Thursday Feb 9th ~ Sea Day!!
Today, as a mutual gift for one another, we decided to do the "behind the fun" tour, in which you get to go behind the scenes on the ship. we were really looking forward to the this most of the week, and it was a great way to spend a few hours. The down side was that we couldn't take any pictures!! :-( and we actually got checked and scanned by security beforehand too, so there really was no smuggling then in either. No cell phones either.
We met with our tour guide, Debbie, in the Library and went from there. After meeting and getting our group of 16 together, we headed down to the galley to meet Chef Russell.
What a neat thing to see. It was breakfast time, so we got to see of the prep going on, and we learned lots of fun things. He really needs to know his stuff! He needs to know the demographic of all the passengers sailing for each week, so he can decide how much of what to make.
We found this in our room after the tour, signed by chef Russell himself!!
After the Galley, we also got to tour, the Laundry room, Garbage Room, Prep areas and storage on Deck 1. Back Stage of the theatre, and the Crew break room, and crew "lido" deck, as well as there dining area, where they eat. It was pretty neat to see and experience life behind the scenes. We also got to visit the training class rooms. they actually have "colleges" on board, there is hospitality school, bartending school and I can't remember the other one.
After all that fun stuff, we headed to the engine control room. This was amazing. We were able to see all the computers working hard. In case you didn't know the ships are run on 6 generators, the size of school buses. And we were sailing at 16 knots, which is about 18 miles per hour. not very fast, but when your outside watching that water go by, it sure feels faster!
After this were able to go up on the bridge!! This was SO neat!! We got our picture taken with the captain as well. I'll post that in a different post. We learned that in order to become a captain, you have to make that decision very early on in life. Most of them start nautical school by the age of 14! Can you imagine making a career decision at that age!! Most captains too, as we know are of Italian decent. Being on the bridge was such an experience. On each far side, where the bridge dodges out from the side of the ship, there are windows cut out in the floor, you look down directly into water. freaky!! These are used as guides when pulling into port. There is actually an X on the docks, and when that X is lined up in this window, your ship is parked where it needs to be! I am SO going to look for that X now at every port from now on. (this was our last sea day so we didn't get to look this time :( ) After this, we were all done :( The whole tour took over 3 hours but was amazing informative. You watch this stuff on TV all the time, but to experience it first hand was so awesome. I have a face sheet at home, I'll have to put some of the facts on here. We were also given, a copy of the picture with the captain (2 of them, one for each of us), the desert that was delivered to our room, we each got a baseball cap that said honorary crew member along the back, and we got lanyards to keep as well. Which is nice to keep your sign and sail card attached too.
So that was the end of that, moving on to the rest of our last day :(
The Piano bar. VERY small. I have to admit, I really really miss the piano (schooner) bar on Royal Caribbean. It was always our favorite hang out.
Freddy one last time for Colin
Relaxing up on deck with some drinks. It was really windy though, so instead we ended up going to the room, and fell asleep for about 3 hours!
My nice tan legs... that is gone now, 2 weeks later.
Empty deck below.
See down there??? that is Chef Russell!! He was getting ready to do the Chef's Table with those lucky passengers, I had to take a picture!
This last night, we decided to have a group dinner with our roll call friends. We made some real life long good friends this cruise, thanks to Cruise Critic and the roll call! We now have a "cruise" family. Nothing can be better then vacationing with friends, that your not committed to doing anything with!
So here's our group. Gloria, Me, Cyndy and Frank (it was their first cruise) Mike was taking this picture. We had a great dinner this night.
How cute are Frank & Cyndy??
They just happened to be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this night!! What great honor it was to be able to share the joy with them! It really was a pleasure to talk with them, hang around with them and get to know each of them. They are a wonderful couple.
Ah.. My Gloria! She was in serious need of a shot this evening....
Or maybe 2 shots????
Shots must have worked. We found her later on, back on stage where she is most comfortable!
Terrible picture, but oh well!
LOL - One guy who was walking past us saw this shirt on Mike, and said HEY, I have that same Family!
Spending some last quiet moments on serenity. It was only us, the millions of stars in the sky and the sound of the water below us. What can get any better then that?
Hot tubs
Doing some last minute shopping in the gift shop for the kiddos!
And our last night heart. We get one of these every sail.
Our long sad hallway
And back to Miami we arrive. Bright and early!
Blah!!
Up next? The ride home!
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