. I like my almonds crunchy.
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The hubby ordered a pizza: The meatlovers. He said it was good.
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The hubby ordered a pizza: The meatlovers. He said it was good.
The hubby ordered a pizza: The meatlovers. He said it was good.
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Wait, I started glancing around the dining room and forgot that they had the oils for the bread. Where are our oils???? Once again, this meant flagging down the waitress to ask about it. "Oh, I didn't give you any? I'm so sorry" She brought some over and poured it in a dish for us.
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The rest of the meal went well...I mean what else could we be missing at this point? I'm pretty sure we had ask for everything needed at some point during this meal.
It was time for desert.
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I ordered the Torta di Ricotta con Crema al Limone (gosh, they make these meals such a mouthful....you would find me just pointing to what I wanted) and it was SO YUMMY!
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Sakari ordered a bowl of vanilla ice cream
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And the hubby ordered the Cannoli. His was AMAZING! We all tried it.
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That's what you get for shoving it all in your mouth at once like someone was about to take it from you! Now we don't have to hear you talk. 😉 (Notice she has her ipad with her. She takes that thing everywhere when we force her to go out to eat. She will draw until the meal comes out).
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So what would this meal have cost us had we not had our Platinum Certificate you ask? $67.00
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I am really beginning to wonder what has happened to the service on the NCL ships with the last 2 cruises. We've been away for awhile but geesh. I was really hoping this wasn't any indicator of what was yet to come the rest of the week.
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We headed back to the room and found this on the bed...rut row!
I honestly don't know what I would do if I lost any of my items. I wouldn't be able to function. But because these things happen, I (as a precautionary) will divide our items up into every suitcase to make sure that if anything comes up missing, we will all have something at least. This goes for our flights there as well.
We also received this...we were gaining an hour tonight AND pulling into port at 10am tomorrow. (I really wish this would be happening on a day we were pulling into port at 8am instead).
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The next weird thing was that the hubby and I went out on the balcony to sit for awhile and just talk about our plans for tomorrow and how nervous I was about my first day going ashore in port. I made the comment to him that it looked really dark outside and we didn't even see the moon. I went inside to make myself a glass of water and he starts yelling "come here...hurry, look at this!!!" as I slothly made it out to the balcony. There was a RED moon coming up over the water line. It was crazy looking!! Like most people will sit and watch the sun go down and the moon rise but this moon was coming up VERY VERY LATE!! The color was just so brilliant and bright! I stopped carrying my DSLR camera and zoom lens many years ago and this was one moment that I was wishing I had it on me. It was just so pretty. We watched it rise from the ocean out of nowhere until it was high in the sky.
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Does anyone know why this happened like this? Like so late and not at sundown or before? Most of the time the moon is out before the sun ever goes down. I went back (just now) and looked at our receipt from eating and it said it was 7:44, which we know that was not the correct time because our reservations were for 7:30pm and we most certainly did not eat in 14 minutes and head out. I would estimate that our dinner lasted at least 1 1/2 hours and then time spent walking back to the room and then some time spent on the balcony before I went in and then it occurred.
I headed back in, removed my boot and assessed my damage from the day. I was a little swollen, mostly in my leg, but the pain wasn't "too" bad.
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Sakari said she was tired and decided to go to sleep. I took my shower and held on for dear life because quite frankly being in a small enclosed shower, on a moving ship, with soap running down me, just made me nervous. Thank goodness for grab bars. Off to bed we went after that.
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​I just looked up the date of this "moonrise" and it said the moon rise was at 8:51pm. Maybe that's what it was. I don't know. I always thought it comes up before the sunset.