VOS 7/16/04 review, day 9, almost done!

Day 9, at sea

By chance, I found out the crew had a rather late party the night before. I saw, at least, one person who looked like ‘heck’. I will say that even though the morning staff had a tough time of it, we saw no drop in service anywhere on the ship. (And, it was fun to bring it up with other crew members and see their reaction: “What? How did you find out?” etc.) They had fun, and so did we. J

I am a ‘techie’, and have been involved with helping backstage off and on for years. So, when they offered a Backstage Tour at 9AM at the La Scala Theater, I was there.

The Technical Crew was generous and friendly in telling us how things work. They took us around backstage, so we got to see the very small storage and changing areas that are there. They would answer almost any question we asked. Interestingly, many of the questions were about the crew and the ship as opposed do the stageing, lighting, and sound. We were suppose to be able to see the front stage go down and up, but we had run out of time (Bingo was setting up), and had to miss it. We didn’t get anywhere near the sound and light control areas.

For you techies, the stage uses a lot of ‘Intelegent’ lighting. According to the Lighting Guy, this makes setting lights extremely easy. As for sound, the band and singers do sing live. Background singers are usually pre-recorded because noone can sing well and dance hard at the same time. There are backup vocals of the main singers available in case they don’t make it back onstage in time.

The stage crew emphasized how they work as a team (and it shows). They gave examples of how sometimes they need to respond to unplanned events. This may have included removing lighting and/or sound cues if there are problems during a show. From having watched their shows, I have to say I didn’t see anythng obvious when they did have these problems.

We spent part of this day packing. We didn’t finish up until later up that evening. We were running out of space to pack everything (especially the liquor). I was glad I had brought the duct tape and considered taping two of the liquor boxes together into one. We ended up buying a RCCL carry bag and placing the boxes into the bag. It worked out fine.

As for Bingo, no one had yet won the big prize. There were two sessions that day. “babchia” decided to go to the daytime session and try her luck. I wasn’t interested, so I roamed around and got bored. I figured that I would go find “babchia” at the bingo game. I found her there going crazy trying to do all of the cards she had bought. She asked for help. I took one of the 6-bingo card sheets. One of the games on my sheet got down to 4 numbers left. That was when the 51st ball was drawn. If someone had won by this ball, they would win $11,000. We were given some time to check our numbers while door prizes were being given away. I checked and found one number was missed. This meant the one card only needed 3 numbers!

With no winners so far, the game continued for the consolation prize. I quickly was down to two balls. Then one! I traded cards with “babchia” while she stood up to say she only had one number left. After a couple more balls, she yelled, “BINGO!” She won! We missed the big prize by about 5-6 balls, but she won enough to take care of most of our SeaPass charges.

After that win, “babchia” had to play the final game, so she was there that afternoon. Unfortunately, she didn’t win. (But, we were still ahead!)

Also, this was the day the clothing specials were happening on board. I spent another fortune on RCCL clothes and items (including that one final present that was still needed).

OK. This is a good time to explain shopping on the ship. There are 5 stores on the Promenade. A General Store (with mostly liquor and cigarettes), a Jewelry Store, a Perfume Store, a (RCCL) Logo Store, and a clothing store. Some prices in the stores are not bad, some are a little high. All are duty free.

Each day, there is some type of special that is placed on tables in the middle of the Promenade in front of the Jewelry Store. Sometimes these ‘specials’ were not displayed previously, so are new to us shoppers. Other times, they may be items already on display in the stores, but brought out for the ‘sale’. If an item is for sale in a store, then on another day it is brought out onto the tables, it will be the same price. Also, if an item was only brought out for the sale, the remaining stock may be kept available on subsequent days. Confused yet? Then to complicate this further, the stores may have limited store stock, so they could run out of something by the end of the cruise. So what does this all mean?

If you see something for sale on the ship, and you really want it. Consider buying it. It won’t be any cheaper during your cruise. If you think they may run out. Buy it. (We bought some of the fake towel animals early in the week because they were running out.)

For any one-of-a-kind type jewelry, realize it is first come-first served. (We saw this when they had an Amber sale. While there were a number of pieces remaining through the week, many of the better pieces were sold and the stock would not be replaced.)

Certain kinds of items, including jewelry, will be readily available through the cruise. (On our cruise, the first day’s sale was of rings. Most rings were available after the sale at the clothing store. Another day, there was a $10 sale of jewelry sets and watches. These same items had been available in the clothing store all week.)

One other thing they had for specials were gold chains by the inch. The first time, it was a dollar an inch, and was the equivalent of Gold Filled. A few days later, they had other chains. Those were described as 75% 18-carat gold, and 25% a jeweler’s metal. If you do the math, it means these are really about 14-carat gold. These chains are $1 to $5 per inch (depending on which one you buy). Each is custom cut for your order, and each is available for pick-up a day or two later. (I bought one of these.)

As for the logo clothes: This sale is usually on the last full day. (I was told on the Canadian cruise, they do not do this sale due the short length of the cruise.) The sale consists of clothing that was not previously on display in the logo store. For our cruise, we had a selection of t-shirts (some logo, some for the islands), polo shirts, sweat shirts, and jackets. None had been in the Logo Store during the week. The prices appeared to be discounted when compared to similar items. Again, you take your chance. Business is very brisk throughout the day. While there appeared to be plenty of stock of some items, it appeared they almost sold out of the sweatshirts.

Does that help? Confuse? (All I know is I spent a lot of money that last day at sea.)

As for the entertainment, we went to the Farewell Show. The special performer, comedian, T. J. McCormack was OK. (Again, “babchia” liked him better than me). The cruise director did a Top Ten list (which turns out to be the same list recently posted on the boards). Then, the band and singers performed a song. We saw a brief video of highlights from the cruise, then a video of the staff saying goodbye. Nice and simple way to end the cruise.

The towel animal for this last night was a crab.

I have copied and combined all of the parts of this review after Part 1.

Sorry about this mess.

Read the entire review at:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?postid=1744631

DH of Babchia