Three Spinning Teacups: Day 9--Last Sea Day

Thanks to zyrtec (for me) and benedryl (for Lily), everyone in our room woke feeling much better than the night before. We grabbed a quick breakfast at Cabanas and then headed up to Nemo’s Reef for some time in the splash area. For most of the morning, we just wandered around, making sure that Lily got a good morning nap. We grabbed a little bit of lunch and took Lily over to Small World nursery. Today we were going back to Palo, but this time for afternoon tea.

The tea, sandwiches, and pastries were wonderful, but mostly we just enjoyed sitting up there for the view. It was hard to believe that tomorrow was the last day of the cruise and that we’d have to return to real life. A very bittersweet moment to say the least. Add to that, the tea at Palo won’t be offered after this fall, so this was our only time that we’d be able to try it.

Tea lasted about an hour, which meant we had a little time before we needed to pick Lily up. We did our last-minute shopping and then picked her up a few minutes early. I think she was a little tired, because she was happy to see us.

At some point during the day we took Lily to the open house at the Oceaneer's Club (the kid activity place for the potty trained kids). We showed her around and she was astonished at how much fun stuff there was to do. We explained to her that she had to be potty trained before she could stay there to play, and even showed her where the potty was to prove that potty training was a must. From that point on, she was determined she was going to be potty trained, telling everyone who would listen that she was "potty training." She even tried to use the potty the next morning, and was mad when her body wouldn't do what she wanted. Great incentive program, and once back on land it has helped encourage the process.

Dinner that night was back at Animator’s Palate, and this was the dining experience I was excited about. At the beginning of the meal, you’re given a placemat for you to draw in a stick figure template. The placemats are collected, scanned, and animated for a grand finale show that you have to see to believe. The menu was also really good, including the very odd “popcorn soup”. Sadly, the servers seemed to be a bit off their game, with orders getting mixed up, trays crashing to the ground in the kitchen, and so on. I can imagine by this point in the rotation they’re getting pretty exhausted, and out of all the restaurants, this is probably the most challenging.

Oh, I should mention our servers, as I haven’t done that yet. Our main server was Stanislav from Bulgaria. He was an absolute delight and kept saying “if anything isn’t to your liking, let me know and I can help.” That man knows the meaning of the word hustle, too! Our assistant (drink) server was Franzisca from Germany. It was really clear that she was new to all this and that they’re new working together, as they never really quite had the groove down that I’ve seen in serving partners that have worked together for a longer time. She was pleasant, but a little shy at times, and didn’t seem quite sure about how to handle some of the quirky needs of kids, but she did an exceptional job nonetheless. The other two people we had contact with on a regular basis were the head server, Nenad (who did great with the kids but seemed a little nervous around the adults sometimes) and our stateroom attendant Leroy. Although we didn’t see Leroy much, his presence was always noted as our room was kept amazingly immaculate and always well prepared. If I could have hired him to swing by the house every once in a while, I’d do it in a heartbeat! He did such a great job with everything. Of course he made the towel animals—my favorite was the monkey hanging from the curtain rod and the dog that was being ridden by one of Lily’s toys and wearing her sunglasses. We kept both of those around for the duration of the cruise after he made them. The dog came early in the stay, and ended up moving around the room. One night he was on the bed. Another day he was in the porthole window. That dog really explored our whole room.

Anyhow, back to the day. After dinner, we headed back to the room. This was the only night that Lily was really fussy at dinner. I think the whole week had finally caught up with her. The good news is that they showed snippets of cartoons on the screens during the meal, which kept her somewhat entertained, and this was the shortest of our meal sittings (just over an hour), so we were able to duck out early.

We again decided in lieu of going to the show in the theater in person, we’d just watch it on in-room TV. This one was called Believe, and was MUCH better than Wishes earlier in the week. Because it’s the story of a man dealing with his daughter growing up and trying to find magic in his life (but then realizing that his daughter is the best magic there can be), there were some non-sinus-related sniffles in the room. The Genie is wonderful in that, too. (One thing to mention, though…the “I’ve Got No Strings” number from Wishes is incredible, but like I said, overall Believe is much better than Wishes.)

One other thing…remember how I mentioned the rough seas the night before and the elevator swaying? Yeah, apparently somewhere along the line it did knock something loose, as the elevator was out of service for the rest of the trip. (No harm done, but it probably involved a part that they didn’t have on board the ship. I’m wondering if it was a stabilizer thing that was gone which is why it had sway to it when I was using it. Not unsafe, but not comfortable!)

Busy day planned for tomorrow morning. We decided to do a 5K. Yeah. Not sure what we were thinking with that, but that meant getting a good rest.