Easter Cruise On The Carnival Legend (w/pics): 4/24/11-5/1/11

[lulu78]

Thank you! My Alyssa is definitely not the shy introvert I am. She LOVES people and being the center of attention. Must be an only child thing, her craving an audience's attention. I hope she holds onto that confidence as she gets older. I remember how miserable I was being the wallflower when I was a kid, and I regret not taking more social risks when I was growing up.

 

I've seen a few items with the name "Alysa" (with one S) on them, and thought it was great. The name Alyssa has gained so much popularity this last decade, and I think it's cool to be able to have a more unique spelling to help your daughter stand out.

 

I had hoped to cover our Belize journey and the Past Guest party tonight, but I just finished work an hour ago, and now it's past my bedtime. I'll try again tomorrow.

 

Goodnight!

Laura

 

Yes ! definitely the name has caught on :D .... I'd like to think I took part in starting something cool, seing as my daughter is now 13, lol !! and now that I think about it, you are so right ! it must be an only child thing about them being so comfortable being the center of attentions...my daughter loves the karaoke and participating in talent shows, she's done a couple at school and our local library...I could have never done that as a kid, no way !!! :eek: but awesome for them !!

[shawnamarie0509]

This review is great! and the pictures are really helpful! Keep posting!! Thanks for all the info!

[RedRam99V8]

Hi laura did you get anymore written?

[rhcpchika1]

:( I am saddened you didn't finish your fantastic review.

 

This is one of the first reviews where a child is involved in the review. I am travelling with a 2 and almost 7 & 8 year old, so I was loving everything you had to say!

 

Thanks for the part you did finish :)

[Lady_Jag]

:( I am saddened you didn't finish your fantastic review.

 

This is one of the first reviews where a child is involved in the review. I am travelling with a 2 and almost 7 & 8 year old, so I was loving everything you had to say!

 

Thanks for the part you did finish :)

 

I am so sorry to leave you hanging! These past 4 months have been extremely crazy at work and at home, and the remainder of the review keeps getting pushed to the bottom of my to-do list.

 

I haven't forgotten though! I've just had a lot to deal with since our return: out of town trips, pet health issues, minor head injury, major home additions and rennovations, and this week, my little one started Kindergarten. :eek:

 

I promise I will come back soon and finish, as I can't stand to leave anything incomplete. Thanks for reading, and above all, thanks for your patience and understanding.

:)

[ceneljeyan]

loving your review and hope you get a chance to finish it i was wondering if you had any photos of the childrens pool?

[Lady_Jag]

Well, it’s been an incredibly long time since my last update, and for that I apologize. Life has been crazier than I can possibly imagine, but I’ll do my best to wrap this up as soon as possible because I really hate leaving things unfinished. Let’s see…where was I? Oh yeah, Belize!

So Belize was probably our least eventful day. We had no excursions planned because Alyssa was too young for most of them, and besides, I read a lot of previous reviews on this port, and I didn’t think my little are-we-there-yet? girl would do too well with the hour long cramped bus ride over rocky terrain with no A/C and possibly no seat belts. Plus, we already visited Belize last year on the Carnival Dream, and it ranks as our least favorite port to date.

Yeah, if I had my way, we would have skipped the port altogether, stayed on the ship and enjoyed the onboard activities without many people around. But, as it happens, Alyssa busted me for leaving her in Camp Carnival last year when we were in Belize.

[back story in the brackets here. It really has very little to do with our cruise on the Legend, so you can skip this part if you want just the facts, ma’am.

Alyssa has a digital picture frame hanging by her bed, onto which I downloaded a lot of our family cruise pictures. Well, those cruise pictures included a picture of me on some stairs in Belize, and that very picture popped up on the frame one night when Alex and I were tucking Alyssa into bed.

“Mommy, where were you in that picture?” Alyssa asked.

“I was just posing on some stairs, Baby,” I dodged.

“Where was I? Was I in your tummy?” continued Alyssa.

“No, Baby, that was last year on the cruise when we went to Belize. You were in Camp Carnival, remember?” the always helpful Alex piped in.

Alyssa’s face fell, her eyes grew huge, and she asked in disbelief, “You went withOUT me?!?”

Too late, Alex realized his faux pas, but he no other choice but to fess up and tell her that yes, we went to Belize without her, but that it was really boring, and besides, we would be going back when we were on the Legend, and she could go with us then. Alyssa reluctantly accepted his offer.]

So we arrived in Belize around 8:00am. I was already awake, having one of the best night’s sleep I’d had in a very long time. After all, according to an announcement the captain made, I had been rocked to sleep by 4’ waves. Room service arrived with Alyssa’s staple of chocolate muffins, and while she and Alex stirred awake, I got ready to start another fabulous cruise day.

When everyone was dressed and Alyssa fed, we met up with our cruise friends, Mort and Emily, for breakfast on the Lido deck. We talked a lot while the ship cleared out. None of us had any true plan other than to take a tender into port and see what we could find. Mort and Emily weren’t ready to leave the ship just yet. They wanted to wait for Chuck and Sharon, so they bid us adieu and promised to see us later at the past guest party and then dinner.

Around 10:00 or 11:00, we boarded the tender so we could do a little shopping in port. “Can I buy stuff, Mommy?” Alyssa asked.

“I don’t know,” I smiled, teasing her a little, “do you have any money?”

Alyssa frowned and became very pensive. “Well, I do, but it’s all in my piggy bank at home.”

I hugged her, gave her a few bucks to spend in port, and told her to select her purchases carefully. Alyssa nodded and beamed like she was the richest little girl in the world.

The three of us made our way to deck A (again, no information given over the PA system about debarking) but before we could get to the tender, we were stopped by a parade of crew members wearing life vests. Yikes! Actually, we already knew that there would be a life boat drill for the crew (thanks Cruise Critics!), but I still chuckled to think of someone not knowing and seeing all the crew looking like they were abandoning ship.

We were one of the first passengers on the waiting tender, which meant we had to wait a good 10 minutes or so for them to collect enough people to make it worth the trip to port. We were alone on the upper deck of the boat for a while, so did what I normally do when I’m on vacation…I took pictures. Not many of the umpteen pictures I took turned out very clearly, though. The instant I step off the cool boat onto the hot and humid open deck of the tender, my camera lens fogged up. Add to that the still choppy water that made it hard for me to keep the camera steady, and the resulting photos looked like I had set the timer to take pictures every 30 seconds and then strapped the camera to the back of a manatee. Oh well!

(One of my foggy, awful pictures, but I took this because I thought it was weird that someone brought their luggage aboard. Note the luggage tag on the suitcase in the bottom right corner.)

(Bye-bye, Legend!)

 

The rest of our port visit was pretty much like Déjà vu of our trip the year prior, except this time Alyssa was in tow. And this time I saw that one of the excursion companies had a huge sign above their shop, advertising a visit to the “Babon Sanctuary.”

“What’s a ‘babon’?” I asked Alex. He shrugged. I looked closer and realized it was a typo. I also decided to ignore my instincts as an editor to tell the vendor of the 6-foot error.

We stayed within the walls of the port area, looked in some stores, and I took pictures. We found the steps where I posed last year, and I took Alyssa's picture so that now we have pictures of me, Alex and Alyssa each posing on the staircase:

 

Alyssa’s first purchase was a little green wind-up car, since green is her favorite color and she’s drawn to anything green. Alex and I took our time browsing, but came up empty-handed. About the time we were ready to head back to the ship, Alyssa spotted a small green bobble-head like wooden turtle (similar to the two broken ones she already had at home), which was about the size of a silver dollar. She was in love and wanted nothing more than to buy that turtle. The lady at the shop quoted Alyssa a price of $2, which was exactly how much money Alyssa had left.

Now this was one of those hundreds of moments when I wished there was an instruction manual on parenting. Do I let Alyssa decide if it was really worth it, or take over the situation and try to talk the woman down? (It was after all, a pretty high price for such a small little trinket, but I did tell Alyssa it was her money to spend as she wanted.) I suck at bargaining, so the money management lesson won out. In my defense, though, I tried talking Alyssa out of making the purchase, telling her things like, "are you sure? That's all the money you have left…We can probably find it for less somewhere else…" The woman at the stand could hear me clearly, but she wasn't taking the bait. She had already seen Alyssa’s overwhelming desire, and knew she had the sale long before Alyssa coughed up the cash. Sigh! Well, as long as Alyssa was happy about her purchase, it was a win-win, right?

So we walked over to the tender dock and saw a pretty packed boat. In fact, when we got to the front of the line, the guy at the dock said "last 5 people." Whew! Close one! Right as we passed the man, this big fat “bumba” woman all but shoved Alyssa to the ground to get past us so she could bounce her big butt onto the boat! So rude!

Still, we managed to get on the boat as three of the “last 5”, even though we couldn't get seats together. Alyssa and I rode up front so that my hair blew from the back of my head to the front of my head and I looked like Cousin It from the Adams Family. Alex sat a couple rows back, towards the middle of the boat. Fortunately, Mrs. Rude was anchoring down the back of the boat.

After the 15-20 minute ride, we finally pulled up to the Legend and wisely waited for the stampede to clear out before exiting the tender. There was a bit of a queue to get through the security gates, but we made it nonetheless. Guess whose big behind we were behind at the gates? Yep! Mrs. Rude! After she cleared security, Mrs. Rude shoved her way past a group of people filing for the stairs because she couldn't push herself in front of the mass of people waiting for the elevators. She then heaved herself very, very sloooooowly from one step to the next, while the people she pushed followed behind her, staring in disbelief. Alex leaned over to me and said, "you know, you'd think if you're going to push your way to the front, you'd at least go up the stairs at a normal pace instead of tying up all the people you shoved yourself past!" I just rolled my eyes, shrugged, and kept a steady eye on Mrs. Rude to make sure that I could snatch Alyssa out of harm’s way if Mrs. Rude tripped and rolled back down the stairs.

We grabbed a bite to eat from the Lido buffet, then I took Alyssa to the upper deck to play some mini-golf. We were behind the mini-golf tournament, but we actually made it through the 9-hole course at a pretty good pace! (I got a hole-in-one on the second hole, and wound up only 2 over par for the course. My best game of mini-golf yet!) Afterwards, Alex got Alyssa changed into swimwear and took her to the pool and hot tub. We agreed to meet back at the cabin an hour later so that we could get cleaned up for the Past Guest party that evening.

The party was really fun! We queued up behind a velvet rope and waited for the doors of the main show lounge to open. Funship Freddy greeted us as we waited and posed for pictures with the guests:

There was an abundance of hors deouvers and free drinks. During the course of the party, I enjoyed a screwdriver and two blue margaritas. (Yikes!) The band played, and guests were invited to dance on the stage, which Alyssa really wanted to do. So she invited “Mr. Mort” to dance with her on stage, and finally got to be a star on the big stage! I was surprised that she did so well at following Mort's lead and not just jumping up and down like a lot of kids her age do. Unlike her mommy, that kid can boogie! And she was on a roll. After dancing with Mort, she dragged her daddy to the stage for another dance.

There were several dances and then a trivia contest to win dinner for 2 at the steakhouse. I stink at trivia, so I was out by the 4th question. It was fun, though, and I was happy to see an elderly couple win. A few minutes before the end of the party, Wee Jimmy came on stage and said, "Oooo...someone's getting promoted!" Then he surprised one of the officers from the Entertainment staff by promoting her in front of her parents (who were in the audience) and telling everyone how hard she works and what a priveledge it was to promote her. She was very touched and cried.

After the party, we had a nice leisure dinner in the main dining room. It was just us 5 this time, because we couldn’t find Chuck and Sharon anywhere. We sat by a window and watched the sun set as we recapped our day. Mort said as soon as they got off the tender, he walked up to someone who worked in one of the shops and asked for a recommendation. I think his exact request was, “You live here, right? Where would YOU go so that our wives could shop and we could maybe get a bit to eat?” They were told to walk through the port gates, take a left, and walk a couple of blocks to a shop not far away. There was a restaurant almost across the street from the shop with reasonable prices as well. And that’s where they spent most of their day and money. Hmmm…I might have to try that next time.

Your-Time dinner service was again very slow. I clocked us at nearly 2 hours again! We spotted Chuck and Sharon shortly after we ordered our starters (Alyssa asked for – and received! – a plate of strawberries as a starter). Seeing them at the door, Mort gave a shrill whistle that made me want to discretely slide under the table! Chuck and Sharon (and perhaps the entire second floor of the dining room) turned to look at us, and they asked the hostess if they could sit in the empty booth right next to our table so we could still visit…kind of. There was an aisle between the two tables, and the dining room was really noisy, so it was difficult to carry on a very long conversation.

No aisle was going to stop my chatty Alyssa, though. When Chuck excused himself for a restroom visit, Alyssa saw that Sharon was sitting at the booth alone, so she slid into the booth next to Sharon and started up a conversation. It was too loud for me to hear what they talked about, but Alyssa was really animated while she talked, and every couple of minutes Sharon would laugh, put her arm around Alyssa and give her a squeeze. It made me smile to watch them.

Tonight, the waiters danced to "Low, Low, Low," and Alyssa joined them. Again, she was great at following the waiters' lead. She was also really wound up and ready to dance the night away, and after the dance she asked if we could go to the deck party that night. I was tempted to say yes, but the party wouldn’t begin until very late, and we had a full beach package planned for Roatan the next day. So after dinner, we bid farewell to our friends and climbed into bed.

My sleep wasn’t nearly as nice as it had been the previous night. All night I kept hearing what sounded like our neighbors slamming doors. Almost like clockwork, at about 3-minute intervals, I'd hear "squeeeeeeeeeaaaakk...SLAM!" It was absurd! I actually went out to the hallway to see if I could find out which neighbor it was, but no one was there. It might have been the French doors in their room, or a closet or bathroom door, or maybe just something slamming against the side of the ship, I don't know. It was really annoying, though!

Oh well! Day 5 was to be a beautiful relaxing day in Roatan.

Tonight's towel animal

(This was hanging on the mirrors in the restrooms near the MDR that night. I thought it was funny that someone felt it necessary to label them!)

[Lady_Jag]

loving your review and hope you get a chance to finish it i was wondering if you had any photos of the childrens pool?

 

I think I have a few pics. I will check my SD card and upload them the next spare moment I have.

[RedRam99V8]

There you are!!!

[Lady_Jag]

I'm sorry. I guess I didn't take my camera with me when we went to the children's pool. :( If I come across any pics of the pool though as I continue archiving/organzing the 800+ pictures from our trip, I will definitely post them.

 

I think I have a few pics. I will check my SD card and upload them the next spare moment I have.

 

loving your review and hope you get a chance to finish it i was wondering if you had any photos of the childrens pool?

[rdevine10]

Thank you so much for the review! One question, how crowded did you find the ship and were there lits of other kids? We are considering the legend for our april break next spring with 6 & 9 year old girls. Thanks so much!

[Lady_Jag]

Thank you so much for the review! One question, how crowded did you find the ship and were there lits of other kids? We are considering the legend for our april break next spring with 6 & 9 year old girls. Thanks so much!

 

The ship didn't feel crowded at all. There were plenty of public spaces to hang out in without being in other people's laps. The children's pool and deck it was on seemed pretty empty too. The main pools were pretty popular during sea days, but no more so than any other ship I've sailed. The Serenity area of this ship was a lot less crowded than the Dream or Inspiration, but I attribute that to it being a much larger area.

 

As for other kids, there were plenty for my daughter to play with, but not nearly as many as what your girls will probably see if you cruise in early April next year, since Easter will be earlier in the month. (This year, Easter Day was almost as late as it could possibly fall in the year, so most public schools scheduled their Spring Break in late March. My daughter goes to Catholic school though, so her break always begins Easter weekend, no matter how late or early Easter falls.)

 

Did I answer your questions? It's past my bedtime and I feel like I'm rambling. :D

[rdevine10]

The ship didn't feel crowded at all. There were plenty of public spaces to hang out in without being in other people's laps. The children's pool and deck it was on seemed pretty empty too. The main pools were pretty popular during sea days, but no more so than any other ship I've sailed. The Serenity area of this ship was a lot less crowded than the Dream or Inspiration, but I attribute that to it being a much larger area.

 

As for other kids, there were plenty for my daughter to play with, but not nearly as many as what your girls will probably see if you cruise in early April next year, since Easter will be earlier in the month. (This year, Easter Day was almost as late as it could possibly fall in the year, so most public schools scheduled their Spring Break in late March. My daughter goes to Catholic school though, so her break always begins Easter weekend, no matter how late or early Easter falls.)

 

Did I answer your questions? It's past my bedtime and I feel like I'm rambling. :D

 

Thank you! Yes, Easter was late this year! But, our spring break in the Northeast is the week of April 14th this year (most of CT, MA, VT & NH). This past year because Easter was late, NY was also the same week as us. I expect some crowds, compared to say the fall or middle of the winter, but just want my kids to be able to use the pools for a bit (which was tough on our last cruise- Easter week on the Disney Dream!). Thanks for the review so far. I love it! It seems there are so few reviews with kids on the Legend. My girls didnt love Camp (on the Disney ship), so I am not counting on them wanting to do it much on Carnival, but overall the cruise was hands down the most relaxing vacation we ever had! We cant wait to go again!

[Lady_Jag]

Today, we docked at Roatan. As with the other ports on this cruise, we visited Roatan just under a year prior on the Dream. It is a beautiful place, and if you’ve never been, I strongly recommend getting out of Mahogany Bay and seeing the rest of the island. Last year, I booked a private tour for our party of 5, and we had a wonderful time experiencing the local flavors (details in my Carnival Dream review.)

This year though, since it was just the three of us and we wouldn’t be docked here long, I thought it would be nice to have a lazy beach day and check out Mahogany Bay itself. So a few weeks prior to our cruise, I booked us a "Relax On The Beach" package through the Carnival web site for $29. It seemed like a pretty good deal, as it included a clamshell cover for 2 loungers, 2 raft floats, and 2 chairlift tickets. On board, this package sells for $33, and individually, the prices break down to something like $22/clamshell, $12/each chair lift ticket, and $6/ raft.

Armed with my camera in its waterproof case, our excursion bag, our excursion printout, water bottles, and our S&S cards and some cash in a plastic beach safe, we walked off the ship and followed the crowd through the Dufry shop. Our excursion backpack was pretty full with Alyssa's beach bucket and watering can, her arm floats, towels, snorkel set, sunscreen, cover up, a book for me from the ship's library, and some Alyssa snacks (small boxes of dry cereal courtesy of the ship’s room service), but it wasn’t very heavy.

 

 

("Come ON, Mom!")

We asked at the information kiosk where we needed to go to collect our wristbands and beach package and were directed to the chair lift. I’m not a fan of heights, and I wanted to get some good pictures of Alyssa and Alex on the “magical flying chairs,” so I handed our bag of goodies to Alex and let him and Alyssa board the chairs. The path to the beach was very scenic and a faster journey than the chairs, which crept along at a very slow pace and kept stopping along the way to let people on and off. I strolled along at leisure pace, snapping pictures as I went, and I STILL made it to the beach drop-off point before Alex and Alyssa!

Reunited on the beach, we brought our excursion printout to the rental hut, where an employee placed wristbands on Alex and Alyssa, grabbed two rafts for us, and led us down a row of blue clamshell covered loungers to our “assigned” spot on the beach. This guy was FAST! I almost had to run just to keep up him! Our clamshell was already set up around 2 chairs that were 2-3 rows back from the ocean, around the middle of the row and not far from the restaurant/bar and restrooms situated behind us. In what seemed like one single motion, “Speedy” the employee set the rafts down, took the “Reserved” sign off the loungers, wished us well, and was gone. Whoosh! I don’t think he stood in any spot long enough to even leave footprints in the sand!

The day was overcast and Roatan was not as scorching hot and humid as it was last June when we visited, so we probably could have done without the clamshell...especially since our "assigned" clamshell did not allow for us to keep an eye on Alyssa while she played on the beach and in the water. Still, I was happy I booked it, as it could have just as easily been an intensely sunny, or even rainy day today, and it gave us a nice place to stow our stuff while we played. It also gave me a “base camp” to return to if I wanted to get out of the water and read for a little while.

The beach was totally and quite obviously a man-made one for guests of the Carnival corporation, but it was still a nice place. Alyssa couldn't wait to jump in the water with the rafts, either! Notice I wrote “with” the rafts. She didn't want to stay ON the raft, although she did ride one for a little while. The water was pretty cold, but didn't take long to get used to it. Since Alyssa was more interested in splashing and playing in the water, Alex and I floated and Alyssa "swam" around us and pushed/pulled us on our rafts from one spot to another.

Feeling both the warm sun and the cool water while I drifted along on my raft, I was lulled into a false sense of quiet calm. Before I knew it, though, my butt had landed hard on the shore! Little mischief-maker Alyssa had dragged me AND my float onto the beach! "Hey! You beached me!" I said, smiling, but pretending to be upset. Alyssa laughed and left me there like a sick whale, so that she could stalk Alex, who saw her coming and escaped.

That became Alyssa’s favorite game for a while: try to "beach" Mommy and Daddy! The three us had a fun time playing – Alex and I would elude our little troublemaker and then later allow ourselves to be unceremoniously tossed up on the beach. Well, that WAS Alyssa’s favorite game until she spotted a couple of little boys building a sandcastle on the beach. Then she decided they would be more fun than us old folks, so she paddled over to the shore and yelled over her shoulder at us, "GO BEACH YOURSELVES!" Ummmmm…yeah.

Alex and I floated around a while, watching Alyssa play and share her beach toys with the little boys. One of the Carnival photographers wandered the beach snapping candid shots of everyone, and even got a somewhat decent pic of me and Alex in the water:

 

As more people filed into the water, I heard the call of our clamshell and my book, so I went back to our loungers and had a little bit of a read. Alex and Alyssa returned, and like a pro wrestler, Alex "tagged" me to watch Alyssa while he went back to the ship for his shopping money. He also carried back some of the items we no longer needed, like the snorkel gear that Alyssa wore for 3 minutes, then no longer wanted because she got water in her face.

Alyssa and I played in the water until Alex returned. She was trying to teach me how to play “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” when her new boyfriends swam up to us and wanted to play with Alyssa for a while. Well, since they had a whole coconut that they floated through the water (fresh coconuts were sold on the beach for a couple of bucks), Alyssa quickly ditched me for a newly made-up game of coconut water polo or something like that. s

When Alex returned from the ship, we decided to leave the beach and go shopping. So we turned in our rafts, and again, Alex and Alyssa took the flying chair while I took pictures and waited for them to “land.”

The shops were pretty reasonable (but not as reasonable as the outside vendors we met last year), and even though, as I mentioned previously, I really stink at bargaining, we managed to get some items a few bucks less than the sticker price. (My favorites were the mahogany bowls and the small valet-type dishes we bought for our new bathrooms.) Alyssa was really REALLY good while we shopped, too! I was very proud of her and told her so, and she beamed and seemed rejuvenated by the compliment.

We walked back to the ship right at 2:30 - closing time. The ship's horn blew, the Dufry store lights went out, and everyone lined up at each of the two gangways – one was towards the front of the ship, and the other was around the mid-point. There were a LOT of people there, including a young man (he seemed like he was in his 20s) who stood in front of us with a prosthetic leg that had a type of water wrap (like the advertisement wraps they put on buses and cars) that covered his artificial leg so that it looked like his leg was fully covered in skull tattoos.

Alyssa was fascinated by the guy’s leg. She stared and stared, trying to figure it out and then finally asked me, "why does he have that?" The man saw Alyssa’s wonder, heard her question, smiled and said very gently, "I was a soldier. I was injured and lost my leg."

Alyssa still looked confused. So Alex and I told Alyssa, “Alyssa, this man is a real, honest-to-goodness hero! He lost his leg fighting for our country and our freedom. We should say ‘thank you.’” When we said the word “hero,” Alyssa’s eyes became huge, and still trying to grasp what we were telling her, she looked back down at the man’s leg and said softly, “thank you!”

Alex shook the man’s hand and asked, “do you mind if I asked HOW you lost your leg?” The guy said he stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan. Whoa! “But,” our hero said, “it was a blessing in disguise, because I was able to return home alive.” I was touched to see such a brave young man with such a wonderful attitude – so much so that I could fill my eyes filling up. Fortunately, it was at that point that we had to scan our S&S cards to board the ship, so I had a few seconds distraction during which I was able to regain my composure.

Finally back on board, we had a snack from the grill on the Lido deck, then I left Alex to watch Alyssa while I went back to the cabin to shower and change, since tonight was our second Elegant Evening. Alex and Alyssa returned just as I was stepping out of the shower, so there was plenty of time for them to get cleaned up and dress. Our cruise friends, Mort and Emily, suggested dining a little later tonight, so we visited the sushi bar, the onboard library, the photo gallery, and then had some pictures taken with the backdrops set up by the ship's photographers. (We wound up not buying any of the photos, though.)

 

(A couple of young ladies in their early 20s offered to take this picture for me. They recognized Alyssa from her "debut" on stage with Wee Jimmy the first sea day and made her tell her joke again.)

Tonight's “show” in the main dining room was another dance, and Alyssa, of course, joined in. She was also happy to regale our table with the story of how she met a “real-live hero,” and seeing our friends’ confused faces, Alex and I filled them in on the details.

 

(Our waiter made a little napkin animal for Alyssa while we waited for dessert. She was thrilled!)

Two hours after we sat down, we were finally finishing our dinner. (Yes, YTD was again very slow!) We had been there so long, in fact, that as we were walking towards the doors of the dining room, the MDR “show” for the second seating was starting. This time, Alyssa was able to get down and boogie with a BUNCH of waiters, as we had reached an area of the dining room that was practically empty.

In all fairness, though, our 2-hour timeframe this evening was partially our fault because one or more of us would go MIA for a little while throughout the dinner service. I had to remove Alyssa from the dining room once for a little disciplinary chat; Mort left the table to visit the shops and see if he won the tanzanite raffle (he didn’t); and Sharon and Chuck had to excuse themselves briefly because Sharon wasn't feeling too well. I know such interruptions probably made it difficult for the waiters, who tried hard to serve us all simultaneously.

 

Tonight's towel animal was...??? A lemur? A cat? An armadillo? I'm still not sure:

 

In any case, we would arrive at our final port, Grand Cayman, the next day for some fun at the turtle farm and an intensive hunt for our favorite Blackbeard rum cakes!

More to come later. Goodnight!

[Lady_Jag]

Big shoes...I mean, shoe to fill:

A view of the Legend from the walkway to the beach:

 

A view of a different kind of boat was on the other side of the path:

 

There's a great mural on the ship of some of the MGM legendary actors/actresses:

Make a wish, Alyssa:

 

Alyssa's napkin bunny hopped onto Mr. Mort's head. Hmmmm...I wonder how THAT happened?!?

[RedRam99V8]

Dont stop now your on a roll

[Lady_Jag]

We were due to arrive at Grand Cayman at 10:00am, but the ship dropped anchor a little early. We visited this port last year when we were on the Inspiration, but I still wasn’t sure what to expect when we left the ship. After all, we arrived the day of the Royal Wedding, and the British-owned Grand Cayman was celebrating a public holiday so a lot of the shops were closed, as well as the Port Authority. On the bright side, we were the only ship in port, so the island was as packed with tourists as it was during our previous visit.

 

Anyway, we slept in until around 8:00am, got our stuff together, and made our way to the Lido deck so we could get breakfast and a sticker for the tender boats. The "Fun Times" stated that the tickets would be distributed after 10:30, but when we got there, they were already passing them out. So the three of us were assigned group 6, and together, we were 6-6-6. Hmmm...I hoped that was not a bad sign of things to come! LOL!

Coincidentally, Alyssa the dancer gave us our tickets, and my Alyssa was thrilled to meet her. After a brief introduction and a quick hello (Dancer Alyssa had a job to do and there was a line behind us), my Alyssa continued to stand there...just staring at the dancer, until we dragged her away. It was like my Alyssa was amazed that a grown-up who actually dances on the ship would have "her" name!

 

Anyway, we had just enough time to eat a leisure breakfast before group 6 was called to A deck. We took the elevator down to A deck, but when we stepped out of the elevator, one of the entertainment staff said "oh! You weren't supposed to come down this far. Go up the stairs to deck 1, get in line, then come down with the rest of the passengers. Ummmm...ok. As we marched up the stairs, Alex pointed out that we could have just taken the elevator back up, but from the somewhat chaotic way things were going, I thought they were kicking us off the elevator and forcing us up the stairs.

 

This tender ride was a lot shorter than our trip to Belize. The boat filled up quickly, too! We sat on the top deck, as Alyssa requested, next to spots marked with handicap icons. So while people took their seats, I sat there wondering: WHY would they put handicap seating UPSTAIRS?!?

 

The tender docked just south of where we docked last year. We walked with the crowd into an open area and found an Information booth near the middle of the area. I told the lady tending the booth that we had turtle farm tickets we purchased online (1/2 the price of the Carnival excursion and includes transportation), and asked where we could get the turtle farm shuttle. "Go over to that tall man over there in the blue with the 'Turtles' sign," she said, pointing back to where we came from.

 

So we walked back across to the gate we just entered and asked the tall man in the blue. He, in turn, pointed back across the lot to a temporary tent not far from the Information booth and said, "Go over there to that tent that has the 'Turtles' sign. It's a Carnival excursion, but they'll take you too." Sigh! Alex and I dragged Alyssa and our excursion backpack BACK across the port area to the middle tent.

 

A man who was trying to organize the crowd gathering at the tent looked at our online confirmation printout, and then handed it to a woman with a pen and paper. She told the man, "turn around. I need a surface to write on!" and she started to write on the man's back. Alex looked at the pen the woman was pressing to the man’s back and joked, "good thing she's not mad at you. That might hurt!" and we all laughed.

 

After a few minutes of standing around, a guide came over and led us to a large air conditioned bus. We hung back a bit as everyone crowded onto the bus in a disorderly fashion. I grabbed a seat near the front, Alex grabbed a seat in the row next to me and Alyssa wound up in Alex’s lap. After a few more bodies piled on, we were off on a 20 minute ride to Boatswain Beach & Turtle Farm. En route, our driver gave us a quick tour of the place, pulling over to the left side of the road from time to time (did I mention this island is British-owned and people drive on the left side of the road?) to allow us a better view and photo opportunities.

 

We saw and got background info on the governor's house and his private beach (the only private beach allowed on the island), a beachfront cemetery, one of the oldest houses on the island, and as a bonus we also got a scenic view of a beach with the Carnival Legend anchored in the distance.

 

At the turtle farm, the people on the Carnival excursion gathered in front of the front doors. I asked about the tickets we ordered online, and the guide opened the front door to let us enter and pick up our wristbands for the park. When we entered, we were offered some traditional Grand Cayman wedding cake in honor of the royal wedding. I don't remember what the main ingredients were, but it was brown like spice cake, seemed really syrupy and had almost a gummy texture. It was not frosted, but the top of the cake had a bright sheen to it. Alyssa liked it, and I thought the taste was good, but the texture could very well make me gag if I dwelled enough on it. The only analogy I can think of is maybe a giant gummy bear with stale cake crumbs mixed into it. But enough about cake.

 

Since we had our wristbands and were not part of the Carnival tour, we were free to walk into the park on our own and either discover things ourselves or listen to the guide drone on about how large turtles can get and that some of the turtles are raised for their meat, but not all of them. We spent all of45 seconds listening to the guide, and then went to the holding tanks, where Alyssa got to hold one of the smaller turtles. She loved it! A woman standing near the tanks told us turtles like to be rubbed/tickled under the chin. The little guy Alyssa held was quite a sport for the duration that Alyssa held and fondled him. Then, reluctantly, Alyssa put the turtle back into the tank where he swam off. We saw a few more tanks of turtles and a turtle hatchery, but Alyssa was more interested in the "main lagoon" (freshwater pool).

 

 

This pool was HUGE! And there were only a handful of people there when we arrived (not including the 4-5 life guards on duty), so we were able to grab a couple of lounge chairs in the shade right next to the walk-in point. The shallow zero-depth entry was roped off with those pool buoy lines, so that little ones could play without accidentally wandering into the deep end. The deep end stretched around a little man-made island - the left side was 5' deep all the way to the waterfall at the opposite end of the lagoon, and the right side dropped off into 6'-8' waters. The right side also butted up to "Predator Reef," a shark tank that had a glass wall between the lagoon and the tank so you could dive down and get an underwater view of the sharks.

 

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that this would be the first “real’ test of my waterproof camera case. I don’t swim well (alright, hardly any), but I wanted to check out the sharks. We brought all our snorkel sets, but Alyssa wore hers only a few minutes at a time, because she couldn't grasp the concept of creating an airtight seal on her mask and kept getting water in her eyes. Also, her snorkel clip occasionally got tangled in her hair and she'd freak out.

 

I didn't have much better luck with my set. It's been at least 10 years since I've snorkeled, so it was hard for me to get used to the idea of breathing through a tube instead of allowing my lungs to close and hold my breath. Still, I paddled out to the deep end. I THOUGHT I'd get to get an underwater glimpse of the shark tank, but my lousy snorkeling technique, combined with my very poor swimming skills kept me far from the glass wall.

 

So it was up to Alex to take my camera over the border and under water to snap a few predator pictures. The case worked out great! Not only did it keep the water away from my SRS camera, but it made the camera buoyant enough to float in the water. Of course, it was difficult to look through a snorkel mask, camera case, and view finder to get a shot, so Alex had to just point and shoot and hope for at least one decent picture. He did pretty well, considering the circumstances.

 

At lunch time, we pulled Alyssa from the pool (which was getting REALLY crowded by then) and headed over to the "Snack Shack" restaurant for some local cuisine. There were several TVs set up around the bar displaying Royal Wedding footage, and one of the waitresses ask us if we had a ticket. We looked confused and told her no, so she brought us menus and led us to a table by the farm's OTHER lagoon.

 

This lagoon actually had fish and turtle swimming in it, and wrapped around a much bigger man-made island which was populated by iguanas. There were no lifeguards on duty, so if you wanted to go all the way around the lagoon, you had to wear a vest. A decent expanse of a man-made beach bordered the entry points and held a bunch of loungers under yellow tarp-like canopies. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

 

On the menu was a "turtle burger," which was pan-fried turtle meat on a bun with lettuce, tomato, and your standard fixings. Alex and I were going to share one (my other identify/Lola cruise personality was ready to try it). I also had the foresight to bring a couple of mini boxes of Fruit Loops from the ship for Miss Picky to snack on. Well, we chatted and waited and waited and waited for someone to come take our order, but no one even looked in our direction. Well, since I really wasn't terribly hungry, the prices were pretty high, and we needed to catch the shuttle back to the pier at 2:30 if we wanted time to do any shopping, we got up, handed back the menus, and left.

 

I wanted to take a look around and maybe go into the fish/turtle lagoon for some pictures. Alyssa wanted to go back to the pool, so Alex took her back to our spot. (Once there, she decided she wanted to go into the "other pool" with Mommy, so Alex gathered up all our gear and took her to the lagoon.) On the way to the lagoon, I found an underwater viewing area of the Predator Reef that was dug out of the other side of the reef so I wouldn't even have to get wet. I snapped a few shots, then walked along one of the trails to a couple of caged animal exhibits. One seemed empty, and the other housed a blue iguana. A sign stated that I could "open the cage door for better viewing and photos," so I did. Then I walked to the rental hut by the lagoon to pick up a life vest.

 

(Predator reef, as seen from the "dry" viewing area.)

 

By this time, Alex and Alyssa met up with me, and Alyssa said she didn't want to snorkel and just wanted to play in the shallow end. She didn't need a vest for that, so I got one vest for me (the employee reminded me that I was not allowed to touch any of the animals in the lagoon) and I waded out towards the middle of the lagoon. I walked across several slimy parts, and a few fishes brushed my leg. (Apparently, no one told the animals in the lagoon that I wasn't supposed to touch them. Yuck!) I made it to about the half way point, then had enough of slime and scales. I turned around to exit the lagoon and encountered Alex and Alyssa, both donning vests, masks and snorkels, near the lagoon's center "island." As fun as it was, it was 2:00 and time to go.

 

Alex watched Alyssa while I made my way to the changing rooms to shower, change, and use the facilities. I called to Alex and waved him and Alyssa in when I was done. It took a while for Alyssa to schlep out of the lagoon, turn in her vest, and poke along across the sand to a not-so-hot shaded spot. Then there was a tantrum about her legs being tired, her feet hurting, and the sand being too hot. Alex finally managed to pick her up and carry her into the changing room, get her cleaned up, and send her out to me. Then he went back in to dry off and change while I dragged a tired Alyssa towards the park's exit.

 

"Up! Up! Up! Up!" Alyssa whined, holding up her arms and trying to step in front of me.

 

"Honey," I said, I have this big backpack, this heavy camera, and this wet towel to carry. There is no way I can pick you up right now."

 

She whined and made a few more pleas to be carried, but I managed to drag her to the exit and out to where the shuttle was going to pick us up. It was already 2:40. I looked around, but saw no bus. Alex had made it out to where we were and was looking around as well. I spotted a family of 3 heavy set people wearing Carnival cards on lanyards and asked about the shuttle back to the pier. They were with one of the Carnival excursion tours and said someone told them the shuttle would leave at 3:00, so Alex, Alyssa, and I popped into a small shop for a couple of drinks. When we walked out, I saw the family boarding one of the waiting shuttle vans parked at the curb, and so we hopped in behind them. The air conditioner was nice and cool, but the driver was nowhere to be seen. The woman sat in front of me and told her son, he should move to the tiny "jump seat" that folded out next to his dad, to make room for "the others." I smiled and said something like, "he may get to have a real seat. I guess it depends on how crowded the bus will be and how many people are still in the park."

 

She looked down her nose at me and said rather snottily, "Oh, this is going to be a full bus for sure. I'm not sure if they'll let YOU stay on!"

 

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to Alyssa and Alex instead. The snob was partially correct, though - it was a FULL bus by the time 3:00 rolled around. Every seat and jump seat had a body in it, and STILL there were 4 more people waiting to board! A woman behind me and another woman offered to put their children in their laps and clear seats for 2 more people. 2 of the 4 people stepped into the van, but then stepped back out. I guess they didn't want to split their group up, so they decided to take a taxi back to the pier instead.

 

On the way back to the pier, everyone was chatting about their day. Alyssa and I sang songs to Alyssa (to the annoyance of the Snob in the seat in front of Alyssa), and Alex struck up a conversation about Tucker and old cars with the nice people behind me (also to the annoyance of the Snob, who kept rolling her eyes and shooting nasty looks at us). Back at the pier, Alex, Alyssa, and I were the first off the shuttle since we were sitting near the door. It was a big step for Alyssa, so I grabbed her around the waist and lifted her out of the van while Snob waited and huffed impatiently behind her.

 

We walked across the street to a little strip mall looking place that housed a lot of shops...some of which were closed due to the public "Royal Wedding" holiday. We were on a mission to find the woman we bought our Blackbeard rum cakes from last year when we were on the Inspiration. Alex located the little alleyway where her stand was last year, but it was gone! I was heartbroken...until I turned around and saw a "Blackbeard Rum Cakes" banner hanging from what used to be a snack/ice cream stand last year! YAY! Our rum cake lady hadn't left - she just relocated! And she offered us the same great deal: 6 small rum cakes of any flavor for $30 and get a large cake of any flavor for free. Double Yay!

 

We sampled all the different flavors, and I let Alyssa pick out her own cake. (She chose banana.) Alex wanted to gift some of the cake to a couple of his co-workers, so we wound up purchasing 2 of the special deal. While we chose our cakes, we told the woman how we bought from her last year and were so disappointed when we thought she had closed for the day. She smiled and said she almost took the holiday off, but decided to open because the Legend was in port. Lucky us!

 

We walked back to the dock for our tender ride back to the ship. A man was selling fresh coconuts, in which he hacked the end off with a machete and stuck a straw into it for fresh coconut milk. I bought one for Alyssa, who had begged for a coconut back in Roatan when she saw one of her new friends playing with it. She took a sip, and declared it "yucky," so Alex drank it. (I’m not a coconut fan.) The man who sold the coconut tto us said to bring it back when we were finished drinking and he would cut it open so we could eat the fleshy part. But when Alex tried to hand the coconut over to the man to crack open, Alyssa burst into tears and pleaded "no! no! no! I want it whole! No!"

 

We tried to tell her that it would go bad since it's already been opened, but she wouldn't hear of it. I asked the man if he had an empty one she could play with until the end of our cruise, but he couldn't find one. Instead, he handed Alyssa a whole, unopened one, and she brightened up. I paid the man, even though he didn’t ask for any money, and we boarded our tender transport with a happy little Alyssa playing with a coconut.

 

We were back on board the Legend around 4:30, and of course grabbed a little "snack" from the Deli on the Lido deck. No worries about ruining our appetite, because we decided to dine a little later this evening with the rest of the gang.

 

Anyway, dinner again took a little longer than standard dining, but there was a special celebration tonight, so it was understandable. We arrived around 7:00 and caught the dance number by the wait staff for early dining. Mort brought along the bottle of champagne we gave him at the beginning of the cruise so we could all toast to old friends and new friends and beautiful fun cruises. Our waiters forbade us to pour, and made sure our glasses were never empty. One of our waiters pointed to the champagne bottle and asked Mort, “are you the host, Mr. Mort?” to which Mort said, “Me? Oh no! Mr. Alex over there is the host.” So the waiter put the champagne bucket in front of Alex, along with a bill for a $10 corkage fee. Sneaky!

 

As if we didn’t have enough toasts at our table, tonight, just before dessert time for early seating, everyone in the dining room was treated to free champagne, or in Alyssa’s case, apple cider. Today marked the Carnival Corporation’s launch of their 100th ship, and so all across the fleet tonight, guests were treated to a champagne toast. Wee Jimmy made the toast, and we all raised our glasses. Mort was not a fan of the dry champagne (the bottle we had earlier was more of a sweeter sparkling wine) and made a face that cracked Alyssa up. He asked our waiter for some of the apple cider the kids in the dining room were drinking, and our waiter, without missing a beat asked, “Can I see some ID, please?”

 

(This cake was outside the Main Dining Room. Sharon wanted a piece of this cake so badly, she kept asking our wait team for it. LOL!)

 

(Cheers!)

 

We all laughed and were cutting up and having a great time. Our assistant waiter again folded Alyssa’s napkin into a little bunny rabbit, and received a very cheerful ovation for his efforts from all of us at the table. Mort got a little carried away and accidentally knocked over his untouched glass of champagne, creating a huge wet spot in the middle of the table. I couldn’t resist placing Alyssa’s napkin bunny next to the spot and scolding it for being a “bad bunny! Bad, bad, bunny!”

 

 

We were in the MDR long enough to see the dance routine yet again for the late dining passengers (after 9:00pm). Alyssa, already wound up from all the shenanigans of us grown-ups, and Sharon, wound up from all the champagne, hopped up and joined in the dance.

 

After dinner, we were all having too much fun to go to bed, so we went to the karaoke bar with Mort to support him as he sang. The lounge was pretty empty, so Mort did a huge repertoire before more people showed up. Mort tried to bring Alyssa up to sing at the beginning, but it was 10:00pm, and kids were no longer allowed on stage. No problem, though. Mort's first song was "What A Wonderful World," because Alyssa was singing it to him at dinner. He cleverly stepped off the stage onto the dance floor to sing with Alyssa. She was great! She already knew all the words, and sang out without any cue from the teleprompt.

 

Her song over, Alyssa took the roll of "dancer" and danced her heart out on the dance floor of the lounge while Mort, Chuck, the karaoke host, and a few others belted out various melodies on the microphone. Alyssa was really into it, and I saw her run over to the door and try to wave passers-by inside. After a few minutes, I saw one lady stop so Alyssa could talk to her, but the lady looked confused and just walked on. Immediately, Alyssa ran over to me and said, gesturing with her hands outstretched, "Mommy! Guess what? I asked a lady if she wanted to come in and watch me dance, and you know what? Guess what, Mommy! Guess! She just walked away!" This last statement was made in a high-pitched voice of disbelief, and was accompanied by a shake of her head and hands, so that I couldn't help but smile. I feigned astonishment and a little incredulity as I said "No way!!" Alyssa agreed, "yeah! She did! Can you BELIEVE it?!?"

 

So we spent the next hour or so in the karaoke lounge watching Alyssa dance her heart out. One woman was trying to sing "Walking On Sunshine" (one of Alyssa's favorites, which she also knows the words to), and kept cracking up as Alyssa shook her booty, jumped up as high as she could, and interjected her own "WHOA---OH!" along with the singer. It was just too cute, and I hated to drag her away from the dance floor, but it really was getting late for all of us.

 

Our towel animal tonight was a cute frog:

[RedRam99V8]

So keep going laura??

[Lady_Jag]

Wow! I can't believe it's taken me so long to finish this one review. Ugh! Well, let's see if I can finish up tonight, before we set sail again next week...

 

Day 7: Final Sea Day

This morning, Alyssa didn't wake until around 9:00am, even though our standard room service order arrived promptly at 8:15. Alex had already dressed and was exploring the ship for a bit while our little Sleeping Beauty recharged her batteries.

I already packed our things the night before after sending our laundry out for wash and fold service Thursday morning. This is one of my rituals that takes a little of the sting out of the end of a cruise – the day BEFORE the last day, I roll, fold, and stuff all our dirty clothes into the laundry bag provided (sometimes it takes 2 bags, but I pretty good at utilizing every square centimeter of space) and send it out to be washed and folded. When we come back to our cabin that afternoon, are clothes are clean and neatly folded, and my S&S card is charged just $15/bag. Not bad, considering the fact that I send out 1-2 really stuffed bags and get 3-4 bags of folded clothes back.

Anyway, the night before our last cruise day, I gently take the folded clothes from the laundry bags and place them straight into our suitcase. Add a few purchases and other items we won’t need the last day or for debarkation, and voila! All packed and ready to go! That gives me a full final day of enjoying the ship’s activities without the dreaded packing chore looming over my head and heart all day. Plus, I don’t have to cut any of my fun time short, just so that I can get my bags packed and outside the cabin door by 11:00pm.

So back to our regularly scheduled program… Alex was dressed and exploring the ship early while Alyssa slept in. He returned just as she was getting ready for the day. We left a thank you card and a little $omething extra for Blessing with Alyssa’s cat and doll on Alyssa’s bed. After Alyssa stuffed herself with chocolate muffins, I suggested Alex and I try breakfast in the main dining room. We saw Blessing in the hallway, and he made a special point of saying goodbye and thanking us as we passed. We were seated in the Truffles restaurant just after 9:30. The food was ok (I thought the waffles were pretty good, actually), but the service was just mediocre. Oh well, at least we could say we had breakfast there at least once during the cruise.

The rest of the day makes for a pretty boring update: Alex and Alyssa spent most of their time in the pool and hot tub, while I read my book, made my contribution at the casino (the tiny “non-smoking” area was a joke, so I didn’t stay long), went to an "Abracabra" seminar to learn a couple of magic tricks, and participated in an "Amazing Race" type scavenger hunt. I was a team of one, but I still acquired most of the items on the list. The instructions were to meet at the stage on the Lido deck in 25 minutes, but I don’t think the entertainment host read the instructions. When I got to the stage, only one other team was there. We waited for about 5-10 minutes, and still no host or other teams showed up. I decided it wasn’t worth the wait, so I walked over to Alex & Alyssa, who happened to be in the hot tub behind me.

I'm glad I didn't stick around, as the social host running the game never did show up! Alex, Alyssa and I went to the chocolate buffet (yum!), and when I passed the stage again sometime later, the team with all the scavenger hunt items was STILL waiting for the social host to show up. I don't think it was going to happen, though, as the reggae duo had taken the stage and was playing steel drum music. Whoops!

After lunch, I had some quiet time on my own, checked in via a very very VERY slow internet, and went to afternoon tea in the main dining room, where a pianist played soothing music. I met a nice elderly couple from Orlando, and a couple my age from Long Island. We talked cruises and compared cameras, and discussed the various ports...normal cruise chit-chat. Then it was time to go. The "Fun Farewell" party was tonight in the Firebird lounge on deck 1. Free drinks and live music! Yay!

There weren't many folks in attendance, so our group had front row seats near the dance floor. Alyssa tried her best to get a little boy her age to dance with her, but he was playing hard to get. She asked two other boys in the lounge, both a few years older than her, and they turned her down. So she spotted a little girl on the other side of the lounge and asked HER to dance. The girl said, no, so Alex danced with her on the stage. What a good daddy!

Alyssa kept going back to the first little boy, though, like it was a challenge to win him over. She would shake her hips and dance in the aisle in front of him, pull him by the arm, and even chased him, trying to get him to dance with her! No luck. Oh well! She had fun playing the little game of cat and mouse. I had fun watching, taking pictures, and drinking 4 lemon drop drinks. (The waiter even gave me one “for the road” at the end of the party!)

(Yes, the drinks were flowing!)

Our friend, Mort, approached me and said, “Hey, girl! Put that camera down and come dance!” and he pulled me out onto the dance floor. Now, I have to admit that I am a lousy dancer with no rhythm. Seriously, I always avoid the dance floor at all costs because I don’t want to cause anyone any injuries! But the lemon drop drinks had weakened my resistance, and after giving Mort fair warning, joined him for a dance. We swayed along with the music and the ship, and Mort called over to Alex, “hey, Alex! Aren’t you jealous? Bet you want to cut in, don’t you?”

“Oh, alright!” Alex teased, then held out his arms to dance with…Mort! We all laughed, and Alex and I shared the rest of the final dance together.

When the party was over, we carried our drinks to the main dining room. Yikes! I had a pretty good buzz going at dinner, which had me convinced that the ship moving a little more than usual tonight! Still, despite my light head, I was in much better shape than Sharon, who turned out to be a rather…uh…harsh drunk. Our usual table was already taken, so the hostess sat us at a large table nearby that was against one of the back windows. Sharon was quote vocal about how upset she was that we were not being served by our “usual” wait staff. She did NOT like our waitress (who really wasn’t as friendly as Clyde), and after our waitress walked away with our orders, said in a sort of stage whisper, “I wanted our normal waiters, NOT Miss Hoity Toity over there!”

Mort was selected to be James Brown in the Carnival Legends show at the last minute, and needed to practice his part so he brought his music and headphones with him. From time to time, Mort would slip on the headphones and belt out “Wha! I feeeeeeel good!” which would make us all chuckle.

Tonight the waiters sang the farewell song, "Leaving Our Fun Ship." Alyssa leaned over to me, and said, "this song is too sad," then she started to cry. Poor girl! She had a lot of fun and didn't want to see her Easter break end. Ah well! I hated being at the end of the cruise too, but I kept reminding Alyssa of our upcoming November cruise and told her "don't cry that it's over. Smile that it happened!"

[Esumitra ("call me 'Clyde'") and Alyssa say goodbye.]

I took Alyssa back to the cabin and changed her into her pajamas. Then Alex took her to the main show lounge to see the Carnival Legends show while I collapsed on the bed with my book. I had the French doors open to let in the nice ocean air and heard the door slammers at it again. This time, though, it sounded like it was coming from upstairs. Oh well, I guess I would never know for sure what or who was making the noise, and was just too relaxed to care. I must have fallen asleep reading, because the next thing I knew, Alex and Alyssa were returning from the show.

Alex said the show was great and that Mort did a good job as James Brown. He also told me that Mort dressed the part and wore a big black wig as part of his ensemble. Well, Alyssa saw the wig and immediately exclaimed, “Mr. Mort looks like Grandma!” Whoops! Good thing my mom wasn’t with us on this cruise, I guess.

Farewell towel animal

[Lady_Jag]

There's not much to say about debarkation, other than WHAAAAAAAAAA! DON'T MAKE US GO! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEEEEEEAASSSE!

 

We had a very early rising and an early order of Alyssa's chocolate muffins from room service. "Awwww...this is my last chocolate muffin!" Alyssa whined. Sheesh! You would have thought the kid would never have another muffin ever in her life, the way she lamented her last room service breakfast. :rolleyes:

 

People waited at the bottom of the stairs on decks 2 and 3 and in the atrium, while Wee Jimmy pleaded over the PA system for non-US citizens to "drop your forks and your babies and report to the lounge" for immigration. Alex and I took Alyssa up to the Lido deck so we could have one last breakfast and say goodbye to our friends.

 

The place was PACKED OUT because no one could leave until all the non-US residents went through immigration, and apparently several people were missing. First Wee Jimmy made the general "all non-US citizens" announcement. Then he started calling cabin numbers. Finally, he added the names of the remaining hold-outs to their cabin numbers, "Joe Schmoe of cabin M123, please report to the lounge. Suzy Snoozy of cabin E28..."

 

Finally, Wee Jimmy started making the announcements for sef-assist and then zones. We were assigned zone 10, so we didn't have long to wait for our number once foreign immigration was complete. We walked down to the casino and got in the very lonnnnnnngggg line that twisted and turned through the aisles "like a snake!" (according to Alyssa.)

 

Even though the casino was closed, it smelled very heavily of smoke, and Alyssa made a sick face and held her nose the entire time we we in the line. I was happy that the line moved quickly and soon, we were off the ship and in the terminal looking for our luggage.

 

Foreign immigration took so long that ALL the luggage from all zones was out and waiting, so it was a little more challenging to find our bags, but we did. We found a porter to wheel our luggage across the street to the garage, where the Sheraton shuttle would pick us up. Dang it! I forgot to collect Alyssa's "dangerous" plastic squirt guns and water cannon!

 

Sigh! As Alex called for the shuttle on his cell phone, I walked back to the terminal and handed our claim ticket over to security. They had a little difficulty figuring out which dangerous plastic toys were ours, so finally they brought out all their collection of water toys and got me to pick out Alyssa's.

 

I raced back across the street and through the garage to the shuttle pick-up area. Our shuttle was just pulling up, and the shuttle driver couldn't be nicer. He asked us about our cruise and then asked if we had a car parked at the hotel. We told him we did and gave him our ticket number, and he called ahead to the hotel so that the car was waiting for us to begin our uneventful 4-hour drive home.

[RedRam99V8]

Lemon drop queen ! :) awesome review as Allways! Just more bikinis next time! Lol andlol No not of alex in his!