Wonderful B2B on the Wonder from Galveston - 11/6/15 & 11/13/15 - COMPLETED

[bcwife76]

I've always wondered how it worked with B2B cruises, disembarkation, your room, etc. How nice that you basically just walked off the ship, did some souvenir shopping, hanging out and then went right back on!!

Well loved the first cruise report so can't wait to see what you got up to on your second cruise! I will have to overlook the fact that Inside Out wasn't a fave *sniff* I'm quite obsessed with that movie ;-0 Those sunset photos, by the way, are phenomenal!

 

[ukintheus]

I got the photo below from Ashli of the kids about 20 minutes after getting in the car.



We came back to our cabin and dropped off a few things and then went to take some photographs.







Happy people that we are back on the ship for another week!



We decided to skip Signals this time around after the experience last week. It looked deserted down there.





It was really chilly and after a while we wanted to get out of the breeze so back to the cabin for a while until we needed to go to muster drill. The Royal Caribbean ship left while we were waiting.







Down on deck 4 we assembled at P (for Peter Pan - our handy way to remember our muster station). Susana was on the team next to us and we waved hello and had a quick laugh that her margarita buddy, who had just left the ship for vacation, had posted on FB that he couldn't believe she had already had a margarita without him! We had gone to get one just so she could post that she had.

We waved goodbye to Galveston again. At least it wasn't foggy today, but it was definitely chilly.





We stopped in at the spa to book our Rainforest room passes. The girl that we spoke to wasn't particularly friendly, or helpful. She told us the cost of the pass for the week, which was cheaper than the week before by about $20 per person, but she told us we could only use it for the at-sea days. I hadn't really done any research on it to know if she was right or wrong, and I certainly wasn't going to argue with her to give her money! So we just said "no, thanks" and that was the end of that.

We went to see if the bar was open in Diversions but it was still closed, so we decided to visit Christine in the promenade lounge and got our first drinks of the cruise, a Shiner Bock for Scott and a glass of Tattinger for me. No risking of a sketchy Bahama Mama this week.



As we were leaving we ran into Deana and Mike who we had met on our cruise on the Magic with Mum and Maureen back in 2012. After a quick catch up with them, we went back to Diversions and sat looking out of the large portholes there for a while. We were the only ones in there and it was nice and quiet.



Galveston looked pretty with the sun setting behind it.



I needed to get a bit of laundry done and so we went back to the cabin to take care of that while early seating were all at dinner.



John Carter was on the TV and I got caught up with my trip report while we waited for the laundry to get done. While we were getting our clothes from the dryer we met another platinum member and we chatted about the Castaway Club reception. We had missed it last week due to Palo brunch and I had booked another Palo brunch at the same time for this week, so when we got back to our cabin I called and changed our reservation to Sunday instead. I took a quick shower and we went down to dinner. Tonight we were in Parrot Cay (again! LOL).

Seeing as Scott didn't have the kids to play with this week, he teased Nenad relentlessly by taking photos of him at the worst time.




We had asked Mehmet if we could have a table by ourselves this week and so we were on table 33 instead of 34. We had some fun watching all our new table neighbors. Table 33 had 4 people on It instead of 6, and within 5 minutes one of the two couples got up and left. I know how awkward it feels to be seated with people you don't know and it appeared that the couple that left did not speak English. The table next to us had two families of 4, each with two children. I will update as we go on the progress of whether they get along. I will say, it didn't look promising tonight.

I had the Parrot Cay salad and Pork chop.





Scott had the tomato soup and prime rib.





Scott wasn't feeling great and felt like he had a cold coming on so we skipped dessert and went to the gift shop to see what we could get in the way of drugs. We were back in our cabin by 9:40 pm, a very quiet night for us!




I caught up with my trip report and did a quick peek of what was going on from the verandah. The Royal Caribbean ship was still right in front of us.



We had lights out by 10:10 pm! Very boring.

 

[bcwife76]

Awww I guess a weeks cruising had tuckered out those kids lol Bless!

 

[ukintheus]

I really enjoyed reading your updates! We are headed to Falmouth next December on the Fantasy and I was looking at the exact same excursion so I thoroughly enjoyed the pics and reading about it. It looks great and I think my kids would really love it!

As you can tell, we really enjoyed it and it was the highlight of the week. Highly recommended (even by chickens).

I've always wondered how it worked with B2B cruises, disembarkation, your room, etc. How nice that you basically just walked off the ship, did some souvenir shopping, hanging out and then went right back on!!

Well loved the first cruise report so can't wait to see what you got up to on your second cruise! I will have to overlook the fact that Inside Out wasn't a fave *sniff* I'm quite obsessed with that movie ;-0 Those sunset photos, by the way, are phenomenal!

We could have got off the ship, stayed in the terminal until it was cleared completely by customs and then got right back on. There were stickers and passes for people wanting to do that. It was a nice day strolling around Galveston and with not worrying about packing/unpacking it was quite relaxing. Sorry about Inside Out!

Thanks for all the kind comments. Second week is underway and I am going to try and get it finished up before 2016 begins.

 

[ukintheus]

Awww I guess a weeks cruising had tuckered out those kids lol Bless!

They had a blast. They were exhausted though.

 

[ukintheus]

I forgot to update on the kids and the kids club for the week. Long story short, they went.....once. There was one activity that remotely sparked their interest in the Navigator and so they gave it a go on the 2nd at sea day. Second cruise for them and second time that the kids clubs didn't really appeal to them. It's not for every kid that's for sure. They really enjoy the family activities though and this time it worked out that Jacob was older and Ashli felt comfortable letting them have a bit more freedom, like the movie the day we went to Palo and they stayed in their cabin while we went to 80's night. That actually worked out perfectly, because the kids could get in bed and go to sleep instead of being tired and constantly texting to be "let out" of the kids club.

I also added this into the post about debarkation as I forgot it!

Edited to add: While we were in the atrium I decided to just go and check with the desk set up there with the confiscated alcohol for the week. Sure enough, our bottle of rum was sitting there despite us being told repeatedly we would pick it up after the second week. The CMs looked a bit lost, obviously didn't know what to do about it, and so the guy in charge just told us to take it and take it back to our room real quick. Off Scott went with contraband in hand.

 

[ukintheus]

Day 9 - At Sea

I woke up early at about 6 am and tossed and turned for about an hour before getting up. At some point in the night Scott had got up and gone to sleep on the couch, he had a head cold and wasn't feeling 100%. The wind had continued during the night and the ship had been rolling gently all night long.

I popped my head out on the verandah and was greeted by gray skies and clouds.





I decided to go for a walk on deck 4 and got myself ready and headed out while Scott went back to bed. It was breezy on deck 4 and they had the doors on the starboard side closed. There were several people out walking or jogging and I did a couple of miles, although it was a bit wobbly walking at times. I went back inside midship and walked up to Cove cafe and went to visit AJohn and Junior for the daily dose of caffeine.

It was about 8 am and I went back to the cabin to take Scott his coffee. We sat on the verandah for a little while and then he decided he would go and take a walk and listen to some music. I put the map up on the TV. We were in the middle of the Gulf almost directly south of New Orleans.



We could still see oil rigs off to our north from our verandah but they were too far off to catch in a photo.

The weather didn't look promising for today at all. Lazy day ahead! It was too gloomy and breezy to sit on the verandah for long.



After his walk/run Scott dropped his stuff off in the cabin and we went to Beach Blanket for some breakfast. Fruit, yogurt and a ham omelette for me, and some mushrooms, turkey lunchmeat and an egg white omelette for Scott (no photo).





We had about an hour before our Castaway Club reception so we came back to the cabin and read for a little bit. Piedad had already taken care of the room - awesome!

It still looked like this outside.



Just before 11:30 am we went down to Diversions for the Gold and Platinum CC reception and it was fairly busy with about 20-30 people there. We chatted with Captain Fabio who told us that the weather wasn't expected to improve until we got to Castaway Cay. We also chatted to Deniece who was from Malaysia and in charge of guest services. I found out that they have a list of all the people doing back to backs and she recognized our names from the list as there were only 6 cabins doing a B2B. Mickey didn't make an appearance at all which was disappointing as it's an easy way to get a good photo with him. I'd heard that he hadn't made it to the one the week before either. Busy mouse I guess!

We each got a glass of prosecco and a couple of munchie things.



We met the couple who we had run into in the laundry room yesterday that were from Vancouver, Neil and Sue. Sue was from Wimbledon originally and sounded Australian - just like me! It was weird that we both have an Australian accent now that we no longer live in the UK. We chatted with them for quite a while and we were the last to leave at 12:30 pm.

We came back to the room and decided to just chill and read our books and have a glass of wine. This was turning into an extremely lazy day.



Between left over wine from last week, a bottle of wine that our friends had given us that they didn't drink, and the bottle of Prosecco as Platinum cruisers, we had quite a stockpile going. Notice the milk, so it wasn't all booze in there. The silver box is the chocolates left over from the gift we had from the Gelder's last week.



Scott went up to grab us a sandwich.



We ended up watching the movie Pixels, which I didn't really care for at all, a bit too much on the corny and silly side for me.

This guy cruised on by at one point, it was something that was actually happening in the real world, so I took a photo.



We decided to take another stroll around deck 4. It was still very breezy but we did another mile and then wandered around a little bit before we found ourselves in the gift shop. I bought some Christmas ornaments and something for the white elephant gift for my work Christmas party. It was just gone 5 pm when we got back to our stateroom.

Dinner tonight in Tritons and it was formal night. We both took showers and watched some random things on TV while we relaxed from our very tiring day. Scott's cold started to make him feel a bit groggy as colds do at night time. We took some photos of us all dressed up before heading down.

These are my sparkley new shoes, that I just love but don't ever go anywhere to wear them.



Decked out and ready to go. Don't we look tired from our busy day?



We were some of the first to be seated. Nenad and Alvito were in good form and we enjoyed chatting to them. The couple that were on our table from last week got chatting and asked if we minded if they sat with us from tomorrow on.

The bread rolls are just soooo good.


Triton's ceiling is pretty, I guess my camera was on "fuzzy" again.




Scott and I both had the escargot. Even if you don't like snails, I recommend just eating the garlic butter and bread.



I had salad and chateaubriand.





Scott had soup and salad and the duck.







We were surprised by an anniversary dessert and some serenading by the dining team, I didn't even remember telling anyone we had an anniversary coming up next week. It's magic!



The couple next to us also had an anniversary to celebrate. Nenad busted out his banjo of course.



Alvito also brought me a crime brûlée and Scott had the apple tartin or something like that, now I'm looking at the picture it looks really good!





We left the dining room around 10 and the Christmas party was about to start in the atrium but we decided to skip it and go back to our cabin.

Piedad had left us this array of stuff.



Better look at the ant eater/dinosaur.



We sat on the verandah for a while as it had warmed up quiet a bit. Yay! By the time we finished reading and turned out the lights it was 1 am as we had to put the clocks forward an hour.

 

[cruisehopeful]

I love your sparkly princess shoes! I don't wear heels, but I would probably wear something like that for a little while on a Disney cruise.

 

[bcwife76]

Well that does sound like a fabulously relaxing day! And those shoes are fab! Like the formal portrait of the two of you!

 

[ukintheus]

Day 10 - Day at Sea

We had a bad night with Scott's cold playing up and him just not feeling well, he migrated to the couch again and we were both awake at 6 am but fell back to sleep.
Small rant - I tried to catch up with my trip report but for some reason the notes app on my ipad wanted to update and wouldn't let me open it at all without connecting to the internet. I had the free 50 MB plan that you can sign up for on the first day but that disappeared in a hurry. I bought the 100 MB plan and it used all of it and still hadn't finished and so I had to buy the 300 MB plan. Annoying! It had something to do with iCloud trying to sync. As soon as it was finished I turned iCloud off and I didn't have the problem again. I must remember in future to turn the iCloud sync off so I don't have that problem again.

Peering outside it appeared we were in for another day of not-so-great weather.



Not looking any better up ahead.



It was now 9:30 and we had a Palo brunch reservation for noon today so I needed to try and get Scott up and moving. I had a sore throat this morning although it wasn't too bad. Scott definitely didn't feel good from his cold but we went up to Cove Cafe for our usual morning coffee.

From Outlook the weather looked even more dismal. Although it wasn't cold but was raining and windy. Captain Fabio announced that the weather would continue to be like this for the next couple of hours at least.



We decided to get a quick snack in Cove to tide us over until brunch.





Neither of us could figure out who this was supposed to be as the tree topper? It was a cross between Miss Piggy and a mermaid. Any bright ideas anyone?



We also needed more drugs, so it was off to the gift shop for a selection to tide us over as we had hit the pain relievers I had brought with us pretty hard. I thought maybe some hot tea with honey would help so we went up to deck 9 and got some ginger and lemon tea and added honey to it. It didn't really hit the spot for me, I don't think either of us finished it, but it was worth a try.



We got back to the room at about 11 am with an hour to get ready for Palo which was plenty of time to catch up on my trip report and to relax for a little while seeing as we had been up and about for at least an hour and a half! I texted briefly with Ashli that they had picked the best week for weather. She told me that Glenn and June both had a cold now too. Here was our stash of drugs to try and fight it off.



We got to Palo a little before noon and sat and waited for a few minutes. The tile flooring is very pretty in the entrance.



Susana was our server and was awesome as usual. She had a stiff neck and was having a hard time moving her head around - between the 3 of us we could have kept a doctor busy!



It looked like the weather might be clearing just a little. The clouds weren't quite so gray and nasty looking.



Pictures of the two of us.



Scott squinty eyed because it was getting brighter outside. He wanted to go and get his sunglasses at one point, which of course I nixed immediately.



We worked our way through all kinds of delicious foods and a couple of glasses of Prosecco. First up were the plates of meats, cheeses and seafood.

Mine - easy to tell - it has cheese.


Scott's - no cheese. And I quote, "that's disgusting", on the colored cheese on my plate.



Susana decided to go off menu for us and ordered us both salmon. It was delicious. Mine was on risotto and Scott's was on spinach. We discovered the other night that all the risotto has cheese in it and Susana felt bad so she nixed the risotto for him. So spoiled.





The obligatory photo of the pepper grinder.



We ordered a pizza to share. Susana doctored it up with prosciutto, artichoke hearts, balsamic mushrooms and a bit of basil.



Then she threw some arugula on it with some balsamic. It was really good, although there was a lot of arugula on there.



We split a sticky bun, as neither of us had ever tried them before. It was every bit as good as people have said it is.



I tried a few of the deserts. They didn't taste as good as they looked and I wondered if it's because the sticky bun is just too sweet to follow with anything else. Or maybe I was just stuffed stupid and nothing would have tasted good after all that food!



Scott had a brandy at the end "for medicinal purposes" which they warmed up over hot water.



We waddled out of Palo completely stuffed and happy.

 

[cruisehopeful]

Neither of us could figure out who this was supposed to be as the tree topper? It was a cross between Miss Piggy and a mermaid. Any bright ideas anyone?

It looks like Ursula to me. There are probably characters that I've never seen before, though.

 

[ukintheus]

As we got to our deck we could smell the popcorn wafting up the stairs from deck 5 and Buena Vista theater. Seeing as we were so stuffed from (literally) just leaving Palo, you would think that popcorn wasn't even a remote possibility. You would think......but, you would be wrong. I will throw Scott under the bus here, as I would have passed, but he couldn't resist, and so he went down to deck 5 and stood in line for popcorn while I went back to our cabin.
When I got back to the room there was the packet for our cabana from Guest Services. It was so cute! I'd seen pictures of one, but it really was cuter in person.







This was our first time to ever book one as they are really expensive for what you get, especially as we had booked on Serenity Bay. I had waffled on it but we had no excursions booked for this week, and because our time in the ports was so short, we had no plans to get off the ship other than Castaway Cay. So, that was my (probably flawed) logic on justifying it this time.

Scott showed up with this.



And then Piedad knocked on our door and offered me two lithographs, I was so surprised, and it was very sweet of her. One was a Halloween lithograph which was awesome because we had done a Halloween cruise on the Wonder in 2013 and had dressed up, but it wasn't actually over Halloween so didn't get the commemorative lithograph. The second one was from the Hawaiian cruise. I now have 4 of them, so I need to get them framed.

We changed into comfy clothes and parked ourselves into our movie watching spots, me on the bed and Scott on the couch and watched Hercules. This was mandatory as we had the popcorn to go along with it. Our afternoon of doing nothing extended to watching the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and then Lilo and Stitch although naps definitely took place along the way.

At one point we saw this tanker being pulled by a tug. It seemed really weird as you get swept up into the belief that you are out at sea and miles away from anything. At this point we were actually going past the keys pretty much.



And despite all earlier hopes that the weather was improving....it still looked like this.



Dinner tonight was in Animators Palate and when we got there the couple from table 34 (soon to be known as Corby and Michelle ) were already seated so we joined them. Nenad had to scramble to put a complete place setting there but he soon got it sorted out. Scott got a quick photo in of him putting stuff on the table. It was a joke between the two of them - they thought it was hilarious.



Either Corby or Michelle took this photo of us....it's blurry but I like it...I guess my camera still wasn't playing nicely.



It was a pleasant dinner although Scott really wasn't feeling good and it ran a bit long. I had baked potato soup and the chicken.





Scott had the butternut squash soup, salad, and (I think) the veal. I forgot to write it in my notes.







Somewhere along the way two orders of the truffle pasta pursiettes showed up - there was some kind of misunderstanding between Nenad and Alvito - and so I agreed to eat one of them and Michelle took the other. It seemed a shame to waste them and Alvito was a bit flustered. There is one left here, sorry for the partly eaten photo.



Alvito mentioned that the weather may not cooperate for us dock at Castaway Cay the next day. I was thinking the same thing myself as it was still very windy and we were already close to Miami with no sign of change in the weather. I bet they hate to have to start even talking about not docking.

Tonight was the show with the Main Cheese.



Quick picture of Mehmet. We didn't see as much of him this week. He did come and apologize and told us that he had two tables of spanish speaking customers, and all his waiters were from India or Indonesia so he was running interference.



We had also met another of our servers, Onika, from a cruise on the Dream last year when she had been our head server. Snapped this of her when she wasn't looking. She had decided she wanted to do a different itinerary and so had asked for a transfer but was in a server position until she could get into a head server role.



Alvito.



And crazy Nenad....of course.



Corby and Michelle were celebrating an anniversary. I don't know what they'd been celebrating the night before! Out came the banjo...again...LOL



We left the dining room at about 10:15 pm and headed to see Christine in the Promenade Lounge. She helped us concoct a hot toddy with whiskey, hot water, lemons and honey and it was perfect to hit the spot for our sore throats/colds. We went back to the cabin and found this cutie waiting for us.



We could see the lights from Miami in the distance from our verandah. The good news about that was that it obviously wasn't as cloudy as it had been, and the wind seemed to have died down some. I hoped I wasn't just wishful thinking for tomorrow!

Scott got wrapped up in the Tangled movie which didn't end until just gone midnight. I was dead tired by then and fell asleep as soon as the TV got switched off.

 

[ukintheus]

It looks like Ursula to me. There are probably characters that I've never seen before, though.

As you can tell from our horrible trivia attempts, we aren't exactly Disney film fanatics. We had thought Ursula but I thought she was more purple/black colors. Plus, she's been on a diet if it is her.

 

[ukintheus]

Day 11 - Castaway Cay

We had another rough night with coughing and hacking. I woke up about 6:30 but rolled over and went back to sleep – I was getting good at that! We both were awake at about 7:30 and we could see CC close by. The winds had died down and it wasn't raining anymore!





We ordered room service for breakfast and ate out on the verandah.



We docked right as we were settling ourselves down outside.



They have everything down to a fine art when it comes to loading and unloading, we find it completely fascinating to watch it all. They had the same team/company of divers doing underwater hull inspections there. Last time we did the first sailing from Galveston after the Panama Canal crossing they were there and found a damaged thruster cover. We didn't see what they hauled out today, if anything, so no gossip from me this time. Ha ha.



We caught a glimpse of Susana and the Palo team getting ready to go and set up at Cookies. When I showed her the photo later she was shocked at how horrible they all look in that uniform - she knew it was bad but she said she looks like a man.



They christmas decorations were up. The tree always looks so nice. Sometimes Photobucket irritates the fire out of me! Now I've got two that won't rotate properly...I'll work on it.


They announced that the ship was cleared for disembarking so we gathered our stuff and put on our wristbands for the Cabana and disembarked on deck 1 forward.



They were already out with the pressure washers on the side of the ship. They get going fast that's for sure.





We walked to the tram stop to take us to Serenity Bay. It was a nice temperature outside and overcast so it was an easy walk.



They've unrusted Mount Rustmore, I think I preferred it in it's rusty state. This looks a bit too shiny in my opinion.





The new Frozen beverage hut since we were here last. We didn't get around to trying anything.....next time.



We rode the tram to Serenity Bay. While we were on the tram there was a brief moment when I thought we might see the sun....



Our paperwork had told us to check in at the Cabana Guest check in at Serenity Bay but when we got there, nobody was home.



We just decided to stay on the tram back to the family beach Cabana check in place and see what they could tell us.



The CM there was confused as she said someone should have been there waiting for us....nope...got the photo to prove it. She got someone to take us on a golf cart to Cabana 25, and told us our host would be along soon.

They were definitely expecting us



The cabana was already opened up and ready for us to plonk ourselves down for the day.



It was bigger than I had thought it would be, and we must have spent the next 30 minutes poking our noses into everything inside and out.

This was by far my favorite spot....partly because it wasn't blazing hot, the temperature was very comfy today.



Cabana 25 is the very last one, so furthest away from the bathrooms and the food, but it has room to the side of it that gave you even more private space.



So as we started to be nosey, we realized that none of the other Cabanas were opened up to use. It was weird because they had all shown as being booked online. As it turned out, we were the only ones there all day which was awesome for us. I still don't know why and nobody I asked could explain it to me. All we could think of is that people cancelled because of the weather? I guess the lesson there is if you really want one, put your name on the waiting list when you are on the ship!

Coming up....a tour of the cabana in photos.

 

[ukintheus]

Some of the locals weren't very happy we were there.



This particular cabin wasn't wheelchair accessible at all. I'm assuming they have some that are, but don't know for sure.



There is a cupboard to store things and a safe.



The Serenity Bay chairs and umbrellas are right in front of you, although the grass and the bank of sand gave it a feel of some privacy.



It had some cute nautical decorations.



Fridge stocked with water, soda and cold towels.



This is from the beach side looking in. Scott is busy in the background changing settings on his fancy camera. I love my point and click (when it isn't fuzzy - then I hate it )

There is a couch along the back wall and the floats to the bottom left are included. Also included is a bike rental but we never got around to using any of them.



Chairs and tables gave lots of places to spread out.





2 loungers outside that we moved around quite a bit as the day went on. They were fairly heavy but you could see people had dragged them around, so we did too.



Snacks in case you get hungry...we did....we ate all the chips I think.



This is the pathway going in front of all the cabanas. All the other cabanas are shut up tight. We did have someone from the beach meander along here at one point taking a look around - they looked surprised when they got to the end and we were there, I bet they thought they were all empty, and we weren't exactly making a ton of noise.







They really have beautiful trees and plants there....so blissfully tropical...



Another cabana sign from the beach sign in case you are lost.



After we had taken about a million photos. Our cabana host, OWayne, came along and showed us where everything was. We acted like we hadn't just spent the last 30 minutes poking our noses in to every nook and cranny...and seriously, how hard is it to figure out anyway? He told us to call for him for anything that we needed and showed us where the button was to call him any time we wanted to.

We settled in to relax and enjoy our piece of heaven for the day.





After about 10 minutes of sitting on the lounger in the complete peace and quiet with nothing but the breeze rustling the leaves of the palm trees we both decided it was worth every single cent.

We did attempt to dip our toes in the water but it was way too cold for us, even colder than the waterfall water in Jamaica, and so that didn't last long. The beach wasn't crowded at all.

The hammock was WONDERFUL. The temperature was just right and there was a slight breeze. We ended up taking it in turns to alternate between it and the loungers.



If this were blue sky, then this would be the scene from my dreams....hammock, tropical breezes and peaceful.



We both ended up back on the loungers and had a discussion about beverages.



It was now 10:30 am but we decided it was time for a drink from the bar to get the day really rolling.

We pushed the button and Owayne appeared in about 30 seconds, maybe less, he went and got a bartender and we ordered a bucket of Heineken and Bud Light and, of course, a Konk Kooler which was delicious. Bear in mind the effort that went into this round of drinks. Owayne was buzzed, he came to see what we wanted, he then went and got a bartender and brought him back, who took our order, they then drove back to the bar, where I am sure someone else made the drink, and then both drove back to deliver the drinks! This is not for the faint of heart people!! That's some serious alcohol commitment!



Yup, life isn't just good...it's now awesome!



After a lounge out in the hammock I decided to walk down to the bathrooms. OWayne was at the end of the path in the golf cart and I got a scolding for walking - LOL. He took me back and we went all the way to Lookout Point. He was adamant that we not walk anywhere so I promised we would call him for lunch. This was the only part of having the cabana that was weird, as I felt it was ridiculous to have a guy sitting in the golf cart all day, just waiting for us to call him. Literally all day, just for us.

Some fool starting making noise...we both got up to take a look, and who is stumbling and tripping along the beach? I know they don't all look like Johnny Depp, but they sure have his mannerisms and movements down well, it was fun to watch.



Another local came by to say hello, he had the cutest curly tail and ended up camped out in the closet for a while. Scott tried feeding him crumbled up chips....apparently lizards don't eat chips.



At about 12:30 we pushed the buzzer to have OWayne come and take us the 100 yards to get some lunch. He dropped us off right at the entrance, we had to walk maybe 20 steps.....how terrible for us.

The food was very good and we both had a selection of stuff. Mahi Mahi, ribs and steak for me and a burger, ribs and chicken for Scott.

 

[ukintheus]

We popped into the loo on our way out so we wouldn't have to make OWayne run another trip for us and then he took us back to Lookout Point so we could get some photos.









There were piles of sand next to the crew beach. I tried to hit him up for information as the rumor on the internet is that it was going to be a new teen beach. He said they had had quite a bit of erosion from the hurricane that hit the Bahamas several weeks ago and it was for that. Hmmmm…. LOL



So back to our cabana where we spent the afternoon alternating between the lounge chairs and the hammock.



Another round of drinks was delivered...



...and we actually saw a ray or two of sunshine.



It's tough to be us.



The island off of Serenity Bay had some good wave action going on. I post these because my camera was behaving and the zoom is awesome.





Forgot to mention the sunscreen. We didn't use it. 1) There was no sun. and 2) Scott has a weird skin reaction to a lot of them.



We wandered out to the beach again which was almost deserted at this point.



The lifeguards are new since we were last on the island. We didn't even notice that they were there, although I had heard some grumblings on the internet about them using their whistle and generally making Serenity Bay less serene. We didn't notice anything like that.



Our little slice of paradise for the day coming back from the beach.



The lifeguards came and shut down all the umbrellas and we decided it was time to head back to the ship. Boooo....



We pressed the button for OWayne and started packing up our stuff. We waited and chatted about how wonderful the cabana had been and how we would definitely spring the $$ for one again. And we waited a bit more. So apparently, after all our reprimands from him, our chariot driver didn't appear to be around as we pressed the button again and still no sign of him. We didn't mind walking back at all, and we needed to go to the restroom again anyway.

The tram arrived and we got on it, after asking the guy at Windsock to let OWayne know that we had gone. Some of our fellow cruisers from the Wacky Wonderers online group were getting on the tram with us, including Karen and Noah who had given us the lovely picture frame earlier in the week.

Then we saw OWayne coming down the runway in the golf cart and we joked with the others on the tram that he would tell us off if we didn't use him. (Not really a joke, he took his golf cart duties very seriously! LOL) We got off the tram and onto the golf cart and he apologized over and over about not being there - he said they had him go and take someone else somewhere. OWayne brought us all the way back to the last tram drop off and we thanked him and told him goodbye. I asked him where he was going to be working that evening, as I had totally forgotten to bring any cash with us to tip him, and he told us he works at Cove pool. Perfect! We go there a lot!



AJohn was getting on the ship so we had a brief conversation with him before joining the line to board and snapped these pics while we waited, although the line didn't take long.

 

[cruisehopeful]

This was the only part of having the cabana that was weird, as I felt it was ridiculous to have a guy sitting in the golf cart all day, just waiting for us to call him. Literally all day, just for us.

I would feel silly, too, but I am sure he was bored if you were the only cabana that he could serve.

Some fool starting making noise...we both got up to take a look, and who is stumbling and tripping along the beach? I know they don't all look like Johnny Depp, but they sure have his mannerisms and movements down well, it was fun to watch.

That is so funny! I wouldn't have thought there would be a costumed character on the adult beach. Did you talk to him?

It's tough to be us.

You have my sympathy.

 

[ukintheus]

That is so funny! I wouldn't have thought there would be a costumed character on the adult beach. Did you talk to him?

We didn't, but he was talking to others. He did peer at us and wiggled his fingers as a wave. We've seen him several times on the adult beach - he usually wanders in around 11 am.

 

[ukintheus]

For your viewing pleasure.....here's a video of palm trees and breeze and general peacefulness from the hammock... sigh...

 

[tennesseemo]

It looks like Ursula to me. There are probably characters that I've never seen before, though.

I agree. Got to be Ursula