lolavix

It always amazes me that we can just swim through the fish and they don't seem bothered. I guess they are used to people.

And some coral, too.

Some clear photos of the shipwreck.

Selfie

Some of the fish in the area.

It was time to move on to the "shipwreck". I put that in quote because it's not a natural shipwreck, but it is fun to snorkel around. In total, we saw two turtles, so not a ton, but we were happy. Kendrick said the most he had ever seen on one tour was 13. Wow!

En route:

Time to swim in the aquarium.

Tons and tons of these fish.

DD with the fish.

Food helps!

This guy was from Calabaza. Kendrick fed them briefly from the boat, but this was better to get the turtles to come.

OK, done with food!

Coming up for air. Our boat is to the right.

So many photos of turtles. I loved this experience.

DH has a nice video of this turtle. I will see if I can post it later.

We were told that the turtles will swim away if you swim toward them. What we weren't told is if you stay still and view them from a few feet away, they might continue to swim right up to you!

I really liked this photo, with the people swimming in the background.

It almost looks like DD is touching the turtle.

Alpoplup--Thanks for your kind words. I'm ready to add more content now.

Regarding the menu--This is my first cruise on Carnival, so I wouldn't really know the difference between the old menu and the American Table. I did see "American Table" on the Fun Times, but perhaps looking at the menus I've posted might help? We did have tablecloths, if that makes a difference. :) What I didn't see on our menu is the section that is dedicated to food specific to that particular port, the way I've seen on menus from other trip reviews, if that makes a difference.

_______________________________________________________________

Back to Barbados!

At 10 AM, we walked over to the ship and met our captain, Kendrick (or Kenrick). There was just one other family, from England. (Parents, grandparents, and two kids who both seemed younger than DS2).

The tour was very organized and had everything we'd need--snorkel gear (we had our own), life jackets (we also had our own but used theirs so we didn't have to inflate ours), water and soda, anti-fog device for the snorkel masks. Kendrick was very helpful and made sure we were all comfortable.

So comfortable that the boys got to steer the boat for a bit.

Looks like a nice place to hang for a day or week.

It didn't take long to get to our destination. There was only one other ship out there, and I think it was Calabaza. I've heard a lot of good things about Calabaza, and I might have booked them if we had already visited Barbados and didn't want to see other sites, or if it were just DH and I, since they were a bit more than we could spend per person for just one island.

We jumped in over the side and almost immediately met some new friends.

The shops you walk through to get outside the port.

We followed the painted stripes and emerged to a deluge of taxis. We knew we had to keep walking past all of them, outside the port, to find Sanjay. If you do not have a tour lined up, never fear about getting a taxi. There are a lot of them.

We found Sanjay and set off. Our first stop was going to be at the Folkestone Marine Reserve to swim with the turtles. I had really been looking forward to this.

On the way, we had a little bit of information about Barbados.

The houses along the water are very expensive.

Case in point:

If this is not the singer Rihanna's house, it is very close to this one.

We arrived at the Reserve about 15 minutes early. We took an opportunity to walk down to the water.

It was quite lovely.

I am going to end for now. The photos are taking a long time to upload and it's late. Be back tomorrow.

I'll see how much I get done here. My pictures are taking forever to upload.

Yes, we had arrived in Barbados.

I don't know whose ship this is, but she's even smaller than the Fascination.

We had our breakfast at the buffet and got off the ship around 9. We were meeting our guide, Sanjay Kini, at 9:15.

We hadn't been posing for photos on the gangway, but each boy stopped to get their photo taken with the giant bird.

I bought this one

because I also have this one:

from our Bermuda cruise. I guess it's a little tradition.

After our sea day, we now had four consecutive port days. Not that I was complainin'. :D

After the show, we went back to the cabin and sorted through some of the photos we had taken. I originally thought that this was the night I went to see Mark Simmons at Punchliners, but now I remember that it must have been Monday night (last night), because I remember having "America's Got Talent" on TV while DH went to get the boys on this night, and that show is on Tuesday nights. So I can mention that I went to a second Punchliner show on Monday, which also had its moments, and then I went to the Welcome Aboard Show.

I don't think I did much more on Tuesday. I will leave you with this, our towel animal friend for Tuesday night.

I liked the fact that we could take whatever photos we wanted. We weren't allowed to do so on Norwegian.

And here is our audience member, the newest diva:

Dessert menu:

I chose the caramelized apples with puff pastry. We also had some cherries jubilee at the table.

Not sure why I have a photo of the dessert but had to take the dessert menu through the glass. My guess is that our companions finished their dessert before we were served ours and they had left.

The dessert was just OK. The puff pastry was difficult to cut with the fork. DH and DS1 liked the cherries jubilee and I don't recall what the others had.

The kids scattered to their clubs, and DH and I went to the Divas show. We really enjoyed it. We sat very close to the catwalk and I had my prime lens, so I got some fun photos.

Kris with a K

There was a pre-show, where they showed us how they can have a model change outfits in under a minute. I think it was more like 30 seconds.

Then they had two couples from the audience give it a try.

This is one husband's attempt to copy the above.

I am including her because at the end of the show, she comes back as a transformed diva. You'll see.

On with the show!

Johnspo--We liked the games very much (especially given our participation). However, since we saw it during the afternoon, we would have preferred something else the night that it was the featured entertainment.

Tgirl25--They are fun to watch (and play). I'm sure we'll put the GC to very good use in the upcoming months, yes.

Ontheweb--Our elementary does some sort of celebration for Dr. Seuss' birthday. We've had a night where the teachers dress up and read stories, the kids attending in PJs, etc. It's fun for them, and having this as part of the cruise was enjoyable.

Minnieiowa--Thank you!

__________________________________________________________

Let's see if I can finish this sea day.

The Hasbro show was over an hour and our laundry was done. We went to retrieve it and folded it. It was a bit odd to be doing that on vacation, but not too terrible.

Tonight was elegant night so we got dressed up and took a few photos outside.

We opened one of the wine bottles we bought at the CVS in SJ.

Tonight's options:

I had heard great things about the Strawberry Bisque, that was it for me. DH and I also shared the mushrooms. For dinner, I had the spaghetti carbonara. I enjoyed all of these quite a bit.

Last night, Andrias, our waiter, had showed DS2 a trick with a fork which appeared to rise and fall behind a napkin. He even showed DS2 how to do it, so DS2 came back tonight and demonstrated it to all of us at the table. Tonight, Andrias had another trick, where he folded a napkin into a bunny which "jumped". DS2 loved this.

I'll mention it here, because I know it happened early (by Tuesday or Wednesday). I guess Andrias took a liking to DS2, because he gifted him with one of the 'ships on a stick' that people try to win at various venues. I didn't take a photo so I don't know what day it was, but it might have been this night.

A song with napkin-waving. I know "That's Amore" was early on during the week, but I don't think that was the napkin-waving song. Whatever. DS2 loved joining in.

Good luck!

33,000 points stood. DH was the winner!

The prizes. DH wound up with a travel Simon, another copy of the Boggle Slam that DS2 won, Cluedo, Monopoly Deal card game, Trivial Pursuit card game, and $150 gift card to Hasbro.com.

We were so surprised that he had won. I had read in at least one other review that kids usually win, which is what I would have expected. The boys were very excited. It was a lot of fun to have a vested interest in the game, for both rounds.

And that was our exciting afternoon at the Hasbro Game Show.

DH chose the race car.

Each contestant put their card in the Monopoly ATM machine. The machine read their cards and told us how many points were on it. The contestant with the most points wins.

DH got 33,000 points and took the lead. High-5 from Felipe for that.

DH remained the leader for the rest of the contestants. It came down to him and this last one.

The red team, courtesy of Rencas:

Rencas didn't realize that DS2 was a member of his team until after we got home and I started my review. There was no organized Meet and Mingle on the ship so we never had a chance to meet in person.

The Red Team received a consolation prize. DS2 received Boggle Slam, a card game which would be nice for travel.

After a short commercial break, which was an advertisement for Mr. Potato Head from the 1950s or 1960s ($2!), it was time for round 2. More questions ensued to get the next two teams assembled.

This time, DH was chosen to answer a Trivial Pursuit question. You can see the question behind him.

I think he took a guess, because Volkswagen is what comes to mind when you think of a German car. I suppose it could have been BMW as well, but it wasn't.

DH was chosen for the Red Team as well.

Once the entire team was assembled:

they got to play Operation, which was essentially a Skee Ball game.

Turns out that the Red Team won this time, so DH go to move on to the Monopoly round, for the grand prize.

Celebrating their win

The Monopoly round, where the winners of Round 1 and Round 2 (so 8 people in total) get to select one of those cards. Each card has one of the Monopoly game pieces on it.

cyntil8ing--Love it! Great minds think alike!

ontheweb--We missed you there. I do have a photo of the class (in that post), which was finishing up when we first arrived. I know we would have enjoyed that as well.

__________________________________________________________

The towel animal show had the animals singing and dancing some popular songs (many from the 80s, my DD groaned). At the end, there were even streamers:

After the show, we split up for a bit. DD went off with her friends to Circle K and the boys went to Camp Carnival. DH and I stayed and watched the "Fun Ashore and Fun Abroad" show, hosted by Felipe. Although we had all of our tours set up, I wanted to see if there were any stops we wanted to add at any of the islands. Felipe went through and described each island and pointed out highlights. There were raffles, where two tickets to different excursions were given away. It would have been nice, but probably a bit complicated to rearrange our plans.

We retrieved the boys and went to see the "Pop Up Magic Show", held in the atrium. This was a 15 minute demonstration, with the illusionist letting us know that he'd be performing a full length show on Saturday night.

He managed to have Bella's card switch with his card. Do you see DS2 right in front of the action? He loves magic.

After the show, we weren't yet hungry and the boys wanted to go back to Camp Carnival. I think DH was ready for a nap, but I wasn't. I tried to see if the washers were available and it was crazy! There was a huge line for the iron, since tonight was elegant night. On Deck 6, there were four washer/dryer combos, and I think there was the same on Deck 7. One was out of order and the other three were being used. We really did need to do laundry, as this was part of our plan. We hadn't brought 11 days worth of clothes for five people. I figured I'd check back later.

I took a walk up to the Lido deck, where I grabbed a bit of salad and some chocolate goodies from the buffet. I took them outside and sat and watched the Mixologist contest, which was fun. I was starting to get hot in the sun and I figured, it was time to go find my family. As I went back inside, I saw DH and the boys coming to find me. They got some food and I got a little more and we sat inside. We laughed when DD came in with her friends and sat right near us, without realizing it.

After lunch, it was back to Camp Carnival for the boys and I had some success in starting the laundry. On the Fascination, it's $3 for the washer, $3 for 45 minutes for the dryer and I think it was either $1.50 or $2 for the laundry soap. Definitely worth it to us, rather than to tote more clothes for five people or paying per bag. We had two large loads to do, so it would have cost us quite a bit to have Carnival do it. We still had some leftover laundry, but so be it. Note that the line for the iron was still pretty long.

It was now time for:

This show consisted of audience members playing life-sized Hasbro games to win non-life-sized Hasbro games. In order to get on stage, the audience members needed to answer various questions in order to win.

For the first team fielded, they needed to watch clips of people acting out different activities (a la Guesstures) and identify what they were doing. DS2 really wanted to get on stage, and he was selected by Felipe when he started jumping up and down and waving wildly. The crazier you acted, the more likely you'd be selected.

You can see the screen behind him. Turns out that the person on the screen was conveying that he had a sore throat, which DS2 correctly identified. He was a member of the red team.

Four members of the red team were selected, and then we moved on to the blue team. I don't recall what they had to do to get on stage, but it was a different game.

Now they were ready to play:

They were going to play Yahtzee, where they rolled a large ball to knock down those dice pins. The captain, whom I later learned was Rencas on my roll call here, decided which dice to keep and which to reset to try again. The goal is to get the best hand (which would be five of a kind, just like in regular Yahtzee).

Kris with a K helping DS2 with the ball:

After everyone took their turn, the Red Team ended up with a large straight, if I recall. When the blue team took their turn, they beat them with either four of a kind or a Yahtzee.

By then it was approaching 10 AM and the kids wanted to go see the Towel Animal Theater. On our way out, we bumped into

This is actually a better photo, but DS1 is blocking Sam-I-Am.

Overall, we enjoyed the Green Eggs and Ham Breakfast. I'll mention that it was $5 per person. For us, it was definitely more for the theming than the food, since I'm guessing you could get the same food at the sea day brunch.

The show was in the Palace Theater. When we arrived, a towel folding clinic was finishing up.

This looks like it was fun.

The towel animal theater show was fun for kids. DD wanted to come and then she went to sit with kids from Circle C. DS2 went to sit on stage with other kids. DS1 just hung with us.

These photos were cropped from a distance. I had my wide-angle lens with me for the breakfast and didn't have a chance to get back to the cabin to switch it out. I think you get the gist, though.

Bubbles add to the festive show.

So does dancing. DS2 is in the gray, blue and white shirt.

We got a kick out of these parfaits. We didn't order these; they were brought to the table and you just randomly took one.

I thought this looked very fun and in keeping with the theme.

I wasn't sure if this was something related to Seuss or not, but this was the other option. No matter, everyone enjoyed their fruit parfait.

Time for the main courses:

I did not photograph my omelet. I will caution anyone who orders the omelet to perhaps ask for a side or two, since you are just brought an omelet on a big plate. After we had been eating a bit, bacon and hash browns were brought out for the entire table. I'm wondering if they were meant for the omelet folks and were put in the middle by mistake. It was just a little odd to not have anything else on the plate with my omelet. It was good since you could add whatever you'd like to customize it.

Similar to the singing shows in the MDR at night, there was entertainment.

I loved their 'uniforms'. There was only one Thing 1 and Thing 2. We saw lots of different numbers, like Thing 26 and Thing 99. Each one was unique.

I thought this was really cute.

What are we serving?

I went with the Scrambled Super-Dee-Dooper-Dee-Booper, Special de Luxe a-la-Peter T Hooper Omelet. We also had the Truffula Tree Pancakes, From There to Here, From Here to There, Belgian Waffles Everywhere, and Fox in Socks Steak and Eggs. We were seated with another family of five who had a toddler, and he was fun to watch with his reactions to the characters as they came through. As expected, he didn't know what to make of them.

But my kids knew what to do.

I guess DS1 likes posing with the "real" thing.

ontheweb--Pizza (and deli) had a line as well, although we did do that a few times. The issue is that they had large swaths of their available space closed and combined all the other foods in one long line. No reason to put desserts at the end of the grill line; no reason to not have any fruit out whatsoever. We did not really encounter this on the other cruise. We were usually able to walk through and just grab something. Not sure why it was impossible to do this at 9:30 at night, either.

htkodiak--Thank you, although I feel pretty windy at times. I would highly recommend it. The islands are gorgeous.

________________________________________________________________

There were all sorts of photo ops at this breakfast.

DS1 is thrilled to be in this photo, no?

We were impressed with this.

It's our only Sea Day!

You can see that DH already marked the Hasbro show for the kids. This becomes important later on.

Despite it being our sea day, we were still up by around 7:30 or so. We didn't have a tour, but we did have 8:45 reservations for:

Well, we weren't doing all the activities on the right side, but we were going to do the breakfast. We had signed up for it when we signed the kids up for the kids' clubs. We figured it would be fun. The only regret was that the sea day brunch was the same day, and while we could have attended for lunch, it was also elegant night and really, just too much food for one day. (And as an aside, I completely forgot about the sea day brunch once we got involved in the day's activities).

The show consisted of a short talk by Felipe advertising some of the other shows for the week, our introducing ourselves to people sitting near us, a gag with two couples on stage and a preview of the Carnival entertainment.

The show culminated in the audience dancing with the pros to Uptown Funk, and then the show continuing out in the atrium. I headed back to deck 6 to my bed.

Our towel animal for the night.

And that concludes the day in St. Thomas. Phew!

I mentioned in a comment that we had the 6 PM seating in the Imagination MDR. I chose that for obvious reasons, with the kids. I think we made the right decision, since when I'd pass by the Sensation dining room, there always seemed to be a line and we are five. I really didn't want to have to spend time every night waiting for a table. Ideally, the early seating would be at 6:30 on this itinerary, since sail away is at 5 every day, but we dealt with it just fine.

We were seated with another family of five. DD knew the younger child from Circle C, and they always sat next to one another and chatted, which made her happy.

Tonight's menu:

I apologize for the blurriness. I felt a bit self-conscious photographing the menus and food at the table with others, so I took most of the menu photos going forward outside the restaurant on our way out. There are not as many food photos going forward, but I can still talk about what we liked.

I had the French Onion soup for dinner, which I really liked. I had the Penne Mariscos for my main dish, and while I liked the seafood, the pasta was undercooked and I left some of it behind. DH and I each ordered a drink--he had a Hard Lemonade and I had a beer. I think the beer might have filled me a bit as well.

Dessert:

I tried the lemon cake. It was refreshing, which is how I like lemony things in the summer.

This was the night that a pirate traveled around the dining room. While most times, the pirate posed with diners with the sword by their necks, DH decided to fight back with his butter knife:

After dinner, the kids asked to go to their respective kids' clubs. I was happy that tomorrow was our sea day, since I think we all needed a "down" day.

DH and I decided to go to Punchliners and see one of the comedians, Al Romero.

We shared a Chocolatini drink, which hit the spot for my chocolate craving for the night. (While I did like the lemon cake, I still was looking for chocolate.) He was funny, and to our surprise, when we got up to leave, we spied DD with the kids from Circle C. The 8:30 show was a family show, so it was fine, but we just didn't expect to bump into her there.

The boys stayed at the kids club until 10. The 9-11 year olds club was usually held in a conference room, quite a distance from the actual kids' club. This was a bit of a disappointment, as they did not have access to all the games and toys that are in the regular space. I found it a bit odd, since all the other age groups had spots to hang. The boys still had fun, but on two nights, they called us to ask for us to pick them up before 10 PM.

At 10:30, it was time for the "welcome aboard" show.

I enjoy going to shows, although this one lasted for over an hour and by 11:30, I was ready for it to be done.

Felipe, our cruise director.

Some last views of St. Thomas as we float away.

Looking down on the Serenity Deck. This is about the closest we got to it. Next time!

Around this time, DH came back with a plate of food for us to share! :) He said the line wasn't so long and he was able to approach and get a few chicken nuggets, I think. It was enough to take the edge off, since dinner was less than an hour away.

One little blue fish.

It was about 2 PM and time to pack it up. This was the beach as we were getting ready to leave.

Dean was waiting for us where he said he'd be.

The trip back was a heck of a lot faster, without all the stops. I think Coki is about 20 minutes back to the pier. I never would have guessed that, since it took us 2.5 hours to get to the beach.

I think we hit a busy time to get back on the ship (a little after 3 PM). We probably had to wait about 20 minutes to board.

he boys and DH decided to go get a snack and go to the pool. DD and I each showered and she went to Circle C and I went up to meet the rest of my family.

What I found was a super long line at the grill. I understand that everyone probably wants something to eat, but what I didn't understand is why only the grill was open. If you wanted a cookie, they were placed at the end of the grill line, and you couldn't really cut the line to grab one. If you wanted make your own nachos, you had to wait in the same line as the burgers/fries/hot dog folks. I found this extremely frustrating, since these lines seemed to creep and the breakfast lines did not. I also wondered why they didn't have more 'grab and go' type snacks out, like fruit or the cookies/brownies, etc. Again, we've only been on one other cruise, but I don't recall having such a problem getting a snack on our other cruise. We didn't have a lot of time before our 6 PM seating, so having a little something close to 4 was what we wanted. Not a big huge snack at 4:30 or so when we'd get through the line. I suppose I could have had ice cream, but with all the options that could be, I just wish there had been a bit more without a super long line. I grabbed some iced tea and gave up.

Anyway, I found my family at the pool and DH said he wanted to go get a shower and a quick nap. The boys wanted to go to Waterworks, so I found a comfy place to sit and watch them slide to their hearts' content.

The boys going down the larger slides feet first and on their stomachs.

I didn't get any photos today of them on the twisty slide.

I finished my iced tea and found myself dozing off...not for too long, though, since the boys kept on checking in and asking for me to watch them.

Soon, it was time for sail-away.

We obviously didn't get here, but it's right at the dock.