DAY 4: GREAT STIRRUP CAY

This was our most anticipated day yet. I was so happy to return to GSC. It's been since 2012 when I was there last and I have since discovered that I had missed so much last time.

After doing my research on the place, I was looking forward to going over toward the little lagoon area away from the crowd and enjoying the day.

Kendra was wanting to do the stingray encounter with the kids along with my son and his gf. It was going to be an awesome day and I have been excited for months about going back.

I woke up a little before 8am and headed outside. It was cold and the ship was really rocking. I knew this couldn't be good news. It had been rocking since last night and it hadn't got any better. I knew that GSC was a tender port and rocking + tender = no go.

The Captain came on over the speaker...and this is when the box under our cabinet worked for the very first time, to let us know unfortunately for the safety of everyone on the ship, we would not be able to dock at GSC and this would be a sea day. I knew this, but didn't want to believe it until I heard it for myself. :( I was totally bummed.

Jamie the cruise director said there would be all kinds of new and fun activities planned for the day and they got a revised version of the dailies coming our way. Bah humbug

For those of you that WILL be able to make it to GSC...this is for you..

Of course the speaker in the room woke up the family and my husband had that "concerned are you ok?" look on his face when he looked at me.

Ok, you win some you lose some. This would be the first time we have lost. It's ok. It just gives me another excuse to find a cruise to come back here.

They got dressed and we headed up to....THE PASTA BAR. Yes, they did have breakfast there. I had no clue!!! But, it wasn't a buffet. It was an omelet station and a waffle station. I was in heaven.

They also had other things there, but it wasn't a buffet. You had to tell them what you wanted and they put it on your plate.

Sakari met some friends on the ship and they invited her to join in their ping pong game. (Well, maybe it was the sad puppy dog face she had put on while watching them and they felt sorry for her). She hasn't quite mastered this game and she hits the ball like she was playing baseball. I felt sorry for the kids chasing the ball every time she hit it. It wasn't long before I told her that we had to go and saved the other kids.

Sakari wanted to go to the kids club so off we went. Of course they revised their schedule too, but I didn't even bother to look since the only thing I really needed to know is this would now be a regular sea day, which meant closed from 12-2 and 5-7pm.

When we arrived there, there was a red headed guy there...with attitude. Geesh. I found him very rude and even though I had seen him in there all week, I didn't have the "pleasure" of meeting him or talking to him until today...thank goodness.

I had ask him if the kids do the circus on these short cruises and he responded by telling me that they practice their skills all week for the circus. Ok, wouldn't you take this as a "yes"??? So I ask him when the show was. He looked at me like I was crazy and said "there's no show! There's not enough time for a show on a 4 day cruise!" Um, ok...then why "practice their skills"???

Then he turned to Sakari and said in a rude manor... "Did you forget to take shower?" Um what?? He must have seen the look on my face when he said that and said "Well she still has face paint on since last nights white hot party". Yea she does...and your point???? Oh that's right, your point was that she hadn't showered. Maybe some day you'll have a child of your own and they will beg you to keep on their beautiful artwork on their face and hopefully you will scold them and never give in and make them take a shower anyhow.........

Then all of a sudden he yells "Don't touch the gate! You know better!" Then waited for a minute like he was training a dog to see if she'd do it again before he opened the gate to let her in.

His last words to me "We close at 12, not after 12, so be here before 12 to pick her up."

Now "normally" I have had the most positive experiences with the counselors at the kids club. But this guy was just plain rude and everything he said was uncalled for. Seriously.

We headed to the casino for a little while and met up with Kolin and his gf. Around 11:30am we went back to pick up Sakari from the kids club. You know, I didn't want to be late and be scolded like a dog. When I arrived, I ask "Is this early enough for you?" I didn't get a response.

We decided it was time for lunch and wanted something different. In all honestly, I usually love NCL's food whether it be from the buffet, outdoor cafe, the sports bar or MDR. But this time, it just didn't seem the greatest. We figured we would try out the MDR in the back of the ship. Boy am I glad we did!

Sakari spends any time she can drawing or doing activities...

Kids meal

We had a REALLY nice sit down and relaxing lunch. We talked a lot and we played around a lot. It was really a joy to have this time.

My family takes every opportunity to have fun and take funny pictures. 

From funny to serious in the blink of an eye.

We placed our orders and a waiter came around with free rum punch for everyone. What a nice surprise. He even gave Kolin some. LOL 

The lady at the table behind didn't get hers and started screaming and yelling and waving the waiter over when he went back to get more saying she wanted her free rum punch. By then the waiter had filled back up and was doing another part of the room in the opposite direction.

We would watch this lady try to attempt to flag down ever waiter in the room for her free punch. It was almost hilarious and I believe her husband grabbed her hand at one point and brought it down and told her to "stop it"...he caught us looking over at her lame attempts to get her free drink. She said "well, I want my free stuff!!!" If I hadn't drank out of mine already I would have offered all of them to her just to shut her up. She was looking like a fool at this point.

Eventually when the waiter came over to take her order, the first thing out of her mouth is "I want my free rum punch". He had no clue what she was talking about. She pointed at our table and said "They got free rum punch, I want mine". The waiter didn't even get to take her order. He had to go off and find out what she was talking about and bring her the free punch. LOL

Our food arrived and it was SO YUMMY. 

I had the popcorn shrimp.

I also had the hummus and dip, which was very bland for some reason and not what I'm use to when I buy it at the store or work. 

The hubby had a salad, which came with no salad dressing. Eeek. It took awhile for them to return to ask how things were for him to let them know he still needed dressing. Oops.

Sakari had chicken noodle soup

I also ordered the chicken salad on a pretzel bun. I am HOOKED on pretzel rolls/buns. Whenever we go out to eat and a pretzel roll is an option, I get it.

This sandwich was so good! It was a little on the salty side though...not the roll, but the chicken salad. But that wasn't about to stop me. I think I was moaning as I ate it was so good. LOL

At this point, I realized something. Every time we have ever eaten in the MDR, we have had pretty decent food. But yet for some reason we chose to go to the buffet 80% of the time for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I think it's just the convenience of getting there, picking what you want and eating with no wait (other than the line). Then if there's thing you want more of, you go back. If there's thing you don't like, you don't have to eat it because you can go back for something else. At the MDR, you get what you order-site unseen. If you don't like it, yea, they'll get you something else, but I think it's rude to order more while there. I don't know. That's just me. The other factor is dressing up. I'm on vacation and the last thing I want to do is dress up to eat. For a show, yes, to eat, no. So we avoid the MDR most of the time.

However, after these 2 cruises, I had the best meals there, it was something different than what's offered in the buffet, and we had the best dining experience. I think I'm actually going to start going there more often.

I don't realy remember what we did right after this, but I know that Sakari wanted to head back to the kids club because Shayla and Brayden were going for awhile. So when it opened, she headed back for awhile.

Sakari started coloring Brayden a picture of the Hulk. She didn't get to finish it by the time we picked her up.

I did a little packing while she was there and we decided to pick up the kids at 4:15pm. Kendra DID look at the dailies and read that they were having a balloon animal class up at the Plantation at 4:30. So, we decided since it was a boring day, we might as well find some interesting things to do together with the kids and was glad to see this.

We had a blast trying to make these "animals" with some of us popping the balloons and having to start over.

I think it was the highlight of Kolins day too. LOL

Do you see this? Kolin has a plate on his lap. WE JUST ATE....SERIOUSLY.

After making doggies, it was time to make flowers.

Give Kolin a chance to squeeze in something funny and he will....

The couselor came over and Kolin wanted to know what else she could teach him to make. She said she knew how to make a turtle. She then made one for him

I noticed today that this was also the area they have the sushi bar.

After that, we headed to the photo gallery to make sure we got our pictures picked out and purchased before it got too crowded at the last minute.

They had a special, Buy 4 and get 5th one free. I picked out 5, but didn't get the 5th one free. I guess they all have to be the same size? Now on the other ships, they are never like this. It's always ANY photos you pick out.

They stamped this paper for me...like I was going to buy more. Geesh.

I also bought a post card with the ship on it from the gift shop earlier. I don't know, I was thinking I needed it to put in the front of my scrap book. I guess I was wrong because they come with the picture.

I didn't have my latitudes ship pin in my room. I'm going 100% now with this trend of never getting it in my room. However, I didn't have to go down to customer service to ask for them this time. The room steward was in the hallway and I over heard someone else stopping and telling them they didn't get their pin. She she went and got some. I ask for mine and she gave me 2 as well.

So now to the story regarding the penny machine. On the first day, Courtney slid her room card in it to get the smashed penny. It didn't work. We did some adjusting to the penny we wanted with the handle and tried again. Still nothing came out.

The following day we ended up going to customer service about something and then we mentioned the penny machine. They looked up the charges and verified that it had come off her card and called the maintenance guy. He came over and took us upstairs to the machine at Dazzles. He verified that it didn't work, grabbed some tools and tried to open it. It didn't work. He was able to see that it was out of pennies and that was the problem. He then grabbed a chair and proceeded to climb up to the top of it and reach down to grab pennies. He gave us different kinds and let us chose several of them. How nice. He gave us all 2 each. I thought that was nice and not called for, but that's just NCL service for you.

I put it with my Sun penny from the previous week and they will go in my scrapbook for the cruise.

The kids decided to buy the cheapest Internet package in order to check in for their flights. They didn't get the "best" seats (end of B, beginning of C) and I was glad I had decided to purchase the early bird check in and let them do it for me.

Sakari wanted to go back to the kids club one last time so we decided we would feed her one last time before shipping her off. Buffet it was.

I was craving a hot dog...and obviously potatoes of any form.

We had to head up to the gift shop to get Sakari's ship ornament that she started collecting on the Getaway (they are now all hanging on her tree) and we surprised her with it. I really wish I would have started collecting these back when we started cruising for her. I tried asking on here if anyone would be willing to get me one but the post was taken down. I guess you're not allowed to do that? I know others ask for things like ship pins they didn't get on their cruise or for buying and selling future cruise certificates, so I didn't really see what the difference was. But it is what it is I guess.

I forgot I did purchase the 1 white hot party picture they took of us. Not the best of course, but I thought I had to come up with 5 pictures.

Kendra had a bunch of casino chips she needed to cash in that I had been holding on to for her so we headed up there for a few last "plays" and our final cash in.

We headed back to the room to try to get the packing done so that when we picked up Sakari from the kids club, we wouldn't have to spend any time doing that.

I always hate to see this laying on my bed.

They had a crab waiting on Sakari for the night.

My packing skills were not going so good tonight. Since I bought the hand held scale from the gift shop on the Sun, it sure did get its use. I was over 50#. Yikes. I unpacked and repacked. Still over. I did it all again...geesh, I finally got it right. It was a long night of packing. But, they were ready to be sat out when we returned for the night.

I had also bought 2 future cruise certificates (1 for me and 1 for the daughter as a Christmas gift) and my statement reflected that it was on there. Around 11pm, Kendra panics (as she always does) about buying one and how she forgot AGAIN. That girl has yet to purchase one because she waits until the last minute and it's too late. But, she will get hers and she will be surprised.

I actually decided to give it to her by making her a shadow box, put a scrapbook paper of a palm tree in the back of it, filled it with sand, put some shells from our cruise in there, bought some plastic sea animals, attached a few things to the outside of it...1 of them happens to be a Southwest gift card and super glued a "message in a bottle" on the outside that has the FCC inside of it. I really hope she likes it.

Of course I have to give credit to the fine people here on cc who helped me with multiple ideas for it. You people are awesome.

I went to go pick up Sakari and the rude red head made a slick comment saying that Sakari had "stubbed her toe and acted as if she cut it OFF!" Really dude? She's 6 years old and a girl, of course it's drama when she gets hurt.

She had a paper with her that she had made and I just loved it.

But Kendra had told me that one night she had seen a paper hanging up with her name on it that had her hand prints and something about loving mom on it. She didn't have it on her so I took it upon myself to go INTO the kids club...GASP, I figured I would be scolded, and ask about any papers that she might have did. They did find it and gave it to me. I wonder why they weren't giving papers to the kids to take home? The Sun didn't give me any papers either. Usually Sakari comes home with a folder full of stuff. But, not these 2 cruises. Just weird. Do they just throw them all away at the end of the cruise? What a waste.

We headed up to the pool deck and it was feeling a lot warmer now. Weird...we are getting closer to Florida and it's warmer than it was in the Caribbean. However, it was still a bumpy and windy ride.

Once again...you know what time it is...time to eat right? We found pizza, wings, chicken salad and cookies at the buffet to snack on and then back to the room we went.

Sakari had a little bit of time tonight to work on her drawing and it was a little more extensive tonight.

The work in the face just amazed me. I think she was getting tired by the time she got to the body because she was acting different and she hurried and slammed the notebook shut and said "I'm tired, laid down and was out like a light". LOL

Our last and final day on the ship and the trip home will be next. It will show the goofy side of Kendra and I when we are separated and how we cope.