Our first full day aboard ship dawned bright and early REALLY REALLY early for someone who had been up dancing and talking into the wee hours of the morning. I woke up around 7:30am to find Linda & Susan had gone to the spa for some early morning stretching and relaxing. Duchess & I got ourselves up and decided to head to Tritons for a nice sit-down breakfast. We were seated quickly and soon were perusing the menu trying to decide which of the choices sounded best. We had both decided to be good, limiting our carb intake by having omelets ham for me and ham, cheese & onions for Duchess. Well, just as Eve was tempted in the garden, Tritons had its own temptations in the form of a handsome young Turk (whose name escapes me but it began with an F) bearing not an apple but a selection of delicious looking pastries. Well, with our limited amount of sleep, we were no match for the tempting Turks treats and we each partook of pain chocolat, a.k.a. chocolate croissants. I must admit, they were delicious, as were our fluffy omelets. I also had orange juice and the assistant server handling our table kept a full glass beside my plate throughout the meal.
Today was Nassau day and we only had very vague thoughts about heading off the ship to do a bit of shopping. But if we did get off the ship, it would be late in the afternoon since we had spa treatments planned for that morning a manicure for me, a massage for Linda and some sort of metabolism analysis for Susan. The treatments were all scheduled for between 10 and 10:30 with Lindas being the longest, lasting until lunchtime.
Joanna did my manicure and while she was competent, she was not especially outgoing. In fact I found quite a few of the spa staff to be a bit aloof and less personable than the DCL CMs. Im not sure if this is because they work for the Spa vendor rather than DCL itself. At any rate, it seemed to me that the spa staff from England were less outgoing than some of the others. The gal who did Lindas treatment was from South Africa and much more personable according to Linda.
After my manicure, I went down to grab a comfy lounge chair on Deck 4 while my polish dried. After about 20 minutes, I moved up to deck 9 and grabbed a lounge chair in the sun by the Quiet Cove pool. There were lots of puffy clouds that would chase around the sky, blocking the sun. It was quite warm when the sun was out but there was a cooler breeze when the sun was hidden by the clouds. I enjoyed some reading and partook of an adult beverage by the pool and then hopped into the pool for a relaxing dip. While at the pool I noticed a photographer set up for some photos at the pool area. She was taking photos from both ends of the pool. I wondered what the photos were going to be used for but not enough to ask the photographer.
After getting out of the pool and sitting in the sun a while longer to dry off, I headed back to our stateroom where I found Duchess napping on the couch and Susan napping on the bed. I was feeling a bit peckish, so I ran up to get a bite to eat since it was around lunchtime. I brought a burger from Plutos back to the stateroom to eat on the verandah since I was still a bit damp and the girls were resting inside. As I returned, Susan opened her eyes and told me that they were planning to go to Tritons for lunch once Linda came back from the spa. I had a couple bites of the burger to assuage my hunger and gave a piece to Susan (sans bun) for the same reason. I headed out onto the verandah with my book, and Susan let me know when Linda returned to the stateroom. We then went down to Tritons for lunch. Our lunch servers were lovely and we had a delightful lunch. Duchess & I both chose the spaghetti bolognese a la Croatia and it was very good. Susan & Linda each had the tilapia. We also had dessert I had key lime pie which was yummy. I dont remember what Duchess & Linda chose but I remember they each asked for 2 things. Since I had only asked for 1 thing, our server brought me a slice of the banana cream pie to keep things even. I did try the banana cream pie and was not impressed.
After lunch we returned to the stateroom. Linda & Duchess headed to the Rainforest for some relaxation. I dont recall what Susan did. I thought about going to the wine tasting at Palo or the pool games over at Quiet Cove pool (the International Bellyflop Competition is always fun) but my late night was catching up to me and I ended up dozing on the sofa in the stateroom. Susan returned to the room and I woke up so we could head to Who Wants to Be a Mouseketeer to see if we would be lucky enough to win any shipboard credits or a 7-night cruise. Unfortunately we were not seated in a lucky row and were not chosen at random to be contestants in the game. There were 4 contestants and most won at least $80 of shipboard credit. One young lady almost got the very first question wrong but the host refused to accept her response as her final answer. To our credit, we knew the answers to all of the questions except one. The panel was also very knowledgeable and very efficient providing good assistance to the contestants. We did have a bone to pick with one of the questions though. There was a question that asked The American Adventure is located between which two countries in Epcots World Showcase? Now we are all Epcot fans, in fact I I spend at least one day a month at Epcot often more. So, I am very familiar with the layout of that park. So given the possible responses we felt that the question was a bit ambiguous and could have been sucessfully argued had the person given one of the incorrect answers. As we were leaving, we commented on this to Sasha from the Cruise Staff. It took a few minutes for him to get our point and he told us who we could write to about it. We had a good laugh over it.
After Mouseketeer, Susan, Duchess & I headed down to Wavebands for bingo at 4:45pm. At the entrance to Wavebands, my pal Jason was chatting with Donald Duck who had just appeared at the Mouseketeer show. After hugs from Jason and Donald I headed in to get a table and fill out my ticket slip. Desiree was hosting bingo with Sasha as her bingo bunny. She explained how the ticket order form worked, we purchased our tickets, sat down and our table and hoped we would be lucky!
The first game required a diagonal line going through the Free Space for bingo. I punched my numbers and suddenly I was shouting BINGO as I punched the last number in the diagonal line. Sasha came over and his first comment was Oh no, not you! which had us giggling again. Desiree, not knowing about our encounter with Sasha after Mouseketeer thought he was referring to our fun at the 70s party the night before and made a comment to that effect. Sasha took my card and, watched by another passenger, validated my bingo claim. I was the only winner and went over to Mike to pick up my winnings of $42. Not the snowball jackpot, but a respectable amount for the first game of the day. At least it paid for my bingo card. We continued to play and although we came close, did not win any other games. We had a lot of fun though Sasha is a hoot and Desiree was a lovely person.
After bingo, it was time to head back to the Stateroom to prepare for dinner at Animators Palate. We were skipping the Cabaret show featuring Rich Purpura this evening. Had the featured performer been Gary DeLena, I would have gone because (1) his family used to live on the same street that I grew up on in NJ and (2) because Im from NJ, a lot of his humor really hits home for me. At any rate, we wanted to make ourselves gorgeous and for me at least, it would take some work since I usually dont spend a lot of time with my hair and makeup. Duchess was going to do my hair for me using her hot rollers unfortunately they didnt seem to like my hair and we did not achieve the desired results. Oh well I was able to salvage a fairly decent looking windswept style from the ashes and all was well. Linda had gone down to the atrium to check out the happenings and we wanted to get there in time to pose for formal portraits. Duchess, Susan & I arrived at the atrium, located Linda and got in line for the portraits. They didnt come out badly however I think the ones where youre floating outside the railing came out better that the ones with the ship in the background. Oh, and getting off on a tangent if I may who was the genius who decided to put the 6x8 photos on that horrible glossy photo paper!? Yuk!!! Glossy may be fine for digital prints or your own film, but I expect professional photos to be printed on a professional quality matte finish photo paper. I know, it isnt the end of the world, but I just dont think the glossy prints look nearly as good as the matte finish ones. Anyway where were we?? Oh yes .
After posing for pictures, we made our way to Animators Palate for dinner. Our table was a round table set just behind the service unit that our service team was using and was in the very back of the room. I wasnt thrilled with that particular location as it felt rather isolated from the main activities in the dining room and didnt allow for a great view of the full show. Dinner was okay. I started with the Cesar Salad and had the roasted chicken for my entrée. The chicken was tender and flavorful, served with tasty smashed potatoes. Susan had grilled salmon, Linda had the maple glazed salmon and Duchess had 2 appetizers. For dessert, Duchess, Linda & I had the Strawberry Shortcake and I also asked for the Kahlua Trifle just to taste. Both were very good. Susan has been dieting using a fairly strict low carb method. She also has some food groups that she has to avoid for other reasons so a lot of the desserts just didnt work for her. But this evening, she asked Witt to bring her some plain strawberries and Duchess asked him if he could mix in some of the macadamia nuts that are used to top the Trifle. Witt and the kitchen staff came through with a beautiful bowl full of berries and nuts for her. Life was good.
After dinner we changed into more comfortable clothes and got ready for Krazy Kareoke in Wavebands. Susan was joining us for Kareoke although not to sing, just to support Duchess and me. Since it was still early, we hit the Cadillac Lounge to ask Mike to play Girl from Ipanema for us. Would you believe he had just played it?? Another person had asked for it and he thought that other person was Duchess but it wasnt! Oh well maybe tomorrow. I went to check in Wavebands for the kareoke books and when they were out we headed over to get our names in to sing. During Krazy Kareoke, if you sing a song, DJ CUES will give you a free shot! Woohoo!!! Free shots are nothing to sneeze at. Out of our group, Duchess was the first to be called up. She did not want her shot and asked if I could be her surrogate drinker. DJ CUES said that was okay so I got up and had my first shot of the night. Yum! Duchess sang her rendition of Reba McIntyres Why Havent I Heard From You with some great attitude. She got a very nice reception from the audience. I was still waiting for my turn and there were several singers before me. Most of the people in the audience were great, but there was this one group seated along the upper tier of the club that was just obnoxious. They talked LOUDLY during everyone elses performances and were just downright RUDE. And we werent the only ones who felt that way. We found out that they were from Miami when a part of their group got up to sing Summer Nights from Grease. One of the girls did have a very good singing voice but she knew it and was very prima donna-ish the others were just terrible and because of their rudeness earlier, it was hard not to be just as rude back to them. But good manners prevailed and we were polite but not enthusiastic in our response to their song. After they went, it was my turn. I chose to sing Trisha Yearwoods Shes In Love With the Boy. I didnt sing great, but I think it was passable. It definitely wasnt the worst performance of the night! But the crowd was great and encouraging so I felt good. Plus, for a free shot I didnt really care if I didnt sing as well as I could have, lol. There was a gentleman, Howard from NJ who did a really great job. Then one of the girls from the trio that sang Summer Nights came back up to sing On the Radio. Again, she sang well, but many folks felt she should not have performed twice since there were more people who wanted to sing than could be accommodated. The last performance we saw was a group of ladies who were on the cruise for the wedding of one of their daughters. They came up to sing Love Shack. Id say that they were the most fun, even if not the best singers of the evening. Unfortunately, the rude table from behind us were especially rude during this song and got on our last nerve. We just couldnt take them any more so we called it a night at about quarter to 1 and headed back upstairs. Duchess went straight to the stateroom, I walked with Susan to the internet café where she checked her emails and I went for a stroll around deck 10 to enjoy the wind in my hair and look at the beautiful stars in the night sky. I went back to the stateroom and didnt even hear Susan come in later as I drifted off to sleep with dreams of snorkeling at Castaway Cay in my head.
Tune in for our next episode in which our heroines visit the tropical paradise known as Castaway Cay, enjoy the delightful dinner offerings at Palo and dance to the hits of their high school days.
Today was Nassau day and we only had very vague thoughts about heading off the ship to do a bit of shopping. But if we did get off the ship, it would be late in the afternoon since we had spa treatments planned for that morning a manicure for me, a massage for Linda and some sort of metabolism analysis for Susan. The treatments were all scheduled for between 10 and 10:30 with Lindas being the longest, lasting until lunchtime.
Joanna did my manicure and while she was competent, she was not especially outgoing. In fact I found quite a few of the spa staff to be a bit aloof and less personable than the DCL CMs. Im not sure if this is because they work for the Spa vendor rather than DCL itself. At any rate, it seemed to me that the spa staff from England were less outgoing than some of the others. The gal who did Lindas treatment was from South Africa and much more personable according to Linda.
After my manicure, I went down to grab a comfy lounge chair on Deck 4 while my polish dried. After about 20 minutes, I moved up to deck 9 and grabbed a lounge chair in the sun by the Quiet Cove pool. There were lots of puffy clouds that would chase around the sky, blocking the sun. It was quite warm when the sun was out but there was a cooler breeze when the sun was hidden by the clouds. I enjoyed some reading and partook of an adult beverage by the pool and then hopped into the pool for a relaxing dip. While at the pool I noticed a photographer set up for some photos at the pool area. She was taking photos from both ends of the pool. I wondered what the photos were going to be used for but not enough to ask the photographer.
After getting out of the pool and sitting in the sun a while longer to dry off, I headed back to our stateroom where I found Duchess napping on the couch and Susan napping on the bed. I was feeling a bit peckish, so I ran up to get a bite to eat since it was around lunchtime. I brought a burger from Plutos back to the stateroom to eat on the verandah since I was still a bit damp and the girls were resting inside. As I returned, Susan opened her eyes and told me that they were planning to go to Tritons for lunch once Linda came back from the spa. I had a couple bites of the burger to assuage my hunger and gave a piece to Susan (sans bun) for the same reason. I headed out onto the verandah with my book, and Susan let me know when Linda returned to the stateroom. We then went down to Tritons for lunch. Our lunch servers were lovely and we had a delightful lunch. Duchess & I both chose the spaghetti bolognese a la Croatia and it was very good. Susan & Linda each had the tilapia. We also had dessert I had key lime pie which was yummy. I dont remember what Duchess & Linda chose but I remember they each asked for 2 things. Since I had only asked for 1 thing, our server brought me a slice of the banana cream pie to keep things even. I did try the banana cream pie and was not impressed.
After lunch we returned to the stateroom. Linda & Duchess headed to the Rainforest for some relaxation. I dont recall what Susan did. I thought about going to the wine tasting at Palo or the pool games over at Quiet Cove pool (the International Bellyflop Competition is always fun) but my late night was catching up to me and I ended up dozing on the sofa in the stateroom. Susan returned to the room and I woke up so we could head to Who Wants to Be a Mouseketeer to see if we would be lucky enough to win any shipboard credits or a 7-night cruise. Unfortunately we were not seated in a lucky row and were not chosen at random to be contestants in the game. There were 4 contestants and most won at least $80 of shipboard credit. One young lady almost got the very first question wrong but the host refused to accept her response as her final answer. To our credit, we knew the answers to all of the questions except one. The panel was also very knowledgeable and very efficient providing good assistance to the contestants. We did have a bone to pick with one of the questions though. There was a question that asked The American Adventure is located between which two countries in Epcots World Showcase? Now we are all Epcot fans, in fact I I spend at least one day a month at Epcot often more. So, I am very familiar with the layout of that park. So given the possible responses we felt that the question was a bit ambiguous and could have been sucessfully argued had the person given one of the incorrect answers. As we were leaving, we commented on this to Sasha from the Cruise Staff. It took a few minutes for him to get our point and he told us who we could write to about it. We had a good laugh over it.
After Mouseketeer, Susan, Duchess & I headed down to Wavebands for bingo at 4:45pm. At the entrance to Wavebands, my pal Jason was chatting with Donald Duck who had just appeared at the Mouseketeer show. After hugs from Jason and Donald I headed in to get a table and fill out my ticket slip. Desiree was hosting bingo with Sasha as her bingo bunny. She explained how the ticket order form worked, we purchased our tickets, sat down and our table and hoped we would be lucky!
The first game required a diagonal line going through the Free Space for bingo. I punched my numbers and suddenly I was shouting BINGO as I punched the last number in the diagonal line. Sasha came over and his first comment was Oh no, not you! which had us giggling again. Desiree, not knowing about our encounter with Sasha after Mouseketeer thought he was referring to our fun at the 70s party the night before and made a comment to that effect. Sasha took my card and, watched by another passenger, validated my bingo claim. I was the only winner and went over to Mike to pick up my winnings of $42. Not the snowball jackpot, but a respectable amount for the first game of the day. At least it paid for my bingo card. We continued to play and although we came close, did not win any other games. We had a lot of fun though Sasha is a hoot and Desiree was a lovely person.
After bingo, it was time to head back to the Stateroom to prepare for dinner at Animators Palate. We were skipping the Cabaret show featuring Rich Purpura this evening. Had the featured performer been Gary DeLena, I would have gone because (1) his family used to live on the same street that I grew up on in NJ and (2) because Im from NJ, a lot of his humor really hits home for me. At any rate, we wanted to make ourselves gorgeous and for me at least, it would take some work since I usually dont spend a lot of time with my hair and makeup. Duchess was going to do my hair for me using her hot rollers unfortunately they didnt seem to like my hair and we did not achieve the desired results. Oh well I was able to salvage a fairly decent looking windswept style from the ashes and all was well. Linda had gone down to the atrium to check out the happenings and we wanted to get there in time to pose for formal portraits. Duchess, Susan & I arrived at the atrium, located Linda and got in line for the portraits. They didnt come out badly however I think the ones where youre floating outside the railing came out better that the ones with the ship in the background. Oh, and getting off on a tangent if I may who was the genius who decided to put the 6x8 photos on that horrible glossy photo paper!? Yuk!!! Glossy may be fine for digital prints or your own film, but I expect professional photos to be printed on a professional quality matte finish photo paper. I know, it isnt the end of the world, but I just dont think the glossy prints look nearly as good as the matte finish ones. Anyway where were we?? Oh yes .
After posing for pictures, we made our way to Animators Palate for dinner. Our table was a round table set just behind the service unit that our service team was using and was in the very back of the room. I wasnt thrilled with that particular location as it felt rather isolated from the main activities in the dining room and didnt allow for a great view of the full show. Dinner was okay. I started with the Cesar Salad and had the roasted chicken for my entrée. The chicken was tender and flavorful, served with tasty smashed potatoes. Susan had grilled salmon, Linda had the maple glazed salmon and Duchess had 2 appetizers. For dessert, Duchess, Linda & I had the Strawberry Shortcake and I also asked for the Kahlua Trifle just to taste. Both were very good. Susan has been dieting using a fairly strict low carb method. She also has some food groups that she has to avoid for other reasons so a lot of the desserts just didnt work for her. But this evening, she asked Witt to bring her some plain strawberries and Duchess asked him if he could mix in some of the macadamia nuts that are used to top the Trifle. Witt and the kitchen staff came through with a beautiful bowl full of berries and nuts for her. Life was good.
After dinner we changed into more comfortable clothes and got ready for Krazy Kareoke in Wavebands. Susan was joining us for Kareoke although not to sing, just to support Duchess and me. Since it was still early, we hit the Cadillac Lounge to ask Mike to play Girl from Ipanema for us. Would you believe he had just played it?? Another person had asked for it and he thought that other person was Duchess but it wasnt! Oh well maybe tomorrow. I went to check in Wavebands for the kareoke books and when they were out we headed over to get our names in to sing. During Krazy Kareoke, if you sing a song, DJ CUES will give you a free shot! Woohoo!!! Free shots are nothing to sneeze at. Out of our group, Duchess was the first to be called up. She did not want her shot and asked if I could be her surrogate drinker. DJ CUES said that was okay so I got up and had my first shot of the night. Yum! Duchess sang her rendition of Reba McIntyres Why Havent I Heard From You with some great attitude. She got a very nice reception from the audience. I was still waiting for my turn and there were several singers before me. Most of the people in the audience were great, but there was this one group seated along the upper tier of the club that was just obnoxious. They talked LOUDLY during everyone elses performances and were just downright RUDE. And we werent the only ones who felt that way. We found out that they were from Miami when a part of their group got up to sing Summer Nights from Grease. One of the girls did have a very good singing voice but she knew it and was very prima donna-ish the others were just terrible and because of their rudeness earlier, it was hard not to be just as rude back to them. But good manners prevailed and we were polite but not enthusiastic in our response to their song. After they went, it was my turn. I chose to sing Trisha Yearwoods Shes In Love With the Boy. I didnt sing great, but I think it was passable. It definitely wasnt the worst performance of the night! But the crowd was great and encouraging so I felt good. Plus, for a free shot I didnt really care if I didnt sing as well as I could have, lol. There was a gentleman, Howard from NJ who did a really great job. Then one of the girls from the trio that sang Summer Nights came back up to sing On the Radio. Again, she sang well, but many folks felt she should not have performed twice since there were more people who wanted to sing than could be accommodated. The last performance we saw was a group of ladies who were on the cruise for the wedding of one of their daughters. They came up to sing Love Shack. Id say that they were the most fun, even if not the best singers of the evening. Unfortunately, the rude table from behind us were especially rude during this song and got on our last nerve. We just couldnt take them any more so we called it a night at about quarter to 1 and headed back upstairs. Duchess went straight to the stateroom, I walked with Susan to the internet café where she checked her emails and I went for a stroll around deck 10 to enjoy the wind in my hair and look at the beautiful stars in the night sky. I went back to the stateroom and didnt even hear Susan come in later as I drifted off to sleep with dreams of snorkeling at Castaway Cay in my head.
Tune in for our next episode in which our heroines visit the tropical paradise known as Castaway Cay, enjoy the delightful dinner offerings at Palo and dance to the hits of their high school days.
