I got up early to go running. Now if I can just be this ambitious at home! Center opened at 6am but
there weren't too many there, maybe about 3 or so. By the time I left,
there were more people, maybe about a dozen with a few more trickling
into the entrance. Early definitely seems the way to go.
After
cleaning up, we headed to Windjammer (main buffet area) for breakfast. Very typical
morning buffet so nothing remarkable to add. The layout does seem to be
a little tough for directing a lot of people when it's crowded. There
doesn't seem to be a lot of direction to the plan but it also allows for
more random roaming instead of waiting in a large line for something
halfway down the buffet.
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| View from Windjammer Cafe. Below is Boardwalk, Flowriders are located behind mini-golf and basketball courts. |
We watched Flowrider lessons out the window. Flow rider is basically a surf simulator that lets you either try surfing or boogie boarding. We also watched
two men miniature golfing in gusts of 20-30mph winds which made the game really fun.
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| Central Park |
Headed
to Central Park to relax and people watch. This actually seems like a
fantastic spot to have breakfast in the morning. It's so quiet and feels
isolated. Park Cafe has some good-looking breakfast. We may have to try
it later this week.
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| Behind Mike is the Rising Tides Bar. Moves from Central Park to Boardwalk level every 30 minutes |
I wanted to try the rock climbing this morning but due to a private
party, the area was closed. Since the wall doesn't look that crowded,
I'll probably get lots of chances this week to try it without a wait. The
flow rider is probably more busy so the best time is when there's a port
call. Hopefully we'll do Labadee, Haiti tomorrow early and come back to try
the flow rider.
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| Cantilevered spa - the bump off the side top of the ship |
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| View of the cantilevered spa from the top. |
I went for her spa treatment this morning while Mike headed back to the
cabin to relax, aka nap. Afterwards, we headed to the cantilevered hot tub
(pretty darn huge) to soak for a while. Then off to Johnny Rockets for a
malt and burger for lunch (pretty good). Had a very fun waiter (from Trinidad) who
made the dining experience pretty fun. At one point, all the wait staff
danced in the middle of the boardwalk.
Right
after lunch was the belly flop competition which was pretty hilarious,
mostly due to the cruise director's sense of humor. Took our afternoon
nap after that (I LOVE vacation!)
Got
dressed for formal night and headed to 80s music trivia where we got
10/20 with an extra point for Mike dancing to footloose. I damn myself
for not having a camera to capture that awesome moment. Thank goodness Mike had a drink before that or he may have never danced.
After
dinner was the 18+ comedy show. With no reservations, we waited in stand-by line which wasn't too bad. Two comedians were pretty funny but they
both did complain that it was hard to find the "sweet spot" for the
audience. Some would laugh but rarely would one joke get the whole crowd
going.
We had reservations for Ocean Aria but since it's at 10:45, we just couldn't wait that long. We have dragon coaster tickets for 9:30am tomorrow in Labadee and I was going to run at 6am the next morning so we decided to try Ocean Aria another day.
Lots and lots of stairs today as we continued to explore various parts of the ship. On all our cruises, we never take the elevators, we always take the stairs. For the obvious reason, it's about the only exercise we get on our vacation, but also due to the number of people and floors, elevators take a LONG time to get to where you want to go so taking stairs is just faster. Rough seas today, lots of rocking.
Random
thoughts:
-Elevator doors are pretty cool, they are see-through so you
can look into them and look down/up for cool views. The elevators don't
seem that crowded. There are a lot of them but the hardest part seems
like the wait. Since there are so many floors, people seems to have to
wait a while before the car makes it to them.
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| See-through elevator doors |
-The stairs are a bit
tough. Things are more spread out here. Our past ships had all the public
areas on the top floors and most cabins on the lower floors. Here,
there are public area from level 4 all the way to level 16 with cabins
scattered throughout. We've been doing a lot more stairs than our other
ships.
-Reservations really seem like a must, not only for the shows but
for dinner. By the time we left dinner on the first night (7ish),
there was quite a wait for my-time dining. So far, Mike prefers the
food on our other cruise ships. I feels the food is about on par with
the other ships, not any better or worse.
-With so many on board, they do a good
job of keeping things spread out. So far we haven't felt very crowded
but we seem to do things a little more off hours. Earlier breakfast,
later lunch, and early dinner kept the crowds away.
-So much space on
deck for chairs that we can easily find two to relax in. Plenty of hot
tubs (and all were working, unlike some of our other cruises) so not many are crowded. Lot more photographers on board this ship
taking various shots throughout the day.
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