LittleMissMagic

Tonight was Quest night. We go crazy.

There weren't a lot of people playing in comparison to what we've seen before on the Voyager-class ships. Also, only the front few rows of our section would participate.

Rachel was the girl runner for our team. I got us extra points for my awesome worm. Apparently I get a lot of air (not to mention most girls can't really do the worm).

Our friends from Texas also love the Quest game. Derrick wouldn't be the runner because his parents were watching... but he did agree to do this....

Yeah.... that's my dress.

Don't worry... someone gave me a giant t-shirt to wear.

You guys are AWESOME...

By far my favorite review ever, but maybe that's because your actually in my age group. My sister and I are cruisin solo next weekend, and I'm thinking of doing a sister photo review like you guys! :p

Too cute :)

You should! :)

Rachel and I were tentatively planning a sisters' trip on the Disney Dream, but my Dad vetoed it - he wanted to go, too! :D

I must ask, where do you buy your swimsuit coverups? My 16 year old is loving your outfits. We are on the Allure over spring break. Thanks for the review!!!

I'm not sure about my sister's, but I got mine (black and white dot) from Target a few years back. We just get little sundresses to wear as coverups.

Dad returned the photo creep...

I just love cruise ships!!! :)

Dad with our towels!

Adios, Barbados!

I can't remember the name of the beach... so I took a picture of this sign in hopes I could figure it out later. :D

We bought a few Christmas ornaments in port, but didn't find anything else to get.

I forgot to mention earlier that they had a bus shuttling us from the ship to the stores.

The tide was really high - the waves washed up almost entirely up the beach, so we had to keep our bags and shoes on our chairs to keep them from getting wet.

We went to the taxi cab area, and they were offering cab rides to the beach for $15 or $20. Dad chose the $20 beach. A cab driver ushered us to his cab... then we sat there and sat there, waiting for him to fill it up. Dad was sick of waiting, so we got out of the cab to find a different driver and he got rather upset. We've had that happen to us before in Barbados, actually.

We got to the beach and... bad news. They only had four chairs left. The cab driver asked who wanted chairs, and this lady's hand immediately went up, so Rachel's immediately went up. If there was only one chair left, there might've been a fight to the death! :D

We each got two chairs, but we were quickly able to buy two more chairs when people left.

We woke up the next day in... SUNNY Barbados!!! :)

The last time we were in Barbados, it was raining, so we just went shopping downtown.

The Royal Caribbean crew was doing a safety drill... the alarm went off right after I flushed the toilet in my cabin (already a loud noise), so I kind of freaked out - WHAT DID I DO? :eek: :D

Barbados has a nice area as soon as you get off the ship that's inclosed with duty-free goods. It also, apparently, has free wifi:

I also forgot to share this cool trick from dinner - no magic, just physics!

Awesome awesome pictoral review! 67 days till we board her!

 

BTW--I HAVE to know---love all of your dresses, but where did you guys get the cute dresses from your beach picture? LOVE LOVE!!!

 

Can't wait for the rest!

They are Lilly Pulitzer dresses - http://www.lillypulitzer.com/category/Just-In/for-Women/pc/1/3.uts

Our dresses are from last summer, so they aren't available anymore, but they are constantly creating similar styles and prints. :) (I actually just ordered another Lilly dress last week! :D)

I almost forgot to share our towel animals for the evening -

After El Gaucho, the fun continued with Latin night in the Promenade. Rachel and I went to check it out, then ran into Derrick and Jennifer who were with Derrick's younger brother, Cody, and younger sister, Kelsi. So we ended up staying for the entire thing.

It was actually very entertaining because they would allow random guests to come up onto the bridge over the Promenade to dance. We recognized several characters from the club. And even a guy we met who was from SC and a Clemson fan - he got up there (completely out of his mind) with the Puerto Ricans and did the jerk! :o :D

For those of you who don't know what the jerk is -

After the ice show, we fixed up for dinner...

This was the night of El Gaucho. He was much more popular among the Hispanic crowd. I had seen El Gaucho before, as well as Los Gauchos - but not this El Gaucho. It wasn't what I expect at all. I was expecting lot of the boot stomping and lasso-ing(?). This guy played drums, then piano, then guitar... then he did a little bit of lasso. He was alright, but not my favorite Gaucho. He also made fun of my dad's hair and called it "a runway for flies." :D

The pictures are not showing up for me...I guess other people are seeing them.....

I'm linking the photos from Facebook, so if you're on an Internet connection that blocks social networking sites, then that's probably why.

Then we went to see the ice show, again. (I forgot to mention that we saw this the night before.) This time, I took pictures.

This girl was insane with hula hoops!

The show had really good ice skating. However, I found myself naturally critiquing the theme, "Cool Art, Hot Ice." It just didn't make sense. I understood that it was abstract - that was obvious in the name. However, there wasn't really a formula to it. One scene was very abstract with instruments, then midgets, then next we have go-go girls and the Beatles - all over the place! For the go-go scene, they showed video of ice skating - that wasn't the current ice skaters or even the correct setting, just the same routine. Then it ended with this odd dedication to fashion that involved dragging manicans around on the ice. This was also the only scene with any form of narration. The transitions between pieces were very choppy and broken.

I thought the narration was nice and that they could have incorporated it throughout the show so that people could follow along (however, the problem with narration is that it limits understanding for International audiences that do not speak English). I also felt like it might have been better if they defined their forms of art. My peers in architecture school made an analytical video of the city of Philadelphia called "Art is," which described art using adjectives, action words, ending with "Art is... architecture." A similar concept could easily be applied to this show to unify the different aspects of art covered under the theme "Art is... on ice" or something of that nature.

Okay, enough analyzation of the ice show. :D It was entertaining.

Somehow Johnny Rockets came up, and Derrick and Jennifer insisted that we join them. So after boarding the ship, we all squished in a booth and enjoyed hotdogs and hamburgers while cashing in on our 2 for 1 milkshakes.

And did a little dancing...

Then we spotted a rainbow as the ship left Dominica - now the rain goes away!

While we were sitting in the bar (we spent a long time there), a young couple sitting at the table next to us started talking. They were from Texas and had been married 2.5 years - because of our obnoxious Clemson door, they knew that we were staying in their honeymoon suite! :D

Had to try the rum punch -

Pssst... Derrick and Jennifer (Texas couple) may have lent us a few to complete the pyramid...

Thanks, guys! :)

We had been to Dominica before and went river tubing with Wacky Rollers - a great tour! I forgot to mention earlier that my Dad went to the excursion desk that morning to try and book an excursion, but all of the river tubing tours and many of the other excursions were cancelled because the river was flooded with all of the rain. Our tablemates had booked the river tubing tour, but weren't able to go since it was cancelled. I don't think it would have been very pleasant in the rain, anyway.

Soooo... we got off the ship in the pouring rain and walked in the first bar we found in search of the local brew - Kabuli! :D

*Please note, the legal drinking age in Dominica is 18.

The next day, we woke up to the rain. We took our time getting off the ship because of the terrible weather.

Now, the entire time, my family had been making fun of me for bringing a rain jacket... that rain jacket was about to come in handy!!!

Now, the days are starting to run together! :D

We didn't take any pictures tonight because we looked at the pictures we had taken the two previous nights and were disgusted.

I described our terrible formal photos, but we also took pictures in our formal Clemson colors on the white background. I really wanted to take a picture of these pictures, they were so awful - they were comical!

In two photos the lady included the white background... as well as a good two inches on each side of what was outside of the background. Still, she managed to cut off the top of my father's head. In the two photos that she didn't include what was outside of the white background, she completely cut off my father's head! If this is ever happening to you... TURN THE CAMERA AND TAKE A VERTICAL PICTURE!!!!!!! You would think a "professional" photographer would understand that.

It was Lilly Pulitzer night, though.

Rachel and I were in these dresses. Mom was in a pink dress, and Dad wore a white polo with khaki pants.

They told us to come in to switch drivers, but when we started coming in, they started waving us back out, telling us we had to keep the waverunner. I think that they were nervous we'd demand our money back. So we just went really far out and switched out there like they had originally told us not to. It didn't last very long though because my legs aren't as long as Rachel's, so I was sliding around, depending on her for stability (before I had been stabilizing myself with the steering wheel, and Rachel had been balancing us with her legs).

The waves were really big, so we got a lot of air! :)

Our cab driver didn't want us to pay when he dropped us off - he wanted to take us back to the ship so we could pay him then. On the ride over, he was very friendly. However, on the ride back, he was rather grumpy. He told Rachel and me if we were wet, we needed to sit on towels (we were wrapped in towels), and that we needed to dust our feet off (after we were already in the van). It was a long, awkward ride back.