Birthday Cruise 2014: Day 4 Falmouth, Jamaica

Due to a short time before time to be off the boat, we had Windjammer breakfast.  This was okay for mom: omelette with side of GF bread with smoked salmon.  But it was too much walking back and forth for me for a mediocre breakfast of fried eggs and tater tots. We got off boat quick and easy by just hanging in pretty elevator that looks over the water until debarkation announcement.  Those elevators will probably be the one thing I will miss about the Serenade when on other ships.  I just loved riding in them and looking out over the water.

Since we got off with plenty of time, we went and checked out diamonds international store since I had gotten a coupon in our room for a free diamond pendant with any purchase. However, the least expensive thing int he store was $200. But we did end up with free charm bracelets and pendants for each of us, and this started us collecting them for the rest of the cruise.

We then stopped and bought Del Sol hats. We needed hats for the very bright sun, and the color changing Del Sol products are just fun. We went to check in for resort for a day and they took us straight to the bus to go to the resort. It was a much shorter drive than last year but less pretty too.
However it was a much nicer resort with way more possible activities than the one from last year too.  There was only this one picture at the resort because I had forgotten the waterproof cases for our phones.

I was fortunate to find tubes for lazy river for myself right away and mom after just one lap around.  It was a fast river with some fun water features.  After some times around we went to a hot tub that was not so hot. I went and tried the other hot tub I had found earlier and it was much hotter and nicer even though it had a waterfall into it that splashed you some. We enjoyed reading our Kindles in them (I didn't forget those waterproof cases).

We then went to lunch at Seafood Grill. This was our view for lunch, and us at it while waiting for food.

 

 Mom ordered a fish soup and the seafood bass special. It was so-so. I order jerk pork. It was good but a little too spicy for me. The sauce that came on the side of mine though made mom's rice good. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries then. Service was very slow. I took burger and fries with me to swim up bar that I had finally seen when on the way to lunch.  It was somewhat hidden around the corner from the slide outlets. It turns out we could have ordered lunch from there. It was a live and learn moment for another year maybe.

On the drive back I took these two pictures of the island.

 

We then purchased pretty white dress to share for both of us for only $25.  We have both worn it since then.  After getting back on the ship, we went to hot tub for a little while and enjoyed it while most everyone else was still off the ship.  We then went to the thermal spa and enjoyed the view from there, and watching some people run back to make it onto the ship.

We the went and watched out window on deck 4 for departure and sundown.  I enjoyed both the waves, and the sundown and immense Oasis of the Seas while sitting in the window.

 

 

 

I then played in minute to win it style game. It was fun but we lost and got a highlighter.
We then rushed to get ready for dinner, so we could make it to be on the morning show for the next day for my birthday.  After dinner, we watched the aerial show in centrum from 7th floor.  In this case, the 1st floor would have been better since the better part of the dancing was on the floor level.
We then went to to bed early so we could get up early enough to still have breakfast in the dining room as opposed to the windjammer.

Birthday Cruise 2014: Day 3: At Sea

We slept in a little this day, which I think means we got closer to 8 hours sleep than 6 hours.  I just don't tend to sleep as much when on a cruise.  I'm just too worked up to get to the fun in the day.  We started with the usual breakfast in the main dining room.  We then went and checked out the sushi class price, but decided $15 was more than we wanted to pay for it.  So we went to the thermal spa for some relaxation for awhile.  We then went to the next cruise desk and booked the cruise we had thought we wanted.

By then it was time for lunch, and then back to the thermal spa.  We often ended up in the thermal after being in the dining room as it was always rather cold in there.  And the thermal spa was very nice for warming up.  We then went back to the room briefly since we wanted to change the bag we were using on the back of mom's wheelchair.  While there we found a paper that was left for us about other possible cruises.  One of which was the other cruise I had considered booking as our next cruise, and well we ended up changing our minds. So we went back to changed our booking to that cruise.  We then spent some time hanging out on back of ship in the seating behind the Windjammer where I took some pictures.

I think this is a good point to discus how overall wonderful the weather was on this cruise.  We have cruised every year for the past 4 years for my birthday, and the last 3 all to the same general area of the globe.  This year had the best weather by far, which just seemed odd considering how cold this winter has been at home.  But it was actually the nicest and warmest weather we've ever had.

The Crown & Anchor (Royal Caribbean's Loyalty program) welcome back event was next on the agenda, and this was by far the best ever C&A event we've ever been to.  The free drinks at it had a nice selection (or more to the point there was a selection when all the others we've been if they'd had drinks it was only one).  It then started with captain who actually admitted he talked until people heads would nod, and sure enough he did.  But I had a kindle and a drink, so who really cared. But then they had a preview show of an ariel act to come on the last night that was awesome.

After some thermal spa time, we then tried the afternoon headliner show for the night an acapella group called One Voice.  Living so near Dollywood, we've heard much better and we left during the third song.  We then went and checked out our pictures but didn't find any we liked so far.  Most had too much glare on mom's glasses. We went to 50s & 60s dance party next in the Centrum, where mom got to dance with a fun older man that we had enjoyed watching him dance throughout the cruise.

After dinner, we then went to the Love & Marriage Game show, a RC standard.  The best part of this one was an older married British couple.  The question asked to the man at one point was who on his wife's family would he not want to be trapped with.  He said her dad and when asked why, he said because he's dead.  When she was asked what he said, she said her sister. When the cruise director said no it was her dad, she popped out with "But he's dead".  Now just imagine all that in thick British accents.  The next best part was where the ask all the women whether they husband's male anatomy is Superman, Woody Woodpecker or PeeWee Herman.  The women all said Superman.  The men up until the older British man all said the same.  The older gentleman's accent was so thick with this answer that almost no one understood him, but mom did.  What he said was "Past my sell-by date".

This was followed immeadiately by the first late night adult comedy with Jeff Neese.  It was a fun show.  At the end both he and Paul Boland said they would be out front for taking pictures.  So we got up there just in time to take pictures with them.

Mom with Jeff and Paul

Both of us with Paul

Birthday Cruise 2014: Day 2: At Sea

While I had my real camera with me, I actually never felt like taking it out over the whole cruise.  It was all iPhone photos, and only 3 of them on day 2.  On the first sea day after breakfast, we went to the Palm Sunday church service.  My favorite part was actually how the palm frond we each had would move slightly with the ship movement as you held it still.  There was a reading of the passion, and the lady who volunteered and read the narration part did it very well.  We then went to the cruise critic Meet-N-Mingle.  We met some nice people.  We then went to lunch.

After lunch, mom went to the thermal spa while I went on the cruise critic group's cabin crawl.  It was really interesting to see all of other cabin types.  I would love one of the balcony rooms but the price for them is always well out of what I'm willing to or can pay.  I then joined mom at the thermal spa for awhile.

We then went to a show in the centrum.  It was here where we first heard the captain rambing on, but it was followed by a neat aerial show. This was the view from the 6th floor.

We then went to dinner.  Our favorite there was the banana rum soup.  We had it for appetizers and dessert.  After dinner, we had our first try at photos taken by the ship.  We then went to the show for the night featuring Paul Boland, the man of 1001 voices.  He did singing impressions of many singers.  At one point, he came down into the audience doing the Elvis song " I can't help falling in love with you."He first tried to get one man to the left of us to sing with him, but he didn't.  He then came to my mom and was singing to her.  She sang along, and he put the mic to her.  He looked surprised and pleased at how well she sang, and then continued to sing the rest of the song with her.  He indicated the key change to her, and she went really high.  You could tell he loved it.  At the end, around 10-15 people in the audience stood and clapped for her.  Paul told the rest of them that they should be standing for her, and most of them did.  Mom has said that singing with him was the moment of a lifetime for her, and that the standing ovation was a nice bonus at the end.

When we came back to the room, this cute towel animal was there for the night.

Birthday Cruise 2014: Day 1 - New Orleans

The embarkation was quick and easy.  We got to the port via taxi and were on the ship within 30 minutes.  We had to surrender mom's heating pad and got the usual instruction about going to guest services to get the ship's safety officer to clear it.  We started with a windjammer lunch (figuring guest services line would be shorter a little later).  Thanks to cruise critic we went straight to the out door seating at back of ship.

We then went to guest services about heating pad, and they said as usual they'd get the ship's safety officer to look at it and get back to us.  As this was the same as on our previous two sailings, we had no worries.  We then went on the spa tour and registered for the giveaway.  We decided to do the special on the thermal spa for two, and we both enjoyed the hot stone beds all week long. We then stopped by the dining room to change the dinner time for first night to an early 5:15 from our pre-registered time of 7:30 for each, since it was a one show for all night. We hung out listening to the music in the centrum for a little while.

We went back to the room at this point and we realized that somehow in transit, my mom's anti-gravity chair had been broken in transit: a bolt was missing.  With some effort involving more than one visit to guest services, the chair was fixed by just before dinner. After the safety drill, we went to the spa raffle. Mom won a mini facial.

The fine print had to be booked that day, so we went and got it scheduled for after the show for the night.  On the way out we saw this Coast Gaurd ship, and just found it interesting how it looked like the man on the front was ready to shoot down anything as we sailed down the Mississippi.

After changing, we went to dinner and met our wonderful waiter Maximo for the first time.  He was a lot of fun and always made us smile. This picture is actually from the last night.  But that's Maximo on the far left.

Our assistant waiter Charles is next to me, and the head waiter Amelia is on the far right.  Amelia   They were great and so we asked to stay at their table for the rest of the cruise.  Amelia said it would be better to change our reservations to 8:00 for each night, so we did that. The first show featured a comedian named Jeff Neese.  He was funny enough that we decided we would go to his late show.  Mom had her facial next, and I hung out in thermal suite on the stone beds while she did this. We then went in search of a final snack for the night.  We then missed the Freedom from last year since our only option was Park Cafe where they had nothing that worked for mom.  We ordered room service from the room.  On getting there, we had a message that the safety officer had not gotten to mom's heating pad yet.  After much argument with them (since they had over half the day to get to it), they eventually left it with us so mom could sleep for the night.