Day Four ~ At Sea

This is the 3rd sea day in a row. We really love sea days!! I woke up at 7, right as Doug was leaving for my pre-breakfast pastries. I opened the drapes to a wet balcony. It had rained in the night. It's also cloudy & windy and we can ear the wind howling from inside the cabin. So coffee & pastries & journaling happened in bed today. Ahhh....that's a hard to take second choice, eh? Doug found game coverage from the night before and we were planning our day. We'll hit up the WJ for breakfast and assess the pool deck/lounge chair situation. I may browse the shops and hit the casino. I love having no plans and seeing how the day unfolds.

Doug went to the pool deck while I went to guest services. When I met Doug up on deck, it was still cloudy and windy, so we decided to just go to breakfast together....along with the rest of the ship! It was a madhouse in there! Doug talked with David, Joan, Susan & Dan while I tried to find a table. I found one, with a lady named Peggy, who Never. Quit. Talking! That was the longest breakfast ever.

After breakfast we went and took pictures around the ship, and since we were by the casino we stopped in. We each played $20. Doug quickly lost his. I cashed out at $77. Nancy will be proud. I browsed the shops & collected our pictures then back to check out the weather situation. Hot, sunny, VERY windy & crowded. But we found 2 loungers in the shade near the back of the pool. We settled in, had drinks, rested, had lunch, more drinks. I told Saby I'd like to try something new. He brought me a frozen toasted almond. Yummy! While we were relaxing Allison from the Facebook group came over and introduced herself. We enjoyed meeting and talking with Allison and her mom during the cruise.

About 1:30 we went back to the cabin and relaxed on the balcony for a bit and then napped. Room service delivered this little plate of goodies, although I'm not sure why. Before the trip I went crazy buying retro bikinis, so I made sure Doug took my picture in each of them HAHA.

Doug slept longer than I did, and I of course had a bubble bath with a glass of wine and we got ready for dinner and headed down for pictures. Then on to the R Bar to have drinks with David, Joan, Susan and Dan. Thankfully Rosario Strings was finishing up and the Royal Caribbean Orchestra was playing. Everybody left for dinner, and we had a while to wait, so had more drinks. 3 Saby Martinis for me and 2 lava flows for Doug.

Then on to dinner. Peter sat us at a different table for 2 at the rail, which is fun to look down to the bottom floor of the dining room. I ordered a moscato, but before Grisald could bring it to me, Peter brought out a bottle of moscato with my name on it and poured my glass. And Grisald brought my glass. Goodness.....that was a lot of wine after the pre-dinner drinks.

Natasha, Wayne, Linden, Dan & Peter all spent time coming by the table and talking with us. It's nice to have a later dinner time and not feel rushed and the crew is more relaxed. Dinner for me was 2 savory bites, jalapeno potato soup (I LOVE this), sea add with potatoes & a divine honey walnut tart with vanilla ice cream for dessert. I ate all of that! and of course Natasha made a delicious cappuccino. Doug had a cheese roll, meatball appetizer, NY strip steak and creme brulee for dessert. And buttery nipple dinner shooters. I ate a lot this night. Mostly I would eat half of my food. I ate less than the crew was used to, because they always asked me if I didn't like my food. Yes...I enjoyed almost all of it, but I just cannot eat that much!

I didn't finish all of that wine, so I took a glass with me. We went to Deck 5 so we could look down and watch the Dancing through the Decade party. We sat on the rail and ended up talking to a really nice couple, Bob & Joyce, who were doing this cruise, the next one and the one after that. They were telling us how they also enjoy cruising on the Carnival Pride out of Baltimore. While we were sitting there, Jim & Tracy walked by on their way back from the show.

Andre hosted the party. He is Hilarious! So so good. He should be the cruise director, imo. They played songs from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and ended with Uptown Funk. Susan and Dan danced the entire time. It was over at 10:45, and our plan was to get into the hot tub tonight, but I had had too much cocktail and wine and was tired. So we went to the room and ordered room service; burgers & fries. They were very good. We talked about our day and planned the morning and went to bed. We had another towel animal tonight, too. Another perfect day!

Day Five ~ St. Thomas

We love, love, love St. Thomas! And woot woot...our first port day of the cruise.

We got up about 6:45 for the "morning routine" of pastries, coffee, journaling and picture taking on the balcony. The weather is coolish with the breeze. It's cloudy & looking like we sailed through rain while we were sleeping. But the clouds are clearing and I see blue skies ahead!! The forecast is cloudiness, chance of rain and a high of 80. Perfect!

 Sailing past Emeral Beach on our way into port

 We decided to get room service this morning. The WJ is just a crazy madhouse on port days. Who wouldn't rather enjoy breakfast like this?!?

We're scheduled to dock at 9, and be able to leave the ship at 9:30. We'll wait until the crazy rush of people and then "go outside". Our plan is to get a taxi to Emerald Beach at the Best Western and do a little port shopping on the way back to the ship. We docked at a different place than we have in the past; Crown Bay. The pier was a short 5 minute $4 pp cab ride to the beach. Yes!

We walked through the lobby at the Best Western, past the beach bar and to the left and found 2 loungers under the trees. There is a lot of natural shade here. The chairs are $7 each and somebody came around and collected the money. Emerald Beach is quiet and not crowded and is a bay so the ocean is gentle and has good free WiFi, delicious food and great drinks! So we settled in and Doug got in the water. It was a little after 10 at this point.

There was a guy on the beach braiding hats.

 

I was feeling a little sea sick. More so than when I was on the ship, which is odd to me. But I stayed on the lounger and had a couple bottles of water and started feeling better and joined Doug in the ocean. About 11:40 we got out and got a drink. I had an Emerald Sunset, which is Cruzan guava rum, peach schnapps, strawberry & mango Island Oasis, frozen. Delicious!

After drinks, and talking with Jim, we went to the bar for lunch and 2 more Emerald Sunsets. I had grilled chicken tacos. Doug had a grilled chicken sandwich with fries. We finished our drinks and went for one more swim. The water was simply gorgeous! Clear, warm, gentle waves, very relaxing.

About 1:30 we changed and headed back to the ship. We found iguanas sunning themselves on the rocks on the way back, too.

 My traditional picture by the hull of the ship.

We came back to the cabin, changed and headed to the pool deck for a Toasted Almond. We called home and browsed Facebook. David and Joan came to sit and chat with us. This is our 3rd cruise with David & Joan, and we're cruising together again next year. I don't know how I'd cruise on Grandeur without them! It just wouldn't be right.

After a while I excused myself and went for my bubble bath and wine. I sat on the balcony and caught up the journal and got ready for dinner. We met everybody in the R Bar for drinks. After David, Joan, Susan & Dan went for dinner, we headed out to have pictures taken and then meet Jim & Tracy for dinner. Other than Chops night, we dined with them the rest of the cruise.

Dinner was delicious tonight. I had savory bites, shaved beef, ricotta & spinach stuffed shells and warm chocolate cake with ice cream and cappuccino. Peter proud my wine from my personal bottle and brought us tiramisu from Giovani's for dessert, too. Linden brought our dinner shots; blue eyed blond, which is layered from the bottom Creme de Cocoa, blue curacao and Baileys. It's really pretty, and yummy. And of course we did pictures.

We talked and laughed for a long time after finishing dinner and then went to deck 5. Doug sat while I collected pictures and lost money in the casino. By now it was 9:30 and the sock hop wasn't until ten. We decided to make it an early night, so returned to the cabin for sleep. It was a lovely day, but the sun and ocean completely wore me out. I've been feeling a lot of fibro pain and exhaustion this trip, sadly. I'm still enjoying myself SO very much!!