JamieLogical's Live from the Enchanted Princess 8/10

[BratDet]

On 8/13/2024 at 3:29 PM, JamieLogical said:

 

I brought three pairs of shoes. The boat shoes in my photos went into my bundle in my carry-on sized bag. My Merrells were on my feet as I traveled. Those are the hiking/walking shoes I wear in port and on excursions. Then I had a pair of sandals packed in my backpack. Those do double-duty as my swim/deck shoes and my "formal" shoes.

 

Here are my sandals:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B074JKNYDD?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

 

I have 7 pairs (including my sneakers I wore on plane & use in gym).  Water shoes should have been used yesterday but I wasn’t expecting to get near beach and another pair of black flats are for upcoming dresses. I felt like having many choices and am happy w my decision. If it was a European cruise, I woulda cut back for sure. Bernadette

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was our port stop in Aruba. We once again awoke to our room service delivery at 6:30. I was able to type up my full blog before I had to start working since I didn’t do much on Tuesday. Work was easier than Tuesday as well, so I made it down to Good Spirits to join my husband around 10:00.

 

Since we were planning to go ashore in search of lunch, we did not play Splendor Duel and instead played the last two hands of Rummy we needed for my husband to win the game we had started earlier in the cruise. Neither of us drank and campagne and chambords, though I did have a mimosa up in the room while I was working. Once we were done with Rummy, we headed back to the room to lather on our sunscreen.

 

My husband had researched potential lunch options. I reviewed what he came up with and we had narrowed it down to two. We headed off the ship into the heat. It was 90 when we went outside, but it was partly cloudy, so it was quite oppressive yet. We walked to the “white mall” as we call it to differentiate it from the “pink mall” I think it’s actually called the Renaissance Mall or something like that. It’s the one with all the very expensive designer stores in it. We always stop there when in Aruba because there is a store that sells Tommy Bahama brand clothing, which my husband’s entire wardrobe is made up of.

 

We didn’t see anything in there he *had* to have, though they did have his favorite pair of jeans there one size down from the pair he owns and he was tempted by those. He has been working on losing weight and all of his current jeans are loose on him, though he rightfully pointed out that we should probably wait and see what the situation is at the end of this cruise!

 

As we were leaving the mall, we decided to see which of our two lunch options we were closer to, but neither of us could get internet on our phones. We rebooted them and headed outside to try to get a better signal and that worked. We were closer to a place called the West Deck, so that is where we headed. Along the way, we passed through a nice park and then spotted a little green heron.

 

The West Deck is open-air and right on the beach. We were seated right away and quickly ordered some refreshing drinks. I got a mojito and my husband got something called a Jamaican Cooler. For our food, we ultimately settled on just splitting a bunch of appetizers. We wanted to try new things, so we got all items we had never had before: Fried Funchi with Dutch Cheese, Sate Bali, Island Fish Cakes, and Aruban Potato Salad. We had to look up what Funchi was. It is kind of polenta-like? It’s made of corn meal and they make kind of a pudding? Since this was fried, it was cut into slices and fried with some “dutch cheese” melted on top. It doesn’t look like much in the pictures I took, but it was pretty good. The Sate Bali was skewers of chicken in a SUPER yummy peanut sauce that I had to resist licking off the plate. The fish cakes are pretty self-explanatory, but the were delicious. I don’t even like fish, so I was hesitant to order them, but they weren’t too “fishy.” They were served with a mustard, but I also tried putting of the “Aruban hot sauces” our waitress gave us on them. The hot sauces were in two little jars. One was some kind of pickled onions and jalapenos? I didn’t try that one. The one I tried was papaya hot sauce and if you thought that wouldn’t be spicy, you were wrong! I put I microscopic amount on my fish cake and it was still almost too much for my caucasian spice tolerance. It was very very good, though.

 

Last, but certainly not least, was the Aruban potato salad which was so refreshing! It was served cold and had beets, red onion, red & green peppers, and vegan mayonnaise as its base. It was just so crisp and cool and was probably my favorite of the things we ordered. Even my husband loved it and he hates raw red onion.

 

Being very satisfied with all of our life choices, we headed back towards the ship and intended to check out a market we had passed along the way. By this time, the sun was out and it had definitely become oppressive. I was physically melting, so we didn’t linger long in the market and we made our way back to the ship. I was in that weird place where you want to walk fast to get back to the ship faster, but also walking fast just makes you hotter? Definitely melting. We did pop into one store along the way just to soak up some air conditioning for a moment.

 

Back at the ship, the line to board snaked through the terminal. At least the terminal was airconditioned, so it wasn’t like our long wait to board back in May at Costa Maya. Still, it seemed to move very slowly and all I could think about was a cold shower.

 

We finally made it back onboard where we squeezed into an elevator with 20 of our closest friends and then up to the room where we were able to peel off our drenched clothing and take refreshing showers and feel human again.

 

Once we were dressed, we headed down to the International Cafe and got our afternoon coffee and I went over the the gelateria and got some chocolate gelato in a dish with chocolate syrup. I was pleased to learn that, unlike in May, if you have Plus or Premier, you can get whatever gelato you want now. You do not have to stick to the ridiculous sundaes they advertise. I thought it was pretty dumb in May that I had to pay $1.50 for a little dish of gelato, but I could have unlimited giant monstrosities.

 

Once we had our coffee and gelato, we settled in to play another game of Splendor Duel and I lost again! I am on a real losing streak on this cruise. We went to the casino for a bit, where I fortunately ended my losing streak. Eventually, we ended up in Crooners where I tried a couple of new drinks: the Bailey’s Raspberry Martini and Sailing Through the Orchards. Both of them were fantastic.

 

We had reviewed the MDR menu for dinner. It was “Italian Night,” but I was disappointed to see no pasta dishes with shellfish on offer and my husband was uninspired by the menu as well. So, we decided we would do Ocean Terrace for dinner again so I could acquire some delicious octopus nigiri, but at the last moment, we took an impromptu trip up to the buffet just to check out what dinners are like up there. As we were taking a lap, scoping out everything before they opened, we ran into the person I can only assume is the buffet manager? He was double-checking everything, giving orders, and he gave us the hard sell on how great the buffet was this evening. We had spied several tasty-looking things so we decided to give it a shot. The stations were all themed by country, though there were onion rings on the Brazil station? I ended up with a weird mix of stuff. Elbow macaroni in alfredo sauce with some bolognese on top, a “pizza roll”, onion rings, and a crab cake. I honestly didn’t eat very much of it, because I had such a filling lunch and that gelato in the afternoon. Oh, but I did grab a slice of the lemon meringue cheesecake and ate about three bites of it. I was excited to see it on offer in the buffet because it was the only thing on the MDR menu that I had been even vaguely excited about.

 

After dinner, it was time for the hot tub! We had been trying to plot out when would be the best time for the hot tub. We didn’t want to do it when the sun was high in the sky because none of the hot tubs on this entire ship are in the shade (what is up with that?) and we wanted to go at an unpopular time so they wouldn’t be crowded. Dinner time on a port day (all aboard wasn’t until 8:30) seemed like a perfect time. So we headed back to our room to change into our swimwear, stopped by The Mix for some bottles of water and a rum & coke for my husband (I was still plenty tipsy from the Crooners drinks), and then scoped out our hot tub options. There was an empty one right there next to The Mix, but it was still very much in the direct sunlight, so we headed to The Retreat. There was an empty hot tub right there in the shade, but none of the towel stations around had any towels. We asked one of the crew who was there packing up all the deck chairs (why do they do this so early?) about towels and he sent another crew member to fetch some for us. We took it on faith that we would eventually receive said towels and hopped into the hot tub.

 

We stayed in there for a good long while and we did eventually receive our towels. We only decided to eventually get out when we thought maybe we could make it back to the room in time to catch a little bit of the sunset. We couldn’t actually see it from where we were in the hot tub.

 

When we got out, we discovered our towels were teeny tiny. They were dark grey and smaller than a normal bath towel. I have no idea where they even came from. They didn’t go very far in drying us off, but we headed back to the room anyway where we had missed the sunset itself, but still had beautiful views of the colorful sky.

 

Once we had our fill of the views, we changed and went back down to see what was happening on the ship. We first ended up in the Crown Grill bar where I *finally* got my first Floradora of the cruise. But the steel pan player was in there and my husband doesn’t have a lot of love for steel pan music. So, we headed over to Bellini’s where was were able to observe all the people dancing in the piazza. There are some very good dancers onboard!

 

It got to be time for sailaway and my husband has a soft spot in his heart for sailaway from Aruba at night, so we headed out onto what counts as the “promenade” on this ship on Deck 7. There were a lot of other people out there as well and we stayed out there until there wasn’t much left to see.

 

At that point, my husband called it a night and I ended up back in Crooners, hanging out with Bon. He made me another concoction with the Bombay Raspberry & Blackberry. Then I had a French Martini with lemon juice instead of pineapple juice. I had a nice chat with several people at the bar. Ian Frost, who hasn’t been my favorite performer this cruise, actually played a full set that he completely rocked. I think maybe he just hasn’t been playing the music he is best suited to up until now? Anyway, once his set was over, I headed up to Slice for my pizza and off to bed.

 

You may notice in my photos for the day that I took a LOT of photos of the Freewinds. I was surprised to find that the last time we were in Aruba, the Freewinds was gone. I didn’t realize it was seaworthy! But it was back this time and I continued my observation of the Scientologists onboard. I have a very weird fascination with Scientology and Scientologists. I think maybe I have just watched way too many documentaries at this point. But I am especially fascinated with the Sea Org and their billion-year contracts. So strange!

 

Day's Drinks:

 

Mimosa from OceanNow

Mojito from West Deck

Coffee w/ Bailey's 

Vodka & Ginger Ale from Good Spirits 

Bailey's Raspberry Martini from Crooners

Sailing Through Orchards from Crooners

Floridora from Crown Grill Bar

French 77 from Bellini's 

Bon’s Concoction with Bombay Blackberry & Raspberry #2 from Crooners 

French Martini from Crooners 

Alabama Slammer from Crooners

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 15 by JamieLogical

[edspec]

How much to pack is so dependent on variables.  Cunard or Carnival?  Alaska or Caribbean?  Body type meaning am I 17 and can get away with tiny shorts and bikinis or am I 62 and need to cover a lot of body parts?  How long is the cruise?  We always used to do a carry-on for 7 day cruises and that worked well.  I had to do laundry or send it out since none of us will wear anything more than once but no biggie.  We've lately gone to checked bags since I'm too lazy to figure out the perfect permutations to make carry-ons work and with carry-ons we were never able to buy souvenires.  Granted, I don't buy a lot of souvenirs, it's usually a dishtowel but I want the option.  Traveling solo I strictly go with checked baggage because as I've gotten older it's harder for me to lift the carry-on into the overhead bin.  I could ask for help but tbh it's no one else's issue...if I can't handle it myself I don't bring it.

@Lady Arwen agree about Vionic shoes, love them. 

[Scottdalfonso]

Aruba seems great,but all I could think of while reading was the heat.  We were the same way in Bermuda a few weeks ago...it was soooo hot that I insisted on stopping at multiple shops in the port just to cool down. I hate that feeling of not being able to get cool.   So I noticed on another post who posted the patters, that the retreat bar closes at like 6...and you said they were packing the loungers up early,as well. Is it just not used much later in the day? The area itself doesn't close that early,right? We have one of those rooms right behind the glass windows and we're hoping that'd be like our little night spot. 

[CRLess]

My first cruise was on the M/S Boheme back in the late 70's.  She now sails as the Freewinds and is owned by the Church of Scientology.  Hard to believe how small a ship she is compared to today's ships.  Last time we were in Aruba, it was docked in the same spot as in your pictures.  

[RNRcruisers]

2 hours ago, edspec said:

Traveling solo I strictly go with checked baggage because as I've gotten older it's harder for me to lift the carry-on into the overhead bin.  I could ask for help but tbh it's no one else's issue...if I can't handle it myself I don't bring it.

 

So true! I am short and it is hard to get a bag into the overhead bins, and I worry that they won't be available anyway. Also, toiletries are hard for me in carryon. I don't think I am super high maintenance but I need certain products and they don't always come in travel sizes - especially wavy/curly hair products! IYKYK 😄

 

[JamieLogical]

3 hours ago, Scottdalfonso said:

Aruba seems great,but all I could think of while reading was the heat.  We were the same way in Bermuda a few weeks ago...it was soooo hot that I insisted on stopping at multiple shops in the port just to cool down. I hate that feeling of not being able to get cool.   So I noticed on another post who posted the patters, that the retreat bar closes at like 6...and you said they were packing the loungers up early,as well. Is it just not used much later in the day? The area itself doesn't close that early,right? We have one of those rooms right behind the glass windows and we're hoping that'd be like our little night spot. 

 

Yes the Retreat Bar has been closed each time we have been there, but I believe those were both after 6:00. They have stacked up the deck chairs as well. But the pool and hot tubs have had people in them after that.

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, CRLess said:

My first cruise was on the M/S Boheme back in the late 70's.  She now sails as the Freewinds and is owned by the Church of Scientology.  Hard to believe how small a ship she is compared to today's ships.  Last time we were in Aruba, it was docked in the same spot as in your pictures.  

 

That's amazing!

[JGmf]

3 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Yes the Retreat Bar has been closed each time we have been there, but I believe those were both after 6:00. They have stacked up the deck chairs as well. But the pool and hot tubs have had people in them after that.

 

They don't cover or shoo people out of the Retreat pool or hot tubs at any time that I've experienced.  I've been there WAY late, at midnight and after.

Edited August 15 by JGmf

[Scottdalfonso]

1 hour ago, JGmf said:

 

They don't cover or shoo people out of the Retreat pool or hot tubs at any time that I've experienced.  I've been there WAY late, at midnight and after.

That's good to know..that's exactly what we were looking to...a little night pool!

[kad56]

1 hour ago, JGmf said:

 

They don't cover or shoo people out of the Retreat pool or hot tubs at any time that I've experienced.  I've been there WAY late, at midnight and after.

I've had the same experience. They do clear the deck chairs, but when I've been out there while they were cleaning up and I had some stuff on a deck chair, they'd leave my stuff, and clear everything except for the chair I was using.

[cruisebeachgirl703]

On 8/14/2024 at 7:31 AM, JamieLogical said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your pictures/(portraits?) taken by the cruiseliine are really nice. You two are definitely photogenic. Selfies are good too. Always happy to follow along. Like your candor humor and honesty. Thanks. ENJOY!

[PaulS]

7 hours ago, Scottdalfonso said:

Aruba seems great,but all I could think of while reading was the heat.  We were the same way in Bermuda a few weeks ago...it was soooo hot that I insisted on stopping at multiple shops in the port just to cool down. I hate that feeling of not being able to get cool.   So I noticed on another post who posted the patters, that the retreat bar closes at like 6...and you said they were packing the loungers up early,as well. Is it just not used much later in the day? The area itself doesn't close that early,right? We have one of those rooms right behind the glass windows and we're hoping that'd be like our little night spot. 

We were on the Enchanted Princess last week and our room was on deck 17, so we walked past the windows of the Retreat every time we went to or from the room. The Retreat area was very crowded during the day and the loungers were all occupied by 8:30 AM on sea days. I did notice that when we went to dinner around 6:30 PM,that the loungers were put away but there were sometimes people in the pool. After dark, the area was very dark and some nights the lights in the pool were turned off when we returned to our room around 10:30 PM.

[Jazzbo]

 I have a very weird fascination with Scientology and Scientologists. I think maybe I have just watched way too many documentaries at this point. But I am especially fascinated with the Sea Org and their billion-year contracts. So strange!

 

@JamieLogical

Have you been to Clearwater, Florida? The Church of Scientology has bought most of the property in downtown Clearwater. You see lots of Sea Org members walking downtown.

[beshears]

Great pictures of the two of you. 🙂  I'm a "picture" person, as they are MY memories.

Lady Arwen, you and I are in agreement again. I have very expensive jewelry, but I bring my in expensive jewelry when cruising. I also like "lots" of changes, but thankful they are NOT winter clothes, as they would be very heavy in my luggage.

RNR Cruisers, you mentioned of having toiletries that you need, but don't have anything smaller to put them in. I go to $1.00 Tree and get their small plastic holders (3 to a pkg) and they work fine for me.

Yes, as was mentioned about the Clearwater, FL area (my friend lives there), and other surrounding FL areas, there are a LOT of Scientologist, etc. there. Several years ago another friend took me to the main headquarters (outside) of Scientologist as well.

[richstowe]

We are on this cruise with you. We'll enjoy reliving it back home reading your report. Thanks 

[Essiesmom]

I first saw Freewinds in Cartagena in 2009.  She move around between Cartagena, Aruba and Curaçao.  There has been some controversy about asbestos onboard…. EM

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was our port stop in Curacao, which is always one of our favorite ports. I had taken the full day off of work, but still needed to do a few checks of things, so I ended up working for about an hour. Then we headed down to Good Spirits where we played Skip-bo for a bit. My husband hates that game but indulges me at least once per cruise. Well, yesterday’s game definitely didn’t change his mind, so I don’t think we’ll be playing that anymore this trip!

 

After our game, we poked our phones and my husband played his Steam Deck for a bit until we finally decided it was time to come back to the room to put on our sunscreen and get ready to go ashore around 10:30.

 

Once we were ready, we headed down to Deck 4 and off the ship. It was very windy right there on the pier and the waves were crashing ashore with a lot of ferocity. The wind felt great in the heat. We walked through the Renaissance Mall then through the Fort mall then across the swing bridge. They were making repairs to the swing bridge, replacing a lot of the planks of wood. It was especially sway-y with the current coming in from the rough seas. I am glad that bridge is not higher… my husband would have been very scared with how much it was moving.

 

We had scoped out some potential attractions to check out and after walking around a bit, we stopped at the “postal museum”, which is housed in the oldest building in that section of the city. It is a small little spot and we know nothing about stamps, but it was still a great experience. We had a great chat with the gentleman who runs the museum (we were the only ones there) and we learned some cool stuff about the history of the island. I was especially fascinated about when they first started flying planes to/from the island from Amsterdam. It took 8 days! Might as well have just hopped on an ocean liner at that point!

 

It really was just a super pleasant little experience and it only cost us $5 total for admission, so well worth it. I really love talking with locals when we come to places like this. The gentleman who ran the museum was originally from the Netherlands and worked for a bank. He got a three-year assignment to work in Curacao and never looked back. He met his wife there and has lived there ever since, except for a brief stint when he worked in St. Thomas, USVI.

 

After our lovely time at the postage museum, we decided it was time for lunch. We had very much been looking forward to returning to Plein Cafe Wilhemina because we had such an amazing lunch there the last time we were in Curacao. Unfortunately, this time wasn’t as good. They got my order wrong, which was a disappointment, I had ordered the “Healthy” Sandwich, with no tomato and no arugula. It’s supposed to have cucumbers and their delicious Wilhelmina sauce on it. Well, they delivered it with arugula, no cucumbers, and no sauce. We had even ordered extra sauce to go with our french fries but didn’t receive that either. A server took my sandwich back and added some pickles to it… It was fine, just not what I remembered it to be from the last time. I did pay the $1.10 to upgrade the cheese from gouda to their Old Amsterdam cheese and that was well worth it as the cheese was by far the best part.

 

It took an exceptionally long time to get our check and my husband was getting very frustrated. I was content to sit in the shade and people watch, as I wasn’t particularly looking forward to walking around in the heat and sun, but he often gets antsy when he feels “trapped.”

 

Once we finally settled the bill, we walked around a bit. We stopped in a little gift shop and ended up purchasing a little ceramic cat that the owner, who is a local artist, made. She paints the back of the cats with scenes for Curacao. We got a black & white cat with a lot of teal on it, since our cats are both black & white and our living room is painted teal. Here’s her website, if you want to check it out. https://www.dhanarts.com/ If you do a google image search for “skadey cat,” you will see a lot of photos people have posted of their ceramic cats next to their real cats. She asked her to send us a picture of our cats meeting Skadey.

 

Unfortunately, after that, I just couldn’t handle the heat. I don’t know why I was doing so poorly with it, but I think I might have been on the verge of heat exhaustion because I was starting to feel woozy. We ended up heading back to the ship. We wanted to try to stop in a few shops to soak up some air conditioning, but most of them just had their doors propped open and weren’t running air conditioning.

 

As we approached the ship, we saw a lot of people lined up outside so we were worried I would have to wait in the hot sun for a long time, but I guess those people were meeting up for an excursion or something because they weren’t actually lined up to board, they were just waiting.

 

Once we finally made it back to the room, I just laid down for a bit. I was feeling so woozy, I was worried about trying to take a shower immediately. So I rested until I was confident I could handle the shower. Finally, we were both cleaned up and human again, so we headed down to International Cafe for our afternoon coffee and to play another game at Good Spirits. This time we played 7 Wonders Duel, which we hadn’t played yet this trip. It was fun and it really did come down to counting up our points at the end and not being able to easily identify which one of us had won (it was my husband).

 

After our game, we decided to head up to Bellini’s for some pre-dinner drinks. We had scoped out the MDR menu and it looked very appealing for once, so we planned to do an early dinner in the MDR (both of us were very hungry again at this point). We each had two rounds of drinks at Bellini’s. I tried the Fellini for the first time and it was excellent. Will definitely be getting that one again!

 

We headed over to Capri with the intention of going down to Santorini if the line was too long, but there was no line at all. We asked for a non-sharing table and were informed we got the last non-sharing table for two, though I don’t know how accurate that was. Shortly after we sat down, we saw a familiar face. It was Jaysen from our May trip. He was our favorite server at Gigi’s back then and we loved him so much. He recognized us right away and shook my husband’s hand and gave me a hug. I was so happy to see him. I knew he was supposed to still be on the ship for this trip, but I had no idea where they had moved him to when I hadn’t seen him at Gigi’s all week. Now that I know where he is, we will definitely stalk him! He told our waiter to take good care of us and he certainly did!

 

This was some lightning-fast MDR service and we were grateful for it. We decided to share three appetizers between us and got the corn cakes, the pot stickers, and the corn chowder. All were delicious, though my husband said the corn cakes were a little “fishy.” Presumably because of the salmon roe. For our mains, I got the scallops and chorizo and my husband got the short ribs. Again, all were excellent. It was a quick and delicious meal.

 

After dinner, I was feeling very wiped out so I headed back to the room to lie down for a bit. My husband came back to the room a bit later and we watched what we could of the sunset from our balcony. Once I had my second wind, we headed down to Crown Grill bar and listened to two sets from Ian Frost do two acoustic sets. It was so good. He is definitely my favorite performer on the ship now. He took a lot of our requests and said he would try to learn a couple more for next time.

 

After the second set ended, I headed to the casino for a bit but lost most of my budget pretty quickly. Then I headed up to try to get my late-night pizza from Slice. Apparently there was an ’80s party going on and it was PACKED. It seemed like the entire population of the ship was crammed on deck. I fought my way over to Slice and thankfully asked for two pieces of pizza, because when I went to sprinkle some red pepper flakes on the first slice, some jerk had unscrewed the lid so it just dumped the entire container of pepper flakes out. Not cool. Every single table and chair on the pool deck was occupied by ’80s party attendees, so I ended up taking my pizza back into the buffet with me. The buffet was closed at that point, but it was occupied by roving packs of unattended children. Is that a thing? Where were all these kids’ parents? Needless to say, I ate my pizza quickly and got out of there.

 

When I got back to the room, my husband had the original Batman movie on (with Adam West) and it was hilariously terrible. We didn’t finish the whole thing, but we will definitely watch the rest of it in the next day or two.

 

Day's Drinks:

Orange Crush from Plein Cafe Wilhelmina

Coffee w/ Bailey's from International Cafe

Kettle One and Ginger Ale from Good Spirits 

2x Fellini from Bellini's

Vodka Sour from Capri MDR

Bee’s Knees from Crown Grill Bar

Gin Daisy from Crown Grill Bar

Champagne Cosmo from Crown Grill Bar

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 16 by JamieLogical

[Honolulu Blue]

Nice work!  I'm glad you're having fun in your own way.  I am a little surprised you're not playing any trivia onboard.  On my Emerald cruise last week, they had lots of trivia almost all day and especially in the evenings.  

[Scottdalfonso]

42 minutes ago, Honolulu Blue said:

Nice work!  I'm glad you're having fun in your own way.  I am a little surprised you're not playing any trivia onboard.  On my Emerald cruise last week, they had lots of trivia almost all day and especially in the evenings.  

I was just thinking the same thing about the fun in their own way.  I love how they can just go with the flow, play board games, relax, take naps, split up and do their own thing sometimes.... I feel like a lot of people are always RUN RUN RUN and schedule EVERYTHING, and would find it "strange" to split up and do different things or meet each other later. I love it. This is how my wife and I are, well minus the games- but now I might at least bring some Uno or something simple to play during our downtime-  We like to just see what's up and decide that day if it's what we want to do. I always wander off on my own later at night and early morning because she likes to sleep in and go to bed a little earlier, I love my "me time" at the casino or just relaxing watching a show or music to wind down while she's already sleeping.   Honestly, it's really nice to actually relax on a cruise, and besides the morning work, you two seem to have it down! 

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, Scottdalfonso said:

I was just thinking the same thing about the fun in their own way.  I love how they can just go with the flow, play board games, relax, take naps, split up and do their own thing sometimes.... I feel like a lot of people are always RUN RUN RUN and schedule EVERYTHING, and would find it "strange" to split up and do different things or meet each other later. I love it. This is how my wife and I are, well minus the games- but now I might at least bring some Uno or something simple to play during our downtime-  We like to just see what's up and decide that day if it's what we want to do. I always wander off on my own later at night and early morning because she likes to sleep in and go to bed a little earlier, I love my "me time" at the casino or just relaxing watching a show or music to wind down while she's already sleeping.   Honestly, it's really nice to actually relax on a cruise, and besides the morning work, you two seem to have it down! 

 

I think that if this was our first or second or 10th cruise, we might feel more like we had to do and see everything, but we have been on enough cruises now and I have been on enough solo cruises, that we are just content to do what we want when we want and not feel the urgency of trying to squeeze everything in and spend every single moment together. Since we both still work, cruises are our time to get away and "do nothing," so we both like to take it easy and not over do it.

[555]

Didn't you bring a lock to place near the floating bridge?

[JamieLogical]

32 minutes ago, 555 said:

Didn't you bring a lock to place near the floating bridge?

 

No, that's not really our thing. We've never been the types to feel like we need to leave out mark(s) on the world. We are more just casual observers. But that did seem like a very popular activity!