Carnival Splendor, The Finale

Day 6

Another Day at Sea.  More circles.  ‘Nuff said.  Just kidding.  Today is in fact another Day at Sea.  Upon waking up (to those dadgum chairs at 5:30), I did my traditional typing away in the morning, went back to the room, where Emily was actually still sleeping.  We then went and did some treadmill work up in the Cloud 9 Spa for about 20 minutes.  That was followed by the usual buffet breakfast in the Lido Café.

While we were there in the Lido Café, we were just talking about how much debt we are in (we are in the middle of the ocean and this is what we talked about, we are weird), in the meantime Emily’s mind began to wander, thinking anything from: hoping that she saw someone stranded at sea so that we could save them, then she thought how could someone survive out in the middle of the ocean, then to sharks would definitely get them, to maybe those sharks right there would eat them.  Yes, she somehow spotted not just one shark, but 2 in the middle of nowhere, just looking over the side.  Being as high up as we were, 100+ feet up, those sharks had to be at least 8’ long, quite possibly 10’+.  That was a great sighting by Emily!

This is what it looked like, but there were 2.

We thought that it would be fun to play a few games after breakfast.  So we went to deck #10 by the hot tubs, and played some “speed Scrabble”, some “Rummikub”, and “Spot It”.  It was fun to be able to do something besides reading by a pool on a cot in the middle of the day while the sun is burning me, so I was grateful for that.  When we finished with the games, I headed down to the cabin to take a little nap.  Right before I laid down, the cruise director got on the PA system and said that they were doing the Newlywed Game in the Spectacular Theater in just a couple of minutes.

One thing that has been very lackluster on this ship at the Day at Sea is the activities.  It seems like there are not very many activities.  That is one thing that I remember most about our previous cruises was all of the activities, from ice skating to rock climbing, from dodge ball to basketball tournaments, from trivia games to poolside activities, etc, etc, etc.  This cruise they have had very few activities (possibly not very well advertised).  I decided to take Gary up on that PA announcement, and today I went to the Spectacular Theater, to watch the Newlywed Game.  It was actually the funniest thing that I have seen in a long time.  They got 3 couples up on stage, from 5 days married, to 16 years married, to 47 ½ years married.  The cruise director, Gary (remember this is Gary the Cruise Director, not Gary my father-in-law!), asked the women 10 questions while the men were in the back.  With the men still in the back and the ladies having finished answering, Gary proceeded to ask the men the same questions and their responses were heard only by microphone.  The best two were as follows:

Gary: If there was a parrot in your bedroom, what would be the one word/phrase that is repeated so many times that he would learn to say it?

5-day Married: That’s a tough one…

Man up in the front row started clapping really loudly and quickly (as if that was the guy’s response).  Gary looked at the guy thinking he was crazy, and then it hit Gary what he was doing, and he bent over in hysteria.  It was hilarious!

Next question:

Gary: If your husband was stranded on a deserted island, who would he rather spend the remainder of his days with, a nun or a hooker?

47 ½ year Married: If I say hooker I’m afraid I’ll get Nun!

Ha ha!

After the show, I did go back to take a nap, and I had been sleeping for about an hour when Emily came back into the room after having read by the pool, on a cot, soaking up the sun’s rays.  She came back to get ready for dinner a little early because it was “formal” night, and she was going to do the hair and make-up for the little ladies, and for Becky.

Upon finishing dinner, we went to the “El Morocco Lounge”, and watched a comedian.  He is the voice for one of the Transformers, one of the 2 crazy Autobots that are brothers.  Anyway, he was really funny.  It was standing room only, and Emily couldn’t make it the whole time, so she went back to the cabin.  When the comedian was done, I went to get Emily so we could go to the main show of the evening in the Spectacular SpectacularTheater, it was “Fiesta Latina” night, featuring the ship’s dancers/singers.  

El Morocco Lounge

Spectacular Spectacular

Before we left though, we had to see if Michael Phelps would get his 21^st Olympic Medal in the 100 m Butterfly.  He did, and in great fashion with the Gold!  Go USA!

We were a few minutes late getting to the show, and upon our arrival we realized this show was going to keep with the “Boob Cruise” theme, we saw several of the dancer’s butts because they thought it necessary to wear thongs under their dresses.  We got up and left after 5 minutes.  I am so sick of the stuff that gets passed on as being “family friendly” these days.  I will file a formal complaint to Carnival.

Boob Cruise! 

From here we went back to the room and changed into swimsuits and hopped in the hot tub (it is actually a warm tub).  They had the Olympics playing on the big-screen on the Lido Deck.  I am so grateful that we were able to get the Olympics, the only bad thing was that the channels that are picked up by the ship were channels from Miami/South Florida.  I personally dislike Miami, so it is hard to see commercials that remind me of Miami.  I know a lot of you are thinking, “How can he dislike Miami?”  A few of you know why, and I would have to write a completely different “book” for the reasons, so I will just say that I have worked down there on several occasions, and there have been several incidents that have led me to this hatred of that city.  I will leave it at that.

We came back to the cabin and slept.  End of Day at Sea, not a horrible day by any means, and I am grateful for that.  Tomorrow is Day at Sea #2, hopefully not too many circles!  Maybe I’ll go swimming or try the slide again.  Till tomorrow.

The Slide!

Day 7

Our final day aboard the Carnival Splendor.  I guess I am kind of grateful.  I am really beginning to miss the boys.  It is hard to be away from them for so long.  Today on the ship was our final Day at Sea.  It was actually a nice day, even though we didn’t do a whole lot.  We woke up, again to the scraping sound of chairs being moved across the Lido Deck right above our heads at 5:45.  I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I left Emily in the room to so she could sleep, and I headed down to the Casino for my journal typing time.  I wish that I would have had a laptop with me on the last cruise, because it has been so much easier to recall events from the same day, or the day prior, as opposed to trying to remember it from a week after it all happened.  Oh well, it wouldn’t have lasted too long either because we had no power to recharge the battery!

I went and typed, and then read for about an hour and a half, then came back to the room.  Em woke up just a few minutes later and began reading, so I lay down too and started to read.  An hour and a half later she woke me up from a very deep sleep.  I guess I was still a little tired.  We got ready for the day and headed up to Lido to eat some breakfast.  As we were sitting there, Emily (our master shark spotter) did it again and saw some other things—we couldn’t identify them 100%.  However, we did some dorsal fins, shark or dolphin—we don’t know—we also spotted something that looked like what Emily called octopus legs, I’ll let you be the judge:

Original Photo (Look in the middle, on the left side)

Zoomed in....20,000 leagues Under the Sea

We were completely oblivious to time as we were mesmerized by the ocean and all of the creatures and things we were seeing.  We finally decided to get up and go play a few games.  We played Canasta with Becky and Emma until lunch time, which usually means going to the 24 hour pizza bar, or the hamburger/hot dog stand.  I will say that it was so nice to have choices of food this time compared to the obligatory lettuce sandwich from the Cruise of 2010.  That ice cream machine would have been the death of me if we were to stay another week.  We definitely did not eat very healthy, and with the elevators working this cruise, and us being one floor under the buffet, I think I definitely put on a few pounds! 

After our game of Canasta, which Emily will say she won (we didn’t even actually finish), I headed down to our room for a Day-at-Sea-Time-Passing-Nap in lieu of circles.  I awoke a couple of hours later and headed out to find my wife.  I found her actually very quickly, which has not been the norm.  She was sitting in the corner reading, so I stuck my head out the open window to see if I could spot any cool animals.  I didn’t.  I did see a pallet floating in the open water.  I really hope that no one was on it a day or two previous.  About 5 minutes later I saw a little piece of wood that looked like it had come off of the pallet.  I guess my eyes just aren’t as tuned to seeing the fish like Emily’s are.

The Dork in Person!

As the cruise was winding down, we thought that we would take advantage of the mini-golf course aboard.  It is up on the highest deck possible.  That means it is windy!  The ship usually goes around 18-20 knots (which in English is about 23 mph, or in real English 37.04 kmh), in addition to the headwind that was blowing right into our face on the front 4 ½, and it made for a nice tailwind on the back 4 ½.  I think I got longest drive on hole #7, called the longest plank, at a whoppin’ 4 yards!  The final hole we finished tied.  I recommended that we do a playoff to see who the real winner is, and she said “No way, I won that because in golf girls usually score more points so therefore I am the winner!”  If you can explain that one to me I would really appreciate it, because to this day I don’t think that reasoning works.

After the controversial golf game, we went back to the room to get ready for our final dinner aboard the Splendor.  The Olympics were on the TV, and we watched Michael Phelps swim his final event ever in the Olympics, his 24^th race in 4 Olympics.  The guy is absolutely amazing at what he does, not only did he win his 22^nd medal out of 24 events, the guy took his 18^th GOLD!  I can’t imagine that number will ever be broken, that is a piece of history, and that is why I had to put it in the journal.  That way everyone knows how cool I am for watching history made on a TV aboard a ship called the Splendor.  Absolutely splendid!

This being the last night, we had to pack up our bags and leave them in the hallway so they could round them up and have them waiting for us when we got off the ship.  It was great way to end the cruise, great food, good entertainment (Becky wins the gold for Wizard, she won’t hesitate to take anyone out of that game in a hurry!), great company.  All in all it was a great cruise.  We got to use our onboard credit for the mandatory tips that you don’t know about until you get your card statement, so thank you to Carnival for paying the tip for us (well, some of it anyway).  I now bid adieu to Carnival…forever!  Thank you to anyone reading this and taking the time out of your busy lives, it means a lot (even if this is me reading it in 20 years).

Adios Carnival!