Day 7 - At Sea - Last Day on Ship

Today, the girls cabin slept very late. We didn't even move until 10. It was HEAVENLY! Mike came over about 10 and wanted to see if we were up. Katie started showering and MoMo and I relaxed until 11. We finally all got moving around 11:30. We decided to check out the scavenger hunt that was described as the Day Long Scavenger Hunt.

Michael, Katie, Morgan, Mike, and I went down to Legends Cafe to see what it was about. Chris, who got in rather late or early depending on how you look at it, was still snoozing. As we got there, Freddy, the mascot came by.

They gave us a paper that had all of these activities. You either had to bring something back or take a picture of it depending on the event. The group can split up but some of the things had to be together.

Task 1 - Enter the slot tournament and get a souvenir. Oh darn. We HAVE to go to the casino? Really? Oh well...all for the team. :) I haven't ever entered a slot tournament, so it was a new experience. Mike and I got our $20 tickets and signed up for a machine. Round 2 had machines 2 and 4 open. Mike took 2 and I took 4.

After we pushed the little button for our 200 credits, Mike and I were both in the 1500 range, and the highest in our group was 6600. The highest ended up being 12000. We didn't make the finals but we got a ticket to come back for the wild card at 2:40.

Next on the list was the chicken dance and chef's hat. We had to go to the Lido deck and get a chef's hat and then get a chef to do the chicken dance with us. We ate first, MAN that pizza is GOOD! I asked for a hat, and finally this nice man came out and said to follow him. We got the hat and then we did the chicken dance while Mike took pictures.

We decided to drop off the hat and the ticket from the slot tournament in the room so that we wouldn't lose them. When we went in, there was our new towel animal  hanging - a monkey! It scared us half to death as it was hanging by the door.

Next, we had to go to the art show. We had to get a number and any pieces of free art we got were worth 1 point. We looked at several paintings and pictures that were really nice. There was a beautiful American flag one that I loved. It was part of some contest so they couldn't tell me the price, but I am sure it was a lot. We saw a bunch of pictures we dubbed the "Grams and Papa Collection" as they looked just like the pictures Grams and Papa send. We had to get a picture of a team member with the number. Since Mike did the slot picture and I did the chicken dance picture and Katie is in Circle C, MoMo is it. :) Plus, she was loving this Dumbo picture that was $550 "drastically reduced."




 
 
Next up is ice carving. We had to get a group shot with the ice carving. The artist was amazing. He did the whole thing in 11 minutes. We guessed along the way of what it was. A fish I thought. Morgan thougth it was a cruise ship. Mike and Katie were too far from us to give us what they thought (it was very crowded and we had to squeeze in to see).

Beginning

Love this shot - Ice Flying (Morgan took this!)

Finished



Group Shot with Ice

Next on the list was the Groove for St. Jude. This is a charity dance event to benefit St. Jude's children's hospital. Since I have a newfound special love for children's hospitals, I supported the cause and bought tshirts and a bear. It said on the form that a $10 got you 25 points. Awesome!

Wow, they weren't kidding with day long scavenger hunt. Whew...Next up was trivia. It was celebrity trivia. You get a point for each celebrity on board (cruise directors, entertainers, etc) or double credit if it is on your groove for st. jude shirt! So, we were running around trying to get people to sign the shirt. It was harder to find those entertainers than you might think!

We arrived late to celebrity trivia by 1 minute, and they were already on #10. Oops. Mike was a rockstar at it though and probably would have been in top 3 if we had been there for the whole thing. Some were obvious but others were pretty hard. We got two more signatures there. :)

Mike and Morgan said I was a little obsessed by the signatures. Ok, I might have been, but we ended up with 10. 20 points!

Next up was high tea. We had to get a picture of our team members drinking tea like the queen. Morgan and Katie weren't too thrilled by the tea. I am not a big tea drinker either, but it was pretty good. I tried Mike's orange and spice one and thought I might puke.  The treats were slow to come but they were pretty tasty when they arrived. We got a point for every uneaten treat that we brought. We brought 5 and snuck them out in a napkin.I felt like Grams. :) Although, Mike did the dirty deed and smuggled them out. :) We also laughed hysterically as this guy came up and grabbed a tea thing and snatched it. They guy said, "Can I help you?" He said, "We have only been waiting 15 minutes. No problem, we will make our own." We totally thought about Uncle Mark and giggled. He is known for making his own drinks at restaurants if they are too slow.

Mike driking his tea

Katie holding her tea (she didn't want to sip it)

Me drinking my tea with my Groove shirt on my shoulder)

Morgan making faces at the tea (definitely didn't want to drink it)

Team shot at tea

Tea was the last activity, so Mike and Morgan went back to the room to get our stuff. Katie went to Circle C with the promise of being back by 5 (the entire team had to be there). I went to find more signatures but didn't have any luck. At a few minutes before 5, we met up and Buttercup went to score the competition. We bought 3 shirts which counted as 75 points, so that really helped. The second place team had 16 uneaten treats and we only had 5. We had 10 signatures and they had 8. We were declared the winners with 153 points, and we all got a trophy - also known as a ship on sticks.

We relaxed for a whil, and then we packed. Man, we have a lot of stuff. We rushed off to the PG comedy show. We saw Al, and he was really funny. The audience was pretty weird and he ended up talking about orangeville, canada and pennsytucky (he asked where people were from and some guy said "Pennsyltucky - they are two different states!). It was pretty funny. The comedian just riped him a new one. We were laughing so hard.

Waiting for dinner

Michael with Raynaldo and Rubin

Next, we went to our last dinner in the dining room. I had steak, Morgan had steak, Michael had pasta, Katie had chicken, Chris had salmon, Mike had steak. It was good, but Carnival should really do a better job with the food timing. They bring the food out with the warming lid on it and sometimes it sits there for a LONG time. Our soup was cold and the dinner was mildly warm. However, it was still good and we had a good time. We said our farewells to the Raynaldo and Ruben. Sad...we will miss them.

Their farewell dance was very cute. I will try to upload the video later. Tried twice but it keeps bombing out.

After dinner, Mike and I went to two comedians. The kids went to say goodbye to their Circle C friends. Morgan was in bed by 11, and Katie was already in bed when we got back around 12. The two comedians were really good. The second one, Al, was the same one we saw earlier. He was so funny that Mike and I were crying. He asked this guy where he was from and the guys spelled Buffalo. He just railed on him after that and kept coming back to it. Also, this other guy said "Stupid" when a couple said they were newly married. Somehow, he turned him into a serial killer by the time it was over, and it was hysterical. Great job on the comedians. Fun time on the ship. Sad to get off but have had a great time.

Overall, I would rate Holland America as the better experience, but we had a good time on Carnival. I liked the comedy shows on Carnival as I didn't really care too much for the Holland America ones. HA had two pub crawls