Getaway 2013: Day Seven (on board)

By the time our last day at sea rolled around, we were still trying to find some time to really relax!  Here we thought this cruise would be all about laying around by the pool, drinking pina coladas, and reading books.  Clearly we were mistaken!

Not that I’m complaining!

We did decide to take it easy for our last day.  We lounged in bed so long we missed breakfast, so we grabbed sandwiches and coffee from the promenade cafe and ate on the balcony off our room.

We hit the arcade, finally sipped that pina colada, and tried to sit by the pool…but my Jamaican sunburn left me afraid to go anywhere near the sun and to be honest things had really cooled down as we headed back north towards the Mississippi.

Before dinner, we attended one last show in the theatre.  This was the closing variety show, which brought back the acrobats we had enjoyed the first night, along with a comedian and of course the Royal Caribbean singers and dancers.

At dinner, the entire dining service staff gathered and sang for the guests. 

And after dinner there was a farewell parade on the promenade.

For the rest of the evening we just hung out with Grant and Michele for one last drink and actually headed for our room at a reasonable time.  We would be docking quite early the next morning and we wanted to enjoy one last breakfast and hit the Louisiana ground running.

Bye Bye Royal Caribbean!  We’ll miss you!

{Next post: Hello Mardi Gras}

Getaway 2013: Day Six (on board)

By Thursday we were glad to have a ‘boring’ day at sea!  We’d been so busy with excursions that we hadn’t really had a chance to enjoy any daytime activities on board the ship.

We took our time getting going in the morning, took a walk around the ship, then happened upon the belly flop competition!  Ouch.

While continuing to wander, we bumped into Grant and Michele and found out about a volleyball tourney that was about to start.  Michael decided to join two teams because he’s fun like that.

After the games the four of us decided to finally play mini-golf.  We’d been meaning to play the entire trip but just hadn’t gotten to it.

I love mini-golf.  Why don’t we play more often?!

When the sun started setting we decided it was time to get ready for the evening festivities and drink up the bottle of champagne we’d won at the art auction. 

The show for the night was an amazing tribute to Broadway musicals!!  Of all the shows, this was the one I’d been waiting for.  The RC singers and dancers put on about an hour long show, with songs from multiple musicals including an extra long Mama Mia ABBA session!

   

After the show we enjoyed a lovely formal night in the dining room (complete with lobster tails!) and the obligatory stairway photos.

 

After dinner we headed down to the arena to take part in what we thought was an adult scavenger hunt.  It ended up being this incredibly ‘adult’ hilarious team challenge that involved everything from needing to produce three bras from your team, proving to be the dirtiest dancers, or bringing a set of false teeth to the host.  I was in tears laughing the entire time.

The grand finale of that event was dressing up your male team leader as a woman.  I’ll save the photos from that for personal review, but suffice to say the ‘catwalk’ portion of the evening was the funniest thing I’ve seen EVER.

{Next post: last day at sea}

Getaway 2013: Day Five (Port: Jamaica)

Wednesday morning we opened our patio doors to see this.  Our ship was just pulling to port at Falmouth, Jamaica.

This port is only a couple of years old.  Royal Caribbean worked with the local government to build this area as an alternative to other busier ports.

When we were choosing our excursions, we opted to take our third day on land easy and opted for a simple trip to the beach.  After breakfast we made our way off the ship and took a quick bus trip to a cozy and sunny beach. (Sorry can’t for the life of me remember which one.)

The day started out cool and not too busy, but as the day went on it got super sunny and hot.  Michael borrowed some snorkel gear and spent a few hours just floating about in the surf looking for fishies and shells.  He was so far out there I couldn’t even see him anymore! 

I enjoyed the view from my lounger and took a few dips in the shallow end.

Michael came out of the surf with this bad boy.  We let the local beach staff keep it.

Around 2pm we figured we’d baked long enough and headed back to the port.  Good thing we did…by then I could tell my sunscreen was not doing it’s job.

We wanted to see a bit of Falmouth before we got back on board, so we took this little trolley bus tour recommended by the ship’s excursion staff.  We happened to be the only ones on this particular timeslot so we got the tour guide all to ourselves.

The trolley drives throughout the small town and the guide points out typical Jamaican buildings, etc.  We made a stop at this church along the way.

It takes a little less than an hour to cruise through the whole town.

After our little tour we spent some time wandering through the port area and then headed back to the ship.

After our long day we opted for sushi and salad in the buffet, some Bellini type drinks in souvenir glasses, and a simple night at one of the quieter lounge bars.

Next to the beach view, one of the highlights of the day was getting a Towelephant on our bed!  We had generally been only having our room attended to once a day so we’d been missing out.  Glad we got turndown service that night.

I’m so easy to please.  Bring me a towel animal and it makes my day. :)

{Next post: A couple days at sea}