Saturday, March 22 - A Fun Farewell Day at Sea

Are you sad? Because I'm sure sad!

We started off our final day at sea with the Seaday Brunch in the Blush Dining Room.

I was immediately excited about the cute menu and all of the wonderful choices! Max and I decided on what we wanted. And then waited...

And waited...

And waited...

This is the face of someone who is tired of waiting.

In the time that we were seated, a family of three was seated two other tables were seated and had their orders taken before ours. We were not happy. I finally waved the assistant waiter over and asked him when they were going to take our food order. "Oh, the head waiter will be over shortly." Shortly??? We've been waiting for half an hour, and our waiter will be over shortly?? He then took another table's order before he took ours.

Not happy. We were not happy.

We were seated at the back of the dining room, though, which is much lovelier than that corner we were stuck in all week for dinner.

FINALLY! Food (we've been deprived all week, you know...)!

Huevos Rancheros for both of us.

And I tried the cereal-crusted French Toast (Frosted Flakes) which was really good!

We enjoyed the food, but I've determined that the service in the dining room during breakfast completely stinks.

Went back to the stateroom for another unpleasant farewell surprise...

Nooooo!!! Not bag tags!

Max and I had decided that we would rather wait until later in the afternoon to enjoy the pool deck because we figured we would have a better chance at getting a chair in Serenity. In the meantime, we went to the sports deck to try out the ropes course.

It turns out that you have to have on closed-toe shoes to do the ropes course, and I was wearing sandals. You also aren't supposed to have on sunglasses without a strap around the back of your neck, which knocked Max out, as well. I also doubt they would have allowed me to bring my camera. So we decided to play miniature golf, instead.

Max didn't really have any desire to do the ropes course, anyway, because he didn't think that it looked that challenging.

Max won.

I then convinced Max that we should do the ropes course. So we went back to the stateroom, and I put my tennis shoes on. You can make it more challenging by not holding onto the rope, but I'm not sure how the people working their would feel if you fell, so I wouldn't suggest doing anything stupid. There are two courses - an easy track and a more challenging track. In a few cases, the more challenging track was broken.

Our waiting late plan was a success, and we were able to find a spot in Serenity that afternoon!

Nothing like relaxing in the quiet.... and hearing the screams from the water slides.

The screams were calling our name. We waited until the lines got a little shorter and then tried out the yellow slide. And then the orange slide again... and then yellow.... and then orange.... I love water slides, okay! Both of Carnival's slides were fun. The orange one didn't work out so well for me (and probably most little kids) because my momentum only allowed me to do one loop at the bottom. However, the yellow slide seemed to be more popular (probably because the kids were in the same boat as I was with the orange slide), so we did the orange slide more. We also had to let that giant bucket of water empty on us.

The pool deck was clearing out, as everyone was getting ready for dinner.

I insisted we linger to make the most of our last day.

We came back to the room to find a surprise...

Our alcohol had been delivered!

Party time!!

We went to the final Hasbro the Game Show. It's really a new show with different games each time - the contestants do not come back and compete in the final show.

Yahtzee bowling was less of a physical game (all you did was push the ball), and more dependent on how well the captain understood the game of Yahtzee. On both teams, the children appointed the adult to be the captain... and I think it's because they wanted to push the ball. Neither of these captains seemed to be good at Yahtzee. In fact, I'm pretty sure one never played before - or hadn't played in a long time. Luckily, there were knowledgeable people in the audience who helped them out.

And the Simon Flash game again.

This time another little boy won the jackpot. He was the boy who was captain of the Simon Flash game. So once again, he was the only kid who actually applied skill and brought his team to victory. Perhaps if one of the little kids in the Yahtzee game wasn't so obsessed with getting to push the giant ball and decided to step up and be team captain, they would have been the jackpot winner.

Our last evening in the Blush dining room was bittersweet. I have to say, at the beginning of the cruise, I didn't think that we would be dining room regulars. Max had told me several times beforehand that he "thought he would not like it as much as Freestyle cruising" (remember, his first cruise was NCL). However, the food won him over, and our improved service won me over. After the first two nights, I was ready to throw my hands up and give up on the dining room for the rest of the cruise. However, once things slowed down (well... no one else showed to dinner the third night), we had the opportunity to bond with the wait staff like "in the good ol' days of cruising." And when the dining room filled again a few nights later, we were still getting outstanding service (perhaps because they knew us better and wanted to continue to make us happy).