Valeria Out Loud

Hello guys!

Today was our second day at sea, the 6th out of 7 days on our Eastern Caribbean cruise. We had a great time being together and ended up celebrating my husband’s birthday officially!  Crazy how this all worked out, but our kids were ecstatic to see he got candles, singing and cake! I was happy we got to make him turn red, finally!

Day 6

As my family was catching some needed sleep, I was watching the flying fish from our balcony, again! I was so excited to see them and tried taking a video as they were shooting out of the water. If you look closely (real close) you can see them hopping back into the water in the last frames. They are teeny tiny from up that high!

We made it to breakfast around 10:30AM.  It was a great late start at the Oceanview Cafe.  We sat outside on the deck while eating, overlooking the beautiful blue scenery passing us by.  We had very few items on our itinerary planned, and that was just fine with all of us.

After breakfast, we were heading to the water color event on the observation deck.  Since I am in the middle of an artistic family, this was something we couldn’t miss.  As I was leaving the deck, I bumped into Rosaria, who was actually looking for us as her husband took a breather in the library to read.  She wanted to spend some time talking, and I invited her along to water color.  When we got to the observation deck, the place was pretty full but we managed to grab a section of seats for the five of us.  We chatted, as we waited for someone to come up for the class.  Waiting. Chitchatting.  Waiting.  Talking.  Then all of a sudden my husband mentions that he brought water colors and that he and the girls were going to grab them and sit in the cafe to paint.  Which was a great idea, as Rosaria and I sat there talking and found that the class didn’t happen.

Rosaria and I parted ways, so I could meet up with my family who were sitting in a large round booth at the Cafe overlooking a breathtaking view of the ocean.  Their water color and pencils all over the table, as they were busy creating.  I am not that type of artist, I am a makeup artist.  I do love to craft and have such great ideas, but I can’t draw to save my life.  I do, however, find the talent to draw intoxicating as a wonderful means to create.  There is a joy that resides inside of me when I see people create.  That is how I met my husband, actually, he drew my picture..and well now 23 years later, we have two kids who have his talents.   Sitting there, after they caught me all up on their projects, I decided to do what I wanted to do.. and that was grab some prosecco! haha Cheers!

After they painted for an hour or so, they all wanted to have some dessert as the lunch period was starting in the cafe ….and they could see it set up a mile away!  They went to grab some cake and ice cream, then cleaned up their painting mess.

My husband reminded us that we were to head back to the observatory for another game of trivia.  We had such a great time during the last trivia game up there, that we didn’t want to miss this round.   So we made a mad dash back across the deck.  We walked in to find the theme was music, score my strong suit! We grabbed a sweet table of four with couches overlooking the ocean.  It was perfect.  We had such a great time answering questions, and challenging the folks who were sitting near us.  We didn’t win, but we were in the group who answered the second most questions correctly!

After we played trivia, we had plans for the scavenger hunt down on the fifth floor.  This was a mobile scavenger hunt!  We were given a list of things to take photos of or with all over the ship.  Some of the fun things we had to do were to find a chef who would let us wear their chef hat, go to the bedroom to put on the robe, or find a specific person on the ship.It was so much fun!  Plus, we were able to take a lot of good shots of my kids and husband doing silly things, as I was the photo taker.

We had a lot of fun racing around the ship, BUT, we did not win.  Actually, this was kind of a shitty thing someone did.  When we gathered in the bar to meet up for the game, a woman talked to me who played this game the day before.  I didn’t think anything of it, till after playing the game.  We hauled ass running around the boat.  My kids were speed demons and we followed suit.  As I was in the casino with my husband finding our last item off the list… the Englishman, the only one, who worked on the cruise, I saw the woman, who played before not really racing anywhere.. more like walking back to the origination point.  So, we’re across from where she was walking, which was next to the final destination to check in. We found the Englishman!!  WOOooo.  When we showed up to check in, the entertainment rep told us we were just shy of winning by a few seconds.  That woman won!!

Now, I don’t want to suspect that she was a shitty person cheating at a game where the groups were mostly families with tween kids, but I am saying she was a shitty person.

After the game, which we had a great time playing together, we took it as a good life lesson on how people are shitty.  Seriously though. What a shit person.  Anyways.  After the game, we took our chances at Bingo!  I am not big into all this group game stuff, I am actually more of an introvert than most people realize, but I will do anything for my kids.  We bought into the game, getting a total of six permanent boards, six paper boards (color coded for certain games) and then pull-to-win, which are like scratch tickets but you pull tabs rather than scratch anything.  We had a great time playing! We did walk away $5 richer.

After all the running around, and big win, it was now early evening.  We finally agreed that it was time to hang out by the pool!   Arriving to the pool later, and on a chic dress night, was probably the best time to go to the pool.  We found the place practically EMPTY!!  We grabbed a cool round shaped lounger pool side, some drinks, and enjoyed swimming and the hot tub for a few hours. It was such a wonderful time, relaxing and being the only two people in the hot tubs.  FINALLY!

At around 7:30PM, my oldest daughter and I decided to run to get dressed.  Soon after my husband and youngest showed up.  We got ready and made it to check in to grab a pager at the restaurant for 8:15PM!  Talk about record timing getting dressed!  I really should have received an award this whole cruise for speediness.  But I did cheat this night getting ready.  My kids wanted me to wear the black outfit from the night before, they loved it that much, and I didn’t technically wash my hair, so I was able to pull myself together without much thought. 🙂

This was the last chic night of the trip, so the whole ship goes all out like a last hurrah celebration.  The ship was hopping!  Everyone was dressed up and ready to party!  We took pictures at the photography set ups along the boat. Then we went to check out the Ensemble Bar for the first time, it is located in the oddest location, by the art auctions.  There were always too many people hovering around.  You know what?  We were stupid not to go by here because they made the best drinks on the boat!  THE BEST!  You could tell the bartender there enjoyed his job, and loved making everyone happy.  The drinks we started off with were phenomenal.

The beeper went off near 9PM to tell us the table was ready.  Dinner on the last chic night is an all out feast, well, that is what our waitstaff did for us.  It was the most upscale menu of the week, this night.  They had all kinds of beautiful stuff to offer.  BUT, as we were seated with Irfan, he told us to let him know what we would like and he would take care of the rest.  Uhm, ok?  My husband ordered the risotto appetizer and lobster entree.  I ordered a salad and the beef wellington, the girls also ordered the Wellington.  This is what Gordon Ramsay the chef has done to us, ignited our love of everything Wellington.   Ok, so out came our appetizers, everything was great.  The food was so beautiful.  Then. He brought us a handful of dishes we hadn’t had this week to try.  As he gave every one of us the lobster entree, which he gave my husband three in total!!

Who is that awesome!? Irfan, that is who!

We ordered dessert, baked Alaska, creme brûlée, chocolate cake and an apple crumb cake. As soon as we started to talk with our table servers, they disappeared out of nowhere. When they came back, they had brought everyone who we knew to the table with a cake and sang Happy Birthday to my husband!  THERE IT WAS!  Irfan decided to surprise my husband, and figured he would expect it the night of his actual birthday.  That was so sweet. He was surely surprised!

We hung out in the dining room with everyone until about 10:45PM.  On the way to our room, we decided to have the girls settle into bed as we took a bit of time to play some more blackjack.  The girls were thrilled, they wanted to ride the elevators and get into pjs for HGTV!    We had small luck at blackjack, which was a lot of fun.  We made our way to the room so we too could get snuggly watching HGTV!

This was the perfect at sea day!

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Next up, our last full day on the cruise in Nassau, Bahamas!