We were lucky enough (ok, no luck involved, because I ASKED for the PLA dining rotation) to be dining in Parrot Cay on pirate night. I mean, the only other awesome dining in Parrot Cay would be on Jimmy Buffet night, but I'm guessing that's on another cruise.......
Yup. it *is* on another cruise...MINE!
Where EVERRRRY night is JB night!
We also had Lumiere's on Formal Night, and it's by far the most formal of the dining rooms. Even though
DCL is the only cruise line I've ever experienced, I love that they have 3 separate dining rooms for rotational dining, as opposed to just one massive dining room on other lines.
See. I'm like you, I like to be in PC on Pirate Night and L on Formal night. And AP the first night. Our last cruise the rotations just did not work out (pesky Western) being in the "wrong" restaurants didn't really negatively affect our experience but for some reason when I think back to Pirate Night on all of our cruises I think first of the ones we had in PC.
Or as Jeff liked to call all the drinks on the ship, "....another $8....."
Silly pirates coming over to interrupt our meal.... Godwin, our head server, was just as great as Dobo and Willy, but he's also the one who told me "no." I don't like to be told "no." That was when Willy had promised me all week that he would get me copies of all the menus. Then mean ole Godwin said, "no."
Surely you jest!!! Godwin was our head server too and he was just the BEST!
I may have ordered it just because I've never seen "barnacle bottom" in a sentence together! <insert Beevis and Butthead laugh here>
After dinner the servers each grabbed a child and paraded around the dining room in what must surely be their most miserable time each cruise. Seriously, it's great photo ops for families, but even Ally was like, "what?"
Yeah Savannah was sleeping (yes, sleeping at the table..have we no manners) and our guys yanked her right up out of a dead sleep and into the limbo. And boy was she MAD when the music stopped before she reached the bar.
Servers work all three shifts (breakfast, lunch, dinner) 6 days a week. On the 7th day they only work 2 shifts. When they are not working in a dining room, they may be cleaning up the decks, like we saw Willy one day out by the pool picking up cups and plates that people just toss aside.
It's a very tough life, I'm sure, but if my math is correct, they are compensated pretty well......
Wow....I could never...NEVER do that for months on end...9 months with NO days off? I am ready to send heads rolling by Wednesday at my job.
It was right about this time that my, um, er, "plumbing" got my attention.
All of those 8 dollars need to go somewhere!
So I felt kind of special knowing that I was on THE ship where the fireworks came from!!!! Or maybe that makes me a fool for paying for the fireworks that the others saw free?????
THINK of the thousands you could have saved. This should be a tip on the Budget Board!
This was a late night for us, as we kind of hung out on deck for awhile after the fireworks. The buffet was going strong but having just eaten (another reason we are doing early dining next cruise!), we couldn't even look at all the food!
Yeah....that's one downside to late dining for sure.
We did not dock at the main port in St Thomas, instead we were away from the dowtown area - how far? $5 cab ride, that's how far!
Ah, so you were at Crown Bay, the "overflow" parking lot! That's where we will dock next month too because Havensight can't handle the big mama ships.
Now I'm not sure how tipping goes for breakfast, when you do not have your assigned dinner servers, but each time we followed our servers to whichever room they were working for breakfast or lunch, they were quick to spot us when we walked in and take us to their section. Is this normal? Or were we just their favorites?
I'm thinking we were just their favorites, but then again, we are McSparklesons.....
Duh.
No idea what we ate, but here it is!
Now that looks interesting? Is it a stack of donuts with strawberry sauce? (mmmmmm, donuts!)
I needed to run back to the room for a second before we left, and look who I ran into! They were just strolling along arm in arm. I actually felt like I was interrupting a "moment."
You were.
But that Daisy is sweet as can be. Unlike the female rodent...... who shall remain nameless.
Harlot that she is. The secret is out Minnie, we are ON to your game!
Soon it was time to hit land again, and head to Magen's Bay for a nice relaxing day on the beach.
Sounds like a good plan!
But due to his awesomeness, our driver warned us about all this before we ever left. He also told us that he drives slower than most of his taxi driving friends, and I was okay with this.
That's what they all say!
It was a beautiful drive, and as much as we wanted to get lots of pics heading UP the mountain (Straight up, remember?), Andy Awesome told us he would stop at a beautiful overlook on the way down.
Maybe yours did drive slower though, we couldn't have dreamed about actually getting pictures from ours. I kept trying but we were either moving too fast, swerving into our out of a curve, bouncing up or down a hill, or swerving to avoid another vehicle, school child, or rooster.
But it was too crowded for me, and that took away from the beauty of this beach. What makes it so pretty is that it is a bay, hence the name..... duh!
Wow, yeah that is waaaay too crowded!!
What a bummer.
I was thinking about going to Magen's ..one of these cruises (but not the next two beacuse we already know what we will be doing the next two years in St. Thomas -geez does that sound pretentious or what?) but maybe not. Of course if you were over at Crown Bay it was obviously a huge crowd in port that day..so maybe it wouldn't be that bad on a less crowded day...?
All aboard was 4:00 today so I believe we had our driver pick us up at 1:00. We knew that would give us plenty of time to hit downtown, do a little shopping, grab lunch, and still make the ship in plenty of time, right?
ooh I sense some foreshadowing here. I wonder if your experience with St.T rush hour traffic was similar to mine.....
First, pimp my ride......
Wow that is a NICE one. One of ours we rode in was literally in the bed of a pickup truck (as in benches glued (screwed?, who knows) IN the truck bed with a hole cout out of the frame to step up in. And no nice padded seats either! You were right about Adam McAwesomely!
Hope Oreo is doing better!!!
for the organized sale to your Dad!
We always ask for early dining. It is a little challenge to get ready on time, but then we can enjoy the evening and we like to go to the show after dinner. Congrats on the weight loss!
.
I think it was an American who forgot to drive on the WRONG side and hit a bus thingy head on!
Hopefully she is home soon!
that would have detracted from the experience for me as well.
