MITSUGIRLYS DAWN TO BERMUDA NOVEL (or review and pictorial as some may call it)
Day 8: Sea Day
DAY 7 of the cruise - SEA DAY
I was up at the crack of "Dawn" well, at least by 7:30am. I walked outside and it was still nice out. Yippee. I hope we have better weather going back to our home port than what we had leaving it.
Back to the room to wake the fam up at 8am. We headed to the buffet for breakfast and knew that we didn't have much time because we had to have Sakari dropped off at the kids club by 9am so that she would be allowed to participate in the kids "Big Top Circus" show later that day. That one last sea day that you can sleep in and the kids club is still going to make sure you don't get to. Sigh.
Now I love this cute little show that all the kids participate in at the theater. Sakari enjoys it a lot and gets so excited when she knows that they "still have it" on all the ships. However, like any of the other shows, when you see it for the first time, you are amazed and so into it. On the second round, how cute and cool is that. On the third, ok it's déjà vu now.
Then excitement builds again when your child moves up to the next "level" due to their age and they finally get to do something totally different with the skills. But, then you've now seen this a few times. Ok, someone wake me now. I almost can't wait until she grows out of wanting to do this (I know, bad momma), but it's just so repetitive. Or at least try a new skill. But, Sakari is an animal lover, so she will pick whatever she can that will relate to an animal...a Peacock feather and balancing it on various parts of her body it will be probably until she gets too old for that category again. She a stage girl, she loves this, I won't deny her doing it I guess. On with the show...
Once we dropped her off, we headed for some more "adult time"...yep casino it is again. Honestly, I do not have a gambling problem. I only gamble when I'm on the ship (and have only been to our local Hollywood casino's right down the road from us maybe 3 times since it was built several years ago...which speaking of, we are going tonight only because it's my dil's 22nd birthday and that's how she decided she wanted to celebrate this year) and I bring enough to go daily and usually about $40 a day. (If you have been keeping up with my "daily" activities, you might have caught that I actually "missed" an entire day/night and didn't even go to the casino once this cruise...I know that was a first for us). I have a "system" for it and I stick to the system MOST times unless things are just going really well...then I'll play more sometimes.
I know it's only 9am in the morning, but that means less people in the casino and hopefully my machine will be available.
I put my $20 in and pushed the $1.20 button to start out with, instead of the smallest bid. I'm starting out bigger and I expect to hit the $3.50 bid in no time. Although....I once again, didn't make it that high before I hit the bonus round. I think it was 2 spins...and BAM.
I think I ended up with 78ish free spins this time around. Not as many as before, but more money I believe.
I cashed out, headed over to the hubby, which was doing his "normal thing" which is to watch others play before he gets into the game and flashed him my winnings off of around $3.00 invested.
I then headed over to one of my usual favorite games, Cave King. It's a hit or miss if you will find one of these on any of the ships and of course you really have to search for them since they are a game within another game of 4. I also have decent luck playing this game and although I usually manage to hit the bonus round (which give you 7 free spins), I feel that I actually win more on just the spins than the bonus most of the time. I wouldn't say I have won "big" on it in the past, but usually a few hundred here and there and that's good enough for me. At least it usually keeps me playing for a good time and I like the sounds and the animations the "cave animals" make on this game.
I sat done and played the game I would say for at least a good half hour. I would go up to around $60 and then back down. It just kept me playing and I like that and I did walk away with more than what I invested.
I cashed out my winnings once I was done and then we decided to head back to the room for our remaining time before the Circus show to do a little packing. I like to try to get a lot of this done early in the day so that we can always enjoy our last night on the ship actually doing things we want and not packing.
We headed toward the theater a little bit before 11am, when the show was to start. Now we decided to sit a little further back than we normally do at the show and also we sat on the opposite side of the middle than we are normally at. It just happen to be where we came in at. I had no clue just how much this would throw Sakari off. She didn't locate us in the audience until after she had done her tricks with her age group and then they come out at the end to take a bow. The disappointed look on her face during her whole routine was just heart breaking. Then the look she gets once she does see us just fills my heart.
Finger balancing...
Way up high...
Mad skills...balancing on the elbow:
This comes naturally for Sakari, she has the dimple "butt chin" like her momma so she has an advantage over most kids. LOL
Coming out to take a bow at the end and she spots us.
Once the show was over we headed to the buffet for a little light lunch and then the kids wanted to head to the pool. The hubby and I were not finished eating yet, so Chrissy decided she would go ahead and take Sakari with her. She loves kids and doesn't mind taking any of them at any time...well, I hope she loves kids, she has 5 of them and raised the oldest since she was 13!!!!, whose mother abandoned him at the hospital. That shows what a loving and caring person she has been since a very young age to take on such a responsibility. (And she has twins too!!).
After we finished eating, we went to get our bathing suits and headed to the pool as well where we would find the kids having a great time.
Now when we first got there, I didn't see Kendra anywhere. When I ask Chrissy where she was she just said in a nonchalant way "Oh, she's just over there on the side getting a video and taking pictures of the dolphins in the ocean" SAY WHAT?????? ARE YOU SERIOUS? I'm missing dolphins? Ugh!
I ran over and Kendra was viewing her phone and telling me how the dolphins had been playing around the back of the ship and following them for awhile. Everyone was talking about them and I MISSED IT! Dammit. I would continue to look for them for 2 hours while we were out at the pool and I never did see them. Sigh Just my luck.
My little Mexican baby. I know everyone would love to move to Bermuda (it's beautiful, but not practical $$ wise for my taste), but I have always said if I had my choice, I would pick Cozumel. I simply love it there and I think Sakari would fit right in she's just so dark instantly.
The kids had a blast on the slides.
Now in the above picture if you look closely, you can see that the slide winds down and ends up in a small round pool, which is not really meant to be a pool to play in but when you have a bunch of kids and no employee around to tell them not to, things happen.
There was an extremely tall girl there today and I would assume that she was at least 13-14 years old, just basing it off her looks and height. She was playing with some of the younger kids (I don't know if it was tag or what) and she was standing on the ladder that you use to get out of the slide pool and decided to jump into the pool. If you look in the picture, there's a black rubber piece up above there that goes over the huge over hang from the floor above. (It's right below the speaker in the picture) Obviously there's a black rubber piece there already because I can guarantee that people have probably hit their head on it before...and hit her head she did. She hit it so hard that it threw her backwards and she slammed down into the pool. Of course my nursing instincts came over me (and the theme song from Greys Anatomy "How to save a life" was playing in my head...sorry, too many years of working in the ER LOL) and I sprung into action. She was getting up at that point and at that point I knew for sure she was a teen because she was so embarrassed and didn't want to show any grief or pain (where a younger kid would have bolted out a blood curling scream with full emotions as if a body part was missing). I started running down the list of questions...is your vision blurred, headache, did you hit anything else on the way down...you know the normals and I swear the girl thought I was nuts and just kept saying "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine". She had a huge black mark across her face that was swelling and she ran and got her towel and out of the pool area she went. I watched her go upstairs where her (what I assumed) parents were and at least I knew she made it back to them before I could sit back down. Man kids scare me!
When I was up, I noticed that the wind felt a little colder. I hadn't notice before because there's a glass wall around where we were at.
The I looked out at the sea....
Yep, that was our view. It was starting to get foggy. No wonder it was getting cooler.
The kids continued to play and have a good time and didn't notice a thing. I kept feeling the temps drop though and I'm cold natured so it began to get a little uncomfortable to me.
I was ready to head out. I was wet and getting cold and I knew that our "water" days were about to come to an end on this cruise adventure. Of course Sakari would not want to leave and Chrissy said she'd stay there with them so they could continue to play for as long as they wanted.
We headed out with Kendra to change into warmer and dry clothes and then Kendra wanted to head to the casino to try her luck at the slots since I had been having all the luck so far.
We played at the casino for awhile and once again, my game didn't fail me and neither did a couple of the other ones in the same area. I walked out a winner, Kendra did not. LOL
I guess the kids had fun at the pool and it was time for them to leave. A few last plays and they were done.
After that, we went out on the deck to assess the "fog" situation and man it was cold and a lot worse!
At certain times, you couldn't even see the engine stack on the ship. It looked like some scary movie and a scene were everyone just got up and ran and left everything behind. There were towels and even clothes still laying on the chairs and not a person in site.
I absolutely love to hear the ship sound her horn, however, this was just really freaky. The captain was sounding the horn (and I timed it) every 3 minutes.
We walked back toward our room to put pants on and found Chrissy with all the kids in the library playing Monopoly. I was later told that Sakari won the game and had the most houses and money in the end. LOL Atta girl! Momma needs another cruise!
While we were back in the room...I actually ended up finding the hubby's old room card that we had thought he left sitting on the table in the MDR. He must have grabbed it after all and it was under the bed (which I discovered after pulling out some of the luggage to pack). HOWEVER, I also discovered that in fact, it still worked and was NOT deactivated like they told us they did at the customer service. That kind of worries me now because had he really lost it and someone else found it...yikes!
I had been eyeballing a shirt in the store since they "are out of the regular NCL Dawn shirts" and I figured now was the best time to head there and attempt to buy one...IF they weren't sold out of course because that's the story of my life with the Dawn at this point.
I was in luck...they still had it:
I felt kinda bad that they didn't have the normal "stuffed animals" that the other ships do on them and Sakari always gets to pick out 1 each cruise. She had not ask for anything this cruise and I went looking to see if I could find her a surprise.
I ended up with a cute little dolphin necklace that I just knew she would love and cherish.
We wanted to see the magician act today and I definitely wanted Sakari to come with us. THIS TIME she was excited...after refusing to go last time because she wanted to spend time with her friends in the kids club, she got a little taste of what she missed out on when daddy impressed her with the "magic coloring book" that she decided she would not miss this show this time around.
Can you tell she was super excited to be there? She was sporting her new dolphin necklace too.
A few selfies with the fam
Of course before the show began, it was time for NCL to try to make some extra money off their passengers on this last day of the cruise. The great offer of trying to win some money on scratch offs (which are really pull tabs). I never play these but Chrissy decided she would try. It was $20 for the stack of them and she handed them out to the kids to win her some big money..."momma needs another cruise!"
For that $20 investment, she walked away with a whopping $4 in winning tickets. Go her!
The show began and Sakari sat there in awww as she watched his wife be put into boxes, pulled in half, disappearing, changing places with David the magician and so on. Then....they brought out the birds. Ahhh the birds...real animals in this show. Sakari loved it! Kendra has a talking Umbrella Cockatoo and he is the sweetest thing ever with the funniest personality and Sakari just loves him.
Once the show was over the kids headed outside the theater and got their pictures taken with David and his wife Jamielynn
Here is a copy of the dailies for today. I forgot to add them at the beginning of todays review.
After the show, we decided it had been awhile since we had a bite to eat and since we were a little dressed up, we decided we wanted to head to one of the MDR's.
The first one we located was the Aqua MDR. Yep, that's where we will go then. Chrissy and Shayla went with us and I had no idea where Kendra had been most of the day after leaving the casino earlier when the kids were at the pool.
I got the cream of broccoli for my starter. I remember last time the hubby got it and I tried it and it was SO GOOD. This time it did not disappoint.
The hubby got this...
I can only assume this is the beef carpaccio...which is RAW MEAT!!! Gag and the hubby did just that after 1 bite. He had NO IDEA what he had just ordered and he is one to try different things...but this was just a face to die for after I looked at him. LOL Yea, we don't do raw meat, we don't do undercooked meat, we don't do pink meat. We don't want things to be leather, but it better not have anything that looks like it's pink in it. So having something on the plate that looked like it could get up and walk on us at any time would simply not do. Maybe that's why I don't like steak or pork chops or meat in general other than hamburger...which better be cooked good too! LOL
He quickly flagged the waiter down and said, "Um, on second thought, I think I'll have a bowl of the broccoli soup as well".
The multiple games of tic-tac-toe would continue until our main dishes came out.
I ordered the Roasted Chicken Breast I believe, but for some reason I can't find the picture of it. I do know that it was good though.
The hubby got the Whole Roasted Prime Rib meal:
He said his meal was good AEB (nursing term for as evidenced by) his clean plate at the end.
I honestly have no idea what Sakari had but she ate it all and finished with some ice cream.
We were all too stuffed to eat desert, but here's the menu for the night.
I really need to learn to take the time to put the correct settings on the camera when I take pictures of the menus to make them turn out better and clearer. There is a "document" setting on the camera and I normally forget to use it.
One last picture and we were ready to head out.
Sakari was going through kid time withdrawal and wanted to head to the kids club to play with her friends and dance on the light up floor one last night. She also knew that it was pj night, so we headed off to the room to change her into her pj's. She's a kid that absolutely hates clothes. Like seriously. She will come in the door and strip down to her underwear every day. She doesn't wear pj's and she has drawers full of new ones that she refuses to wear. However, she insisted on bringing a pair this time so that she could participate in the pj night at the kids club. I teased her saying..."Nope, you sleep in your underwear, so you'll have to go like that if you want to go" :eek: Yes, I've been working VERY HARD to break her of the habit of stripping and over the last 2 months, she's starting to come around, starting to get embarrassed if someone comes over (even her brothers and sisters) and runs for cover to put clothes on. She will conquer this!
We once again headed back to the casino. I have never had any luck playing that "one last time" so I decided to forgo playing tonight and just ended up cashing in all of my winnings. I believe I ended up winning around $996 when I walked out. Not a "big" win, but definitely more than the $200 I came there with to donate and didn't spend it all due to my winnings. I was definitely ahead I would say and I was happy about that.
We picked up Sakari at the kids club and headed back to the room to finish our last minute packing. BUT not until we "browsed" the buffet and I found me this...
I couldn't really make up my mind when we wanted to say goodbye to the Dawn the next morning, so I went with the logical answer...just pick Sakari's favorite color and hope for the best.
I grabbed several of the purple tags...because that's her favorite color. LOL
It looks like the Dawn will still be in our possession until at least 9:30am.
We had our luggage out by midnight and from the looks of everything, none of the bags had been picked up in the hallways yet.
Of course we ran into Chrissy, who said Kendra had not even started to pack yet. Chrissy opened up the room door and I just see clothes flying and Kendra's arms swinging and stuff being overstuffed into bags that looked like they were ready to bust at the seems. She looked up for only a minute and laughed and went back to "her way of packing". LOL My oh my...I really do not where she gets her skills from.
I have a HUGE glad bag that is bigger than the size of a large suitcase that I put all of our dirty clothes in during the week...I kinda use it as a clothes hamper. All the dirty clothes goes in 1 suit case at the end of the week...basically already packed for me, just seal and put it in the luggage, and the other 2 suitcases will have a division of our left over clean clothes, souvenirs and purchases, make up bag and toiletries.
When I get home the glad lock bag goes to the laundry room and the laundry will be finished that night. Everything up stairs to be put away and I'm relaxing by that evening. Kendra on the other hand, went to pack her suitcase for this cruise and still had clothes in it from her last cruise 2 months ago. :eek:
I swear we are not related. She was found on the roadside somewhere...honestly.
Off to bed we went around 1am dreading the next day.