on friday 5/23 we drove over to orlando to stay at my aunt and uncle's. my aunt requested a nola carepackage of crawfish and swiss bakery's buttercream almond cake (leftover and frozen from grandpa's birthday the week prior). so we had the yums of crawfish, my aunt boiled corn and potatoes, and she also made us oyster artichoke soup. mmmmmmmm. so good. the following saturday was pretty relaxed, we went to the florida mall to poke around and go to buca di beppo. >w< teh paul had never been before and we got ourselves the kitchen table. ughhh we had sooo much food, and i forgot to take pictures of it all because we were hungry..so all i've got was a picture of antipasto salad. lol. they also gave us some meatballs to try and we ordered some sort of stuffed pasta sampler, chicken and veal parmesian. needless to say, we needed to-go boxes, because it was a lot of food for 4 people.
i'll try to go chronological at this point, but there's a lot of amenities on the cruise ship to describe too......
sunday 5/25, we drove down to fort lauderdale, because that's where the ship sailed from. we spent the first hour or two on the ship's promenade area, which has a bunch of the shops, a bar, cupcake shop, pizza, cafe, and a starbucks. like whaaat?! yeah. this boat was insane...because they wouldn't let us into our rooms right away. it was packed down there. once everyone eventually settled in and stuff, it was nicer, more manageable, and less people with carry-on baggage all over. so we started exploring the ridiculous stuff that's on here. this ship is currently the largest passenger ship in the world, beating another royal carribean ship by 2 inches. it can carry 6k passengers and 3k crew. there are several "neighborhoods" on the ship: central park, boardwalk, spa, youth zone, promenade, pool & sports zone, and entertainment place (the casino). all of the areas are really appropriately themed, it's kinda ridiculous.
central park is an outdoor arboretum area, with live--yes living--plants and trees inside of it. crazy, right?! and it's got many of the additional cost restaurants in there, as well as a freaking coach store??? yeah. i know. the boardwalk is pretty freaking cool. they've got a hand-carved carousel, a johnny rocket's, candy and ice cream stores, rita's resturant (mexican?) and the aqua theater. yes. a freaking WATER theater on this boat. like for a water show and stuff. whaaaaaaaaat. the vitality spa wasn't somewhere we were interested in hanging out. they had their own cafe for some reason..which you had to pay extra to eat at... along with all the usual spa services, including teeth whitening and botox??? yeah, again, i know. wtf.
i have no idea what's up in the youth zone area..because it's for the kiddo's. the pool and sports zone was pretty cool. it's literally an entire deck, with hot tubs scattered about, a kiddie section, and regular pools. along with a basketball/soccer court, ping pong, MINI GOLF, a ZIP LINE, and the two "wave rider" pool things --which are like mock surfing dealies. seriously guys, they had EVERYTHING on this ship. the casino was pretty large. it was kinda irritating that it was smack dab in the middle of the ship, our rooms were to the back and the theaters were to the front. so we'd often forget that we'd have to cross through the casino to get to the theaters. we don't gamble, but there's some pretty high-tech stuff going on in there. there was an automated blackjack table with a simulated blackjack dealer (aka a woman wearing a corset who starts talking to you if you set off the motion sensor). but anyway...
there are several dining areas on the ship, a few are 24 hours, but most of them are open during breakfast, lunch, and dinner only. there is one main dining room in this ship that is complementary, the other 6 or so restaurants have additional fees. which kinda sucks, but the main dining room was excellent in itself. the first night, teh paul and i got a fruit medley & shrimp cocktail as starters, atlantic salmon and seafood spaghtetti for our entrees, and for dessert, we got carrot cake and blueberry-peach crumble. it was crazy good. (mojo night, casual)
afterward, we went to see chicago. like the broadway play..on a cruise ship. another whaaaat! but it was really cool, we had never seen chicago before (live or the movie) and those guys were very talented. it was really awesome.
day two on the ship was in nassau, capital of the bahamas. it started out sucky because i woke up with a migraine. but it got better after we had breakfast and i took something for it. we were so excited to be on the ship and all, that we didn't tune into the morning show about nassau. so we got off the ship at 7am, ya know, before all the stores opened. and so we were like awesome, nothing's open, and we're going to be continually accosted by taxi drivers and hair braiders. >.> so we decided to walk around a little bit, over to some lame nearby beach, and we went back to the ship before most people even got off. we were only stopped for like 5 hours anyway. so i slept most of the day afterward.
lunchtime is pretty hazy, i don't remember if we ate or what we ate. but we did go to two shows and dinner! we went to the ice games show. you read correctly: ICE games show. like an ICE SKATING RINK..show on a cruise ship. it was pretty cute, it was an interesting adaptation/mashup of monopoly, places on the ship, and arcade games. then we had dinner (saffron night, formal): lobster bisque & roman vignole salad, beef tenderloin & roast duck, and chocolate souffle & strawberry cheesecake. and afterward, we went to the comedy club with gary delena and kivi rogers. gary was ok, but kivi was freaking hilarious. it was really fun. gary: "did everyone enjoy our 20 minute stop in nassau?" kivi: 'i'm 1 of 6[?] and the only one that was given a different name. it's finnish for 'rock'. but when i introduce myself i can't say 'hey, my name's rock', no, it's [in a child's voice] 'hiiiii my name's kivi, wanna play with me?'" you'd have to have seen kivi's facial expressions for that one, but it was so funny.
day three on the ship was a sailing day. we slept in and skipped breakfast, and i think we went to lunch at the main dining room and sat with two other couples.. i didn't take pictures of lunch, so i don't remember what teh paul ordered, but i had tomato risotto with shrimp and scallops and a caramelized banana mille-feuille. afterward, i finished up my book (cinder by marissa meyer) and fell asleep. for dinner, we had a big table with most of the family. (pimiento night, casual) teh paul got chilled strawberry soup (it tasted like a smoothie, in a bowl), roast pork tenderloin wrapped in proscuito, and TWO desserts: the dessert sampler (elderberry mousse with strawberry jelly, cheesecake, no-flour chocolate cake) and tirimisu. i got the normal stuff: minestrone, grilled shrimp salad, and sticky bread & butter pudding. afterward, we went to the ocean aria show with the family..at the water theater i was talking about earlier. it was pretty amazing that they could have this show on a ship. it was pretty close to something you'd see at sea world--minus the marine animals--and in an 18ft deep pool. and high divers, like 40+ feet high. crazy stuff. but really awesome.
day four, was the stop in charlotte amalie, st. thomas (capital of the US virgin islands). but we got tickets to go on an excursion to the island of st. john, which has a national park, or is one..i don't remember. something like that. anyway, both 40-minute trips to and from st. john boat ride were extremely queasy, plus the fact that we stayed on the boat for an additional half hour, after dropping off the people who weren't taking the boat tour. ~.~ once we finally got to land again, we stopped in the national park visitor's center and got some maps. then we decided to go eat. hahaha. we stopped at a really neat shopping area called mongoose junction at the ocean grill. teh paul got a mahi sandwich and i got a mahi salad. shortly afterward, we went up one of the nearby hiking trails called lind point trail. we took it over to solomon beach and back. and went to mongoose junction again. haha, for some ice cream at st. john scoops. teh paul got some sort of rum ice cream, and i got a slush puppy. i think i've officially decided that anything other than snowballs and icee's are no good. i don't like the chunky ice. lol. then it was time to get back on the boat back to the port. we stopped into the del sol store to buy me a new dolphin keychain. lol! the one i got in cozumel 14 years ago kinda doesn't change colors anymore. ^^; and in the duty-free shop i got a pretty against teh paul's wishes. =P the loreal infallible shadow quads don't look like this here, ya know?! this one is called eau de rose, it seems that it's from [the] les ombres collection? idk. it was pretteh and calling my name all day (i first saw it in the morning). $12.50 wasn't terribly bad.
swatched dry
dinner was pretty yum. (shiitake night, casual) i got seafood ceviche, shared an order of shrimp gyoza---which we sadly had to eat with a fork---rack of lamb, and strawberry kiwi pavlova. teh paul got shrimp cocktail, fillet of sole (fish), and warm chocolate cake. afterward, we went to the headliner show with earl turner. he's a famous vegas singer/performer. he was hilarious. he's an older dude, but still can move, walked across the chairs' arm rests, went all in the crowd to get everyone involved and everything! he even had paul sing part of one of the songs and he liked it so much, he pulled him out of his seat and gave him the mic, while he sat down next to me. lol, it was so fun! my grandparents enjoyed the show so much, they went his other two performances.
day five, we stopped in philipsburg, st. maarten (dutch side). the island of st. maarten is divided into two territories, french and dutch. we went to the main dining room and got crabcakes benedict for breakfast, and met with everyone else outside on the dock for our adventure. we weren't totally sure what we wanted to do so we decided to do whatever my grandparents decided. so we hired one of the taxis to take us around the island. it was pretty cool, we made a few stops and got some pictures and we also stopped in areas where the rest of the family took off to! it was kinda funny. the most memorable stop we made was the lunch-ish stop. we were on the french side and went to a bakery. we got a roast beef sandwich, cheesecake, and a raspberry macaron. it was funny because paul still had €10 in his wallet from when we went to europe last summer. so we paid them in euros! haha. then i decided i wanted a second macaron but i only had the 30 euro cents they just gave us and $10. lol, so we didn't quite get the right amount of change back since they don't always deal in dollars. but it was teh yums anyway. when we got back near the dock, we went into the duty-free shop and teh paul got himself a st. maarten polo.
i got hungry early, so we went to dinner by ourselves again. (basil dinner, casual) this time, we got two appetizers each! fruit medley, chilled honeydew melon soup, cream of mushroom soup, and a crab cake. entrees of braised beef duo and cod loin, and for dessert: rum baba (rum cake) and cherries jubilee (kirschwasser cherries & ice cream).
day six, at sea. we didn't really do too much. my grandparents made us all shirts and we took a family shirts picture. then dad took us to the sushi restuarant for lunch. afterward, we watched the lego movie in 3D since i hadn't seen it, and they had it on the ship. it was formal night, with the jasmine dinner aka lobster night-menu...but my grandparents had a restaurant booked for dinner. we went to 150 central park. the dinner was crazy ridiculous. it was 6 courses! they had a little thingy of 6 different special salts to go with our bread and unsalted butter. then after the 5 courses, they brought out a different dessert for me, since i couldn't have the chocolate. a little while later, they're like, "oh it's your anniversary coming up too? here, have more dessert!" it was ridiculous. after dinner, we went to the blue planet show. which was a cirque de soleil-esque and singing mashup performance. overall it was a good show, the problems with it were that there were no transitions between scenes and some of the choreography didn't make any sense with what they were singing about. but whatev.
day seven, at sea. pretty much slept all day and read our books, watched some tv. that's pretty much it. dinner was pretty good. (pomodoro night, casual) teh paul got chilled pineapple lychee soup & eggplant and kalamata olive tartare, lamb shank, and pear chocolate crisp. i got lentil rosemary soup & scallops and chorizo; seafood, fish, and mash; and apple strudel for dessert. afterward, we poked around in the onboard shops and packed up our suitcases.
day eight-ish, back in fort lauderdale. LAAAAANNNDDD! drove back up to orlando to our resort. to be continued.... [link to part 2]
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