Hey everyone, after all that went on with my grandma my parents had been wanting to go on a major family vacation for their 35th anniversary, and they wanted to do it with a central American cruise to Mexico, Honduras, and Belize. Mom was a little concerned about leaving my grandma, but after the events of Easter she was fully relieved with it and ready to party. It started on Friday where we all flew down to Fort Lauderdale. Vikingpolak came to our condo the night before since he was going to drive with us to the airport. He hasn't slept over since Tennessee. I made ribs in the oven that weren't that great, but he appreciated them. He and I watched some MeTV Toons before going to bed. We watched an episode of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, and the episode was REALLY scandalous by today's standards. After that we watched the theatrical shorts they were airing (Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Popeye). The Looney Tunes short just happened to be the short where Sylvester and Tweedy were on a ship and Sylvester got sea sick, where Tweedy said "and the boat rocked, and rocked, and rocked, over the side puddy tat." Great short to watch before going on a cruise (really though, we referenced that short many times throughout the trip).
It's Friday travel day. We wake up early, load up our car, and drove to the airport. My work gives me discount parking if I print out the coupon, $2 off per day, we just need to park in a far lot. It was not that bad, just had to catch the yellow bus that picks up the passengers. It was a pretty simple ride from the lot to the airport. We sent our luggage to check and then went through security before going to the terminal. As we walked to the gate we ran into my mom waiting to buy McDonalds breakfast (I didn't need any, I had my muffin on the way to the airport). We just waited around for the plane as we got caught up on planning the trip. On the flight down I watched Dustin Checks In, a movie about an orangutan in a hotel that I saw advertised on some VHS tape a couple of times and thinking "that looks interesting." It was a deep cut memory that came rushing back. It was actually a pretty good movie, nothing spectacular but it's a "mid-budget kids movie" that doesn't really exist anymore. That didn't take up the entire flight, so I watched half of DC Super Hero Pets (the flight would be over before the movie was). While on the flights, I took a bunch of video of the plane taxying and from the air. As always, uploaded with creative commons attribution.
Video of Directing the Plane
Airplane Taking Off Ground to Clouds
Airplane Landing
And here's Mini-grandma, you'll learn about her soon.
Once we landed it was a matter of getting everyone off the plane and through the terminal. My parents are getting slow, so they just got off the plane while we pulled out the carry-ons. The terminal wasn't super exciting, and we wanted to get to our hotel for the night. We got our luggage as it came out of the baggage claim and it came pretty fast. Mskate ordered us an Uber XL and we had to get to the ride share, which was kind of far away. My dad can't stand for very long so I had to go ahead to make sure there was a place for my dad to sit down. There was a bench somewhat close to where we were getting picked up but people were using it. Luckily though there were airport wheelchairs around it so that was good for my dad to sit in if needed. I called mskate and said "bring them over, I have seats." We thankfully didn't have to wait super long for the Uber to arrive, but in that time I did get video of a plane taking off (again, uploaded with creative commons attribution). My mom liked seeing that since when I was about 19 my cousin in Japan brought his son over where he met my grandpa (his great grandpa) and I put in some airplane landing stock footage to show him coming over to America and then transition to him with some videos of him back in Japan. OK tangent over.
Pigeons Walking
Airplane Taking Off
Driving around Fort Lauderdale
Our afternoon and evening in Fort Lauderdale was pretty low key and kind of interesting. I'm an ebay seller and have been selling knickknacks that we got when cleaning out my grandparent's house, and someone bought some white cat figures the day before we flew out with the auction ending after all the USPS pickup locations were closed, so we had to take it to Florida with us and find a mail pickup place within walking distance of the hotel. Thankfully there was an Office Depot half a mile away, and so mskate and I went there to drop it off. I actually caught the mail carrier doing a pickup so I was able to just hand it to him since it was all prepaid. We also needed to get sunscreen. Mskate and I had a stick of roll on from when we went to Hawaii, but that wouldn't be enough for the whole family and had to buy more somewhere else. Thankfully there was a BJ's Wholesale close to the Office Depot and since we have a membership we went there to see if they had sunscreen for sale and if they by chance had the shirts my brother liked (they unfortunately didn't). We had the choice of 3 types of sunscreen: lotion, stick, and spray. We got the stick since it would be easiest to carry in our bags. On our way back mskate and I stopped at Taco Bell to get her a Gatorade and I got nacho fries. We had other options for fast food, but she needed the electrolytes and I knew Taco Bell would have an electrolyte drink, and I had a gift card in my wallet. After our little outing I looked through what our hotel had to offer and they had HBO Max, which meant I could finish DC Super Hero Pets.
When it came to dinner time, we went to a restaurant that was 3 blocks from the hotel. We could have gotten Panda Express (next door) or Door Dash, but the fun thing is that my dad's brother and my girl cousin on my dad's side don't live super far (Uncle B and I'll call her mbear) so we wanted to have dinner together with them and her baby, for now I'll call him Little J (he doesn't have a defining feature or nickname yet). It ended up being a really great visit. I got to spend some time with mbear, my parents got to spend some time with his brother, and I got lots of video of Little J being a cute baby that will make my aunt really happy to see.
After dinner mskate and I went to a grocery store to get some last minute items; distilled water for the 3 cpap machines this night, and juice boxes for mskate for low blood sugars. There was a grocery store not too far from the hotel and restaurant, and since mskate and I like to do that kind of "urban adventuring" we took care of that. On our adventure we found a unique store that got us excited. It was called like "American Discount" and it was kind of a department store but no clothing section. It was 2 stories with an escalator; upper floor large appliances like stoves and washing machines and furniture, lower level electronics, kitchen, bathroom, art, and some other things. Mskate and I ended up finding a 3 pack of USB-C charging cables which was good since we seemed to have neglected to bring enough. I also looked at the videogame section but nothing there for me. After that we went to the grocery store and got our groceries, and then went back to the hotel where we put our ship luggage tags on all our bags.
It's now Saturday morning. We had breakfast at the hotel. I want to say I had pancakes, and mskate had nutella. We got all our stuff together and ordered an uber XL. The uber driver was staying at the hotel because he knew people would be needing rides to the port. We were able to get all our suitcases in the back, and then we piled into the vehicle. It wasn't that big of a trip, and getting through the port was not a big deal. We piled out and gave our luggage to the porters. They were able to get it to the pickup place. We got in line to the entry which wrapped around the building. My dad has some trouble standing for a long time but thankfully we were able to get him on a bench inside the line and he just waited for us (kind of like the baby swap at amusement parks). We were taking a princess cruise and their big thing is NFC medallions that act as the room key and boat ID and boat card. Since we were so busy with my grandma only VikingPolak got his medallion mailed to him since he ordered it early enough, the rest of us had to pick ours up at the port. Mskate and I had a bit of a problem with ours, mom and dad were able to pick theirs up and get through, but ours were lost and things were complicated. We got room keys as a backup so we could get on the ship, and then we had to go to the customer service to get the medallions. Getting on the ship was a little annoying though, because part of princess cruise is they have your picture so they can verify that you are the owner of the medallion being used, and the rule was no hats, but mskate missed that and she submitted a picture of me wearing a hat (because I'm always wearing a hat and didn't think of it), and so when I tried to get on the boat I had to get my picture retaken. We got our medallions after going to the customer service, and that took a while, but after that things went...well I'll get to that.
Once we got on the ship we needed to find a place for dad to sit down, and that ended up being at the bar at O'mallies, one of the premium restaurants on the ship in the lobby. We kind of parked him and then looked around the place. One of the places we ended up liking is the little cafe on the 5th floor in the main lobby. Mskate got a gluten free ham sandwich and chocolate moose cup, and I got a pizza muffin and chocolate moose bar, and then dad got a ham sandwich. I started my booze cruise off with a raspberrying. I don't remember what it was, but it was a good drink. Our rooms weren't quite ready yet, but we were able to drop off our backpacks which was OK. I then had my 2nd drink, a sweet Annie, again, not sure what it was, but it was good. We did some walking around the ship, trying to get the lay of the land. We walked around the different decks, checking out where all the bars, pools, and performance stages are. I also had a seltzer water, because that was my main drink when I went on the cruise as a teen. I saved the can because I had to see how many I would gather. We spent a couple hours before setting sail, and our luggage was supposed to get delivered before setting sail but we didn't (I want to say it got there around dinner time).
Cast off was pretty nice. We were on the stern when we they sounded the horn and said "we're on our way." It was pretty fun watching the ship sail away, just slowly moving as we pick-up speed. I got some good video of us as we were going. During the little cast-off party they were singing Come Sail Away, an interesting cover of it. I had another drink, a Strawberries on Fire, a drink with Strawberries and Jalapenos and some other stuff (I later found out it was non-alcoholic, but it was still really good). Here's where things got kind of funny. Apparently the maritime rules are they only have to do a full emergency drill twice a year, once every 6 months. On weeks where they don't do the full drill all the passengers have to do is watch a video in their rooms, which would have been very good for both dad and mskate who get tired very easily and were ready to have a calm evening. Guess which training we had to do. With the way I was presenting the methods hopefully I was foreshadowing that our week just happened to be one of the 2 weeks where they do the full drill. We had to meet at our muster areas, listen to all the trainings, and sign in with our medallions to say that we got the full training. Our muster area was in the cassino, so we all sat at the blackjack table. Since the casino wasn't set-up yet I took some video and pictures of the slot machines. There was a "Sexy Red Riding Hood" slot machine that I thought was funny. I took photos while I could because I knew I wouldn't be able to once the casino was in full swing. I think around this time is when we checked out the arcade. It was pretty lame, some racing games and a crane game, but whatever.
Next point of interest was dinner. We all went to the main dining room and had a good meal. Where we sat there was a honeymooning couple and everyone wished them congratulations. I started out with a Hawaiian Tropics drink (which was quite good), and for dinner I had a pork tenderloin meal. Mskate and vikingpolak had a fish thing, mom had some kind of fish and eggplant bowl, and dad had chicken. For desert I had something I always wanted but kept forgetting and never had the opportunity to have it, because it was a trope in cartoons. That desert is a souffle; a desert that is always joked about in cartoons as super fragile, being unable to make any loud noise lest it fall. Once I got it I started loud whispering "OK everyone, be very quiet or else the souffle will fall." It was kind of like a really fluffy cake, and was really good. Mom and vikingpolak each got an after dinner drink, an irish coffee and some kind of hot chocolate thing maybe. After dinner we did some more exploring and went back to the room to unpack some stuff. Since I was still kind of hungry I ordered room service, chicken noodle soup. It was complementary, and I was like "I want to see what this is like." The room service took a while to get there, but it was good. Last cruise we had live TV and could watch Cartoon Network Latin America, and CN LA had completely different schedules and was still doing the CN City bumpers while the US was doing the Yes and Nood bumpers, and since I'm part of a search for a lost Nickelodeon bumper I was hoping to get Nickelodeon Latin America and maybe they would have it. Unfortunately the only live TV they had was ESPN and Fox Sports; series were available on demand, but not live. Oh well.
It's now late night activities time, which is mostly the stage show. This was a magic show from a guy who was a finalist on Penn and Teller Fool Us (or something P&T magic related). He was really good. I'm a fan of stage magic, it's always kind of fascinated me, and one thing I like to do is try to figure it out. After having taken some lessons on magic tricks and watching all of Magic's Greatest Secrets Revealed, I can kind of figure it out sometimes. This guy though, I was genuinely stumped. What I really like is how he did tricks where things passed through objects right in front of our eyes, without covering it in a handkerchief. Afterwards mom and I went to the buffet. We got some carved steak and potatoes, and I ended the day with a Long Island Iced Tea. Overall, great end for the first day.
It's now day 2, a day at sea. Mskate and I started out with room service breakfast. It was pretty cool, the day before we got a menu that we could fill out with our order and preferred time range of delivery and hang on our door handle, and then the following morning we'd get it. We had apple juice and a breakfast sandwich. As our first room service day with the gluten free requirement, it got just a tad messed up. It was supposed to be GF breakfast pastries for mskate and pizza muffins for me, but they gave us an entire gluten free meal, which was a ham and egg breakfast sandwich. It was still good though, and was fun having breakfast served to us. Since we're Catholic and try our best to keep the sabath, we watched mass on our phone on our balcony. It was a little odd that they didn't have a Catholic mass considering they had a Jewish sabbath service at the end of the trip, but oh well, the greater church has gotten better at offering mass for shut ins online that "counts in a pinch" to my understanding. This was pretty cool, as the online priest is offering the communion prayer a school of fish started jumping out of the water in the ocean below. I'm pretty sure that was a "Jesus said to cast out your nets and after they came back full he said to follow him" reference in real life, so that's pretty neat.
We also went to the buffet and I got these. On my meme site there's a joke about croissants, so I got these for them.
First day of exploration started out fun. I had a mamosa to start the day, and we got some video watching the sea, and playing with "Minnie Grandma." On our honeymoon [wait, I don't have a blog of that? maybe one day a vlog since I took a bunch of video] we got my grandma a Minnie Mouse numeo stuffed animal and she really liked it. When she passed we inherited it and we brought it on our trip since this was the first big trip without her and took some video of it looking out the window. She'll come back in the future. One of the activities they did was a zumba class. My mom likes to do zumba at home so she participated. One thing that happened throughout the cruise was "guess the weight" where they had a bronze statue figure and you had to guess how much it weighed. Each guess got a raffle ticket for the end of the cruise, and if you guessed the weight right you got a prize. I made some guesses throughout the trip and gathered tickets. It was a fun thing. I also went to some jewelry thing with the jewelry store on the ship, and the person said "I can see you're a man who likes jewelry" after admiring my hand of rings.
Video of the Ocean I took from the Windows
More Video of Waves
One of the first activities I did was speed sudoku, where if you did sudoku the fastest you won. I like sudoku, but I'm not necessarily "fast." Oh well, it was just for fun. I think I completed about half the board before someone won. After the speed sudoku was bingo, and not just "little fun low stakes" bingo, but a $40 buy in with a prize of hundreds of dollars. We joined up with the family and kind of all played together. Unfortunately we didn't win, but that was one of my grandparents favorite gambling activities since it was quite a big southern activity. One of their favorite stories is one of the callers with a very thick southern accent saying "ooohhhh seeekkkssssty seekksss," and when that number got called it got some good laughs. Minnie Grandma came out for that one.
The first show demonstration thing I saw was a fruit carving show. What it was was different cooks or other crew mates who were good at fruit carving. Fruit carving is artistic sculpting with fruit, turning a watermelon into a fish display, a pineapple into an owl, cauliflower into a poodle, eggplant into a bass, oranges into birds, and a different watermelon into a flower. It wasn't super interesting watching them carve, but oh well, the end results were really neat. While doing the bingo and fruit carving I ordered some drinks to me off the app, but they didn't come to me, so I had to deal with customer service and say "where are my drinks?" The app like lost my location and I had to go to the bar to pick them up, this is after ordering a diet coke and a cocktail for myself, and then a soda water and replacement diet coke after the original drinks didn't show up, leaving me with 4 drinks. After this we went back to the room and ordered room service. I had a cheeseburger and mskate had like a sandwich. Just a little something to hold us over.
After lunch we went to the pools. We didn't want to do a lot of swimming, but we wanted to say we used the pools. The big thing we wanted to do was use all the pools. We went in the pool on the rear of the ship that look over the ocean, the main pool on the lido deck, the main hot tub with the main pools, and the small personal hot tubs on the deck above the main deck. The personal hot tubs were pretty neat, but we kind of burned our feet walking to the hot tub. I also had a 24 karat margarita and captain's bounty. We also explored the walking track and workout room, and tried to find the adults only pool but couldn't find it. I also went to salty dog and got some chili cheese fries.
After the pool hopping we got ready for a formal like dinner. We weren't "fully dressed up" like in a suit, but I did wear my Tommy Bahama outfit and mskate had a nice dress. There were some people that REALLY got into it, like men and boys in tuxedos and women and girls in ball gowns. There were some really cute families. For dinner we sat in the same place as we did the previous night, but the honeymooners weren't there that night. I had a lemon drop martini and mom and mskate had fancy coffees. Everyone got beef tenderloin except for mskate who got red snapper. When they came around with the fresh cracked pepper I was the only one who took it. I'm the only one who likes pepper, so it was pretty cool to have a gourmet pepper mill put it on my beef. After dinner mom, dad, and I all had chocolate hazelnut bars, and mskate had a special ice cream thing for gluten free. Here's a fun story, there was a family with some teens that got REALLY into the cruise, and did all the activities. Early in the day one of them did an activity and the prize was a bottle of champaign. Since they were minors it went to the next runner up, who was also a minor, and all the people who placed were minors, so they went around and asked for someone who was of age if they would take the prize, and vikingpolak just happened to be the person they asked. We were sitting by them at dinner and thanked them for the bottle. After dinner we got our picture professionally taken all dressed up, and we put Minnie Grandma in the photo with us.
It's now night time which meant it was time for my night glasses and night activities. There were 2 main things, the show and silent disco. But first, there was some rough waters, the first rough waters of the trip. Nothing too crazy, but I was swaying as was everyone else. The show was kind of neat. It was about people hanging out in a bar singing about their problems, and it was a juke box musical with a bunch of songs. It wasn't the best, and mskate really didn't like it, but it was good enough to keep me entertained. After the show was the silent disco. Mskate was too tired and went to bed, but mom joined me. So the thing with a silent disco is that everyone wears wireless headphones that pulls from a single source and dances to the music without disturbing everyone else. I saw a silent disco on The Neighborhood and I didn't know it was a thing, but it was. The headphones had 3 channels, and each channel is a different color so you could know who was listening to the same music. The channels were modern dance hits and 70s disco music. Mom and I swapped between the channels. On the modern hits there was the cupid shuffle and macarena and such, and then on the 70s hits there was disco inferno and Abba and such. The funny thing about the silent disco is that to the listener it's full volume dance music and everyone is dancing to the same thing (with some singing along), but if you don't have the headphones it's just people dancing in silence and sometimes singing off key. I have a pretty good video of me lip synching to dancing queen, and if you could hear what I heard it was spot on, but without hearing what I heard I'm just mouthing the lyrics while some people kind of far off are singing badly. Kind of funny. Great way to end the night though.
It's now Monday, the first port day. Mskate and I ordered room service breakfast, pizza muffins for me and gluten free pastries for mskate. The room service took a little long though, so I went up to the buffet and got some pancakes and bacon as well. I was the only one in my family doing the Semi-sub, Mayan culture, chocolate, and tequila excursion (dad and VP did an all inclusive beach thing, and mom and mskate did a stingray experience). I got off the ship and found my meetup location. I went to the bathroom before the tour left, but didn't do much shopping yet. Our tour guide lead us through the shopping district that's right off the ship to the taxi busses that were going to take us to the semi-sub. I've done a semi-sub on the last cruise [for once I don't have a blog to link to, that was right before I joined the internet], and I loved all the fish and sea life. I was one of the first people on and got to the front to the seating. I set-up my camera and phone, trying to get all the video and pictures I could. It wasn't quite as cool as the last time (not as many fish), but it was still really cool. I also got a lot of fun views of the coral reef we were going around. Enjoy the video and pictures.
Glass Bottom Boat Video
Also, before getting on the boat I got my picture with this guy.
After the semi-sub we went to the Mayan cultural area and chocolate plantation. We started with a photo op with a Mayan woman in traditional formal dress, and the option to get a professional photo (with a story that I'll get to later). Here's what she looked like.
First up with the cultural walk we saw their basketball type game. If you've seen The Road to Eldorado, it's the game where they have to hit the ball through the loops and try to get sacrificed to the gods. Something interesting I learned is that their number system wasn't "a standard base unit" (not base 2, 8, 10, or 16), it was base 20. After that we saw the Mayan calendar, the same one that said the world was going to end in 2012. Our tour guide asked us if we knew when the end of the calendar was and I was like "2012, I remember that day." We also saw an example of a shrine for Day of the Dead. We also had an authentic tortilla with a "spicy" sauce. Our guide warned us that it's spicy, and I don't know if he was "just warning the white people" or I've numbed my tongue to capsaicin, but it was very mild. I was expecting a lot more. Oh well. Here are some pictures and video.
Now for the chocolate plantation. First we went to a little building where the tour guide showed us how cocoa beans were used as currency in ancient times and how they used to make chocolate, and showed some example beans and showed us some video. Next we went to a stage show thing where a chocolateteer showed us how they used to make chocolate in person, while also giving us a sample of chocolate. Here's something I found really interesting in this showcase; because this is "hot Mexico," the ancient Mayans didn't use milk in the process of making their chocolate since it would spoil too quicky (which you know, before refrigeration and climate control, makes a lot of sense), but they had to use something to bind it together and make it not bitter, so instead they used honey and vanilla extract. The chef used basically a mortar press to break up the cocoa and mix everything together. That sample was also really good. After the demonstration it was time for the gift shop, and they had samples of the different kinds of chocolates available for purchase. I told the lady "I want to try the spicy chocolate" (after having had Aztec chocolate from New Mexico), and it was good but again, not that spicy. Oh well. I also got my mom a bar of chocolate soap since her big thing is soaps. I bought a $100 visa gift card before the trip for "no risk money use" but I missed the part where it was only available in the US, and so I paid with the cash I brought. Before getting on the bus the photo people were trying to sell us the photos. They were $30 for the sturdy frame and $20 for the paper frame. That was a bit too expensive for me, so I declined. Then they tried to make a deal, no frame for $10. Still a bit much for me so I passed (pay attention, this will come back later).
After the chocolate experience we got on the bus to the tequila experience. I kind of thought this would be a distillery, but it wasn't, because apparently tequila can only be made in 7 locations in Mexico and Cozumel isn't one of those places. Oh well, it was still a pretty cool thing. There was another photo op and I got my picture taken again. We had a liquor master explain how to drink tequila and that tequila has to be clear and doesn't have sugar (and a lot of "tequila" is actually 51% tequila and 49% rum, and that's what makes one get hung over). Something that was neat is that tequila is not "a shot drink" even though a lot of people do that. It's meant to be sipped in small amounts, swished around for at least 3 seconds, swallowed, inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. We got to sample some tequila and practice the proper drinking. I liked it a lot, and decided at the next opportunity I would get a TSA approved bottle (that'll come later). After the demonstration we went to the gift shop. I looked at the hot sauces available and kind of wanted to get one (even though I already have a lot, but "it's authentic Mexican hot sauce"). Unfortunately all the hot sauce was habanero based, and habanero is like the only pepper that I don't like. That was annoying, but probably for the best since, as I said, I already kind of have a lot of hot sauces. I did get a shot glass though, because I kind of ended up breaking a lot of my shot glasses and I need more. I also looked through the tequila available, but it was all over 10 ounces. The picture people showed us the pictures and they were the same as last time, and the one sales lady said "$10 with the frame, $5 without the frame." With that I said "OK, I'll take no frame."
We then made our way back to the port. I walked around the shopping center to see if there were any more souvenirs I wanted to get. The shops were pretty interesting, lots of different kinds of things available. There were some very interesting things, I kept coming across places to buy penis shot glasses and marijuana pipes, mugs with breasts on the side that could be drank out of, and mugs of a man's torso with a long erect penis that could be drank through like a straw. Just, REALLY weird. Also, as I was going through the shops there was someone selling souvenir surf boards with cartoon characters painted on them, and the salesman tried to get my attention by saying "look I got Pikachu and blastoise boards," like somehow this guy knew I was pokematic and was a pokemon fan. I did find one thing, a luchador mask for IRA since he's a big wrestling fan. It was a pretty fun time, but one thing I regret now is not going to a bar and seeing if they had Cerveza Cristal (because it's not available in America). Oh well.
I'm now done with shopping and head back to the ship. I got my picture with the Cozumel sign and took some pictures and video of the ships in port and the ocean waves (because creative commons video). As I'm on my way back I look up at the ship and think "since 3 open balconies is probably rare, let me see if I can find our group of rooms." I'm looking around, but not really seeing anything. Then I hear someone calling my name, and realize it's mskate. "Oh, she and mom must be getting back and see me on the port, I should look around and find them" I think, and I start looking but nothing. Well I go back to searching for our room block and using the zoom lens on my video camera I see that mskate is waving hello from our balcony and calling my name. I wave back before going back on the ship.
Ship Moving to Dock
After getting back on the ship mskate and I had a snack at the bistro with a baked alaska drink. We had a little frustration with the room handling because we ordered turndown service but we didn't get it, and we ordered a blanket since mskate likes to snuggle up in a blanket but it wasn't arrived yet, so that involved some customer service help. We did get the blanket eventually, so that was good. Soon after I went to a jewelry give away thing and had a strawberry popper thing (it was strawberry and champaign). It was really good. The jewelry give away thing was a no strings attached raffle, just show up and get a ticket, and it was like at least a $200 necklace pendant. While I was there I looked around at the men's rings and they were really nice, but I didn't want to even ask how much they would be. Plus, I'm saving my pinky for my first kid. I was standing next to a dad who was face timing his daughter and he didn't know what he was waiting for, and I told him it was a diamond pendant. That got his daughter excited and he said "yeah if I win I guess you or mom will get it" (she was maybe 7). I was just being friendly with the dad, but then he pointed the camera to me to say hello. Kind of funny. I didn't win, but I did see the winner and it was a really nice pendant.
After the jewelry it was time for the first casual dining, a pizza dinner date night with mskate, with a vanilla drink thing. The pizza was pretty good, I had a meat lovers type pizza called The New Yorker and mskate had a hawaiian type pizza. But first, appetizers. I had vegetable soup and mskate had a mozzarella ball. Both were really good. The pizza was kind of a lot, so we asked for a plate to take back to the room. For desert I had a terimasu, which was really good.
Now for fun, it's 80s night. As a young millennial born to parents who were college kids in the 80s, I always had a bit of an appreciation for 80s pop-culture and aesthetic. A lot of people got dressed up in the whole 80s style doing the Madonna thing and neon. I didn't know there was an 80s night, but my yellow tint glasses with my island shirt and straw hat ended up getting "honorary outfit" by some people. The first big thing I did was 80s karaoke, karaoke for 80s hits. I recognized a lot of the songs people sang, and I did Africa by Toto. A lot of people had a lot of fun with it, and there was one guy who did a REALLY passion song, like sang his heart out and really "felt the lyrics." There were also the teens that got really into the cruise who did a duet. When I got up I told everyone "you might get goofy," and then I sang Africa as Goofy, occasionally throwing in Disney references when it was "I bless the rains down in Africa" (I bless the rains down in Orlando, in California, in Florida) and then throwing in some Goofy adlibs during the instrumental portions, and at one point saying "look I see Donald" and then doing my Donald Duck call. I haven't sung Africa, so I kind of flubbed the lyrics multiple times, but the character voices made up for it. People were calling for an encore, but that wasn't part of the deal. The host of karaoke said "I've never had something like that happen before, that was cool."
After karaoke I went up to dance at the cast off party. I ended up joining my mom on the dance floor, and she kept talking about how surreal this was. The 80s is now 40 years ago, everyone that "really experienced the 80s" is now "old," and my mom is just looking around at all these "old people" falling right back into their college days dancing to the music, but not being able to dance like they used to. There was a rick roll, Never Gonna Give You Up was playing, and that was fun. And then she thought it was really weird doing her college fun with her adult son who is "dancing for real." But then she kept looking over at this one dad who had his preteen daughter who was really getting into the dancing, and saying "oh he's going to be tired after this." While I'm dancing one of the entertainment coordinators asked me if I would participate in the air guitar competition that was going to be happening in 10 minutes, and I agreed to. What this meant is that I went up on the main stage and participated in the big dance thing. I got up on the stage with like 5 other guests and they played Joan Jet's "I Love Rock and Roll." It wasn't exactly an air guitar competition, but I got up there and did air guitar, pointing my air guitar at the audience as I whale on my air guitar. After that I was ready to be done but apparently our time wasn't over, because then they played "Jump" by Van Halen. I did all I could with that, and just jumped the entire time, and clicked my heels early in the song. I tried to do a major jump but then fell over. I hit my knee and it still hurts if I touch it in the wrong way, but I'm still young and was able to bounce back (but mom was like "if you got hurt mskate would have killed us"). After that I was like "OK, I'm done." Of course the "into it" teens were there, and they did the Patrick Swayze Dirty Dancing lift after convincing the band to do that (or at least they tried). On my way back to the room someone recognized me from karaoke and asked if I was a voice actor, and I'm like "no I just figured out how to talk like Goofy when I was learning to talk, a talent I've been honing for 25 years." Really fun way to end the day.
It's the 3rd day, the day for my "monkey excursion;" technically it was the Honduras nature experience where we saw the bug museum, pirate settlers, parrots, and monkeys, but my big thing was I wanted to meet monkeys. Originally this was something my mom and I were going to do together and my dad and mskate were going to do a cultural tour, but since my dad got really exhausted after the beach day with vikingpolak mom wanted to switch with mskate so she could be with dad. Fine by me, I like to do things with my wife, and they don't even check names on tickets just that you have the ticket. We had breakfast at the bistro and just hung out at the seats there. Mskate was like "where are the monkeys, I don't see the description where it says monkeys." She tried pulling up the app but we couldn't pull up the excursions since they don't allow day of purchase. Then she pulled out her ticket and said "it doesn't say anything about monkeys" (the ticket said "Honduras Nature Experience" not "monkey experience"). It's not like she was "super excited trying to see monkeys," but was worried I would be disappointed because I was excited to see monkeys and "what if there aren't monkeys." I said "it'll be a fun experience, and I read the description it has monkeys." We started off the boat and badged out, but then mskate checked her lanyard wallet and she didn't have her ticket, I checked my wallet and I only had my ticket. We go back on the ship because we need to look for the ticket (I look around where we were sitting, she gets in line for customer service to try to get a reprint of her ticket). As she was standing in line she reaches into her skort pocket and finds her ticket (as a woman she's not used to having pockets). Once we got that sorted out we went back out to Honduras.
Oh yeah, here's pictures from breakfast. They had baked beans as an option and for the Bri*ish meme I had some.
We had about 2 hours before our excursion departed, so we did our shopping beforehand with the intention of dropping things off back on the boat since the port is full of souvenir shops. Before we did though, we found a little paved nature path to the beach. We decided we'd walk it and just take in some of the nature until we reached the beach. It was pretty cool, lots of good plants and sounds of birds. I took recordings of the birds for my 2nd audio library (first available here). Once we finished that we went to the shops. I found some shot glasses that said "Honduras" since I need to get some new shot glasses, and we got IRA and I some Honduras currency display since his big thing when we were getting ready to go was "how are you going to handle the currency exchange." It was a $1 USD for $1 bill and all the coins. I think mskate got a shirt. While we were shopping we ran into vikingpolak which was kind of fun. I also found this, an early release of the switch 2 (because this was before the switch 2 was released).
We now get in line for our excursion. First we got on a bus and drove across the island. We drove through some of the city and it was kind of depressing, lots of low income struggle. We also drove through some forests, and that was pretty nice. While we were on the tour our guide gave us rules on what we can do and what to expect. One of the things was that we won't be able to hold the parrots because of a recently passed law about who can interact with wildlife (which is like only licensed trainers), but we could get pictures next to them. I picked up on a bit of a loophole though, which is that it is illegal for people to seek out the animals and touch them, but it's not illegal for animals to decide to interact with people; so while a handler couldn't pick up a parrot and put it on a tourist's shoulder, there's nothing illegal if a parrot decides to land on a tourist's shoulder after flying (but that doesn't really happen). This is how it was legal for the monkeys to play with us, because monkeys are naturally curious and will climb onto people to inspect them, but you can't reach out and pet them and similar things. The monkey curiosity added extra rules for what could and couldn't be responsibly taken. Mskate and I had backpacks because we had things to carry, but we couldn't bring them with us because monkeys know how to use zippers and will get into your things. We also can't bring water bottles to monkey town because monkeys will want to get to them (disposable ones had to be drank and disposed of before, and reusable water bottles needed to be left with the tour guide who can tell the monkeys to leave him alone), and to take off hats and glasses when the monkeys are with us because they'll want to take them, and of course, no food because they'll sniff it out and get at them (and no bug spray, lotion, or sunscreen unless you're OK with monkeys licking you). With our backpacks we would have to lock them in a locker by where the bus drops us off. It was like $10 for the day and we were able to fit all our stuff in there. Since mskate has diabetes I asked the guide if I could take her medically necessary fruit snacks and he said "if they're completely sealed, they should be fine." I also asked if I could bring my video camera without the camera bag, and he said yes just don't bring it out with the monkeys. That's all I really have to say for this right now, here're some pictures of me at the start-up.
First we went to some nature. We saw a cinnamon tree and were able to smell the bark. It really smelled like cinnamon. Our tour guide said someone tried it once on the tour and the guide asked if it tasted like cinnamon, and the guy said it tasted like bark. We also some fruit trees, I don't remember what [check the footage], but it was pretty cool. Something kind of cool, there was a zip line trail over us and we'd regularly hear "zip, zip, zzzziiiiiiipppppp." I got some sounds for my next audio library. We then did a little bit of walking to our next location, which involved walking up some stone steps that "weren't up to code." Once I saw that, I realized it was probably for the best my mom didn't do this experience with me since she has a lot of bad luck with uneven ground.
Our first stop was the bug museum, which was a bunch of bugs pinned behind glass. For me, this was REALLY cool. So many of these bugs were bugs I find in animal crossing. Nearly 20 years of playing animal crossing, catching bugs, and building up the museum, all in a virtual world. Now I'm seeing it in real life, and I'm certain I saw a lot of these bugs in the game. I was just taking it all in, and am probably the person that got the most out of this. It was just really cool.
Our second stop was a history and geography stop, showing off where the pirates would hide out and how one of the islands was used in naked and afraid. I don't think Honduras gets Discovery Channel, and he called it "the naked people show," which makes it sound much dirtier than it is. While we were there we found an open electrical panel, and the big joke was "well this certainly isn't to code." The pirate cave was pretty neat, just a walking path in a cave with some pirate swords on the wall, and then a 3D map of the island with some history of the settlers shown on the wall. A lot of the sculptures and paintings had topless native women, and it just reminded me of the museum episode of Bob's Burgers where Zeke had a list where one could see boobs from the right angle.
Time for our third stop, but not exactly a "stop" but rather a "significant bridge of interest." It was a suspension bridge over a pond and it was kind of precarious but safe. It was held up by steel cables, but used wooden planks for crossing, and there wasn't like a safety harness, and we could only have like 6 people on at a time to not overload it with the tour guide telling us when it was our turn to go. Then for the people who didn't want to do it, there was "the chicken path," which was just walking around the pond on the ground. If mom had come on this, she probably would have had to take the chicken path, but mskate and I were able to take the bridge. I wasn't scared, I've done bridges like that so it wasn't that big of a deal, but it was still pretty fun. There was one lady ahead of us that was having some fear though, and because I'm me I started quoting Shrek when they were crossing the bridge to Fiona. "Just keep walking, don't look down, don't look down, SHREK I'M LOOKING DOWN!" That helped the lady ahead of us, gave her a distraction.
Fourth stop right on the other side of the bridge, the parrot experience. This was pretty cool, lots of big macaw parrots, some of them just chilling on branches and posts. But then we got to "the bird chair," where like 8 parrots were perched around a bench where people could get their picture taken. We couldn't hold the parrots, but we could take pictures with them if they were just sitting there. I took some pictures of the parrots on the bench without anyone sitting there, and then mskate and I got our picture taken with them. We checked our photo though, and the person we had take our picture didn't get the parrots in the picture, which kind of defeats the purpose of getting a picture with the parrots. We went through the line again and had someone else take our photo. Something kind of funny happened, while we were there 2 parrots started fighting which was kind of fun to see. We saw some parrots kind of pecking at each other earlier but the handlers weren't doing anything so "they were just playing." This time though, the handlers had to get involved and separated them. So that was kind of interesting. One of the handlers was then holding a parrot and letting people get a selfie with him, so I took a picture with the parrot.
Now it's time for the kind of main event, when we went to monkey town. After throwing out our water bottles and tucking our lanyard wallet in our shirt, we saw the signs of "now entering monkey town" and crossed the bridge. There was a little house on a perch and then some handlers started walking out. First though without any prompting, a monkey came over and climbed on the tallest guest, a 6'6 teen boy. Most of us had to be bated to get the monkey to climb on us, but the monkeys just jumped on him without any prompting. When I was telling one of my coworkers the story he told me that monkeys will seek out the tallest person and climb the person to get a view of everyone (he was the tallest person at a birthday party and the handler told him that was the reason the monkey climbed on him). It was really fun. After the initial introduction with the handler the monkeys checked me out without much bating, and I got this pictures. To go on mskate the handler had to bait them, but she had a monkey climb on her. We kind of split up based on who wanted to play with the monkeys and who didn't, with everyone that wanted monkeys standing in a group by the house in the center of the town, and everyone that was done or uninterested going by the tour guide on the edge of the town. I stayed in the group for maybe 10 minutes, and at one point there were 2 monkeys on me, and then they started tussling (while on my shoulders). The handlers stepped in, but they didn't fight very long and didn't need to be fully separated. While this was happening I had my phone out and was taking selfies, and one of the monkeys was a little interested but thankfully didn't take it (they're kind of used to phones). One also took off my hat, but didn't take it far (just dropped it). After that I went over to the "I'm done" location.
.jpg)
After the monkeys we walked back to the pickup spot. There was a beach we could go to, and a bar, and a gift shop, but there wasn't a whole lot that interested us. We returned our locker after getting our stuff and then went to the bathroom. Afterwards we found our bus back to the port and got in. Since "regular rotating return to port" doesn't have as many people as "everyone goes to the excursion site," the "bus" was "a shuttle van." Mskate and I being young sat in the back, and I took some video through the rear window. Returning to the ship wasn't a big deal, just scan in and back to the room. We were pretty hungry though, so we got food from room service. I didn't want to start with alcohol immediately on return, so I had a Sherly temple and a soda water.
After the little rest I walked around the ship some more. I had an illusion, whatever went into that. The big thing I wanted to do was play minigolf on the ship since we did that on our last cruise. It was a little confusing because it was on deck 19, the only thing on deck 19. I'm walking around trying to find it, trying to find an elevator that goes up, trying to figure out if it's the bow or stern, and if I was on the bow or stern. I eventually found it over by the walking track. The minigolf was pretty lame, 10 holes all on the same flat green. It was basically the practice green at the minigolf place by my parents, and even not that because that practice green at least has slopes. This was like "real putting golf" and not "minigolf" I guess. I still putted a ball into all the holes though. After the golf I had a paradise punch, and the main reason I got it was because it has Southern Comfort Whisky, which was the whisky my grandparents would put in their Manhattan cocktails. After my little exploring I watched us as we sailed away from our balcony. Since we had them open the balcony we hung out with my parents as we were casting away.
Ship Leaving The Dock
Buoys and Wave Breaker
Ship Leaving Port
After the cast away I took a nap. I just laid in the bed and rested. Mskate was kind of freaking out because I never nap, she was worried I was sick or drunk, and I'm like "no I'm just tired, let me rest." We also watched Mrs. Doubtfire in our room using the on demand. It was the first time I saw it, which really surprised my family since it was such a popular movie. I said "whenever we rented movies with the grandparents it was either not available or not one of the hit classic movies my grandpa wanted to introduce us to." Whatever, it was really funny. I don't remember what we had for dinner, but I do remember it was when the family did a casual dining at the pizza place but since we only had 2 casual dining meals and mskate and I didn't want to go there again, but we did hang out with the family for a little while. Then mskate and I went to the main dining room, I don't know what we had (because I didn't record it), but I did get the soufflé again. I think once we got back to the room we watched The Help in our room before going to bed. A good way to end the night.
It's now day 3, port day in Belize. This was our "calm excursion," just a train tour around the city. There weren't many excursions that interested me, and this was something mskate wanted to do since there was an American Girl Doll story that was about going on a train tour in Belize (and mskate is into American Girl Doll). This was also the excursion my dad was going to do with us since it was low intensity. We had buffet breakfast and got ready for the day at port, and I had baked beans with my breakfast which got a laugh on my meme group (because they like to clown on the brits and their breakfast beans). Unfortunately for me the beans were "plain beans made in tomato sauce," not "sweet bbq beans" like what I'm used to. We met up with my dad and got off the ship onto the ferry boat. At the other places there was a gangplank that we walked down with the ship docking in port, but because the water was so shallow we had to anchor 2 miles off the shore and ride a ferry boat to shore. It wasn't a big deal, we just had to get to a specific place and wait for our turn to get on the boat, and then it was make sure dad doesn't fall and get him to a seat. On the way there I stood on the bow and watched the water. I was using my karate balance to make sure I don't fall as I free stood. We walked through the mall area until we found where we were going to meet up for our tour. We thankfully didn't have to stand and walk much, and we were able to find an open row on the train for us. We also got water and banana chips as a snack. The train wasn't really "a locomotion," it was a bunch of open side tram cars pulled by a street legal vehicle. I don't know how much to really talk about, just a lot of city. We saw different schools, and seaside buildings, and something that caught my attention was a store that was selling washing machines on the street. Just a fun calm excursion. After the tour we dropped dad off at the pickup point so he could get back on the ship, and then did our thing.
Ship Anchored in Ocean with Dingy Boats
Stock video of the boat ride
With Dad dropped off mskate and I did some shopping. One of the fun stops was this place that had bootleg cartoon character bags, meme level bootleg. We found another shop that had money for sale (we got some for IRA). Mskate found a stuffed doll; it's about the size of a Welly Wisher and it fits in nicely with "the slumber party," and I like to call it "the doll's doll" since that makes it make sense. This is also when mskate got her hair wrapped. She had gotten her hair wrapped on a vacation when she was little and wanted to do it again, but didn't see the place in Mexico that did it and there wasn't a place in Honduras that did it, so now is her opportunity. As we were walking through the mall there was someone advertising hair braiding (like corn rows braiding) and mskate was just ignoring them like all the people who try to sell you things you don't want (because she didn't want braiding), but I asked "do you do hair wraps" and they did, so now we got her hair wrapped. It wasn't as good as other places, but it was the thing she really wanted so it was good. We also went to a store and the owner wanted to wheel and deal; $35 for a small painted football helmet, but too expensive, so then he was all "OK how about $30," but he was a bit too aggressive and handsy for us to consider it (plus, it wasn't THAT nice). We walked around a little more, and then went back to the ship. It was a nice calm excursion. One of the funny things about the port mall is there was a swimming pool in the middle, like a pool that is undeniably meant for swimming in. Kind of weird but whatever. Now for something I'm kicking myself over now, at the boat there was a bar for people who were waiting for the ferry, and I'm now realizing I should have seen if they had Cerveza Cristal. Oh well, maybe one day.
Ship Anchored in the Ocean
Once we got back on the ship I went to the complementary massage event. It was 5 minute shoulder massage, and it was really nice. I'm definitely going to look into getting a full massage now that I'm home because I have a lot of tension in my shoulders (which I'll explain when I get to it). I spent a good amount of time getting stock footage, which was pretty neat. Something that's kind of interesting is that because we were weighing anchor in the ocean and all the cruse ships were kind of in the same area, we could see all the sand that was being kicked up and how it was making the water all brown. I had a sunny day drink, and it was pretty good. After that I looked around for some stuff to do, and did a guess the weight and put some entries into winning a painting.
Dinner was at the buffet. It was bavarian night, so I had a knockwurst, weinersnitzel, goulash, sauerkraut, and beef and broccoli, and some kind of bean dish and hamburger. Yes, it was a lot of food, but we didn't exactly have much lunch from what I remember. After dinner was a 90s and 2000s music trivia night. It was all "what's the name of the song and who sang it." We did really well, getting like 90%, but then there was a group of zoomers who got 100%. We think they cheated, but whatever, it's all in fun and the prize was kind of chintsy. We had some premium ice cream as part of our package, mskate got a little chocolate gelato Sunday and I got a Godfather ice cream thing (all the premium ice creams had movie names). Both were really good. Later that night I went to the show without mskate, another jukebox musical called rock opera, but I kind of kept falling asleep during the show so I don't remember it at all. It was still a fun thing to do to say I did it.
It's now Day 4, what was supposed to be our 2nd stop in Mexico, but there was high winds and we weren't able to dock. The captain told us around the time when we were supposed to dock, and he did so through our room intercom speakers (normally announcements just came out in the hallways). I was still tired from the previous night so I just slept in a little while mskate went to the buffet. She took the camera with her and showed off how she found gluten free French toast and really liked it. After I woke up we went to the breakfast restaurant and had breakfast together. Mskate got a bagel with salmon and cream cheese and some other toppings, but they didn't have a gluten free bagel so she just had the toppings (which is fine because she has a tendency to eat just the toppings of things). I had a chocolate croissant. I then had over easy eggs with hashbrown triangles and ham steak. I wanted to see what a ham steak was, and it was big thick piece of ham. It was good. Mskate had a ham and cheese omelet with sausage links. We also went up to the buffet where I got some breakfast beans, bacon, and "beef hash" (because it didn't have the corning spices and wasn't "corn beef hash," which made it pretty bad).
Since this was supposed to be a port day but wasn't, the cruse people had to figure out what to do. One of the things was zumba in the main lobby. We found mom doing it and decided to do a little ourselves. We weren't very good, but it was fun. After that we went to the buffet again just to get a juice bar juice for mskate, an immune booster drink with some different fruits that she enjoyed but I didn't, and hang out with vikingpolak. We went back to the room and ordered a bloody marry to room service since I've never had one. It was not good, I won't be having one again. I had some other drinks throughout our walking around though, including a margarita (which I think was my first). One of the things we did was a TV show theme song trivia event, and we got 14/21 of the themes right. I think this was also when we met Stanly the Bear, the cruise ship's mascot. We brought Minnie Grandma with us and he did a little "friendly banter" since he's a mascot costume but not Disney. We also did a flags of the world trivia game, where mskate got 18/25 flags. It was fun, I recognized Iceland because one of my meme friends is from there and he had an Icelandic flag as his profile picture at one point. I also did a guess the weight I think. For lunch I had Salty Dog hot dogs. It was good. I also got this video of the ocean with floating Sea Weed.
Fast forward some time to dinner. This was the surf and turf night, with an escargot as an optional appetizer. I'm not exactly a big enjoyer of escargot, but I had it on the last cruise when grandpa let me have one and it wasn't horrible. I had it again and shared it with the family if they wanted to try (I think mom was the only one who partook). Mskate got it as well since she wanted to see what it was like, but because of the gluten free she didn't get all the garlic seasoning and it wasn't as good as mine. We all got lobster tail and steak (and twice baked potato), and because I don't like lobster and mskate doesn't really care for beef, we traded. What was pretty cool is that the place was so fancy they shelled our lobster for us right in front of us, so that was pretty cool. We brought out Minnie Grandma because my grandma used to really like lobster. I also has some spinache that was very similar to what Popeye would eat, so I made some jokes with that. Dad and I both got the creppe souzette, because we wanted to try the special desert, and it was OK but the sweetness of the pastry and ice cream clashed with the sour of the orange sauce.
After dinner there was a little bit of fun exploring the ship. I had an Amaretto Sour and it tasted just like a cherry slurpee. I had mom try it and she was like "wow, that is just like a cherry slurpee" and she got one herself. I asked the bartender "what's a sour drink you can get me" and he suggested this. Since I was still kind of hungry I went to the buffet and got "real ramen;" the kind with noodles and vegetables where one selects the broth and meat, and any other add-ins. I got a beef ramen and added some onions. I eventually met up with my parents at one of the lounge bars where I had a peanut enfego which had some good kick to it, and my mom had a hemingway dackary. After them I walked around the upper deck just kind of seeing what was available, and had a small ice cream from the ice cream place. As I was walking around the deck the wind was blowing kind of hard and I was holding down my hat. I passed by a group of teen girls and one of them said "boy you better hang onto that hat." Seeing that I have a bit of a midlife crisis every time something from my highschool years gets brought up as "old" and "anniversary release," and I never get carded because of how old I look, and that I have some gray chest hairs, it felt pretty good to have someone call me "boy." Then when I was walking on the walking track there was a drunk woman sitting on a bench who called out "hey goofy, that was good" (because she must have been at karaoke). I said "why thank-you" in my goofy voice and that got a laugh. Funny way to end a less than perfect day.
Now I don't remember exactly when this happened, but I think today was the day when we saw the 2nd comedian. We came in late and weren't able to get a seat, so those of us that could stand were standing and those that couldn't didn't stay. Here's the really cool thing, I don't remember his name but I know I listened to him either on the satellite radio comedy channels or on a comedy special I listened to on Prime Video. I know I heard him because of his joke about sleeping with a pair of underwear on his head as an impromptu sleeping mask. That was really cool, he was like "a major comedian."
Now it's our final day at sea. Since we missed our final port day mskate thought we might go to the Princess Cruise private island, but that didn't end up happening. We went to the buffet for breakfast where I had succotash. That was pretty cool, just because I watched Looney Tunes as a kid and Sylvester's catch phrase always sticks with me. After breakfast mskate and I filmed a video for the diabetes conference we go to, a little sketch where I was "searching for the cure for diabetes," finding cinemon and artificial sweeteners and saying "that won't work," ultimately finding the challenge coin for friends for life saying "care today, cure tomorrow." It was pretty fun. I also had a chocolate martini, which was pretty good.
The first big activity I did today was go on the galley tour, which started with a cooking show put on by the head chef and the maitre d. It was a somewhat comedic show, showing how they make different foods while also doing some jokes. Like, when showing how they make spaghetti the maitre d flung spaghetti at the wall behind them. It was a pretty funny show, kind of like watching a food network show in person. Afterwards we went on the kitchen tour, everyone walked over to where the kitchen is and walked through. It was pretty cool, we saw where the staging areas are, where they keep the alcohol, all the toasters, the stoves and griddles, displays of the kind of food they make, some of the cooks were singing, and it ended with an opportunity to see the head chef and maitre d. I thanked them for all the different gluten free options they had and they appreciated the thanks.
After the tour we did bingo. Mskate likes bingo and we had credits we had to use. She almost didn't bring the bingo marker since she thought we got one for free with the game, but then I told her "no, it was $3 to get the last one" and so we brought the one we bought from earlier in the trip. We didn't win bingo, but we did win the scratch off that was included with the bingo cards. The different prizes included cash, fancy meals, drinks, and some other amenities, and we won $10. That was pretty cool, still down $30 after the price of bingo, but oh well.
Now for a big thing that I had been kind-of working towards all week. Every time I did "guess the weight" I got raffle tickets for the raffle during the art auction. I asked how it worked, and I just had to sign up for the auction in order to enter the raffle, and then throughout the auction they would be doing drawings. I wasn't exactly interested in buying art, but I wanted to experience it and maybe win something from all the tickets I had accumulated. My number was 176, and I got 3 stickers to put on frames to say "I want this in the auction." I went around and put stickers on some things just for fun, and kept one just as a souvenir. After everyone used their stickers the auctioneer warmed up by asking the audience to cheer, and whoever cheered the loudest would win a bottle of champaign. I got up and did one of those "athlete victory yells." The auctioneer said "OK that was next level, you win." It was pretty fun watching the auction, I think a lot of people were there just for the raffle. I did almost bid on some good paintings, there were some that weren't that expensive and would have fit with my style, but unfortunately I don't have the room for them.
I didn't participate in the full auction though, for these reasons. In addition to the art auction there was also a jewelry give away at the jewelry store that I wanted to do. By the time I realized when it was happening it was too late and I missed it. Then this was also the only time we could do our 2nd casual dining since O'Maley's was open for lunch on sea days, and that was the one time we could do it with the family. I gave up my number so I could go eat with the family. The casual dining was OK, I had Irish Stew, mskate had the muscles, and everyone else had hamburgers, and for the appetizer we had soups, but it took forever for the food to come and it wasn't super special. For a drink I had a raspberrying and everyone enjoyed tasting, and later I had a lucky charm (because Irish restaurant), and then for desert mom had a big ice cream. However, in the future if we do another cruise, or for anyone thinking about a princess cruise, I recommend not putting too much effort into using your dining credits.
After lunch we went to a "how the captain pilots the ship" presentation. I brought my chocolate cake from lunch with us (because that's how cruises work). Unfortunately the presentation wasn't that interesting. It was just a slideshow presentation, and I thought it was like a "tour the command deck" thing. I apologized to everyone for dragging them to it. After we left there was some kind of "thank the crew" thing where they had everyone in the front lobby area and they fired confetti, so that was fun. A lot of the rest of the day was just getting ready for going home, packing up the bags and such. We also did a little bit of last minute shopping since we still had credits. We bought some t-shirts. I looked around at the jewelry on sale hoping to find a ring, and while the prices were right (about $50 on the low end), they were all feminine, so that was annoying.
One of the fun things I did was go around the ship doing "Titanic references." I started with the stern where Jack talked Rose off the back of the ship to stop from killing herself, quoting it as best I could. I then tried to go to the front of the ship to do "I'm king of the world," but that didn't exactly work out. First, the furthest I could go was right up to a private deck area, so I went up to the furthest I could go and said "I'm king of the world." I then went up to a deck where I could look over the pool deck, got up to the banister and said "I'm king of the world." I then went to the tallest deck, the minigolf green near the back of the ship, and said "I'm king of the world." There were some people playing bacchii ball up there, and laughed at my reference.
I also got some video of the ocean.
I'll just get to dinner now. It was our final dinner, and we were at the big dining room, but not where we normally sat. Since this was my parents anniversary they wanted a little anniversary celebration. I told the hostess it was their anniversary when I got up to go to the bathroom and she said they'd send someone over. This wasn't just the final night, this was also baked Alaska night. Before dinner there was a big parade of the baked Alaska, which was kind of funny. It was also prime rib night, and everyone in our group had prime rib, except for mskate who wanted the lamb. I made a "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" joke with "it's OK, I make lamb." When it came time for desert everyone that could had baked Alaska. It was pretty good, it's was like marang on ice cream. My parents also got their anniversary celebration, a piece of chocolate cake as some waiters sing "happy birthday" but with "anniversary."
After dinner we had to make sure our luggage was in the hallway for pickup. This was a pretty cool feature, if we paid for it we could have our bags put on the plane for us and just pick-up at our destination if we were flying home on the same day as the end of the cruise. Since we were going home the same day, we did that. We did that with our big suit case and carry on bag. If you decide to do this, pay close attention to the pricing and total cost, because it was like $45 per person, then $30 for the first bag and $40 for the second bag. They tried to sell us on "if you both do it it's cheaper per bag," but then we would have to pay for 2 people so it was cheaper by like $35 to do 1 person; if we each did 1 bag it would be 45+30+45+30=150, if we had 1 person do 2 bags it would be 45+30+40=115.
Mom, vikingpolak, and I went to the final stage show, and I had a great pumpkin for one of my last drinks. It was really interesting. The story was about a guy going into a VR game that was kind of like an RPG, and his goal was to go through 5 levels to rescue the princess. First he got his gear at a port city. He fought some super boss in the sky. He fought some poisonous butterflies. He went on a spaceship and got blown up, but that was ok because the levels were meant to test his character and if his heart was pure, which is how he ended up winning the princess. There was also a PVP segment and graphics card on the side of the stage where the fans cooled the cards, and there was a see-through screen that made holographic images, all while being a juke box musical. It was a pretty cool show, even if it was pretty cheesy. After the show I tried to sign up for kareoke and be like first in line, but there was already a long line and it was late, so I couldn't wait for that. While walking around trying to get back to my room and look at the stars I found myself in the adults only pool, which was completely empty and kind of eerie. Whatever, fun end to the day.
It's now the final day, we're getting to port. Mskate and I went to the buffet for one last breakfast. I had British breakfast with beans and English ham, and then some kind of low mien noodles, with a chocolate chip pancake, bacon, and a hashbrown. Mskate had French toast and a pineapple upside down pastry. There wasn't much left on the cruise. We walked around some and saw the flag that the ship was waving (because you wave a countries flag in port to say who you're part of), and mskate as a flag expert said it was the British Cayman Islands. After walking around the empty decks and one last "I'm king of the world," we went down to the lobby where we waited for our disembarking group. While we waited we had some last foods and drinks from the bistros, and then we got off the ship. Since my parents weren't flying home today (going to spend a couple days with my aunt and uncle), we all had to get their luggage off the ship ourselves, and then had to go through customs with 2 bottles of champaign (which wasn't a problem, they only had an issue if it was live things). Once through we made our way to the ride share pickup area. There was a little frustration with the uber since the app took the driver to one of the other ports, and the app said "your driver is 5 minutes away" so I rallied everyone to the pickup, but then it got turned around and got in some trouble with the family. I defended myself though because the app said "ride almost here, get ready," and everyone forgave me. We went to the airport and no big deal, then we said our goodbyes to my parents as they got a shuttle to the rental car place.
Security was kind of eventful. In my backpack I had forgotten that I had a bottle of water and juice boxes from the various excursions, so I got flagged. I'm like "I sure hope they don't take my tequila," but thankfully it was stuff I didn't care about. The terminal was pretty boring, not a whole lot to walk around in and our flight was in like 3 hours. We ended up getting Shake Shack for dinner and just kind of hung around. A funny thing is vikingpolak ran into one of his friends from one of his excursions, so they chatted some. The big thing I did was take stock video of planes and airport things. The flight back was pretty uneventful, I watched Minority Report and 2 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond. I've never seen ELR, so this was kind of fun. I'm going to see if it's on hulu and if so I'm going to watch it.
Plane Coming in and Getting Restocked
Luggage Being Unloaded
Once we got home things were kind of chaotic. We landed fine, got out fine, got our bags fine, but then I lost the paper that said where our car was parked. We were able to give a general idea of where the car was, and then we played Marco Pollo with the panic button. The shuttle driver was nice about it though, so yay. Here's where things get a little sad though, the mskate's parents dog was very sick and had to be put down the day that we were leaving. IRA told me just to be in the loop but he didn't want me to tell mskate until she got home.
It's now Sunday, the day after we got home. After church mskate went to stay with her family to mourn. When I got back I had to mail some packages, and did so at our local Meijer super grocery store. I walked around the stole a little, checking the clearance sections, but going home empty handed. When I got home mskate brought up that our food was a little low since we had been gone for a week, and asked if I bought any food while I was at the store. I said "yes, that would have been a good idea," but I didn't. Oh well. It was a really fun trip, really glad my parents set it up. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
No comments:
Post a Comment