Friday: GRENADA: Discover Scuba Diving and our first time here.

After a lot of research with the vendors here, we ended up booking with Native Spirit. They were pretty much the only choice we had because it was 11 days before Sakari's 10th birthday, which still made her 9 years old and all of the vendors (except Native Spirit) would not allow her to do the DSD with us. But, they agreed since she was just days away, she has been diving for 1 year and 6 months, she has officially obtained her "MASTER PADI seal" completion AND she has done 4 ocean dives so far. Yippee!!! I also had to find a vendor that would take us JUST to the statues. That was all that I was interested in.

This morning I woke up at .... you guessed it, 6:30am, just like every other day this week. I went up to get some pop to get my caffeine started...and of course the doors to the buffet area are closed. UGH! So, I walk around to the glass doors and figured I'd just endure the stares from the staff just like every other day this week....ONLY>>>>THIS TIME THEY WERE LOCKED TOO! Alright now I'm upset. Really? I paid for this package and can't even get my pop when I want. They really need to put the pop machines OUTSIDE of an area that is locked before 7am, between breakfast and lunch, between lunch and dinner and after 9pm. Like seriously. They put an area outside of the buffet (where the sliding glass doors are) for those to get coffee in the mornings, but not everyone drinks coffee! I feel ripped off!

I went back to the room to wake up the fam and headed back up to the buffet and straight to the pop machine at 7am.

TODAY...the buffet was super crowded. I had never seen it like this before. Everyone must like Grenada and everyone was getting off? Something was going on. There wasn't even any chairs available and we had to circle around for quite some time to find a spot to eat at. I had my "normal" breakfast and headed outside to the pool area to exchange my towels again.

I met up with Kia on the deck and she informed me that she was not allowed to drop of Xander at the kids club until 9am. We were to meet our vendor for our scuba excursion today at 8:30am. So...the plan was for us to get off, meet the vendor, beg and plead for them to stay and even throw in a little bit of tears if needed, so that they would wait on Kia. Then I told Kia where to go to find us and to be looking for the boat at the dock. She said if she didn't find us and we left, she'd know they couldn't wait on her.

We got off the ship at 8:15am.

Had our picture taken and headed down the pier.

We were winding our way out of the building. A lot of things weren't open yet.

 I tell Sakari not to talk to strangers, but she said this one was ok because he didn't talk.

We made it outside. Ok...now what? Our instructions were to go to the ferry dock. So, I'm picturing a dock that looked like the ferry dock from Martinique...however, there wasn't one.

We seen a small dock with 2 boats there and you had to walk down these steps. I stopped to ask someone about "Native Way" and they pointed down the steps. Down we went and one boat pulled away to allow them to dock.

I guess this was our boat. If they expected me to "look" for their boat that said "Native Way", I would have never found it. It was on there so light.

I explained to them about the rest of our party and the babysitting and they said "no worries, we still have to wait on others that are going over for the snorkeling". Whew! I felt so much better. We got on the boat and waited.

Before long, a group arrived. They must have been the snorkelers. Couldn't they have walked slower? Still no sign of Kia and Michaela.

Finally I was told that they had to leave in order to get the snorkelers there in time for their excursion. I was heartbroken. But, one of the guys told me not to worry because he "would find her and bring her". Um...how? They said they'd go drop us off and come back for her. I kept telling him that she is going to be looking for the boat and if she don't see it, she'll assume they left and she's not going. He also mentioned that he would possibly send a car. She's not going to be looking for a car either. This is not going well. I knew they'd never find her.

Off we went. Then I discovered that he hadn't even ask her name or a description or anything! (tear)

I felt helpless and so many thoughts were racing in my mind. I really wanted us to go diving together and it would have been Kia and Michaela's first time.

This would be the trip of learning how to jump off and on a boat while docked in the water. I tell ya, I'm getting good at it! Only this time, they went a little too far in. Oops.

So to read our AWESOME scuba adventure, click the following tab to get there, which includes this beautiful beach the dive shop is located at:

Walking back to the ship. I was so glad it was such a short walk. It was hot out and I was a little tired...even from only a 30 minute dive.

We did do a little shopping before heading back and found myself a tee shirt (that I try to get from every place we've been) and a magnet. I was sad that I couldn't find a dive magnet this time around.

It was now 2:33pm and we headed to the ship. 

Here's our picture from the day (even though RC is VERY slow on getting pictures out daily. Every ship I have ever been on has their pictures out within hours but RC won't have the pictures done from that day until the following day. Weird).

We decided to head to the buffet for some lunch, since we hadn't ate.

Everything was good like always. 

I was craving a salad. Where is the shredded cheese at on these ships???

We all hung out at the pool and Sakari swam some more. She just can't get enough water time and I was enjoying the adult time.

We hung out until 5:30pm and then said our goodbyes and headed to the room to get a quick shower and dressed for the night.

The look I get when I tell her it's time to go.

On our way back down to the room, we happened to be on the glass elevator facing the Atrium. Sakari noticed some face painting going on and she wanted her done.

She was the last in a long time to have hers done and she knew exactly what she wanted.

She loved it.

Then she was off to the kids club for some fun with munchkins her own size. Daddy and I had other plans and honestly, she really acted like she didn't want to go to the kids club. I don't think she was really enjoying it this time around. But, our plans didn't involve pint sized mini-me's so...she completely understood and said she'd go so we could go have some fun.

Off to the adult-only Solarium we went. I couldn't believe that this entire cruise we hadn't made it back here to swim and tonight was going to be the night!

On our way...they were playing some old movies.

There wasn't anyone in the pool and the life guard was standing on the edge patrolling the....water with no one in it.

That water was COLD! Almost too cold for it to be comfortable. I also felt a little uneasy about being watched. The life guard did not take his eyes off us when we were in there. It felt weird.

We finally decided to try out the hot tub. The pool water was just too cold. 

As we were getting in, two other ladies were getting out and they warned us that it was super hot and it was hard to stay in because of the very strong odor of chlorine.

They wasn't exaggerating either. The smell of chlorine was so strong that it started burning our eyes and nose. We tried to endure it for as long as we could...but it just wasn't working out well. It was time to go. The pool was cold the hot tub was hot and smelly. Whew. Not the experience we were hoping for, but I guess at least we could say we did it.

We headed back to the room to get out of the chlorine infested smelling clothes and headed to the casino.

I have to say that we made a good choice of coming to the casino tonight. There wasn't many people there and we both did pretty good.

My go-to game on this cruise was Alice and there were 2 of them. I liked the one on the very end of that row. She treated me well right after sitting down. I cashed out and moved on.

I hadn't done well on the other Alice game, but figured either way, I'd try $10 in it and see what it did. Inserted my money and then...

Cashed out and moved on. Next up was a wolf game, Carnival Rio and Heidi's beer Haus games and did fairly decent on them...at least I walked away with a tad bit more than I put in them after some bonus rounds came up.

I decided to try another one of my go-to games to see how it did. Not huge wins, but decent enough to keep me playing for a long time.

I had to stop because it was time to pick Sakari up from the kids club. The hubs had decided to play the tables tonight and I told him to just stay and I'd go get her...then he could find me...somewhere on this big ship...once he was done. LOL

I picked up the munchkin and she said she was hungry. Oh yea, I forgot that we hadn't really ate dinner. So, off to the pizza place we went.

After eating, we headed down to deck 6 to check out our pictures and found the hubs talking to another couple. He told me he walked away winning $137 tonight. Cool!

Of course he was now hungry and back up to the Solarium we went for round 2 of pizza.

We headed back to the room and found a new towel animal that we had never seen before. Awesome....a bat.

Here's what the room looks like with the bunk pulled down from the ceiling. I found it weird that the ladder went on the corner and we kept running into it all the time. But, with a sofa there, where else could it go right?

I had already turned in my homework last night, so this was a "free" night for me. 

Since it was a sea day tomorrow, I took my alarm off and planned on sleeping in for once. 

Sakari decided to work on her drawing for the night.

I decided to check in with the kids. Kendra informed me that it was snowing again. Aha aha aha...I mean, "I'm so sorry to hear that, whew...man it's hot here."

She ask me when we would be returning home and I let her know that we'd be home some time on Wednesday evening. She knew we were spending a few days after the cruise in Puerto Rico, but wasn't sure when we were flying back. (I'm not sure if I mentioned it in the review or not, but we went into business with them at the end of last year...yea I know, just what we need...another company to take up our time, and since we were out of town, that left her there to run it, without any days off. LOL She's not used to that and usually comes and goes as she likes. Oops! Well, I guess you'll be working half the week next week too).

Then I would check in with Kolin to see if Loki and the fish were still alive. He told me that everything looked good and that Mango (our Lionfish) hadn't tried to eat Sandy (our diamondback Goby) yet. So, that was good news.

I figured since you all know everything about me, I'd share my passion for the ocean that I have at home. You see...my love for marine animals extend beyond the ocean and since I'm stuck in the middle of Ohio and not by an ocean...this will have to tie me over.

Here's Mango...although she's grown a bit since this. She will follow us around and instantly notices when we walk in the room. She likes to be hand fed.

This is Sandy and I bet you can figure out why we named her that...she's always busy.

Here's my beautiful bubble tip anemone.

It was so small when I first got it. I feed it a lot of oysters and shrimp. It has grown into a monster and it's not even fully extended in this picture.

This is what it looked like when I first got it last year in October. Just a baby.

Here she is during feeding. They will grab the food and pull it into their mouth and close up like a big bubble. She's so pretty. When I first got her, I didn't know if she would make it. They are hard to keep sometimes. They are very picky about their surroundings and believe it or not, they move around until they find a spot they like. They detach their "feet", or the base of them, and then puff up and swim to another area. She moved several times over the first 2 weeks before deciding on the spot she stays in now. Sometimes they will "commit suicide" as we reefers like to call it. They'll attach themselves to a wave maker (which is a pump with a propeller that goes in rhythm to what you set for it, which duplicates the ocean waves going back and forth in the tank) and it will chop them in half. She tried in the beginning and I just turned them off until she left that area. She's my pride and joy.

I have several GPS (Green Star Polyps), Kenya Trees, 2 feather dusters, a couple of hairy mushrooms, toadstools, some regular red and green mushrooms, some candy cane corals, pulsating xenia, frogspawn, war coral, Palythoa Polyp coral, and Anthelia in this tank. I plan on adding more down the road but with all these vacations...it's hard to keep up. LOL

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Grenada was a beautiful place. Grand Anse Beach was absolutely stunning and definitely the type of place I would go to hang out at! Hopefully we'll get back there one day.

The diving was definitely different than anything we have experienced before. But I knew that going in. Very little fish and coral in the area, but that's not what I went for so I wasn't disappointed in that aspect.

I was very pleased with what I saw there, but was a little disappointed that we didn't see it all. I was very disappointed in the time frame we got for diving. 30 minutes was just ridiculous for that kind of money! If they would have showed us everything and not been so rushed, it would have been worth it.

I did feel VERY rushed during the process. We had 2 instructors with us and since Adrien was taking care of Kia and Michaela and Dextroy was busy dealing with Sakari, that left me and the hubby to try to figure out on our own what to look for. I felt that we were a little too "split up" as far as distances. Adrien was so far ahead of us that I feel like we were missing things. Maybe Kia can confirm if they were able to see anything that I might have missed.

For the time we had diving, I felt like we could have just went around another time and seen it again (and maybe anything we missed) since we had the hang of this finally. OR slowed down some and had more time at the ones we did see. I don't know. It just wasn't as I had expected. I like to take my time and actually LOOK at things and take pictures. Not just pass over it quickly and keep going. You miss a lot that way. I also had all these plans in my head to take pictures of each other WITH the statues. Cute poses and so on. I was disappointed that didn't happen as well because we were so rushed and I couldn't keep up let alone have time for that. :(

I'm hoping there will be a next time in the future to repeat this and do it right!

But, if you have ever thought of trying out scuba and want to do a DSD, this is definitely a good place to start. Fairly shallow water, beautiful sculptures, very interesting place and the water was easy to swim in with not much of a current (at least when we went). We did not have to fight a current at all here (like we have in past dives). I felt it was an excellent place for a beginner to dive. I know a lot of people come here to snorkel, but I'm not so sure you would really get to see some of the things that we did (especially like the mermaid) because they were so small...or even things that we didn't see, like the heads. I can't imagine being able to see them too great if you were snorkeling and the pictures...well, I can't imagine getting great pictures from that depth either if you're at the top. But that's just my opinion.