Category Archives: Tom

Tom started his day (as he’s started most all other days) with a run up at the gym while I stay behind and watch the ocean pass by as I write notes about our days.

Today was our last full day on the ship so it was time to do a few things we’d not gotten to all week—mainly, the Ultimate Abyss, a huge 10-story dry slide. (You can watch someone else’s video of it here.)

I am really glad we didn’t have to wait in line for it, because while it was fun, it wasn’t worth any more than maybe a 10-minute wait. Strangely, even though there wasn’t a line, for some weird reason it felt very awkward to stop and look around and take any pics. I regret that now, because it really was a cool sight (after the fact I realized the floor was see-through—I totally missed that!). I did snap this one looking out of the very top.

Here’s the only pic we got of it (from the first day when we attempted to go down, but were stopped because we had a backpack).

Today was also the day to hit the casino! We each had a free $5 credit to use, and we went through it pretty quickly, though playing the penny slots made it last a little longer. I did win some bigger amount of pennies at one point which was VERY exciting, even though I had NO idea what was going on on the machine (turns out it was a touch screen and I had to pick some squares to see what I won—and even then I’m not sure exactly what I won). All I know is at one point I was back up to 530 pennies after being down to like 200 pennies. 🙂

And then I took this pic for my mom. I didn’t play because I was out of credits.

And then off for a glass of Moscato, since I’d avoided it all week (I’m learning that wine gives me a headache). Ti was shocked—SHOCKED I TELL YOU—when I ordered this. 🙂

Oh, also? I bought a tiara. I’d looked at it at the beginning of the trip and said “I don’t need a tiara” but when it was still there this late in the week, I said WHY NOT? I can wear it for the ball…or just around for the hell of it. I LOVE IT.

Back at our bar before dinner…

This was our dining room.

And tonight we joined our other friends’ table again since we were tablemateless AGAIN. They all LOVED the tiara. 🙂

Taking some time after dinner to pack…all the liquor we bought. 🙂 Yes we did have to buy another suitcase on board (souvenir!!) so realistically we probably didn’t save THAT much money, but it’s always fun to buy alcohol on board so as we drink it at home we can relive the memories.

The last thing we wanted to do was have a drink in the Rising Tide bar—it’s a bar that rises up and down in the middle of the ship (starting on 5, the Promenade, and going to to 8, Central Park). We’d wanted to do it all week but it always had a line (there’s only like 20-25 seats). So as we were walking by, we noticed it was getting ready to load and there was no one in line yet so we snagged a place! Unfortunately, no one else in our group made it on with us…and we thought a round trip up and down would be like 30 minutes, but it was more like an hour—it only took like 7 minutes to rise up three stories and then stopped at the top for SOOOO long that we eventually just got off. It wasn’t very exciting. We did get a cool view of our regular bar, though.

In trying to finish all the things, we went back to Zoltar YET AGAIN and once more it still wasn’t working. That made about our fifth time trying it. Here’s what I think of you, Zoltar.

Leslie grabbed Ti to take a pic of our group on the stairs. Not our whole group, of course, but whoever was right there. It’s not the best pic but such good memories.

This morning we woke up about 6:30 as we were pulling into port.

Most of our crew was on Deck 11, so those people you see on their balcony? We know them.

Interestingly enough, the ship was pulling in and then did a 180 and backed into its slip (this was a bit disheartening as I was hoping to be able to sit on our balcony and people watch but as it was we were facing an unused pier).

Watching where we are on the TV.

We got off the ship and actually stopped for a photo. It turned out pretty well so we bought it! I might need to Photoshop the lurker out of it. 🙂

During the hour and a half we were on Saint Maarten, it was sunny, it rained, it was hot as hell, and we saw goats. Yes, goats. They looked like little dots on the side of the mountain. This pic is zoomed in a bunch:

We didn’t plan to do much here (no excursions), but we did walk through a few jewelry stores and contemplatively looked at some Hearts on Fire jewelry to match my wedding ring (I’ve been thinking about it ever since our last cruise 10 years ago). It was severely tempting to buy a necklace… Tom said I could, but as the person who actually pays the bills and keeps our finances in order…I just couldn’t bring myself to spend $1800 (even as an early 20th anniversary present). Sometimes it sucks being an adult. But I told him we’ll just have to come back again. 🙂 That said, I did dream about a $10k tennis bracelet…

We were going to buy the kids their gifts (matching tropical wear) but unfortunately we had forgotten all of our cash and a lot of the places at the pier only took cash. But of course the chocolate shop (that a friend recommended) took credit cards so we bought chocolate. Darn.

We saw George Clooney!

And I love the warnings on cigarettes…

Heading back to the ship. It’s just HUGE.

We opted against traveling around Saint Maarten and doing anything as we really just kind of wanted to chill on the ship without anybody on it. And, indeed, there was really nobody on the ship. That said, most of the bars and restaurants were also closed so there wasn’t much open for us to do.

We ended up hitting one of our regular bars…

Grabbing some random food at different places—look, a salad (it was really really good!) and more chili cheese fries!

Taste-testing tequila… I wanted to see which I liked better—silver or gold. They aren’t supposed to make you more than one drink at a time, but she knew us from before, knew we were just going to sit there, and knew I was doing a taste test… (That last drink is what I showed up with.) Result? Silver wins.

Hanging out on our balcony…

Tom and I have both decided that we like the ship when we are in port and the majority of the people are off the ship. We do not like a lot of people. That said, one of the things that I do indeed find most interesting is that even though there are almost 7,000 guests on the ship, it is not nearly as busy (anywhere) as you would think it would be. We have 68 people in our group and we can go a majority of the day without running into any one of them! (Of course, that said, we can also walk around the ship one time and run into the same person three times.)

And meeting Johnny from Sweden at the Solarium bar who we spent most of the afternoon with.

And remember what I said about the bartenders? Today, the Solarium Bar staff is learning that all we want are Toasted Almonds. If SHE is making them, they’re frozen; if HE is making them, they’re on the rocks. Both are delicious. Since we’ve also been ordering them for hours, they give us a little leeway when charging them to our room cards. Normally you can only get one drink per person per room card but since they know they’re for the three of us they will let us get three drinks at a time. The bartenders are awesome.

(As I write this, Johnny and Tom are now in the hot tub while I sit in the shade on the pool deck and drink my drink.)

Then it was back to the room for me to relax on the balcony again and wait for Tom to come home!

4:27 Enjoying the balcony!

4:41 Dressed and ready for dinner! (Yes I have clothes on! It’s a dress with thinner shoulder straps and a V neck!)

Some of the boards today:

We had no tablemates tonight at dinner so we had a blast with just the two of us!

More drinks at the robot bar:

Tonight’s towel animal.

It was an early night, as Tom wasn’t feeling too well. Turns out Johnny had been buying Jack Daniels drinks for them… And Tom isn’t a Jack Daniels guy but drank them anyway. Let’s just say he learned his lesson!

Of course we started the day with Bloody Marys. 🙂 The Boot & Bonnet was the only place open to get them first thing in the morning, so we’d often just sit in the nice leather chairs and people watch on the promenade.

Then it was lunch—Tom grabbed one of the amazing roast beef sandwiches from Deck 8 (one of the buffets in Central Park) and then we went up to Deck 15 for the chili cheese fries! With drinks, of course.

And there was wandering and people-watching and catching up with friends as we ran into them throughout the ship…and then it was time for the welcome party! Friends of ours are BIG cruisers and are like platinum level, so they have a suite…and they had a party for everyone! It was amazing to see how “the other half” lives on a cruise! Their bathroom was about the size of HALF of our entire room (plus it had a full-size tub and a bidet!).

Catching up with a good friend out on the HUGE balcony (the balcony was bigger than the size of our room!).

Then we visited the robot bar—it was actually called the Bionic Bar but everyone called it the robot bar because ROBOTS made the drinks. 🙂 You would input the drink you wanted on the tablets on the tables (scan your room key or your wrist band) and then watch the stages of your order on the screens.

My margarita in production:

Our group had ordered just a few drinks here…

Our first formal night…

With friends Geoff and Michele…

And our first towel animal… (we only got two the entire week). 🙁

We are old and had been drinking all day…so we called it early again. 🙂

I am really amazed at how simple and easy embarkation is, even when the cruise line is dealing with 6,000 people getting off the ship and 6,000 people getting on the ship. The lines weren’t long, nothing was terribly crowded, and it was all very efficient. We could not take pics inside the building, so this is all you get—us waiting for our group to be called to board:

Of course, the shout outs to buy things starts before you even get on the ship, with your first pictures being snapped on the way to the gangway, and you have to stroll past a mini shop with lanyards and a random assortment of last-minute items. It was originally just me and Tom, and then more peeps strolled by and we pulled them in…and then a few more…and a few more. We eventually just had to take the pic and be done with it, otherwise we would have been there for a half hour gathering more people.

My first goal upon entering the ship was to see just how quickly I could get my first margarita. And as it turns out there was a bar not 10 steps from where the gangway spit us out! WOOT!

Drink 2, immediately following drink 1.

Drink 3, immediately following drinks 1 and 2! We were determined to get our money’s worth out of our unlimited alcohol package! 🙂

While we were in there, random peeps strolled in and that was fun. We picked up our smart bands—I hate the nickel and diming aspect of it (they’re $5 each!) so I said I didn’t want one so Tom went and got his and I immediately succumbed once I saw how cool it was to order a drink with your wrist (it also unlocks your room). Then we just wandered the ship for awhile until we had our lunch reservation.

We may have stopped for a tiny bite of chili cheese fries because I LOVE CHILI CHEESE FRIES. Tom gave me crap about them until he tried them…and he went and got his own small plate.

More drinks! There are bars ALL OVER and there were really never any lines so it took less than five minutes to get drinks.

Signs on the elevator floors are a good way to know what day it is.

It started raining when we were heading to lunch on the Central Park level—it’s an actual open air park, so if it’s raining outside, it’s raining on the ship—and as we were lamenting the fact of having to walk in the rain, we noticed a box of umbrellas in the vestibule! Of course! They think of everything!

Lunch was at Jamie’s Italian (Jamie Oliver’s place).

We thought we were going to be eating by ourselves because we hadn’t been able to get a reservation with our group…but as soon as we walked in and asked if we could eat early (the place was almost empty), our group waved us over and we joined them! I think there were probably 25 or so of us in there! And add another drink to my tally—a peach bellini!

Then it was finally time to get in our room…so we have the obligatory picture of us on our balcony! And our view of the port!

And then Tom decided he needed a nap. I wandered the ship…

Then it was time for the sailaway—except we hadn’t planned too well for it and we didn’t have a big group together…but we all met up shortly afterward for our big group photo!!

Then there was a lot of wandering the ship and exploring… I was geeked to find Zoltar (if you don’t remember, it’s from the movie Big with Tom Hanks). I thought the kids would get a kick out of it, but it wasn’t working when we were there.

And then it was time for dinner.

Most of our group had some type of whiteboard on their doors so we could leave messages about where we were or what plans were…and people would leave you notes.

The rest of the night was spent hanging out at bars with friends…and then we called it a night pretty early since we’d been up since 4am!

Since our group was so huge, we broke up into smaller groups. This was The Portly Pig gastropub…really yummy.