MITSUGIRLY has a JEWEL of a time on my 1st RC cruise in years!

[mitsugirly]

Another video of the trumpetfish. These fish are just so cool and look so weird. I swear they remind me of a horse head.

 

[YOUTUBE]GvhoTD06uuQ[/YOUTUBE]

 

Now at this point, I see Sakari and daddy and they look like they are up to something. He's pointing at the ship. He's pointing at the hole. She's looking at him. She's looking at me. He's motioning her to go. I think I have this sign language figured out and I start panic mode. I start screaming under the water NO! NO! NO! DON'T YOU DARE!!!! She came up to the surface and I told hger don't you dare, under no circumstance was she going in that hole. She said "I'm not mommy. I won't do it". Daddy covering his tracks replied "I just told her to go down there and put the camera in the hole and take pictures." He better hope that's all he was implying with those motions because otherwise Sakari would be less a father. They are both extremist and I'm a worry-wart. The thought of her diving into the hole and something happening with no one around...especially since we had no guides with us because they were leisurely lounging on the boat, and none of us being able to get down there...and...just no!

 

I just really love this picture for some reason. Her tail was so bright and it almost looked like it was lit up and the ship so dark and dreary looking beneath her.

 

 

I was taking a picture of the trumpet fish and along came this absolutely gorgeous purple and orange fish. I have never seen anything colored like this before. It looked like the shape of a parrotfish, but the colors!!! Oh my the colors!!!

 

 

 

 

Ballyhoo where are yooo. Oh here it is and getting close to me.

 

 

 

Kia and Sakari over yonder conversating about their findings.

 

 

 

[CarolRoy]

Yea, I ask him about it. He said he's had some issues with them and they pissed him off, so he cut them off and is not selling their stuff now. LOL Said the guy he was dealing with was a jerk.

Kim: Don't know who you were dealing with but my son is not a ***** as stated in your reply. You should be careful about what you post as you have hurt my feelings greatly.

[mitsugirly]

Here are the pictures Sakari was able to get with her camera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

 

 

Sakari got pretty close to the filefish and the squirrel fish.

 

 

And even the trumpet fish. She's an animal whisperer I tell ya.

 

 

 

 

This was a pretty awesome shot of the female:

 

 

[mitsugirly]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

 

Obviously Sakari managed to find that button that turns everything green too. lol

 

 

Do you see what she's starring at? It's not the yellow fish, but what's below it. Someone lost their earring. She watches shows online about treasure hunters and all the goodies that can be found on the sea floor. So, she's always on the lookout for odd things that people have lost as well.

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

It seemed like they allowed us to stay out by the shipwreck a lot longer than they did the turtles. We actually had fun this time around and wasn't rushed to get back on the boat. We were gone for a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes.

 

When I went to get back onto the boat, I grabbed the handrail to stabilize myself from the water and boat movement and the guy starts giving me directions on how to come up a ladder. I had to laugh and said "I think I know how to climb a ladder" lol. Kia laughed at me.

 

We returned back to Pirates cove, jumped off the boat and trucked through the water and back to our "Reserved Spots" waiting on us.

 

The kids decided to play in the sand and build a dungeon and I would decide to walk around and take some more pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

Wandering around the property...here's another place to eat in the shade.

 

 

 

One of the bars

 

 

These or the dressing rooms and bathrooms

 

 

When I walked past this fire pit I couldn't help but think of just how hot it was this day and no need for a fire pit now. Whew, it was hot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sandyzag]

Yea, I ask him about it. He said he's had some issues with them and they pissed him off, so he cut them off and is not selling their stuff now. LOL Said the guy he was dealing with was a jerk.

Kim: Don't know who you were dealing with but my son is not a ***** as stated in your reply. You should be careful about what you post as you have hurt my feelings greatly.

 

 

 

What in the world.. where did she say she was speaking about your son?? Is your son the only person that works there? Sheeshhhh... :rolleyes:

[mitsugirly]

We all decided that we were getting a little hungry and it was time to order something. At this place, we never once seen anyone come out to take orders or ask if you needed anything (other than the guy that originally took our chair-snorkeling money, which was always around talking to us) and the hubs decided to go up to the restaurant and grab a menu.

 

 

Kia went up and placed an order for all of us and was gone for quite some time. When she returned, her arms were loaded with containers of food. I had no idea she was ordering and staying up there the entire time and having to carry all of that food back. I guess they really didn't bring you food and you have to do it all yourself. I just figured she'd place an order and they say about 20 minutes and she'd come back to wait and then we'd all go up to get the order. Whoops.

 

We decided to get the Pirates Burger, which had onions and caramelized pineapples on them. It was a sloppy mess to try to eat. With every bite, something slid out.

 

 

Even though we all ordered the same thing, they all didn't come with the same thing on it. It was weird. Kia ended up taking one of them back because I think it was missing the glazed onions or something.

 

The fries were a pretty big portion too. I couldn't even eat all of my food and Sakari even tried to help me.

 

 

While we were eating, Victor, which was the guy that was helping us from the beginning, came by to ask about our snorkel trip. We informed him of everything and he acted shocked, but then said that one of the guys was new and had to be shown everything. I felt like Victor was making excuses for everything we said, even though he tried to convince us that he was going to report this back to the manager so that things can be corrected.

 

I told him at the end, when we pulled up to the beach, the rude guy said "ok, come on, get off, get off" and we felt rushed the entire time. Once again, Victor tried to make excuses and told us "well since you got a late start waiting on the rest of your party, there was another group of 50 people waiting to go out". Now I watched these people "go out" and there wasn't more than 15 people! Also, remember how he had said that there was the 9:30am trip and then there was a 1pm trip? We were back on the beach by 11:30am, so we weren't holding anyone up.

 

Also, since he was the wizard of changing his story up, he also tried to tell us that "well, the other trip is a longer trip and that's why they were in a hurry to get out there". Longer??? It was not longer. It was the hour and half like ours. There's no longer trip. Verify it online! He also tried to tell us that had we not bought chairs from him it would have cost us $15/each. No it wouldn't! Verify that online as well. It's $8/pp.

 

We let him know that we did not get a drink with our "package" as promised and the only reply was "Really? They are supposed to give you a drink while you are out there". Kia even asked him "Well, are you going to give us our drink now?" and he totally blew us off. We never received our drink!

 

But hey, we did get reserved seats!

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

For anyone interested...

 

Pop is $2

Alcohol is $8

Cheeseburger $8

Fries $4

 

We sat around and chatted for hours. It was such a fun day just hanging out.

 

One thing that both Kia and I agreed on that day was that The Boatyard was definitely a lot better than Pirates Cove. It was a better experience and their "included/free boat ride out to the turtles" was definitely a better experience as well. The only difference was that you did not go to the shipwreck.

 

Kia and I starting talking about all of the sand dollars that I found when I was at the Boatyard last time. When she went, she could not find any. Maybe it's the time of the year? Maybe they move far away. Maybe her toes weren't meant for sand dollar hunting? Ok...let's go look! LOL

 

We decided to head down there and check things out.

 

 

I started sifting the sand with my toes....nothing. Move over, sift again...nothing. We did it for awhile and absolutely no sand dollars were to be found. Darnit.

 

Since we were over here, I might as well check out my "go-to" spot...the dock/pier area.

 

Tons of fish under there but the sand was getting stirred up from the waves.

 

 

 

 

I did see a couple of black and white butterfly fish. I had to play ring around the rosy to get this picture and I'm sure they were laughing at me.

 

 

 

I was a little disappointed that there really wasn't much to see this time around.

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

 

There were people swinging off the pier, a boat going out for snorkeling and it looked like they have added another trampoline in the water.

 

 

 

We decided to head back to "our" area, a little disappointed that there were no sand dollars to be found. I really wanted to just believe that it was Kia's toes that weren't functioning properly and that's why she couldn't find them. Darnit.

 

 

 

 

Once we returned, we decided to gather our things to head back to the ship.

[mitsugirly]

The kids were still playing in the sand, which had now turned into the biggest sink hole. (Notice it is now in the shape of a heart )

 

 

 

We left around 3:40pm and there was a taxi out in the parking lot to take us back.

 

This taxi driver was loco! He was driving crazy, weaving in and out, cutting people off...yikes. Of course Kia looked at Sakari and said something about this guys driving but yet hers was bad? LOL

 

We pulled up to port security and they told us to get out our ship cards. We did. They looked. They looked to the back. They see Xander back there. They say he has to have a shirt on to enter the port. Say what? He's wet and full of sand. "Put a shirt on him or he can't enter the port". What kind of craziness is that? Kia put his shirt on and the driver was motioned in. He went the length of the car and then took a sharp right and said "I can't go any further". What??? Xander had to put his shirt on to move up about 6' only to be booted out of the cab? This place is insane.

 

We got to port and took a few pictures.

 

 

She is even holding a pirates hand.

 

 

Kia headed to the bar and we headed to the ship. Along the way, inside the building as we were walking along, there was a vendor in the middle and Sakari seen something she liked. The minute she went to touch it, the lady yelled "DON'T TOUCH LITTLE GIRL!!!" Hmmm, this lady could have potentially just lost a sell. She has no idea the things that Sakari may want and gets. But not when you talk to my child like that. Ever heard of you break you buy instead of screaming at a child? I just found this trip to Barbados filled with tons of rude people. Everywhere we went and no matter what we did...it was a rude day and I was aggravated and just wanted to go back to the ship.

 

[mitsugirly]

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were back on the ship a little after 4pm and went to the room to shower and then I headed upstairs to get pop to take some headache medicine. Kia had made it back to the ship and all was good.

 

I headed back down to the room and daddy was sleeping. This snorkeling day must have worn him out and I said I was going to nap too. Sakari set her alarm to wake us up and decided to work on some of her drawings.

 

Sakari allowed us to sleep until 6:30pm and at that time she put the alarm by our ears and waited for us to wake up.

She presented me with her drawing...aww, she misses Loki so much.

 

[mitsugirly]

Tonight would be the night that we decided to head back to the MDR. When we checked in, we ended up getting the same table and the same waiter as last time.

He remembered us and his assistant went to get us 2 glasses each of pop. I really like this!

This waiter and his assistant was so nice. He also mentioned getting a questionnaire when we returned and he would really appreciate if we filled it out...good or bad...so that they can know how we felt our service was.

So, what's on the menu?

 

The hubs and I decided to go with the Baked French Onion Soup. It was to die for! Even Sakari liked it.

 

 

I always seem to take a dinner picture of the hubs like this. So, I didn't want to break the roll I was on.

 

 

 

I'm not a big red meat eater. But, the menu said it had short ribs. I will eat ribs with no problem...regular ribs that is. But...I had tried the short ribs once on Carnival and thought it was pretty darn good. So, I figured I would give this a try and change things up a little. It's something I would never make at home or order when out to eat. So, why not live a little.

 

 

It came and it was decent. I didn't think it was as good as Carnival's was. But, I enjoyed it.

 

For desert...I stuck with what I craved...cheesecake and hold the strawberries please.

 

 

 

[EasyPeasy]

Yea, I ask him about it. He said he's had some issues with them and they pissed him off, so he cut them off and is not selling their stuff now. LOL Said the guy he was dealing with was a jerk.

Kim: Don't know who you were dealing with but my son is not a ***** as stated in your reply. You should be careful about what you post as you have hurt my feelings greatly.

 

For the life of me, I do not understand why what Kim said should hurt your feelings greatly. It's a mighty big assumption that she is talking about your son. C'mon now... :rolleyes:

[Northhou]

Absolutely love your reviews and so much fun to follow the adventures of your family. Your pictures when snorkeling are always superb but the turtle pictures taken by Sakari are incredible. Wow.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[mitsugirly]

The hubby ordered the Apple Pie A La Mode with vanilla ice cream...oh em gee! It was AMAZING! I had almost wished that I would have got that instead.

 

 

 

I don't really remember what we did the rest of the night. Obviously Sakari went to the kids club and by the time we picked her up, she was beaming with glory because she was the winner of tonight's games and she won a ......

 

 

We got back to the room and had ourselves a monkey.

 

 

Since it was Thursday night...it was time for me to finish one of my papers and turn it in by midnight. I worked on that, submitted, felt a sigh of relief that the internet on this ship works absolutely wonderful (once you get connected) and knew that I would have another 2 days to complete my other 2 assignments, which were short and sweet assignments.

 

I would pack our bags for our excursion for our last and final port day and message my son to see if Loki and the fish are still alive.

 

 

 

 

[joysea]

Mitsugirly, Am so enjoying your review and especially all the great pics. I, on the other hand, am having a dickens of a time getting my pictures to post. Started out when I clicked on attachment, then selected the picture, it said it was too big so I went to an online site and shrunk them down to 1000x750 pixels. Tried uploading again and the first picture worked fine. EVERY one since then has resulted in the JPEG logo coming up with a highlighted line of script instead of the actual picture. When I click on it, the pic comes up in a separate window. Darn it, I want them to come up in the post. I opened a flickr account thinking that would work but it comes up with a line in the url that says email protected or something to that effect. I'm at my wits end. We're going on an Alaska cruise in a few days and I was hoping to do a proper "Live From" but it won't be the same if I can't get this pic upload to work. HELP! ANYBODY! Sorry to hijack but I am desperate Asked on the "Help" board but didn't get any.

 

Harry

[mitsugirly]

following

 

Thanks and hope you enjoy

 

 

Cool. I saw one of those a couple of years ago when I was on an excursion with Soualiga Destinations at St Maarten.

 

I really hope to see one some day myself.

 

 

Wow! What a beautiful shot. I bet she was super excited. I need to take some swimming lessons from her.

 

She was very excited and I almost didn't believe her.

 

 

Coming out of lurkville to comment:

 

Your review has been very enjoyable to read. I love your straight shooter attitude, and your sense of humor that goes a long with the "situations" that every family vacation has. I feel like it's my review bc I have the same thought process and attitude towards everything you are sharing. Lastly, all of yours and even your daughters pictures are amazing!

 

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

 

Thank you so much for those comments. I really appreciate it and glad you are enjoying it.

 

Kim: Don't know who you were dealing with but my son is not a ***** as stated in your reply. You should be careful about what you post as you have hurt my feelings greatly.

 

Hmm, I'm not sure why exactly this would "hurt your feelings greatly"? Nothing was directed toward you or even your son or names mentioned... just the company.

 

 

I will touch base on this once and only once and not bring it up again. No one understands the struggle to run such a shop. Check around other stores...you'll find they are run by big corporations for the most part...someone who hasn't even been a skater or biker in their entire life. Then let's talk about who actually runs a store that brings them all together? Most are specialty stores for skateboarding or bmx or whatever. His is a skater owned store, also ran by a biker, who also rides a scooter, who used to be a skateboarder. He carries everything: bmx, scooters, skateboards, blades, wakeboards, long boards, penny boards and everything.

 

 

Try to bring all the sports together and you get a lot of haters. Skaters hate the bladders, bladders hate the bmx and back and forth. It's been a LONG journey of trying to bring it all together (9 years) and have everyone get along because one distribution finds out you are selling another brand or kind of sport, they cut you off. Another dealer is out to destroy you because you are not giving them all your business. Another won't drop ship unless you spend $10k with them to stock your store. It's ridiculous what he has had to endure over the years.

 

 

Then you get the online sales: either by website, ebay or amazon. Another seller comes on and prices his exact same item .01 cheaper than yours and guess what...you are getting a phone call from your rep and you are in trouble. How is this our fault??? You are getting cut off, you are getting warnings, you are getting bad feedback. Ever had $60k put on hold by Amazon for 3-6 months because one of the vendors caused a problem for you and threw you into a review? Yea, we have...at least once a year for years on end. So my husband contacted a developer and had to pay thousands for a "repricer" build. When someone bids lower, his goes lower by a computer. His online stores are ran by "robots". You buy, it contacts the closest vendor in the states, it ships, the robot sends a tracking to the customer. All done by computer. He's serious about his business...but you have some of those vendors that just want to mess with you...so he cuts them off and doesn't sell their product. This has happened with many vendors over the years.

 

In our city, the local skatepark was only for skateboards. He brought them together. It's now skateboarders, bladers, bmx and scooters. All sharing their love, together, for their particular sport. It doesn't mean that his vendors are still willing to "share the love". So when they cause a hardship on him or what he has worked so hard to build for years and it takes a step backwards, yea he gets bitter.

 

 

End of story.

 

 

Once again, didn't mean to offend you, hurt your feelings, or upset you nor did I imply anything about your son.

 

 

What in the world.. where did she say she was speaking about your son?? Is your son the only person that works there? Sheeshhhh...

 

Right, I didn't and didn't mean it to come off that way at all.

 

For the life of me, I do not understand why what Kim said should hurt your feelings greatly. It's a mighty big assumption that she is talking about your son. C'mon now...

 

Thank you and I never meant to hurt anyone's feelings.

 

 

Absolutely love your reviews and so much fun to follow the adventures of your family. Your pictures when snorkeling are always superb but the turtle pictures taken by Sakari are incredible. Wow.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Thank you so much. She made up for my lost that day with her pictures.

[mitsugirly]

Mitsugirly, Am so enjoying your review and especially all the great pics. I, on the other hand, am having a dickens of a time getting my pictures to post. Started out when I clicked on attachment, then selected the picture, it said it was too big so I went to an online site and shrunk them down to 1000x750 pixels. Tried uploading again and the first picture worked fine. EVERY one since then has resulted in the JPEG logo coming up with a highlighted line of script instead of the actual picture. When I click on it, the pic comes up in a separate window. Darn it, I want them to come up in the post. I opened a flickr account thinking that would work but it comes up with a line in the url that says email protected or something to that effect. I'm at my wits end. We're going on an Alaska cruise in a few days and I was hoping to do a proper "Live From" but it won't be the same if I can't get this pic upload to work. HELP! ANYBODY! Sorry to hijack but I am desperate Asked on the "Help" board but didn't get any.

 

Harry

 

Hi Harry. Ok, let's try to troubleshoot.

 

 

Where is this "attachment" you are speaking of? When you are posting, look up above at the area where you can change your font and so on. You'll see something that looks like a square with a picture of a mountain on it and yellow. You hit that. A box pops up saying "Please enter the URL of your image:" This is where you post the URL from your host site where you uploaded the picture to it. Then you hit ok and it should post in the body of your post.

 

 

If a picture is coming up in a separate window, you are posting it as a link and not the actual picture into the body of the text (maybe hitting the "world" button at the top for a link?)

 

There shouldn't be anything asking you to reduce the size of your picture. That's usually something your host site will ask on the size you want.

 

 

I haven't used flickr in years, although I still have an account with them. I use Smugmug but recently received a message that Smugmug has bought our Flickr so maybe I should check that out.

 

 

Let me know if any of this works.

[CAC104]

Sakari is truly becoming more and more like a Mermaid every trip. Those fish must take a look at her and see her beautiful tail and feel like she is one of them. I am so impressed by how deeply she can free dive and stay underwater for so long. She really had great pictures as well. I just love all of your reviews and underwater photography. I have always been and avid cruiser and snorkeler, but now that my husband is sick I cannot get away anymore and your posts really fill the void.

[apcci2]

Great pictures and review as always

[JayhawkCruiser23]

Started reading your review as we are going to be on the Jewel in July. I am having so much fun following along! I have even started reading your previous reviews when I get caught up on this one. I really love the detail and pictures you put into your reviews. We don't have much experience on cruises (yet) but your reviews have gotten me excited about continuing to cruise. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for putting all the time and effort in, it is much appreciated!