Friday, March 21 - Fun Day at Sea

Max and I were hoping to find chairs in Serenity, but it looked like the people who were there had been staked out for hours - there was no spot for us! Luckily, there was plenty of availability on the pool deck.

We got a little hot and had to cool off on the water slides.







It's so strange that they positioned WaterWorks right beside Serenity. The next day when Max and I were lounging in Serenity, we could hear the screams from the slides.







What you might not realize at first is that there are two different lines for the different slides. So if you're waiting in line on the right side (yellow) and someone passes you on the left, it's because they're going to the left slide (orange). Unfortunately, the yellow slide was closed today because they couldn't keep enough water in it due to the movement of the ship. I didn't check earlier in the cruise, but I imagine it was closed on our first sea day, too.

When I was on the Carnival Dream in December 2010, the slides were closed whenever we weren't in port due to high winds.



We did the Drainpipe (orange slide) two times that day. I couldn't pick up enough speed going down and would be lucky to make one complete circle after I was deposited in the bowl at the bottom. Max, however, made 3.5 loops once!

We made a short GoPro video of WaterWorks and the Drainpipe slide.


I meant to get the yellow slide the next day, but unfortunately, I had forgotten to turn the GoPro off, so it was dead.

Walking back to our chairs from the slides, we passed a bartender carrying a tray with the most adorable souvenir cup! I had to have that drink!



After I got the cup, Max decided he wanted it, too. It's a ridiculous price - I think it was around $17 for the drink and cup, but it's pretty darn cute.

We were laying in our chairs when an older gentleman came up to us. "You took our chairs. That's okay, but I need the towels that I left here. You have our four towels." "I'm sorry, but these chairs were empty when we got to them." "But I put our towels on them." "Well, the deck attendants will take your towels if you leave a chair empty for over 45 minutes. I would go check with one of the people in the teal polos."

I guess I must applaud Carnival for not allowing chair hogs. He must have been out super early in the morning if his towels were removed before we got there. Either that or he forgot where he left them....

I suggested that we eat at Fat Jimmy's C-Side BBQ for lunch.





The line remained long while we ate our food - I believe it's because it is self-serve that it moves so slowly. The barbecue is very good, though! Max really enjoyed it.

After lunch, we went back to the top deck to watch the ice carving demonstration. I thought Max would enjoy it.





There were little girls sitting on the front row who would scream like they had broken a bone whenever the ice would fall on them. The little boys on the front row kept telling them to, "Shut Up!" I thought it was funny because towards the end of the demonstration, the main screamer's mom came and brought her a taco and said, "Eat this." At least she didn't scream so much with food in her mouth.





I took Max to "The Game of Love" which is Carnival's version of the Newlywed Game show with multiple generations.



I don't really like how Carnival does their marriage game show. They sit the couples back-to-back and have them write the answers down on notepads as the cruise director reads out questions. Then after all of the questions are asked, the cruise director reads their answers. This might be because they do their marriage show during the afternoon, so there are more children in the audience (though there were several warnings about the content of the show) and they want to be able to sensor the responses. However, I couldn't help but think Pete was exaggerating some of their answers by the looks on some of the contestants' faces as he read them aloud.

After The Game of Love, it was time for something that Max had been waiting for all week....

When Max first noticed the 101-oz tube of beer at the beginning of the cruise, he became obsessed. "Can we do that?" "I don't know.... that's a lot of beer." "That's just a little more than six 16-oz beers. How many do you think you can drink?" "I don't know.... one. Maybe two." "Okay - you'll drink two, and I'll drink four. Can we do it?" "I don't know." "Please?" "Okay, okay." "When can we do it?" "On a sea day. The second to last sea day."

A day didn't go by when he didn't remind me about the tube of beer. We decided that we were going to do it in the Red Frog Pub because we liked it there.

We ordered a 101-oz tube of Thirsty Frog.



It actually went above 101 ounces according to the labels.





Making progress...







I was still on glass one at that point.



But I did get to finish it! Ha!



Mission complete!

So we got a new mission...





A fishbowl! Didn't look too bad..... and then I asked and found out it was 48 ounces!

Here's Max's artsy shot out the window...











You can't drink 149 ounces of alcoholic beverages without a little food...



We got smart and substituted the onion rings this time.



Mission two complete!

After finishing the fishbowl, it was time to get ready for dinner.  It was the second formal night.



I'm not going to share my food photos from tonight because I overcompensated the flash on the appetizers and entree. We had escargots, seafood platter, and if I recall correctly, the chateaubriand. If you care to see overexposed photos, you may take a look through my Flickr Album.

I will share dessert...



Amaretto Cake

I got the Baked Alaska. I have to say that of Royal Caribbean, Princess, and Carnival, Carnival has to have the biggest lack of presentation with the Baked Alaska that I've seen. That's because there is no presentation.  While Princess and Royal Caribbean have parades (and used to torch them in front of you before that was considered a fire hazard), Carnival just brings it out like any other dessert.



Tonight, the shot guy came to us again, and he and our waiter, Subrata, had realized that we had left the souvenir glasses on the table the night before. He couldn't find any clear glasses, but Subrata brought us three different blue glasses.

After dinner, we went to the adult comedy show. We had a new set of comedians on board. We watched Dwight Slayde, and he was decently funny. But once again, it was standing room only by the time we arrived, and he was funny enough for me to stand (in heels) through the entire show.





Nooo.... not a Farewell Day at Sea!