Day 7-9: At Sea & Heading Home

I promise this will be the last post about our vacation!  Our last couple days on the cruise were spent at sea as we sailed from St. Maarten back to Fort Lauderdale.  We still had plenty to do on the ship and knew these last couple days would fly by.

 

Day 7 at Sea (Friday, May 17)

• Ran 3 mi
• Breakfast at Boardwalk Donuts
• Backstage Tour of Aqua Theater
• Todd did Flow Rider
• Lunch at Solarium Bistro
• Laid out
• Coach sale
• Ice cream at The Ice Cream Parlor
• Formal night in dining room
• Drinks at Schooner Bar
• Blue Planet show
 

The nice part about ending the cruise at sea is that we were able to sleep in and just be lazy if we wanted.  Of course, I have a hard time being totally lazy and still had a few things I wanted to do on the ship. 

 

Our second to last day started with a run on the treadmill and a healthy breakfast of donuts.  After, they had a special backstage tour of the Aqua Theater that I wanted to go to.  I was really fascinated by this theater the entire week and wanted to see more of how it worked. 

 

 Boardwalk Donuts

Todd enjoying a donut...or two

Or course, I had to get a fortune from Zoltar too!

Standing on the stage of the Aqua Theater looking out towards the seating and Boardwalk

After the tour and before it got too crowded, Todd wanted to try out the Flow Rider, which is a surfing simulator.  He said it was a lot harder than it looks and had a rough time trying to actually stay on the surf board.  On his 4th try, he finally had it down a little bit better.

His first attempt

On his 4th attempt...

and then he wiped out

We still had a few more restaurants to try out on the ship so we had a healthy lunch at the Solarium Bistro before sitting out in the sun for a couple more hours.  There was a Coach store on the ship and they were having a sale that afternoon that I wanted to stop at.  There was a huge line and we had to wait about 20 minutes before we actually could get into the store.  I didn't end up buying anything so we decided to spend some money at the Ice Cream Parlor instead.  I was impressed to find out that they actually make all the ice cream on board each day. 

 

Lunch at the Solarium Bistro which was close to the pool deck

Enjoying a salad for lunch

Great view of the pool

Crazy, long line at the Coach store

It was a mad house

The Ice Cream Parlor on the Boardwalk was right next to Boardwalk Donuts where we had eaten breakfast

Hey, the baby wanted ice cream so I had to get some

Friday night was the second (and last) formal night for dinner.  We got dressed up again and had some professional pictures taken.  They had lobster tail & jumbo shrimp for one of the meal options that evening and Todd was pretty pumped for it.  He ended up ordering a few plates. 

Formal night

After a quick outfit change, we went to the Schooner Bar and then to our last show of the cruise, Blue Planet.  It was in the same theater we had seen Chicago earlier in the week but involved singing, dancing, and more acrobatic work...similar to Cirque de Soleil but not quite as impressive.

Foster's Oil Can at the Schooner Bar

Waiting for Blue Planet to start

Todd & I

Day 8 at Sea (Saturday, May 18)

• Ran 3 mi
• Breakfast at Vitality Cafe and Wipeout Cafe
• Laid out
• Lunch at Boardwalk Dog House
• Watched part of The Wizard of Oz in Aqua Theater
• Last dinner in dining room
• Walked around ship one last time and rode carousel
• Packed up

Our last day of the cruise was a little bittersweet because we just didn't want our vacation to end.  By this point though, we were actually getting a little bit tired of being out in the sun (I swear, I could usually lay out for 6 hours every day but something must change when you're pregnant because I could hardly last an hour some days) and tried to find other things to do.

One last workout in the fitness center

Right inside the spa/fitness center was the Vitality Cafe with healthy breakfast options and smoothies...Todd really liked their homemade granola bars

Last day at the pool

After lunch at the Boardwalk Dog House, we saw they were going to play The Wizard of Oz on the big screen at the Aqua Theater so we watched for a little bit before getting ready for one more dinner in the dining room.

The Wizard of Oz

Todd & I

Last dinner

We spent the rest of the evening walking around the ship one more time and made a stop at the casino

Todd modeling with the car in the Royal Promenade

We finally decided to ride the carousel that night too

Day 9 Coming Home (Sunday, May 19)

• Got off ship at 7:30 AM and was sitting at the airport before 8:00 AM
• First flight to Atlanta
• Layover in Atlanta
• Second flight to Columbus

Our last day of vacation pretty much involved lots of sitting around at the airport all day.  We were in the first group to get off the ship at 7:30 AM on Sunday morning because our flight was at 11:30 AM.  We had no idea how long it would take to get off the ship, go through customs, get a taxi, and get to the airport.  Well, apparently it only took 15 minutes and was seriously so much faster than what we had anticipated.  We got to the airport so early we couldn't even check into our flight yet.  We sat around for 3 hours before we boarded the plane and as soon as we pulled away from the gate, we were told there were severe thunderstorms in Atlanta (where we were headed) so we had to sit on the plane for an hour before we could actually leave.  It was brutal.  We finally arrived in Atlanta in the early afternoon and had a few hours before our flight home to Columbus.  Of course, our flight was delayed a couple hours and we didn't end up getting home until after 9:00 PM.  It was an extremely long day but if that was the worst part of our vacation then it was all worth it.

This was how Todd felt at about 4:00 PM on Sunday when we had already been sitting at an airport or on an airplane for 8 hours and still had 5 more hours to go