Day 7: Sea Day #2

Thursday, June 29

Thursday was our second “at sea” day!! YAY! The ports were super fun, but I think we were all ready for a slower, more relaxed day after the 3 port visits in a row. (I mean, we usually do many days of sightseeing in a row when we travel, so that part is not exactly out of the ordinary…. but being in the Caribbean + sunshine + a big boat= the desire to just…. lounge a little!)

In the morning the boys slept in a bit, so Ivan and I joined my parents in one of the Adults Only hot tubs. They have a big area on the ship called the Solarium which has an adults only pool and some hot tubs, plus a separate bar and lounge chairs.

This was nice. Eventually my sister joined too, but by that time my parents + Ivan had gotten out. I just sat and talked with her alone for quite a long time, which I really enjoyed. 🙂

I met up with my parents and I think Asher in the buffet restaurant afterwards for a later breakfast. We didn’t really do a big, organized “family meal” with all 11 of us for breakfast ever on this trip. My sister’s family, with the younger kids, tends to eat ASAP in the morning and earlier than my family with teenagers does. 🙂 We sort of just did our own things in the mornings, depending on the day, and I think this made sense and worked out well.

Our only real plans for the day were a reservation to go ice skating around 11 a.m. The ship has a rink, but it’s not super large, so they offer it by time slots. We all met up to do this, minus my parents who just watched.

None of the little kids had much (or any) experience ice skating, of course, so they did about how you’d expect. Haha! Ice skating is really not an easy thing to do, even for older people. There was this much older girl- maybe very late teens- during our session who just kept continually wiping out, lol! But on the whole, the little kids seemed to really like it and by the end they were improving a lot.

This was fun! It was just the right length of time. I think our whole session was 45 minutes, but minus the time to get skates on, etc., we really only had maybe 20-25 minutes on the ice. It gave the little ones enough time to start to get the hang of it without overdoing it, either.

After ice skating, we changed back into swimsuits and shorts. The boys wanted to go up to do the Flow Rider (probably their favorite activity on the ship), and my mom wanted to go up and watch for a while. She hadn’t seen them do this yet.

We ended up sitting here for a really, really long time! They had music playing, and as we were way at the back of the ship, the ocean views were killer. There were also big sections of shaded benches too that we rotated to. It turned out to be a good place to just sort of sit and relax, while still being close to the boys. (They had to continually circulate through the line to do this…. ride… wait….ride….wait…etc.)

They got a LOT of practice with this over the week. So, they started learning more “tricks” on it. The attendants would tell the kids who had more experience, like Ethan and Asher, how to try different things, like moving to a sitting position on the board (actually very difficult, apparently), doing spins, etc.

The water pressure is really strong, and if you get even slightly off balance it sends you flying off the board into a “wipe out” and you wash up at the back. It’s much harder than it looks.

After enough time watching, I decided, I want to try!! I figured I would not be particularly good at it, and I wasn’t (lol), but it was fun to try.

The rest of the afternoon mostly looked like that. Later before heading back to get ready for dinner, a few of us stopped at the pub for a drink, but otherwise it was mostly just a relaxing afternoon. My sister and her husband had joined us on the Flow Rider too, so that was fun.

The only negative of the afternoon was getting a call from my sister-in-law that she had stopped by the house and it was 87 degrees inside!! Apparently the air conditioner broke! I of course didn’t have cell service out in the middle of nowhere, but I was able to talk with her on What’s App. I didn’t have a way to call our a/c guy, so fortunately she was able to call him for me and he stopped over later that afternoon. My big concern was Summer, our hamster! Didn’t want to come home to a cooked hamster. 😬 She moved her into the basement where it’s always much colder and the a/c was up and running again by evening.

Formal Night #2

Thursday was also our second “formal” night of the cruise. We had decided we would do a little dressier night one night, and a little less dressy on the first formal night. So this was the night we boys were planning to wear their suits! #handsome

There was even lobster tail on the menu! Yum! It was very good. I also had a separate fish dish, because at first we thought the lobster tail wasn’t going to have any sides with it…. but it did! So then I ended up with probably too much food. (Between a starter, essentially 2 entrees, and then, DESSERT…. Oh, plus the bread basket… and wine….oof!! I was stuffed by the end.) It was all very good, though!

Me and Ivan at the table:

I got several really nice photos of all the boys….

And, family pics, of course:

People take the “formal” nights to different levels these days. Back 20+ years ago when I went on several cruises, women often wore floor length gowns and many men wore tuxedos! Many people keep it much more casual nowadays, despite the “formal” dress code. I’d say it’s a mix. There were definitely other people equally as dressed up as we were, or more so, but then also many men not wearing jackets, just wearing a nice button-down shirt or polo only, etc. But since this trip was to honor my parents’ 50th anniversary, we felt we should dress up! And, we also wanted an excuse for the boys to wear their nice suits that we bought for Ethan’s graduation… ha!

The little ones were tired, so they headed to bed after dinner. My parents, Ivan and I headed to the show- a very dynamic, exciting percussion-based show put on by a fantastic group of Argentinians. They were great! Funny, too.

There wasn’t a ton on the activity schedule that night that we really wanted to do, so, we just went back to our tried-and-true favorite place: the Duck and Dog Pub. The musician (shown below on the left) was really excellent and was there most nights of the cruise. This was “our kind of place”, too (versus say, a nightclub atmosphere or something); it allowed for good conversation and was the only place on the ship that routinely carried IPA beer. lol. (A must for my Dad and Ivan.)

In the first half of the week we did more variety in the evenings (the silent dance party, karaoke, poolside dance party, etc.). But toward the end of the week we just kind of settled into a nice routine of “dinner- show- drinks/music!” most nights! The boys were often off doing their own thing (basketball, mini golf, etc.) but would often stop by at some point where we were (the late night pizza place was right across from the pub). 😉

Ivan and I ended up sitting and listening to music in the pub until almost midnight on this night. Mexico was playing soccer in the Gold Cup and they actually had the game on, so Ivan didn’t want to leave until that ended. 🙂

Almost to the end of the trip!! Sad!! Friday (the next day) we had one final port of call stop before getting back to Fort Lauderdale on Saturday morning.