Our Summer Vacation - Day 7

(St. Maarten  :(  Day at Sea)

- blogged by JME

Day 7 was one of the days we were most looking forward to.  It was the last day on the ship (August 4th) and we were planning to spend the day at St. Martin.  One of the things we were really excited to do was visit the Hard Rock Cafe.  If you have read our blog much, you know that we are nerds for the Hard Rock Cafe.  We could almost taste the pulled pork sandwich that was waiting for us there. 


At approximately 8:00 am, we woke up to an announcement from the ship that we would not be pulling in to St. Maarten due to high swells that would make it dangerous for us to stop there.  N8 and I were so bummed.  Luckily, the ship reimbursed us $18.  That made our day. Yup.


I think I was more bummed than N8, mostly because the days at sea are the hardest for me, motion wise.  I didn't get nauseated, but would have no appetite and my head felt like it was swimming all day long.  I moped around for a little bit, but after some pep talk from N8, I decided to make the best of it.  We hung out and enjoyed our last day by getting involved in some of the activities.  We went on a scavenger hunt and played some trivia. 

My Useless Trivia Genius

My sweet hubby is the king of useless trivia and won this fun trophy made of plastic and gold paint; however, I couldn't have been more proud of him. He now displays his trophy on his desk at work.

Cheers!

We used the $18 we were refunded for not stopping in St. Martin to buy us both a virgin Pina Colada. It was delicious!  That bruise on my arm is from hitting it on a sign when we were playing mini golf the first Day at Sea.  It hurt! 

'Free' is our favorite word.

We also got a special invitation that was exclusive to returning Carnival Cruise Line guests to get free drinks. N8 and I enjoyed some virgin punch that they were serving all of the under aged people. It was pretty good.

No Occifer, I haven't been drinking!

Of course, it was fun pretending that we were plastered.



Singing 'Leaving on a Jet Plane'

That night was a little sad. We had to say goodbye to some of the good friends that we made on the ship. Our waiters were amazing and they all stood on the stairs and sang, "Leaving on a Jet Plane." It almost made me cry. We got to know our waiter a little and learned that he signs up for 7 months to do the cruise and is away from his family that long. He was so excited because this was his last day on the cruise also and was going to be flying home to the Philippians the next day to see his family.
  

Our Dinner Friends

We also got to know the people that we dined with every night. From left to right is our waiter, Erin (sitting) and her husband Michael, Casen and his wife Keisha (both sitting), and behind them is me and N8 with our other waiter.  The waiting service was great.  Every night after we'd sit down, one of our waiters would take my napkin and put it on my lap for me.  Talk about fancy!  I could get used to that and the food.  Here are some of the things that we ate.
 

Mmmmmmm . . . .Snails

N8 and I shared the escargot.  We had it on our honeymoon and again on this cruise.  It isn't too bad.  Just really chewy and garlicky.  My nephews, Bug and Skunk, get a kick out of hearing us tell them that we've eaten snails before. 

Delicious Bisk

Mooooo

Baked Alaskan

Cornish Game Hen

Crab Cake

This was the best crab cake either of us had ever had.

Did somebody say 'Steak'?

JME's favorite dessert

One of N8's favorite desserts

The desserts were just as amazing as the entrees.  The food is one of our favorites parts of being on a cruise.

Saying goodbye to our steward, Domingo

Our next goodbye was to our very cheerful and helpful steward, Domingo. He was the nicest! He made us some fun towel creations that he would display on our bed after turn down service. We would find a new friend every night when we went to bed. 

Puppy

Provocative Bunny

Dinosaur

Frog

Cobra

Our last night's towel creation - A heart . . . Awwww!

They had a class on towel creations while on the ship. N8 and I didn't go to it but here is a display of some of the fun things that can be made. 

We made such great memories and met neat people on this ship.  It was hard to say goodbye and see it end.  Hopefully, we can do this again someday. 

Now on to Puerto Rico!