Are You Ever Coming Home?...No! I am playing with Wizards,Farkles & Sparkling Friends

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We then got a patriotic show with Mickey and the gang.

 

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The fireworks then started. These were much better than the pirate fireworks too.

 

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I took some video of them tonight.

 

 

 

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And more characters then.

 

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After the wonderful fireworks it was time for dinner. Cass and family joined us tonight. We had Rob take our picture.

 

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We were at Royal Palace tonight and I believe we had the regular rotational menu with an extra patriotic menu as well.

 

Claire and I got our favorite drink there, the Princess Delight.

 

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Escargot for me.

 

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Shrimp.

 

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French onion soup.

 

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This was the American meal. We were disappointed that the fried chicken was just a chicken leg…which is my least favorite part of a chicken…unless it in the form of chicken wings/drumstick…covered in BBQ sauce.

 

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I also got some other entrée but I guess I didn’t take a picture. Probably some form of steak.

 

Dessert time…another favorite…soufflé.

 

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I believe I got the strawberry cheesecake from the patriotic menu to go tonight as well.

 

The kids made plans to go to karaoke tonight. They all headed off and I went back to the room.

 

Our towel animal.

 

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I then went and walked around a bit before calling it anight.

 

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I was super tired, so I went to bed and Claire came in late full of giggles and laughs. She talked a mile a minute about the fun they had that night, but I was half asleep. She mentioned that one deck had the carpet being pulled up and then later saw them laying new carpet. Wow…I thought they had done this in dry dock,but I guess it takes a while to lay carpet, so maybe they came back to do some more?

I told her to get settled down as we had another big day tomorrow.

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July 5th,2017, Day 11, Tortola

 

Today was the first port day that we would have an excursion on our own…without any of our friends at all. Claire kept hoping Jeanne and family would join, but they ended up just not doing anything today. They originally had the Baths scheduled but the time was changed and we had a short day in the port as it was, so she decided to cancel it. They told her if she wanted, she could join our excursion, but they needed a rest day.

 

I had my strawberry cheesecake from last night in my fridge, so that was breakfast today.

 

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I went up top a bit to take a look at Tortola. The horns sounded, which totally scared me, and I tried to catch them. As I was videoing, the NCL Escape pulled right in next to us. The horn did go off again and it scared me again. hahaha

 

Video

 

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I walked around a bit to capture some more pictures.

 

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I had been neglecting getting ship pictures, so now was the time to make up for that.

 

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Now I had been on the ship for 7 days…the rest of this sailing was now bonus time! I tried to stay offline from the outside world on most sea days, but in ports I would check my emails and facebook. I was surprised each day to find posts under my pictures saying things like …Are you ever coming home?....Just how long is this cruise?...wish I had your job.

I kind of laughed and thought it was funny. I only had 2 days at WDW before the cruise…and up till this point; most reading would not know how many days my actual sailing was. For my Oct. trip I arrived in FL 3 days before our 7 night cruise and stayed an additional night after. As for wishing they had my job….I do love my job, but this was not a work trip.

 

I then headed back to the room to get our bag packed and ready for the day. Claire and I then headed down to D Lounge once again to meet for our excursion. Today we were doing Treasure Island Swim & Snorkel.

 

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We grabbed some towels and got signed in and waited.

 

 

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We were led off the ship.

 

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Look at how blue that water is!!! I swear it wasn’t this blue in Oct.

 

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We were led to our boat and we had to take our shoes off before getting on. They put all the shoes in a clothes basket. They wanted to keep their boat as clean as possible. At first I thought it was strange, but then I realized they really had a good idea.

 

A lot of people headed for the front, but we just found a booth type table and sat down.

 

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And soon we were heading out.

 

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We puttered out slowly and I tried to take a lot of pictures.

 

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We were bobbing and I realized I didn’t take sea sickness meds that morning….I did last night, but not again this morning. Now I was psychologically thinking I would get sick. The family behind us was talking about sea sickness meds as well and I asked if they had any extra….it was actually the lady who had been hypnotized the one night and we had talked here and there throughout the cruise. She did have some and I now felt better. LOL.

 

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As we got further out, we were bobbing a bit more and making dips…and all the people in the front were getting huge splashes. You would hear them scream each time it happened….we of course thought it was funny.

 

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It makes me sad as I write this up and look at all the pictures since Tortola was just hit recently by Irma and pretty devastated right now.

 

About 20 – 30 minutes later we started to approach the area we would be snorkeling.

 

 

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The reason I picked this particular excursion was because they said we would be snorkeling in caves. I had talked to someone in Oct who had done this excursion and they raved about it. As we approached the cave areas the captain announced that all the mooring balls were filled up and we would not be able to go to any of the 3 caves today. We would moore further down and have excellent snorkeling and he would keep watch to see if any of the balls opened up.

Total Bummer. I was so looking forward to going into the caves.

 

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We found our spot and geared up and jumped in.

 

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I will say the snorkeling was great here. I did see a ton of tiny jellyfish in the water though. I never felt like I got stung, but in spots they were everywhere. I, of course, had jellyfish sting repellent sunscreen…that I did not put on today….and was back in my room.

 

We swam around looking for the good spots to see. I will warn you now…I took a ton of pictures.

 

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I always get excited when I see a colorful fish.

 

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There was quite a bit to see so that at least made up for not being able to go to the caves.

 

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I love to find coral and sea creatures that are different colors.

 

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It always amazes me to see the blues, reds, yellows and purples under the surface.

 

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The sun was really bright today too, which made shadows underneath as well.

 

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There is just so many neat things underwater.

 

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I took some above water pictures….and once again had the water spots.

 

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There is Claire!

 

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Her goggles were so steamed up and I told her to spit in them to clear them, but she said she could see fine. I am not sure I really believed her.

 

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Someone had a camera on a stick. It was funny to see it way down there like that.

 

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Every so often I would swim into this grass stuff floating on top.

 

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Again, it just amazes me that all this is under us and we never even realize it when riding in a boat.

 

 

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Hello Fishy!

 

 

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At one point, Claire got tired and headed back the boat and I told her I was not far behind.

 

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