The time changes were really tough these days. The sun was up really, really early, but every night we were getting a reminder to change our clocks forward or backward and we were really beginning to lose track. We had a couples massage scheduled so we knew we needed to be up and at ’em early-ish. We woke up at just a few minutes before 8 a.m. and assumed it was a few minutes before 9 a.m., our appointment time. Nope, we had an extra hour. So we were able to squeeze in showers and get something to eat before we headed down for the massages, which is something I was really looking forward to.
We went down to the Mandara Spa and we met with our two massage therapists. I asked her to pay most of her attention to my shoulders and upper back, and she did an amazing job. My husband asked for mostly the same thing and he said he thoroughly enjoyed it. When the girls returned to the room to recap the treatment, my therapist said “you are realllllly tight.” Never something you want to hear, especially when you are exhibiting pain constantly.
We went up to our room, changed into swim suits, and headed up to deck 12 to grab some deck chairs and lay out in the sun. It was incredibly crowded and insanely windy. We had to secure our belongings in the wind to ensure they didn’t blow away. My husband immediately lay down for a nap, while I broke out my Kindle to get some reading done. I only had a bit left in my book and two days left, but I wanted to finish it! I knew finishing it too early was risky…what would I read the rest of the trip, but the books I chose were so great and intriguing!
People were doing different things on the boat. They were swimming, learning to make towel animals, taking Merengue dance classes and even listening to a disembarkation talk. That was the last thing on my mind, so I continued to just lay out in the sun and enjoying the warm air and sunny weather.
We soon headed over to the Great Outdoors for some lunch. Again, it was our favorite place to dine for breakfast and lunch because it was outside and the food was good. This was the first day that we really had issues finding a spot to sit that wasn’t in the sun. We were now on the northeast path, heading back to the Bahamas, and the sun was always facing the back of the boat. We always had sun on our balcony at this point. The Great Outdoors is in the back of the boat so, despite the giant canopy that covered the area, we sit had to eat in the sun. I did a little more reading while we ate and then we headed back to our room to get out of the sun for a bit and watch more crappy TV.
We did have something to do that afternoon so eventually we took showers to wash off the sunscreen and got ready.
What was so important?
Well, the Norwegian Sun invited us to a honeymoon/anniversary celebration in Las Rambles on deck 12. It was going to be a champagne and cake reception that started at 4. We got there right at 4 p.m. and headed upstairs. There weren’t really any “directions” so we grabed some champagne and sat near a wind. enjoying the view. A few other couples arrived. You could actually tell the newlyweds from the anniversary celebrants. It was funny. We were told this was a reception for us to mingle. Oh. So we all moved to closer tables and then took some pictures of the cake and it was cut.
We all had our pictures taken with the cake as a couple, but the photographers memory card went out so we weren’t able to get the photos. Oh well. So we had some cake, chatted and then we were basically pushed out so that the high-rollers on the cruise could come in for a thank-you reception. It felt rushed. I mean, there are so many spaces on the boat that are available for mingling and gathering. It seemed they could have put us in another location so we didn’t have to run out of there to make way for another group.
We went back to our room and continued the drinking by pouring ourselves a few glasses of wine to take down to dinner in one of the dining rooms. As I mentioned on my post about our first day, we had purchased the honeymoon/anniversary package, which earned us a bottle of wine. My mom had purchased us a bottle of wine as an anniversary gift. Then one day, our neighbor sent over a bottle that she had been given for spending so much time and money in the casino. PLUS, we knew we would have one with our food during out anniversary dinner at Le Bistro. That’s a lot of wine for us for one week. So we popped open a bottle and started carrying it around the deck.
We went to the Seven Seas restaurant again. Rather than taking our entire bottle, we just took two glasses. We weren’t sure if they would charge us an uncorking fee to dinner. I’m not sure they would have. After dinner, we headed back up for a refill and to head over to the Stardust Lounge for the evening show featuring the onboard performance crew, “We Will Rock You.” It was recommended by the ship captain so we wanted to get there and get a seat. There was a second show at 9:30 p.m. but those always proved to be so late for us. There was also going to be a comedy show later in the evening called “The Liar’s Club,” but the concept didn’t really interest us.
At the show, the assistant cruise director was selling the scratch off ticketsagain. Since it paid off so well for us the first time, we decided to purchase two more sets, but they came with a Norwegian Sun key chair light so they were totally worth it, right? Plus, we got these raffle tickets for a chance to win a free cruise. And we wanted that free cruise. The drawing was to be held the next day so we dreamed about it all night long.
Before the show started, we drank some wine and opened up some scratch offs. Fun times.
Then the show started. I was really excited. As a former dancer, I like to watch musical shows. This one was going to have live music, dancing and singing of songs from Queen, Journey and The Who. I figured it would be great. And it mostly way, but that stage is just too small for all of those dancers. I felt like they looked cramped and just couldn’t go all out. Plus there were a TON of unnecessary costume changes. I know they were trying to look high-end with all the costume changes, but I couldn’t help but wonder how much money was tied up in costumes with one happening after nearly every song.
The music was pretty good and overall the show was entertaining, but I wasn’t overly impressed with the dancing or the costumes. Though I give it up to the band and the singers who did a great job.
What I didn’t realize was that after the show, the staff would be participating in a finale. They would be coming on stage so we could applaud their efforts. We were allowed to take photos and video during that time. I was unaware so I didn’t bring my camera. Though it would have been nice to have some photos of the people who made our cruise so memorable and awesome. Especially the washy-washy happy-happy girls!
After the show was up, we went up to our room and finished our scratch-offs before heading to the casino to cash them in. We got our cash and went to our lucky machine, the one that had paid us out $50 the night before.
We played a little wiser, but that might have been dumb because I think my ignorance the night before was what paid off. We didn’t win any money, but we killed some time in the casino, played with our new fancy keychain lights and went to the ship store.
My husband picked up some duty free cigarettes for some people we know who smoke and wanted some, we also got an ornament of the ship to hang on our Christmas tree. We try to do that on our vacations throughout the year so we can reflect on our year when we put up our tree in December. I almost bought some Pandora bracelet charms, but I don’t have a Pandora bracelet so that was dumb. We just spent time looking around in the store before we went up to the Great Outdoors cafe for my husband’s fourth meal and my dessert. I LOVED the ship’s pound cake. It seemed like every night, this one included, we missed Sundaes ice cream bar as it seemed to close early.
By that point, we were recovering from our evening of wine and we were just ready for bed. We headed back to our room to turn in for the night, but not before I finished my book!
