Friday - A Day for Relaxation
Friday started out as most sea days do when I am on a cruise. I rolled over in my bed and pushed the button on the phone for room service and ordered coffee. After laying in bed for a few more minutes, I got out of bed and strolled out to the balcony where Jenny was already reading. She doesn't seem to sleep as well as I do when I am on a cruise. I must say that I truly hope that I am never on a ship that strikes an iceberg, because I will likely sleep right through it. The humming of the engines combined with the motion of the waves totally knocks me out. Since my exit from the former employer who shall not be named, my sleeping habits have become very erratic so I was worried that I would keep my travel buddy up during the cruise. But I slept like a rock. Apparently, there was someone in the room who snores that disturbed Jenny's sleep.... She seemed to have come prepared with earplugs as well as an IPhone with earbuds so that she could listen to music. But I guess it didn't work. Anyway, as I said, I slept very well.
I will tell you that I have found that there is less motion at the back of the ship which was where our cabin was located. However, there might be a little more engine noise which isn't really a noise so much as a hum, sort of like "white noise" which tends to block out other noise. Also, being at the back of the ship, there is no foot traffic passing your door. The only people who passed our cabin door were the cabin stewards and the people in the suite next to our room. I will tell you that people in suites seem to be quieter than people in steerage. Not that there is anything wrong with steerage....
Since I had twisted my ankle the previous day in Jamaica, I was kind of concerned that I would have trouble getting around on Friday, but I guess the ice that I had kept on it all afternoon Thursday had done the trick since it was feeling a lot better. After having our coffee, we made our way up to the Windjammer for breakfast. Following breakfast, we went out to the pool. We had marked on our Cruise Compass (Royal Caribbean's daily schedule of activities) all of the things that we wanted to do during the day.
Pool Time!
At the pool, we found terrific chairs on deck 12. The main pool on a Voyager class ship is located on deck 11. But I like going up to deck 12 and getting a chair looking over the pool so that I can see everything without having my view blocked by people standing in front of me. The key is that usually, you have to stalk the chairs near the rail until someone who got up at 5 a.m. and staked a chair out gathers their things and leaves. But on Friday at 11 a.m. we had no trouble getting prime chairs right over the pools. It turns out that these chairs were probably available due to the viral outbreak on the ship that apparently had resulted in a number of quarantined guests. But it worked to our advantage. By the way, I don't know how many people on board came down with whatever virus was going around. But RCI certainly did everything they could to make sure that it was contained quickly and to ensure that those of us who were not effected continued to have a great vacation.
Around 1 p.m. the Belly Flop Contest started up. I love watching the contests around the pool. I always wonder how many buckets of beer actually are required to coax some of the participants. We got very lucky on this cruise. A tall, handsome young man named Jake was the highlight of our Belly Flop Competition. It isn't often that a tall, thin, muscular speciman of a man wins a Belly Flop Competition.
That's Jake on the platform "showing off the wares", if you will..... The woman in the blue shorts holding the microphone is the cruise director, Carly Boileau. She was fantastic - perhaps one of the best cruise directors I have been on a ship with in recent years. If you ever have the chance to get on a ship that she is working on, you will love it! She leaves Mariner of the Seas on February 10th, but then in March she will be on Jewel of the Seas alternating with Dennis Charles through July. The Jewel will be running a 5 night Western Caribbean itinerary out of Tampa through May and then will head to San Juan where it will begin running a 7 night Southern Caribbean itinerary. Let me know if you are interested in booking a cruise on a ship she is on. I would love to help! :-)
Now I want you to just take a second to appreciate Jake in the picture above. Look at that physic. You wouldn't think he could move a lot of water with that body, but he did. See the guy in the red print swim trunks with the blue towel around his neck? That is the kind of guy who usually wins these competitions. But Jake was having none of that. Below is a picture of Jake's technique, you can see that he was going for the splash in a big way.
Following Jake's victory in the Belly Flop Competition, we watched as a group did belly dancing out by the pool Some of the belly dancers were obviously not doing it for the first time, while others may not even have been able to find their bellies with both hands and a diagram.
Following all of the "belly" activity we decided to feed our bellies and went to the Windjammer for a quick lunch. It was already 2 p.m. so there weren't many people in the Windjammer and we had our choice of tables. That doesn't happen too often so you have to take advantage of it when it does.
Time for Some to Experience Culture and Others to Vent
Finally at 3 p.m. we went to a wine tasting in the Rhapsody dining room. Before the wine tasting began, we listened to a woman treat a man who worked in Vintages as though he personally was responsible for all communication regarding the timing of events on the ship and she was not happy at all about the timing of events on the ship. I felt so sorry for the poor waiter who had to smile politely while she berated him. I could never have been as polite as he was.
The wine tasting itself was a good one. They paired cheeses with the Lafite wines that we enjoyed. Overall, it was a terrific tasting and well worth the $22 fee that we paid to participate. I think the biggest victory of all was waiting until the rude woman sat and then managing to get seats at the opposite table so that we didn't have to be around her negativity.
Following the wine tasting we went back to our cabin so that we could begin dressing for dinner since it was the second formal night of the cruise. We had decided to go to the show on Friday night since we hadn't made it to a single show all week. Unfortunately, it was probably the least entertaining show of the week according to my Mom who had been to all of them. She said that all of the others were outstanding.
We arrived in the theater just before the show was to start, so we sat toward the back since the seating was limited by the time we got there. After the show began a couple came in and had us get up so that they could sit in the middle of our row. In ships theaters there are poles and the poles can obstruct your view. You can see the poles prior to sitting in those seats. They don't just spring up out of the floor in the middle of the show. But apparently this couple wasn't able to see the pole (which was two feet in radius) prior to sitting down. So it came as a surprise to them after they had us get up so that they could get to those seats that it obstructed their view. So, they had us get up AGAIN so that they could move out of those seats and to better seats closer up where yet more people had to stand and let them in during the show. Before they finally found a seat that they were happy with, there was about 15 minutes left in the show. My message here is that if you are going to be picky about where you sit, be on time.
Following the show, we caught up with Mom, Doris and Don. Doris was very pale and was heading back up to their cabin since she had just come down with the virus. Mom said that Dad had left sick during the show. So, now, Mom, Don, me and Jenny were the only ones in our group who were not sick. Don took Doris up to their cabin, so dinner was just me, Mom and Jenny on Friday night. Sadly it was lobster night and Dad and Doris had to miss it. So, I had two lobster tails, one for me and one for Dad. Somebody had to do it, right?
After Dinner Adult Fun
Following dinner Mom, Jenny and I went to Quest, my favorite event of the week. It did not disappoint. Carly the "wonder cruise director" informed everyone prior to the competition that she would not tolerate people bringing in bags of stuff. Perhaps the highlight of Quest was that Jake (eye candy from the belly flop contest) was one of the team captains!!!! Did I mention that Jake was hot??? If you have never made it to the Quest game on a cruise before, I don't know where you have been. It is the single most fun event of the week whether you choose to participate or just watch. But it's not for kids. I am always amazed at how open people are with showing various parts of their bodies to a thousand or so total strangers. And then if it is really shocking a good cruise director might have them come back to the middle of the arena and do a little live replay. AND THEY DO IT! I watched a girl display her nipple ring not once, but twice, a week ago last Friday night. There was no wardrobe malfunction. She just needed to reveal a pierced body part on a girl that was not an ear and was apparently okay with showing it to everyone.
Saturday!
Saturday was almost identical to Friday except that Jenny and I played putt putt following breakfast (I won) and before going to the pool where we once again got the same wonderful seats. On Saturday, we watched ice carving by the pool followed by the World's Sexiest Man Contest. It was fixed. The judges who were either blind or had remarkably bad taste immediately eliminated anyone who was even remotely sexy. A 50-something man with a little bit of a beer belly won. I think the judges ages ranged from 65 to 110 so perhaps they really did think he was a sexy young man. I won't bore you with all of the pictures since Jake didn't participate, but the guy wearing the crown in the picture below was the winner.
On Saturday they also showed Grease on the big movie screen poolside. So that was really nice. At 4 on Saturday we went to a Martini seminar. Basically, one of the bartenders made a couple of martini's and you got a shot glass of each. Then you chose your favorite of those two and he made you a full size one. That cost about $9 which is about the price of one martini on board. So, you got a little extra for the fee. After the martini seminar I had to go pack. Jenny had packed earlier in the day while I had been out at the pool. So, before dinner we were able to get our luggage out into the hallway.
Quiet Dinner
Dad and Doris were still sick on Saturday night so they didn't make it to dinner again. Mom and Don chose to stay with Doris and Dad which meant that only Jenny and I ate dinner at our table on the last night. Dinner was once again great. There was a roasted duck but I also wanted a grilled fish dish, so our waiter brought the roasted duck "for the table" so that we could each taste it. It was the best meal of the night. I wished that I had gotten it. Oh well!
All Good Things Must End
The next morning when we rolled out of bed, we were docked in Galveston once again. We had breakfast in the main dining room where we were seated at a large table with other guests. I was at the end of the table so I couldn't really hear much of the conversation until most of the others had left, but there was a couple who was staying on the ship for the following week. One of these days I would like to do that. You see, most cruise ships have two itineraries that they alternate. So, if you stay on the same ship two weeks in a row you can go to several different stops. Mariner was going to Roatan, Belize and Cozumel the week after we disembarked. So the only repeat stop was Cozumel.
Following breakfast we found a place to sit and only had to wait around for about an hour before we were allowed to leave the ship. I must say that a number of years ago when I first started cruising, disembarking in Galveston was a huge hassle. But they have really figured it out over the years and it is as easy to leave the ship in Galveston now as anywhere.
I'm sorry that today's post is so long. I probably should have split it into two days. But there are too many other things that I want to write about this week. So, we all had to suffer through this for the cause. Have a great Monday. Hope there aren't too many Raven hangovers out there today! Tomorrow we move on to new adventures. Get ready to put your imagination caps on.
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