jenseib
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We found our spot and geared up and jumped in.
I will say the snorkeling was great here. I did see a ton of tiny jellyfish in the water though. I never felt like I got stung, but in spots they were everywhere. I, of course, had jellyfish sting repellent sunscreen…that I did not put on today….and was back in my room.
We swam around looking for the good spots to see. I will warn you now…I took a ton of pictures.
I always get excited when I see a colorful fish.
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The reason I picked this particular excursion was because they said we would be snorkeling in caves. I had talked to someone in Oct who had done this excursion and they raved about it. As we approached the cave areas the captain announced that all the mooring balls were filled up and we would not be able to go to any of the 3 caves today. We would moore further down and have excellent snorkeling and he would keep watch to see if any of the balls opened up.
Total Bummer. I was so looking forward to going into the caves.
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We puttered out slowly and I tried to take a lot of pictures.
We were bobbing and I realized I didn’t take sea sickness meds that morning….I did last night, but not again this morning. Now I was psychologically thinking I would get sick. The family behind us was talking about sea sickness meds as well and I asked if they had any extra….it was actually the lady who had been hypnotized the one night and we had talked here and there throughout the cruise. She did have some and I now felt better. LOL.
As we got further out, we were bobbing a bit more and making dips…and all the people in the front were getting huge splashes. You would hear them scream each time it happened….we of course thought it was funny.
It makes me sad as I write this up and look at all the pictures since Tortola was just hit recently by Irma and pretty devastated right now.
About 20 – 30 minutes later we started to approach the area we would be snorkeling.
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We were led off the ship.
Look at how blue that water is!!! I swear it wasn’t this blue in Oct.
We were led to our boat and we had to take our shoes off before getting on. They put all the shoes in a clothes basket. They wanted to keep their boat as clean as possible. At first I thought it was strange, but then I realized they really had a good idea.
A lot of people headed for the front, but we just found a booth type table and sat down.
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Now I had been on the ship for 7 days…the rest of this sailing was now bonus time! I tried to stay offline from the outside world on most sea days, but in ports I would check my emails and facebook. I was surprised each day to find posts under my pictures saying things like …Are you ever coming home?....Just how long is this cruise?...wish I had your job.
I kind of laughed and thought it was funny. I only had 2 days at WDW before the cruise…and up till this point; most reading would not know how many days my actual sailing was. For my Oct. trip I arrived in FL 3 days before our 7 night cruise and stayed an additional night after. As for wishing they had my job….I do love my job, but this was not a work trip.
I then headed back to the room to get our bag packed and ready for the day. Claire and I then headed down to D Lounge once again to meet for our excursion. Today we were doing Treasure Island Swim & Snorkel.
We grabbed some towels and got signed in and waited.
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July 5th,2017, Day 11, Tortola
Today was the first port day that we would have an excursion on our own…without any of our friends at all. Claire kept hoping Jeanne and family would join, but they ended up just not doing anything today. They originally had the Baths scheduled but the time was changed and we had a short day in the port as it was, so she decided to cancel it. They told her if she wanted, she could join our excursion, but they needed a rest day.
I had my strawberry cheesecake from last night in my fridge, so that was breakfast today.
I went up top a bit to take a look at Tortola. The horns sounded, which totally scared me, and I tried to catch them. As I was videoing, the NCL Escape pulled right in next to us. The horn did go off again and it scared me again. hahaha
Video
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I then went and walked around a bit before calling it anight.
I was super tired, so I went to bed and Claire came in late full of giggles and laughs. She talked a mile a minute about the fun they had that night, but I was half asleep. She mentioned that one deck had the carpet being pulled up and then later saw them laying new carpet. Wow…I thought they had done this in dry dock,but I guess it takes a while to lay carpet, so maybe they came back to do some more?
I told her to get settled down as we had another big day tomorrow.
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Escargot for me.
Shrimp.
French onion soup.
This was the American meal. We were disappointed that the fried chicken was just a chicken leg…which is my least favorite part of a chicken…unless it in the form of chicken wings/drumstick…covered in BBQ sauce.
I also got some other entrée but I guess I didn’t take a picture. Probably some form of steak.
Dessert time…another favorite…soufflé.
I believe I got the strawberry cheesecake from the patriotic menu to go tonight as well.
The kids made plans to go to karaoke tonight. They all headed off and I went back to the room.
Our towel animal.
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And more characters then.
After the wonderful fireworks it was time for dinner. Cass and family joined us tonight. We had Rob take our picture.
We were at Royal Palace tonight and I believe we had the regular rotational menu with an extra patriotic menu as well.
Claire and I got our favorite drink there, the Princess Delight.
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It seemed to take quite some time for them to really get started.
Finally they did.
They took a selfie with all of us. LOL.
Then the singers came out to sing some patriotic songs.
One of them had a really twilly operatic type voice. I know some like it, but I personally do not like it and I felt it was ruining the songs.
Video
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Claire had a hard day….she took a nap.
We then got ready for the 4th of July party, which was to start at 7:15. For some stupid reason, I never thought to pack Claire something patriotic. LOL! What was I thinking?
We headed up and found Patty and Brook and Jeanne soon came too.
They were giving out little flags, so I went and got some for us. I had also given little patriotic sticks for the fish extender gift today, so we had both to wave around.
Selfie time.
We had Fred take some pictures of us.
We saw our other co-worker but she was in a hurry to find her son, so we only talked to her for a minute. I never heard from Cass, so I wasn’t sure if she was coming to the celebration or not. I later found out she was there, but further back.
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Claire met up with me and we needed some ice-cream. Not just any ice-cream, but some from Sweet on You.
Besides excursions, this was about the only place I spent money at on the ship. We did get a few specialty drinks, but for the most part our splurge was ice-cream.
After ice-cream we got some food to take to the room.
And Claire had chicken wings ordered in for her.
I think this is the afternoon we decided we wanted to play a game and put out the chat group message to let others know if they wanted to join in. Patty and Fred brought a game called Farkle. None of us have ever played it before, but it sounded fun. It’s a dice game.
We met up in Cabana’s to play. Even Zach joined today.
Brook, Joe and Henry also joined us. Fred and Patty explained the game and we played a few practice rounds. We then got started.
We had so much fun. We laughed and joked and had a good time playing the game. Henry was always asking the score. He was just too cute. Brook had said that at home if he wasn’t winning, he would be in tears and throwing a tantrum (which I find hard to believe), but here he was fine and just had a great time.
Brook and Jeanne kept calling it Sparkle. Jeanne then changed her “chat” name on the phone to “I don’t Farkle, I sparkle”.
We really had a great time and this became a new favorite game for all of us. I mentioned it to my family when we got home. I told them how much fun it was and that we should all play sometime. Next thing I know, I got a text from Aunt Mary, the one who spoils our kids….that she just ordered Farkle for Claire and it would be coming to our house via Amazon in the next few days.
After our game, we were pulling out and I went out to take a few last pictures.
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You can call and ask to be put on a waiting list. I have done that this past year and a room did open up.
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We boarded the ship and went our separate ways. Claire went to get freshened up and I went up top for a bit and got a drink.
They had the ship decorated for the 4th!
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And off we went once again…in the hot van.
When we got back to port, many of us separated. I think Cass was going to do some quick shopping and head back to the ship before Cabana’s closed. We did some shopping as well and I was looking for something and found it. Claire found a shirt she liked and Jeanne’s girls were looking for something too.
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It was a lot of fun, but way too short. For the amount of money and the time it took to get there and then harnessed up, I wish they offered a chance to do it again….even for a small fee. Kelsey and Emily have done this before and they said that this was really a baby course. For me it was perfect, but they said for the amount of money we should have gotten more.
We headed off to get everything off then and I had to have help dislodging the harness from my never regions. Hahaha. The one guy started ripping off my helmet before I was unstrapped and it was ripping my ear. I even made a comment that it felt like he was ripping my earings out……sure enough, later that night I did realize one of my small diamond stud earings (I have 7 holes in one ear and wear studs in most of them) was missing. I could tell you exactly where it lay too. LOL!
We had time to wait before our vans were coming back. They had the monkey guys around but they seemed good when you told them you had no desire to see them. However, they were scamming people with the cost. One lady kept telling him no, and then I guess she agreed with 1 or 2 other people in her picture and then they tried to charge her per person in the picture and she made a huge stink about it. I think they “reduced” the price for her, but she was not happy about it at all. Some people bought some drinks and we all just kind of waited and rested. Brook found out there was free wifi here. Many of us had data packages on the islands, but the wifi was moving fast, so we soon were all on our phones….and Brook took this picture.
I’m sitting on the floor kind of behind Rob, so you can’t see me.
Our van arrived and we were hoping to get in the other one this time so we could have some air. Jeanne and a couple others did get in but they made them leave and go with the same driver. Ugh. It was hot again going back.
Rob took a picture of us all.
And then Brook did.
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It was a little awkward getting hooked and unhooked, but nothing too bad.
After the 3rd one we waited then for several of us to come down before walking over to the next one.
The last one was pretty short and was a side by side one.
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It was not bad at all. Nothing like how I expected it to be. The kind of harness we were wearing basically made us in the sitting position. The height didn’t seem that bad because the tree tops really weren’t that far below.
We did 3 right in a row without waiting for the others. The first one was the longest and I think the 2nd was the fastest.
Are You Ever Coming Home?...No! I am playing with Wizards,Farkles & Sparkling Friends
in Disney Cruise Line
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