Allure Day 7

Last day of the cruise and an at sea day. Got up at our usual time and got breakfast at the Park Cafe. Found a couple of non wet chairs and people watched. It rained briefly but since we were under shelter, it didn't bother us. It only lasted for a few minutes anyways.

After breakfast, we looked into the Britto artwork gallery and the Coach store. Didn't buy anything but the Britto artwork looked fun. The royal canine struck a chord with both of us but the 3d artwork was $16K, not quite what we wanted to spend. I liked the Britto luggage, but again a bit expensive.

Getting psyched up to climb

We moseyed over to the Boardwalk and grabbed a seat for the captain's corner Q&A. It's a question and answer session with the captain, chief engineer, hotel operations manager, and cruise director (have I mentioned we really like our cruise director?). It was quite informative and definitely fun to listen to. After the q&a, I had to try out the climbing wall. It was both easier and harder than I expected. It wasn't quite as hard to move up the wall as I anticipated, but it was murder on my hands and forearms. I did make it to the top. Interestingly it was the most scary at the top just letting go of the wall and hoping the rope support me back down. Once I got down, my hands and arms were so cramped I couldn't really use them for about 30 minutes. It was definitely worth it though. 

"Well, this isn't so bad...."

Almost there....

I can't believe I made it!

Letting go and depending on the rope was the scariest part!

We had lunch at Rita's Cantina, the Mexican restaurant on the ship. We noticed that people definitely shift their food schedule on board. I guess because they are awake so late, they don't have breakfast till late, which means a later lunch. At 11:45, we were the only ones at the cantina for lunch. The food was good.  Tip: even the small dishes are pretty significant in amounts of food.

After we wandered a bit we made enough space in our stomachs for popcorn and cotton candy with a Captains Bahama Mama drink.  Cotton candy in ridiculous humidity does not make for fun cotton candy. The first few bites were great, but then the candy literally started to melt and compress. The popcorn and drink was really good though. I think we both agreed the drink was the best we had on the cruise.

We decided to vegetate in the solarium for a few hours (I'm pretty sure the solarium and central park were our favorite spots). While it was crowded, it wasn't as crowded as I expected. We were able to find some loungers in the shade. I am impressed at how well RCL  manages space. Even with all the passengers aboard the ship, there is always some loungers and chairs available to catch some sun.

I wanted to watch the 60 second game show so we headed down to the promenade. Various contestants have to accomplish things with typical household items. One is to knock all the plastic cups off using rubber bands, another is to catch increasing number of pencils from the back of your hand into the front of your hand. The funniest one is where the contestants had to bend over, put their nose into Vaseline, then move one cotton ball at a time from one dish to another with their nose. We both thought it was pretty hilarious to watch.

There was yet another watch sale on the promenade when we got out of the show so we perused it along with about 300 other people.  This was more a designer sale than mass market cheap sale. The Invicta watches are humongous! They had all sorts of designer watches: Bulova, Fossil, Anne Klein, Michael Kors at apparently at 50-75% off msrp. It amazes me how many people seemed to buy the watches as I thought watches were going out of style. I wonder if it's because of the moment (being on the ship, big sale, etc).

Since we knew we'd have a slightly later dinner, we grabbed a quick meal at the Park Cafe. We headed back to the room to change for the evening. We had reservations for the 5pm showing of Blue Planet. Blue Planet was a bit of a disappointment but that's because I was expecting a cirque-type show. It was visually appealing but there wasn't much in the way of acrobatics. Mostly a lot of dancing and singing, more along the lines of a typical cruise show. I'd have to say I liked this show least of all, but possibly due to higher expectations.

We had our last dinner and headed back to the room to pack it all up. Called it an early night.

Random thoughts: If you do my time dining, reservations are highly recommended, especially if you eat late. If you eat around 5:30-6, you won't have much of a wait. But every time we came out of the dining room at about 7, there was always a large group of people waiting for seats.