My Souvenir Memories: Sea Day

After five straight port days, I was looking forward to a relaxing sea day. Bob and I started the day with breakfast in the Horizon Court and I was quite surprised to see CHOCOLATE was everywhere! Carnival often does a chocolate buffet at noon on their last sea day…but breakfast?

Bob was going to meet Kent in the gym so didn’t eat anything…but I never turn down chocolate!

My mind is fuzzy on how the day was spent, but looking at the daily Patters, I do know that the guys went to the Navigation@Sea lecture in the Princess Theater at 10 am. Although I’m sure it was interesting, Laurel and I chose to attend the “outlet sale” at the same time in the Michelangelo Dining Room. Tons of merchandise are strewn across the tables…much of it leftovers from various cruise routes…the northeast, the Baltics, etc. The prices were reduced…but not to the point that I felt compelled to buy anything.

As we were browsing, the captain came on the intercom and announced that the ship was turning around. Someone had spotted what they thought was a gray life raft floating in the ocean and we were going back to the spot where it had been seen. As the ship turned, it listed to one side…enough that it was a bit hard to even walk. (Found out later that it was only a 2% list…but believe me…it felt more like 20%!)

We knew the guys had planned to go to the ice carving demonstration at 11:00 so we made our way up to the pool area to see if we could find them. By the time we got up there, the carvings were being loaded up and hauled away.

We found the guys…and most of the other passengers…standing along the rail trying to spot this mysterious gray life raft. The captain had announced that if anyone spotted the raft to please call the bridge immediately.

As the ship backtracked, a small vessel came into view on the horizon. At first everyone was sure we had found the life raft, but the captain announced that it was a tiny Venezuelan fishing boat…and they had been able to make contact. Not sure why or how such a small boat would be out on the open seas. The life raft was never found…and we turned around to continue on our way north. But….it did make for an exciting morning!

Can you see the boat? LOL! It took me forever to finally see it...but it is too small to show up on the photo.

There were lots of afternoon activities in the Patters…line dance class, bridge tournament, Elevator Roulette (wish I had checked this out!), flower making class, cocktail making contest, Scattergories, bocce ball, sexy legs competition (Is this a Princess cruise? Sounds like Carnival!), Wii sports, luggage tag decorating class, wine tasting, MUTS (Raiders of the Lost Ark), golf chipping into the pool, trivia, etc. These are just SOME of the activities that were scheduled between 1:00 and 4:30.

We could have easily kept busy, but I wanted to NOT be busy. My schedule for the afternoon: lay in the sun by the pool. After lunch (pizza…yum!) I think the guys took off to work on their contraption for the “egg drop” competition the next day. Our waiter, Joseph, had gotten them an egg tray the night before and they had a plan in mind.

Laurel and I found two loungers at the back rail next to the Terrace Pool. I love seeing the wake of the ship!

I alternated between my chair and floating with my noodle in the pool. The ship was really rocking so the Terrace Pool became a “wave pool”...it was fun sloshing back and forth!

Our second formal night brought about the realization that the cruise was coming to an end. To date, this was our longest cruise but I would love to have even more days. A back-to-back for 14 days perhaps? (Note: My wish came true! Here is a link to the blog posts from our 14 day B2B Cruise on the Carnival Glory

We were all looking forward to dinner with waiter Joseph…and it was lobster night! The extra clothing required for formal night takes up a lot of precious luggage space, but it is fun to play dress up on a couple of nights. I consider it my geriatric prom night!

Bob and Kent both started the meal with escargot for their appetizer...

Lobster is one of the meals I look forward to most on a cruise, but this time it did not live up to my expectations. The flavor was just not quite right and I missed having melted butter as an accompaniment. (I felt very pampered having Joseph remove the lobster shell for me!)

The production show “What a Swell Party” was the evening entertainment in the Princess Theater. Great music…and pretty elaborate sets for a cruise ship show! (Note: We saw this same production again on our Alaskan cruise and it was interesting to compare the differences between the two theaters.)