• Surprising Sylvis and Peach worked out better than I could have expected.  I think they really appreciated the gesture and I certainly appreciated her reaction when I jumped out from behind the door.
• To set up the stalking, I had been texting and talking with their friend Tiger for a few weeks. Since he was hanging out with them for a couple days before the cruise, he changed my name to Bob in his phone in case Sylvis or Peach happened to look over and see who he was texting. Due to my super spectacular stalking skills, I was known as Ninja Bob throughout the cruise. I like it.
• Miami Vice.  That is all.
• Diving is an awesome activity!  I have loved snorkeling over the years but this was so much better.  Hubby has always been able to free dive to get down and see some of the more interesting stuff but I’ve never been very successful with that.  This was my first time being able to really see everything and feel part of the underwater world.  It was exciting and soothing.
• Getting a corner, interior, accessible cabin is so the way to go.  By far our most spacious, dark, and comfortable accommodations on a cruise ship.  Happily, I did not see very many people in wheelchairs through the week so I don’t think we took it from someone in need. 
• Our dinner companions were wonderful.  There were several nights that we were the last four leaving the dining room because we were so engrossed in conversation. 

A couple of disappointments as well:

• This was our first cruise ever where I felt the service we received for dinner was so inadequate that we actually decreased the gratuity for our wait staff.  On every other cruise, by the third night, my post-dinner milk automatically showed up without me even asking.  This time, not only did I have to ask for it every night but there were a couple nights that it was forgotten even after I asked for it or I had to ask a second time.  There were several nights that we waited and waited for our plates while all the tables around us were served each course.  There was one night that my water glass was empty before our appetizers came out and stayed that way until dessert.  When it was finally filled, hubby’s glass, which was also empty, was ignored.  It was completely sub-par service for dinner on a Carnival cruise.  I don’t even know our head waiter’s name because he spent no time talking to our table at all.
• We mostly chose comedy over main shows but the couple main shows we did attend were pretty bad.

they really know how to dress up fruit on a cruiseship

We took our time eating but nobody came by our table like yesterday. We then headed to the lobby to peruse our portraits from the week and we ran into fishphobia and her husband. They talked hubby into a beanbag toss tournament in which he skillfully placed second out of forty-three participants.

hubby getting competitive

fishphobia tossing a sac

hubby putting on the pressure

fishphobia's hubby

such graceful form

silver medalist!

We went from there to the art auction, where we ran into the fellow Orlandians in the group, Master and Bubbly. They had the Donald Duck piece that I was so enamored with on the last cruise. It is Ducky See Ducky Do by David Willardson and I was so tempted to get it but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend that much on a Disney serigraph. I do love that piece though (although now that I’ve found the artist’s website and perused it, i find that Corkscrew is the one I really MUST have).

one day, maybe, i'll actually own this painting instead of just drooling over it

When the auction was over, we went back to the room to start packing before our final dinner on the ship. How much do I love that my final dinner consisted of a beautiful bowl of baked mac-n-cheese with bacon? First time seeing that one on a cruise menu and it very well may have been my favorite of the week.

towel animal du jour: heart-shaped chocolate box

because the eskimo thought it was a fire to warm up to

We then visited the future cruise desk to get a credit on our next Carnival cruise and ended up in the main theatre to watch the Battle of the Sexes and Liars Club games. We intended to skip the first AO comedy show, by Mr Rimi, and only see the one by Mr Blanchard but someone read the schedule wrong and we were there for Mr Rimi’s first show. We occupied a large section right up front on the side. He spent half the show trying to heckle our new Orlandian friend, Master, to no avail. Our new Fishphobia friend kept bending over my shoulder to say how lousy this guy was. The credit I gave him last night for being slightly better than the last cruise we saw him on was definitely premature. We were much happier when Mr Blanchard’s show started. He still rocks and I was very upset with my bladder when I couldn’t wait until the show was over so I did miss a couple minutes of the show. Stupid bladder. After that show, we all agreed we’d rather not go back in for Mr Rimi’s last show so we gathered in the hall taking pix and saying goodbyes. Packing is done other than toiletries and my pillows and blankies. One more buffet until vacation is officially over.

sylvis and me

part of the gang waiting for the show to begin

the other end of our couch

our original cruise buddies!

monkey on my back

sylvis

We then tagged along for the group’s poker run cabin crawl. I was hesitant to participate but I felt more comfortable after spectating and would probably join in next time. They basically went around to seven host cabins picking up treats and a card from each of the first five cabins. The last two cabins were discard cabins if they wanted to trade a card each cabin to try for a better hand. The guy who won had four queens and got the $80 pot they had built up. Pretty cool but it was just as much fun to watch.

the prettiest shots i've ever seen

forget "how many people can we cram into a cruiseship stateroom" we're going for the "how many people can you get on the tiny couch" record!

While the awards were being handed out, our little group ducked out to go fishy-bomb a cabin. Apparently one of the ladies is terrified of fish so they got the room key from her husband and they put fishies all over the place in there. She took it like a sport. It was a fun afternoon and required a pre-dinner nap.

hubby and me

you can never have too many "look at us all snazzied up" pix

our ontarioan dinner companions

We then spent the remainder of the night enjoying the AO shows of the new comedians onboard. The first and final show were from Mr Jason Blanchard. Loved him! He had great material and we laughed like crazy. His final show, he was getting heckled by some ridiculously drunk woman and he managed to heckle her back until she finally got up and left. A thunderous applause followed her departure.  He was definitely among the best of the cruiseship comedians we have seen to date.

The middle show of the night was by Mr Carl Rimi, whom we had seen on the Elation back in May. It was mostly the same show we saw six months ago – same jokes, same annoying swagger around the stage, same tired attitude and overuse of “meh” and “my life’s in shambles” – but I will say that he at least had more prepared material than back then instead of spending all his time heckling the audience. Though I still didn’t find him to be anywhere on par with Mr Blanchard, I do think I laughed a little more than I did that first time we saw him… so there’s that for him.

towel animal du jour: eskimo!

looking down on the wreck from the surface

sylvis

looking in the portholes

checking out the boat

you can't see me!

that we swam through  

following the leader through the wreck

and what’s left of a bus and a tractor.  

old bus

hubby... shoulda taken that left at albequerque

hubby: she thinks my tractor's sexy

We saw part of an octopus that was comfortably holed up nearly out of site. All I really caught of him was his beak and that’s about all the camera got too.

shy octopus

And we saw an eel but there was so much silt stirred up that my camera had a tough time focusing on him. 

eel

It was a lot of fun exploring the three wrecks and seeing fun creatures. 

squirrel fish in the porthole

candycane shrimp

tire fish?

Our second dive was at a reef a couple miles offshore. It was nearly seventy feet and was a beautiful site.

my camo is better than your camo

i dream of genie... and by the way, these things are incredibly camera-shy

so much beauty under the sea

We saw a couple beautiful lionfish 

the black lionfish was far prettier than the white one

and a not-so-pretty scorpionfish.

scorpionfish

seascape

It was a very mellow dive.

hubby holding his hands behind his back because i yelled at him about holding onto me so that he could conserve O2 by having me drag him around

sylvis

peach

tiger

lobster, it's what's for dinner

pipe organ?

fishie

not as effective a hiding spot as he thought

school of fish

school of divers - yes i am amused by the resemblance between this and the above pic

I liked that the guide today didn’t make us all surface together. Instead, he let us watch our own air and computers and we were able to use all the bottom time we could/wanted.

40+' of perfect clarity

me and hubby

showing my love

riding the safety stop

there's some story to the flying donkey but it comes from their prior cruising together so i'm not in the loop

When we got back on the boat, we were running a bit later than expected and the boat bypassed the shop and dropped us off near the cruise port instead, which was nice and convenient. Although it didn’t make all that wet gear any lighter to carry.

hubby, me, and miracle

st kitts

flora

We got back to our room to rinse all our gear and hang it to dry and then went to lido for a light snack since we missed lunch. We happened to be up there when it was time to sail away from St Kitts so we went up to deck to wave goodbye. It was a lovely island from the water. The past guest reception (sadly ours was at a different time from the rest of the group) finished us off and we went to dinner stuffed. This early dinner thing has been pretty difficult for those of us who are used to eating late at home. We decided to go to the main show with Sylvis and Peach. It was a comedic ventriloquist, Mr Phil Hughes. Overall, we were not impressed. He did a bit at the end of his show where he called three audience members up on stage and used them for “dummies” and that part was pretty funny but the rest of it was a little ho-hum. I feel like we’ve been a pretty tough crowd this week.  

towel animal du jour: tortoise

flora

bird in a tree

hubby, master, sylvis, and peach getting ready to dive

tiger and quartz soaking up rays

and caught a small boat to the Ti Kaye Resort where we had arranged to go diving out of the Island Divers shop. Seeing as how we’ve only been certified for three weeks and have been awfully busy with getting ready for this stalking, this was our first REAL dive. We made a gear and wet suit stop at the shop and then headed out on a boat to the Petons.

colorful reef

so pretty

hey, that's me!

hello there!

fish in a bowl

hubby

look at that wild hair!

what hair?

there is no fish

the gang

Our first dive was a site called Superman’s Flight because the mountains were in a flying shot in one of the Superman movies and also because it is a drift site where the boat drops you and the drift takes you to the other end where the boat picks you back up. Effortless as far as swimming. The water was beautiful… 82 degrees and super clear. We got down to seventy feet and I looked up and felt like I could reach out and touch the surface. The reef was among the best we’ve seen.

st lucia sea/landscape

hubby and i survived our first real dive!

st lucian civilization

Our second dive was a site called the Devil’s Hole. It was more shallow, about forty-five feet, and generally not as nice as the first but I still had a great time and saw a few eels. Sadly, the batteries died in my camera and I was not able to get many pictures.

me and sylvis being bobbers

feather duster in a bowl

The coral reminded me of the old cartoon land of the Snorks.

anyone remember "the snorks" cartoon?

But I did get some very jerky video of us, eels, and trunkfish.

I did discover that, despite being told that a shortie wetsuit was a good idea for a tropical dive, it’s really just too danged hot. My thin skin suit would have been more than adequate. After our dives, the boat brought us back to the resort where they had facilities to rinse out and dry all of our gear and we were served a nice lunch at the restaurant.

lovely lunch location

hubby, quartz, tiger, sylvis, peach post diving

sylvis and peach

crabs

Unfortunately, as we were eating and our gear drying, the sky opened up and drenched everything so our stuff was much heavier when the boat was finally able to take us back to the ship.

Ti Kaye Resort - St Lucia

leaving Ti Kaye Resort

On the bright side, we have a HUGE cabin with a GINORMOUS shower so we were able to hang everything to dry in there. I doubt it will be dry in time for tomorrow’s diving adventures but it should be less saturated. Due to the aforementioned delays, we made it back to the ship with under an hour to spare and by the time we got everything hung up, St Lucia was in the rear view mirror. It turned out to be an early night after a little post-dinner wandering.

towel animal du jour: sitting bulldog

that would be our great big cruise ship on the right... totally cowering from the monstrosity that is the rc allure of the seas. we look like one of their muster boats

st maarten - hubby, me, sylvis, peach, tiger, master, quartz, and bubbly

 We met up with the group for an early breakfast and got off the ship around 08:00 to hail a taxi to Orient Beach. The water was a beautiful turquoise blue and the sand was white, soft, and silty. The waves were pretty fierce and there was a good bit of seaweed so I abstained from water play. We rented some loungers and umbrellas and I held down the shade the whole day. Hubby went for a run up and down the beach and played in the water with some of the others in the group. The beach was a n3kk!d beach but I only saw a few people exercising that option. Many more took the topless option. I remained in long sleeves all day under my slice of shade. No skin cancer for me, thankyouverymuch. Honestly, I was bored and done with the beach after the first hour, just as I would be back home, but I tried to remind myself that not everyone has a beach in their backyard and so it’s a bigger deal for them than for me. It was a nice social day but, even though I never left the shade, I came back with more sun on me than I wanted.

watching the kite surfers

beach day in st maarten... much like sitting in my backyard but with more mountains

me and hubby enjoying a home-away-from-home day

hubby itching to surf

We got a taxi back to port around 14:30, after finding a cabbie who would give us a 8 for 7 deal since hubby and I failed to bring enough cash off the ship. We felt like deadbeat losers but, seriously, who would have thought a day at the beach, without any food or drinks, would cost so bloody much???

When we got back on the ship, we had a much-too-late-for-such-an-early-dinner-seating lunch and took a short nap before dinner. After, we caught up with Sylvis and Peach to watch the ship’s version of Minute To Win It. We finished out the night with the marriage game which is the cruise equivalent of the newlywed game but with three couples – newlyweds, middlyweds, and oldlyweds. Always good for a laugh, that one. 

towel animal du jour: horseshoe crab

hubby and i wondering around the windy ship

This morning, the group actually made plans to meet up at the gym at 09:00 so we got a decent workout in early. Hubby and I did weights and then we each finished with 2000m on the rowing machine. We then hit the breakfast buffet as a group but when the others made their way out to the sun decks to soak up some rays for the afternoon, hubby and I chose to go back to the comfort of our room and rest for the afternoon… we didn’t even make it out for lunch.

After dinner, we chose to go to the Phantom Theatre to see the main show – a comedic juggler by the name of Marcus Monroe. I’d like to say that I’m just a bit jaded because when we saw Sharkbait on our NCL cruise, they were just incredible so our bar is very high. They call Mr Monroe the rock star of juggling but, for us, it was just a painful hour of our lives we won’t get back. His juggling was good and entertaining but his jokes were not and the pacing of his show was slow and boring.

We left there and met back up with the group for another AO comedy show by Eddie Capone. We had told our friends our impression of him from last night but I have to give credit where due… this show was much, much better. He had more prepared material and I laughed a good bit. We then wandered around the ship until we ended up back in the dance club which was, once again, dead. We left our friends in there and went back for Mr Capone’s second AO show of the night since he had so vastly redeemed himself. Sadly, the second show was more like last night’s than the one earlier tonight and we were, once again, left disappointed.

It’s also worth mentioning that the comedy host, who I think is also the assistant cruise director, is completely obnoxious and takes entirely too long to disperse the necessary information before each show. *Chaka khan*

towel animal du jour: brontosaurus!

After eating, I was feeling well enough to do a little gymming so I spent thirty minutes on the treadmill and thirty minutes on the bike. At least I’ll have less guilt now about the amount of food I’m going to consume over the next several days.

We had just enough time to get back to the room to clean up before heading to the piano bar where our friends’ group had arranged a private meet and greet for an hour. Two words = Miami Vice. Mmmm. We had a great time getting to know the people who had so generously helped me to pull off such a successful stalking.

When that was over, they had arranged a treasure hunt around the ship but we chose to skip that and go for lunch and a nap instead. My goodness… we’re talking coma here. We laid down after eating thinking we’d get a short little rest but instead woke when the alarm sounded for dinner two and a half hours later. It was the kind of nap that you wake from feeling like you’ve been hit by a truck. I had a really tough time getting woken up enough to glam up for formal night. This early dinner thing is going to be really difficult to adjust to this week.

hubby and i all snazzied up

obligatory formal night pic

After dinner, we joined the group for some more karaoke spectating and then we went to another AO comedy show by Smiley Joe Wiley. I thought he was very entertaining and he told his jokes really well. The only complaint I had, which is more from my pickiness, is that he continuously segued with “I love all women. They’re really beautiful. I love them to death.” He seemed to use that phrase like others would use “um.” All in all, though, I would have to say I very much enjoyed him.

After his show, we wound up at the dance club, Frankenstein’s Lab, with some friends of the friends. Sadly, the club was totally dead so we bailed on it pretty quickly and headed back to the lounge for the other AO show of the evening. The comedian for the late show was Mr Eddie Capone and we just didn’t get him. His style seems to be audience heckling which I’ve already shared on this travel blog that we don’t much enjoy. However, I can at least appreciate good audience heckling… this man just wasn’t all that funny to me. Example: he approached hubby (we were in the front row) and said “look at this guy… a serial killer.” And that was it.  Seriously? That’s supposed to pass for humor?  That’s the worst heckle ever. His material was also not very original… like the whole “no jobs, no hope, no cash” joke that’s been flying around on Facebook for weeks. We left the show disappointed and I would have been happier coming to bed that hour earlier.

having fun at the shows

towel animal du jour: pachyderm

sylvis blurred with excitement while peach is still processing what's going on

smiling sylvis while tiger records events

After the shock wore off, we made our way to the first buffet for lunch where we met some of their other friends and explored the ship.

the mermaids were very welcoming

obligatory self portrait

We then went back to our cabin so that we could unpack and rest a little. Since their whole group was booked for the early dinner seating, we changed ours as well so that we would be able to hang out with them for the shows. The maitre d managed to get us at a table right next to theirs so it worked out very nicely. We’re sitting at a four-top with a lovely couple – Darleen and Stan – from Ontario. My dinner tonight consisted of the most tender braised beef brisket. So yummy. After dinner, the core group went to the Mad Hatter’s Ball lounge to watch some karaoke and the adults-only (AO) comedy of Mr Smiley Joe. 

quartz, bubbly, tiger

master, hubby, peach, sylvis - these three couples were the core group we hung out with but there were many more in their extended group

sylvis sammich

After a long day of stalking and excitement, I am all too ready for bed… which reminds me… we have got the greatest cabin on this cruise! When we booked, there were only two cabins left and one was right under the nightclub so I passed on it. The one we got was an accessible interior room all the way at the front of the ship. I figured that would be nice because it would be a little bigger if it’s an accessible room… HUGE, I tell ya! Twice as big as some of the other cruise cabins we’ve had in the past. And a shower that could fit six people. LOVE IT! Not to mention, it’s absolutely dark so I should sleep really well tonight. 

our extremely spacious room and towel animal du jour: seal

ginormous shower and bathroom