Everglades Adventure!

We headed off the ship EARLY on Saturday (easy disembarkation, even with a random search for food and plants) and took off on the excursion to see the Florida Everglades before being dropped off at the airport.  We found this gave us a bit of a nice transition back to land, and it was really interesting to see the Gators, Birds and Sawgrass!

Our guide seemed to personally know all of the wildlife we saw.

Birdy!

Sometimes the boat was in even less water than this!

Clay from the bottom of the Everglades.

At the show post fan-boat, I got a new addition to my hat.

Alligator wrestling!

Neat!

This lady could not have been more frightened.

There were also peacocks everywhere.

This one had particularly lovely feathers.

We also enjoyed some local delicacies (catfish, alligator and frogs legs), checked out the giftshop and got to see our guide feed the gators...then it was off to the airport to wait for our 7pm flight and come back to the snow and cold.

See you again in a few months when we head off on our family cruise in the Spring! 

Farewell Friday!

We kicked off our last day on board with buffet breakfast - which included pineapple filled donuts.  Tim Horton's, when will this be your donut of the month? 

After a restful morning, I went to an event called "Life at Sea" with the activities staff, where you could just ask questions about life on the cruise ship.  Lots of questions about how they got their jobs (three Skype interviews are involved!).  They also explained a bit about the staff supports - they have three restaurants and two bars, a library and a gym, they run a book club and an international bible study.  I learned a bit about requirements for the jobs too, to work in the spa - international estechitians license and in the kids club - a teaching degree! 

We read comics on the lawn and enjoyed the sunshine (from the shade, with lots of sunscreen on).  It was really really busy by the pool deck.  On our way back, we did get a picture of the Officers vs. Guests pool volleyball. 

They guy in the suit is the cruise director.

After lunch, I met up with Ron at the 1:00 poker tournament, which was the end of Ron's impressive streak (he'd won 3 cruise poker tournaments in a row!).  Then we headed off for a seminar about food and wine pairing - we tried a number of wines with a number of different foods and got some good ideas about what to aim for in a match.  The guy we sat with told us about the time he made his own olives.  Crazy. 

Brownies + wine = yum

These were all good.

Ron hit the final poker tournament and finished in the money (#2) and then we finished off my $10 in the House of the Dead slot machine!

Ron hadn't killed any zombies in days, it was about time!

Then, we had to pack.  We didn't let that stop us from one more trip to the Persian Garden.  Before dinner, we went and checked in to our flight (no upgrades available - booo), Ron paid our Sea Pass account with his accumulated winnings and we picked up a photo of us reading comics on the lawn from the Photo Gallery. 

The computer lounge is the only authorized Apple re-seller at sea. 

Tax and duty free Apple goodness!  Is this a good price?

Popular!

We enjoyed our final dinner and tried to mentally prepare to go back to land and real life and what not...

Ron got a special piece of bread.

This was my favourite bread from the basket - multigrain and currants.

Seafood ceviche.

Something empanada.

Hawaiian style salmon. 

Crusted duck.

Our waitress' favourite - Strawberry Shortcake.

Our waiter's favourite - chocolate mousse. 

Tremendous Thursday

Thursday morning we were solidly headed back towards Miami.  We spoiled ourselves a bit, slept in - missing breakfast in Blu and eventually getting to the buffet for our fill of waffles and pastries.  The waffle bar features orange and lime butter, strawberry and blueberry preserves, whipped cream (and sour cream - which I have never heard of on waffles) and syrup.  Its a tasty spot.

I went for a stroll on the lawn, watched the beginning of a bocce tournament and caught the lawnskeeper doing his job very diligently.

I asked him what he was up to, and he said "cultivating"

I met up with Ron at Speedoku - where he was not as successful as his previous attempt (he was about two numbers away when someone else finished).

Ready, set - Speedoku!! 

We headed off to the Global Flavours Cooking demo which was about 10% cooking and 90% comedy, featuring the Executive Chefs and some guests.

No reason for the hat/wig.  Just hilarity. 

What a delightful buffet!

Ron entered the 1:00 pm poker tourney and I set to the penny slots with my $10...it was still going when Ron caught up with me - He won!!  We went to another trivia...apparently we aren't good a trivia on the open seas and releaxed for a while before the 3:30 poker tourney...which Ron also WON!!!!  2 in one day!  We rode the good luck over to finally play that free bingo card - alas no such luck, and many many lame bingo related jokes - B7 people, where are the good little bees go, Bees-heaven!

On our way back to the room, we noticed someone had ordered the martini flight at the Crush bar...I have a whole flipbook of pics demonstrating what happened here...

He was shaking to hold on to all of those!

Hardly spilled a drop!  Way to go!!! 

We went to the gym and I noticed how many of our working out colleagues were people I'd seen - the lead singer from the show and one of the glass blowers.

We got a little bowl of candy from the ice cream bar and curled up in one of the pods at the Solarium for a while and watched the world roll by.

We got the Persian Garden to ourselves AGAIN! And after a nice steam etc. got ourselves ready for formal dinner number two.

Goat cheese + toast point

I think this was cheese themed...

They served their soups in an interesting way - goodies in the bottom of the bowl and then they would pour the broth in at the table. 

Blu's take on Caesar salad - there was tofu!

Chefs surprise!  Its sorbet!

Kobe beef stuffed pasta shells.

Lobster tails!

The waiter comes and does the hard work on the lobster tails. 

Pastry cigar!

We rounded off the night by listening to Sound Decision sing in the Atrium...and then finally enjoying our welcome bottle of champagne that came with the room and drifting off to sleep at sea.

Yum!

Wednesday = St. Kitts

Wednesday morning I didn't get to the gym, because it was time to cash in that complimentary facial Ron won for me!  I got lots of goop applied, and exfoliation and what not.  One of the things that I find frustrating at the spa on board is how committed they are to upselling you.  My facial ended with a recommendation for $450 of products I should be using regularly.  None the less, I looked good and was ready to take on the day after breakfast, sail in and rainbows in Blu. 

Smoked salmon plate, you taste like cruising.

Some people would say that we didn't have amazing weather in St. Kitts, but they probably didn't notice the rainbow.

We went in to town (really, mostly a bunch of stuff at the end of the pier) and did our usual walk and shop.  This time we hit the post office (who knows how long some of those postcards are going to take...cross your fingers) where they had a poster from the St. Kitts Ministry of Health, maybe I can apply for a transfer or something? 

The shopping guide had referred to St. Kitts as the Monkey Island, and we spent a big part of the time in town looking for a t-shirt that said that, to no avail.  But we did get pics with an adorable, diapered, monkey. 

Ron theorizes that there was an automated zombie salesman who made a killing in St. Kitts.  These were everywhere.

Flowers in February! 

 With yet another haul of free stuff in hand, we headed back to the ship to practice "Face-up" Black Jack, which was going on in the casino that evening and have a nap.

More for the rock collection, another new DI charm and some Carribbean Mint coins!

Ron finished his book, and I took a nap and then headed out for cake decorating seminar with the Executive Pastry Chef.  Mostly, this very french man stood at the front and mumbled as he pulled sugar.  But his assistants showed us some neat stuff - and I made this out of marzipan!! 

The chef was mighty impressed with my skills.  We ate this, and it was delicious.

 I did another gym class (me and one other lady!) and then came back to the room to find this outside our balcony for sailaway. 

Double rainbow!  Take that single rainbow from the morning!

Ron didn't fare as well as anticipated at Face Up Black Jack (it included many extra rules - you can only split once, you lose on a push, Blackjack pays even and no doubling after the split).  So we decided to go to the evening bingo, with the ticket he had won at Speedoku.  Somehow, we were the only people to show up to this event.  The Activities Staffer alternated between making fun of us for coming to bingo on our honey moon and being thankful we managed to drag ourselves out of our room.  We did "win" the bingo raffle that night! 

Our bingo winnings!

We watched these folks learning the Thriller Dance for a while, then headed to Blu for dinner (we were sat by the dark window and the pictures are non-awesome) and went to bed, sleepy from three port days and dreaming of our next two days at sea!

Bonus picture - Ron being awesome with another art installation.