Day Nine ~ At Sea

I was so hoping to sleep in this morning. A sea day. No need to wake up early, right? Notsomuch. I was awake at 6:30. But that's OK, because it's warm and sunny and we'll squeeze every ounce of pool deck time out of this day!!

I went out on the balcony to let Doug know I was awake. Doug went to get pastries while I made coffee and we sat on the balcony enjoying the peacefulness of being at sea.

We decided to head straight to the pool deck after coffee and grab seats in the shade. It's 7:45 in the morning lol. But what better way to spend the day, right?

So on our way out of our room, the steward pops out of nowhere. He did the almost EVERY time we walked out of the room the rest of the trip. It was very annoying.

So before 8 am I'm sitting on the lounge chair journaling while Doug has breakfast in the WJ. And then I'll have a turn. And then I need to put my swimsuit on. Not sure why I didn't just do that before leaving the room HA!

So after breakfast I went to the room to change, and I found a huge stack of towels and washcloths on the bed. Plus the extra towels that they brought the night before, plus the ones the steward left in the bathroom when he made up the room, plus the ones we had used while showering the day before. We had 11 towels and several washcloths! It was a little ridiculous at this point. But at least we have towels!!

So back to the pool deck to wait for it to be 9 am so the pool bar would open and I could grab a mimosa (or two or three). And lots of bottled water. And throughout the day margaritas and Doug had his favorites.

So while we're lounging in the shade, under the cover of deck 10 above us, it was hot and sunny and RAINING! So Strange! It didn't lasts long. But it was weird.

We saw this bird on the top of the Viking Crown Lounge while we were at the pool that day.

It was also $10 t-shirt sale on the deck, so I bought one for each of us and the kids. We planned to roll their confirmation letters up in the t-shirt when we surprised them with next year's trip.

So we lazed around a while, and took turns grabbing lunch. Doug sat in the hot tub with David for a while and I talked with Joan. The pool deck is HOPPING today. EVERYBODY wants to squeeze every second of tropical vacation out of the day that they can since it's almost time to go back to winter!  

There was line dancing and a chili cook off and the belly flop contest and baggo and the band playing. As the day went on, it started to cool off. And then 15 minutes after the band started to play, it got cloudy and started to rain. Then stopped. Then started again with a downpour. So we headed back to the room. Eight hours at the pool...not too shabby lol.

We took naps. I woke up before Doug and took a long soak in the tub. The phone rang and woke up Doug. It was somebody calling to ask more questions about the towels! We've had several calls about the towels. Yes.....thank you for making sure we have towels. Just train this kid some more, ya know? I don't think we were the only frustrated people. I was talking to Colin (the steward the next block of rooms down, and another passenger was asking him if he could tip the steward that wasn't his, meaning Colin, because he was so much better. Sad.)

Tonight is formal night, but we decided to not dress up. We just weren't feeling it. But we did have pictures taken. And we did talk with Joe and Sally, like we did every night, because we were on the same routine and time schedule :)

While we were having our pictures taken, we saw Renee and family taking their own pictures in front of the tree, so Doug offered to take pictures of the 4 of them. Then we had pictures taken of the 4 of us. (Renee, we really do look like cut-outs in front of that tree! So Weird!)

And then off to dinner. We had SO much fun at dinner tonight with Renee and her family. We decided to cancel our Chops reservation for the next night, because we'd rather come to the dining room for dinner the last night and enjoy the company instead. So Doug cancelled the reservation on the way out of the dining room. And we had our picture taken with Peter and Saby this night, too.

Tonight is the Quest, so we made plans to meet Steve and Renee in the South Pacific lounge at 10:15 or so. They were going to the show. We didn't go to any shows this time. It starts at 10:30. I have no idea how I was going to stay awake that long though LOL.

We went to change after dinner, and then to the Schooner Bar to listen to Grahame. 

Once he took his break, that's when we went to the South Pacific lounge to grab seats. Karaoke was going on at this time. I am not a fan of karaoke. It's rather painful actually. I told Renee it is true love if I was going to sit through that to save seats lol.

The Quest was pretty tame, but it as still fun.  After the Quest we took our picture in the mirror ceiling in the South Pacific Lounge. I don't know why I like to do that, but I do lol.

Steve and Renee are staying in an inside room, so we took them up to our room to see a JS and the balcony. They loved it. Then we went to the Viking Crown Lounge, which is a disco by this time of night. It was loud. The strobe lights were awful. And the music was yuck. We ordered drinks and decided it would be more fun to sit on our balcony. So we did. Until about 1:30, and we only came in because it started to rain.

It was much later than I was used to staying up, but it was SUCH a FUN night with friends. And such a wonderfully relaxing day. I'm sad the trip is almost over. But I'm excited to go home and surprise the kids!! And see my doggie.