2016 Cruise: Day 7-8: Last Sea Day and Home

After going to bed so early, I was up at 6:30 am.  Now that we were headed back to Galveston, I could see sunrise from our balcony so I went out to watch it.

Our plans for today were to spend our last day going to the gym and lounging at the pool.  Ben and I had lunch reservations at the Mexican restaurant, Sabor at 1:00.  I wanted to see the ship's ice skating show at 4:00.  Then we would all catch the last sunset and have our last dinner in the dining room so we could say goodbye to our servers who had been so wonderful the whole week.

Ben and I went down to the gym and did some weights.  I had wanted to take a spin class but it got cancelled so I did the treadmill instead.  It's easy when you have a great view!

I went to the steam room for awhile and sat out on the Solarium until Ben met me.  It was really chilly on this last day so no pool time for us.  We walked around the Promenade for awhile and then went to get ready for our lunch.

I sat out on the balcony for awhile so sad our cruise was almost over!

Then it was over to Sabor.

We started off with margaritas (of course!) and tableside guacamole.

They bring you a dessert sampler at the end that we just had to make room for!

I was so stuffed I fell asleep as soon as we got to the room!  Ben woke me up so I could go see the ice show.  I enjoyed it but not as much as the other two shows I saw.

After the show, we went up to Olive or Twist for our last mai tai.  I was still so full I couldn't finish it!  But we enjoyed the view.

We met Nick and the boys went to have a beer while I went to the room to pack and enjoy the balcony one last time.

We met up for our last dinner and last sunset.  It was cloudy but we can't miss the last one.

The next morning we woke up to sunrise over Galveston and then it was off the ship for the long drive home. 

We had a great time on this cruise.  The three of us will be going to Maui in October.  Time to plan the next vacation!

2016 Cruise: Day 6: Cozumel

We woke up at 7:00 am because we heard the ship docking in Cozumel.

We went and had a quick breakfast in the dining room so we could be off the ship and on our way to the Nach Cocum Beach Club where we would spend the day at the beach.

I went to get towels to take with us and snapped a picture from Deck 12.

Once off the ship, we caught a cab to the resort where we got all settled in for the day in loungers under the shade of a palapa. 

Ahhh this is the life!

We finally tore ourselves away around 4:30 p.m. and headed back to the ship.

After such a long day, we just had a light dinner in the dining room and went to bed early.  We loved our day in Cozumel!

2016 Cruise: Day 5: Sea Day and Formal Night

On Day 5 we were supposed to spend the day in Grand Cayman at the Royal Palms resort.  Unfortunately, this was all we would see of Grand Cayman.

The ship cannot dock in  Grand Cayman.  Instead, you have to take a boat called a tender from the ship to the port.  The weather conditions have to be perfect and the cruise ships often miss this port.  There was an incoming front so the port closed to tenders and we were unable to see Grand Cayman.  I was so disappointed but now we have an excuse to come back!

So we went down to the Solarium around 9:30.  It was packed and I got lucky and got the last three chairs in the shade.

It was much cooler once the aforementioned front came in. Ben said the pool was heated on this day but I never went in and just stuck to the hot tubs.

We sat and talked about dinner as this was the second formal night. The boys went to the gym and when Ben came back, he said our choices were 5:30 and 8:30. I told him we needed to do 5:30 because I wanted to see the In the Air cirque de soleil show at 8:30.

So we settled in for another day of relaxing and tubbing. I wanted a lighter drink this time so I started with a Bahama Papa which was rum, banana liquor, orange and pineapple juice. It was yummy.

Later the front did indeed pass by us. It got windy and cold and everyone started shutting the windows in the Solarium.

Around 2:45, I decided the steam and sauna would feel good since it was so cool so I spent about 20 minutes in there and went up to the room to get ready for our second formal night.

Dinner was lobster and dessert was the grand mariner soufflé and baked Alaska.  Ben had three lobster tails--more on that later!

Ben and I don't usually do the pictures on cruise ships but this ship had a pretty staircase so I asked Ben if we could go and take the formal pictures after dinner.  Later when we went to look at them, we found out a single digital image was $25 which we thought was too expensive.  But Nick had snapped a few on his iPhone for us.

After dinner, we decided to go see Voytek at Boleros until it was time for the In the Air show.  I got a wine cocktail which was really good and I liked it as you can see.

Cheers!

We went to the theater for the 8:30 show.  But the boat was really rocking and after eating so much at dinner, Ben started to feel bad so I watched the show by myself and really enjoyed it.  I got up to the room around 10:00 and Ben was feeling better but we called it a night.  Tomorrow we would be in Cozumel!