LEGEND 9/2 review....Part 3

For those of you just joining, parts 1 and 2 can be found here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=624665

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=624701

Tuesday was a Day at Sea, and my father’s birthday. I had snuck up to his cabin to decorate his door. Fortunately there were not any thugs that lived on his deck!

Breakfast was promptly at 9am, and this time we were actually able to secure a table for 8. Phew! We showered my father with gifts, dropped the kids off at Camp Carnival, and began the hard job of relaxing. DH and my father commandeered a table near in the shade near the forward pool. We actually claimed this table as ours for the entire trip. Chair hogs, you have nothing on us! We really liked this table because it wasn’t underneath a speaker with blaringly loud music, it was out of the general foot-traffic path, and it was located near one of the covered “open” windows on the deck. My mom actually stared someone down later in the week when they were sitting at "our" table. They eventually left, and she swooped in to claim the table.

MIL, my mom, and I checked out the shops and donated some $$$ to them. Daily habit, apparently. I bought a watch from the $10 Bijoux Turner section. It has become tradition for me to buy a funky $10 watch. They aren’t the best watches, but they do last about 2 years, and I always get lot of compliments on them when I wear them back home. I checked out the library and although there weren’t a lot of books, there were a ton of games to check out. So, I picked up MEMORY for the kids, dominoes, and also two books. Nice!

Lunch at the Unicorn Café, party of 8. It was good as always. I believe the best dessert of the entire week was at this lunch—banana cream pie. It was so good that I actually HAD to have another piece at 3pm, right before they closed down the lunch buffet. More Camp Carnival for the kids, hanging by the pool for the adults, etc….before we knew it, time had flown and we needed to get ready for dinner. So, we once again retired to the cabin.

Following the afternoon session of Camp Carnival, I picked up my (1) DS and (1) Scooby-Do? Yup, DD was once again outfitted with a crazy hat and had a painted face.

As a bonus, the kids had also colored their keepsake Camp Carnival t-shirts that afternoon. They both worked very hard on their t’s, and as a result, were masterpieces!

In post #1 I had described our broken hairdryer. It was at this time, while we were getting ready for dinner, that the maintenance man actually stopped by to replace it. So our crowded little standing-room-only interior cabin was made even more cluttered by the presence of a strange man sprawled on the floor with tools in hand uninstalling and then re-wiring a hairdryer. Awkward, to say the least. Flash forward to this scene following the repair….the kids are on their bunks, freshly showered and combed, watching TV. DH is in the process of dressing and I am standing with dress on, starting to dry my hair. I am slightly afraid to use the new hairdryer since the old one kept getting really hot and “exploding” itself off. So, I grit my teeth, pick up the hairdryer, and get to work. Not too bad…it works really well! Lalalala….drying hair with a working dryer is exciting!

Suddenly, there is a loud “POP”, and the lights go off. Our little interior cabin is immediately thrust into darkness, and I think, “Oh no, the hairdryer has blown the fuse in our entire cabin!” So I yell to the kids, “Stay where you are!” and I fumble my way to the door. As luck would have it, we had left the closet and bathroom doors open so there was quite the obstacle course to navigate. I throw open the main door to the cabin to find complete darkness in the hallway too. Ohmygod…..have I blown the fuse for the entire hallway?!?!?!

After a moment, I yell to my DH to get the kids out of their upper bunks. Others start to come out of their cabins too. Soon, I realize how silly I am. The power is off on the entire ship and I had nothing to do with it!

DH, who by-the-way, is pants-less (he was dressing, remember?) has gotten he kids out of their bunks and sent them into the hallway. He also managed to crawl around the floor and find the doorstop so we can prop our cabin door open.

Now what?

I have wet hair, am dressed, but can’t find my shoes. So, I put on the only thing I can find: bright pink flip-flops. DS and DD are also dressed in their formalwear but with mismatched shoes. DH is now groping his way around the cabin to try and find his pants, or shorts, or anything to put on his lower half!

NOTE—To add to the packing checklist for next time: a flashlight! Seriously! I will be sending Carnival a letter suggesting that they put an emergency light in all cabins, especially the interior ones since it was PITCH BLACK!!!

Our poorly-dressed, slightly disheveled family made their down to deck 3 so that we could stand in the common areas where we could still see daylight. Amazingly, when we got down to deck 3, the early-bird dinner crowd was patiently standing in their line outside Truffles, waiting for the doors to open. Um..hello….we’re having a blackout! There will not be any dinner anytime soon!

The classical trio was also still playing music in the lounge. It was all very Titanic-ish., what with the cool, dark interior of the ship, yet people going about their normal activities as if nothing was really wrong. We attempted to find our parents, and managed to locate my dad, who, being Boy Scout and was well-prepared, had a penlight on his keychain. And yes, he’s still carrying his keys around even though he’s on a cruiseship!

I left the kids with my parents, then armed with the penlight DH and I traveled back to the cabin to attempt to retrieve shoes that matched for everyone, put a headband on my wet hair, and put my makeup on. Check, check, check…! The only light I could find was one sole emergency light in the hallway a few doors down from our cabin. So, I grabbed my makeup bag, sat down (pink shoes and all) and made myself pretty. Well, at least I think I made myself pretty. Not really sure as it was dark out! Being a good photog and family scrapbooker, I made sure DH took a pic of the hallway makeup moment,

I rejoined my family up in the lobby near Truffles. By this time the in-laws had arrived as well. They were sharing their stories of being in the BLACKOUT while at the Captain’s Cocktail party. At first they thought it sure was rude they way they just turned the lights out in the theater as if to say the “party’s over, get out!” Then they realized it was a blackout.

Unbelievably, the doors to the dining room opened. Were we really going to have dinner? Were they going to cook it via campfire? What is going on? Not really sure, and not really having any other good choices of things to do to pass the time, we followed the crowd in and sat at our table. Nuteera explained that she would take everyone’s orders and could serve bread, drink, and some appetizers. Then, as soon as the power was restored they would serve everything else as fast as they could. She was also being quite the jokester and offered up a lighter so we could read the menu.

Amazingly the salads and chilled soups were brought to our table. Fittingly, though, the chilled soup was room temperature, and the salads were not refrigerator-fresh. Nuteera was beside herself trying to apologize for the poor quality of the food. Whatever…we waved her off with a smile. No worries! She also bent over backwards to try and find something for the kids to eat—fruit and PBJs. Nuteera was awesome!

The power came on about 45 minutes later to a ship-wide cheer of “Hurray!!!!”

Just prior to dessert, Nuteera sheepishly approached our table and sadly announced that there would be no ice cream available for dessert due to the power outage. The horror! What will we do? Demand a refund? Free cruise? Once again we waved her off with a smile and a “no worries.” After all, we were scheduled to have a b-day cake delivered to the table for my dad, so all was well. Amazingly though, Nuteera did manage to ring some ice cream with the cake. Three very melty scoops of butter pecan, vanilla, and chocolate. We laughed and shared them as a great accompaniment to the cake. We were puzzled though as to why the ice cream melted so quickly. Isn’t it common knowledge that if you lose power in your house that if you do NOT open your freezer all your food will remain frozen as well for awhile? What happened on the ship? Did the power outage automatically cause all the freezer doors to auto-open as a safety feature. We will never know…

One other casualty of the outage---the super-cool interactive check-your Sail/Sign bill feature on the TV no longer worked for the remainder of the cruise. Actually, nothing on that channel worked. All you saw was an “ERROR—must reboot computer” message.

The first big show of the week occurred this evening. “Jazz Hot” it was called, and as per most Carnival cruise shows, it involved lots of flashy costumes and sets, lots of singing and dancing, and the dreaded thongs. We all enjoyed it, despite the flashing butt cheeks.

Prior to the show we played BINGO. Actually, we donated $$$ to the BINGO fund as sadly we did not win.

NOTE—for the BINGO lovers. On the Legend BINGO was usually played in (1) game sessions. So, you only had one chance to win. The good thing about that though, was the jackpot was pre-set beforehand. Usually $250-500!! WOW! We have been on other ships where the prize isn’t announced until after the game is won. And boy, there is nothing more disheartening than hearing, “Our BINGO winner will be taking home $35…let’s give them all a big round of applause.” OK….

Following the show we picked our kids from the club.

Back in the room we discovered yet another towel animal. Our awesome room steward Louis left towel animals every night, and even surprised us with a few when he made up our room in the morning.

All-in-all, it was a fine Day at Sea.

Tune in tomorrow for Adventures in Grand Turk, home of a bazillion conch shells.

I love your reviews!

I have been watching for this all day! Thanks for the great work--I love it!

Usually I am not a big fan of looonnnnnng reviews, but yours was so cute and thought out and because you added pictures, yours was fabolous.

I look forward to reading the rest tomorrow:D

Your reviews are SO making me look forward to my cruise next Sunday!!!

Great review and your children are adorable!!!!!!!!!!!!!We will be on the Legend on Sunday:)

Great review, great attitude and gorgeous children... keep up the good work.

Kudos Celebrat ... another fine review ... cant wait to read the rest of them!

It's funny to read about your hair dryer and power outage story.... here I thought I had blown a fuse for some reason opening the mini bar for the first time...thought I was going to have to jump in a pool for my 'shower' that night...

Have I missed the next segment....

I'm really enjoying these reviews.

Have I missed the next segment....

 

I'm really enjoying these reviews.

I was wondering the same thing!! Celebrat ... where's the next part of the review?

Sorry y'all! Two really busy days at work leaving me no time to post any additional updates. Part 4 is 90% done. I hope to be able to post that--and possibly Part 5 tonite....but only if you guys are good all day!

CeleBrat

Thanks for the review. I will be sailing her soon.

Thanks for the review. I will be sailing her soon.

Ok, I am officially jealous. You are going to be sailing with my Michael. (piano bar)

He just emailed me that he would be joining the ship on the 16th. Tell him that "Aretha" said hello.

Looking forward to more.

I promise to be good.:D

Your reviews are awesome!! I can't wait for more!

Sorry y'all! Two really busy days at work leaving me no time to post any additional updates. Part 4 is 90% done. I hope to be able to post that--and possibly Part 5 tonite....but only if you guys are good all day!

 

CeleBrat

I'll be good. ;)

We sail in just under 10 days...can't hardly contain myself.