Deleted Scenes

Today, was a special day. Why? Because today Yuanna decided that she would join me in the Blaze night club.

She said she’s never been clubbing with her “cousins” before and I think she wanted to the previous few nights, but was just too tired to do so. It wasn’t just Yuanna who went, of course her appendages went along with her as well, and so did the other “cousins” – Aileen, Karen, Ly, Alfred, and Quenton. So pretty much everyone else over the age of 18 aside from Eric was there. Since this was a 18+ venue, Derrek was not able to join, even if he wanted to.

I on the other hand pretty much went to Blaze every night, so needless to say, I had made some friends there, and of course some of my new friends were present in the club as well.

If you thought Quenton was funny during the day, wait till you see him at night and in the club, he is just as funny, but without words. Quenton doesn’t really dance, he’s one of the wall supporters, who stand by the wall and holds it up, but if you encourage him enough, he will step aside from the wall and ‘break it down’ for a few beats extract a couple of laughs out of you, then stop.

That night at the club there was this one nice looking Asian girl, and when I say nice, I don’t mean polite. I noticed that Quenton kept checking her out while she danced with two of her other female friends. No need to ask, I’m pretty sure he was interested in her and not her friends.

If it wasn’t for Alfred, I would have never been able to talk to the Doctor/Lawyer set, so I felt some ‘Pay It Forward’ attitude was required.

So, I’m standing by the bar with my new friend Allan, he turns to me and asks what I think about those two girls sitting behind us, I tell him that I think they’re okay, but what he actually meant was, “how old do you think they are?” I told him that you have to be at least 18 to get in here, but they’re probably around 20. Then he says ah screw it, let’s go talk to them, and before I was even able to react or object, he sits himself next to one of the two, which happened to be the taller but nicer looking one.

I was only able to do a quick hashtag followed by a WTF in my mind, before I quickly sat down next to the other one. I knew I had to go in with him, couldn’t let him go in alone like that. I had to distract the other one. So we sat down, did the usual small talk, what’s your name, where are you from? Oh, let me guess, you’re Asian, therefore you’re from Toronto right? (A vast majority of the ships Asian’s that week were from the Toronto area).

So anyways, we talk for a bit, then they say they have to go to the “washroom” , so we let them be. We hang around for a bit, exchanging the information that we got out of them. I can’t even remember their names to try and facebook stalk them, even if I wanted to. After that, we head on back to the dance floor.

Hey, I know you! You’re the cute Asian girl’s friend! So Allan and myself are dancing with the three of them, I look at Quenton and signal him on over, and he eventually comes over, followed by Alfred. So now it’s a 4:3 ratio.

The little Asian girl is wild! The way she dances is what defines her, I had no idea what her name was, so eventually I nicknamed her Firecracker. So, the Firecracker is to my right and Quenton is to my left, so now it’s my turn to fake the “washroom” move. I walk up to Quenton, pretend that I’m telling him I’m headed to the washroom, but in reality, I’m pushing him towards my spot.

I’m not too sure what happened between them two, but I recall Quenton telling me that he said she didn’t seem like she was that interested in him, due to the lack of conversation. Eventually 2AM hits and people start heading back to their rooms. Later on Allan tells me that he spoke to them and they’re gonna come out and party with us again on another night. #Nyce. Spoiler Alert: That never happens.

The next night was the Ice Games show, and sitting a couple of rows behind me was the two girls that I chatted with last night, but wait, where is the Firecracker? Since we were a few rows apart and she was with her family, it wasn’t appropriate for me to walk on over and say hi, but instead we exchanged smiles and waves. Dude I am so in there!

Sometime after the show, I’m followed by my shadow, Andrew, he is of course following me. So I take him to the game room to try and see if I can find anyone there to pawn him off to. I wasn’t able to find who I was looking for, but I was able to find someone else, Derrek, he was there with his friend Anna.

I asked them what they were doing there, making small talk, and Anna tells me that they were on the elevator when Derrek saw this girl, that he thought was cute and they just sort of followed her here….to the gameroom. I ask who it is, they point, I turn around and guess who I see? Firecracker!

So as I turn around, she looks up, so we exchange glances and I say Hi! She was there with her parents I think? There was only three of them and they were playing Mah Jong, so her mom asked if I knew how to play in Cantonese and I replied, sorry, I don’t know how to play. Then she just says, okay, then don’t bother us, with a hand flicking motion. I couldn’t help but laugh.

End Scene.

This next scene begins with me headed to my room to change, I turn a corner look up and guess who it is walking in front of me? It’s the Firecracker and her parents. I’m headed to my room, so technically I’m not following them! But I see them enter into a room that is across the hall from me and is like 2 doors down. #SmallWorld

I don’t think we ever saw her or her friends after that, so we weren’t able to exchange info, but here’s what we do know, she goes to Ryerson, she transferred out of a different program after taking it for about two years or so. So despite her childish physique and looks, we think that she’s around Quentons age. I wonder how Quenton’s quest is going…..

Allure of the Seas - Day 8 - Homeward Bound

I got to bed around 4 in the morning, I wake up and it’s about 6:30. Eric happens to be semi awake as well, so I ask him what the plan for this morning was, where we are suppose to meet etc. he tells me to meet everybody on Deck 5 at around 8:30 and that others were going to meet up before hand for breakfast. 

F-that. I’m not making breakfast today, my body simply won’t let me. So I sleep for another hour and a bit, wake up then pack my bags and get ready. I get down to our central meeting area, say hi to everyone, drop my bag off with them, then quickly head on over to the Park Café to have my Sun-Dried Apricot & Craisin Flavoured Cream Cheese bagel spread on one side and Smoke Salmon Flavoured Cream Cheese spread on the other side, with a side of coffee.

Once that has been taken care of, I am a happy camper once again, and head on back downstairs to meet up with everyone. We all line up and wait to get off the ship, while we’re in line, I’m talking to other people, and it sounded like a whole bunch of them decided to pull an all nighter. WOW! I have to drive today, so no thank you!

We finally all make it past the checkout point and then someone from my group comes running up to me to inform me that they wouldn’t let Karen off the ship because she didn’t settle her room bill and that Eric went with her. Uh-oh, we’re already off the ship, so the only thing we can do, is stand to the side and wait. 

Karen had used her Visa, they had informed her that they weren’t able to make any charges to her card and that she would have a free complimentary phone call to her bank to find out why, but when she went up to guest services to try and fix it earlier on during the cruise, they told her everything was fine, so she just left it at that. Turns out, they weren’t really able to charge her card; luckily she had another credit card on her. By the time Karen and Eric made it through the final checkout point, it was probably already 9:30 in the morning, and by the time we cleared customs and walked through the doors back out into the hot Florida sun it was about 10AM. Perfect, just what I had calculated! Our flight wasn’t until 6PM that night, so we had quite a bit of time to kill, luckily, this time was factored in before hand and we had rented 3 vehicles so that we could drive ourselves places. I called the rental car company and they sent over two vans that would take us to their car rental facility, where we would conclude the paperwork.

Once that was all done, we proceeded to head on over to the Galleria Mall, I did some reading online, and people were highly suggesting this one, so that is why we chose that particular mall, however, little did I know, that the shops weren’t open until noon, and it was only almost 11. So we had a little over an hour to kill. 

Ly and Derrek had an earlier flight than us, so they had to be at the airport soon, so I dropped them off at the airport, while the others just slept in the car. When I came back, I walked inside the mall, and found that it was already a buzzing, well mostly the food court, which worked for me since it offered comfortable seating, air conditioning and food!

There wasn’t much to do, at that time except eat. I went to a place that served chicken! Roasted chicken! They were offering half a chicken with two sides for about $8 or I could skip the two sides and turn it into a whole chicken for $1 more, needless to say, I opted for the full chicken! But I guess I wasn’t as hungry, as I thought I was, ‘cause I was only able to finish half the chicken, luckily there were others around to help me out.

After lunch we each went our separate ways and walked around the mall until 2PM, then proceeded to head on back to the rental car facility to drop the cars off and make our way over to the airport. Once we got there we saw a lot of our fellow cruisers, just sitting there and waiting for the check-in gates to open.

Was the rental car a bad idea? Not necessarily. We talked to one family, they paid $25 per person for two hours, to have a cab take them to a mall and drop them off at the airport, the mall opened @ 11, so they only got in about an hour of shopping time and were forced back to the airport.

We talked to others who also rented a car, and others who paid about $15 per person to go to the mall as well, but didn’t have a time restriction, so I’d say it works out about evenly. 

After talking to everybody at the airport, we found out that the majority of the people went to Saw Grass Mills Mall, because it was the closer one and that it opened at 11, ugh! If only we knew that everyone would be going there, we would have went as well! Oh well!

The previous night, everyone in our party grabbed their passport information and did the online check-in stuff, I grabbed, Karen, Grandma’s, Eric and my own passport that very same night to do the online check-in as well. I checked in Karen and Grandma first, then proceeded to check myself and Eric in, but for some reason the system wouldn’t let me, it wasn’t an error message, it was just a message informing me that it couldn’t be done without providing any reason why.

So at the airport, when checking-in, I found out why, we were put on the standby list, along with several other passengers from the cruise. So this was going to be fun, everyone else on the flight, while Eric and myself sat outside watching the TV screens and listening attentively to the announcements to see if they called our names. I wasn’t worried though, I knew we’d make it onto the flight, I even told Quenton that when I walk onto the flight start clapping and try to get everyone else to clap too. Also, if we didn’t make the flight, then I knew we would be compensated, so I was secretly hoping for Air Canada flight credits, but in the end, they called our names and we made it onto the flight and were welcomed with a round of applause. 

Of all the ports that we visited, Haiti, Jamaica and Mexico, I would have to say that Mexico was my most favorite port. Why? Because there I got to use all the Spanish that I learnt over the years from watching TV, even though we got ripped off on the booze and food, it was still a great experience. Jamaica, I was there a couple years ago, and it was a pretty similar experience. Haiti, we were just at the beach, and having a wild beach party, so that wasn't too bad either.

All in all, I would say that this was an excellent and memorable cruise, it wasn’t the most exciting one, but it was still very fun and enjoyable, met a lot of great people, had some excellent food and got some wonderful and cherish able memories.

Allure of the Seas - Day 7 - Final Day @ Sea

Today is the final full day at sea. Gah! There’s still so much left to do and so little time to do it all! I still have to go on the zip line and I still have to do the stand up Flow Rider. 

I think I woke up around 8:30 – 9 today, which was the latest I’ve ever woken up on the cruise? Not really sure where everyone else is, but I check the cruise compass, which tells us what events are going on where, and I notice that there’s a Backstage Tour. So I head on over to the Park Café to grab a coffee, and make my way over to the Amber Theatre, sit in the audience and wait for the tour to begin. 

They begin at 9:30 sharp, the “hosts” introduce themselves and explain their involvement with the shows. Once that has concluded they begin a question and answer period, a lot of the questions were really good ones. In short, I learned that it is true that some of the performers do perform on multiple shows, i.e. members of the Ocean Aria cast were part of the Blue Planet cast, and members of the Chicago cast were part of the Blue Planet cast. That for Blue Planet, when they had those 4 solo songs during the show, those were sung live, all the other songs were just a recording, of course they will sometimes use a recording for the live songs as well, if the stars are not feeling that well.

The performers are contracted and each contract varies, from 6 months to about 9 months, currently with the production we saw, the casts contract is for 8 months, they usually move along as a group or a ‘family’, there is a rare situation where someone will leave and pursue other opportunities. They practice on land for each show, then when they come onboard they do actual rehearsals, however the rehearsals are done usually late at night. It takes a very long time to set up for each show, because they have to change the backgrounds, adjust the lighting and the camera work. 

Once the Q&A period concluded, we broke up into two smaller groups and were given a tour of the backstage; we got to see their costumes, their change rooms and learnt that they only wash the costumes every so often, but of course some people sweat more than others, so some are washed more than others. RCI has a team of seamstresses that they employ, and those seamstresses pretty much get flown all around the world, wherever and whenever they are needed to alter or fix a costume for a show. The performers don’t really have an understudy, however since they’re all so well trained and experienced, the majority of them can usually just pick up the missing pieces and continue or sub in if required. In terms of show accidents, there hasn’t been any mechanical errors yet, just human errors, but all were minor ones. 

Once the backstage tour concluded some people left, and some people stayed, I was one of those who stayed, for those of us who stayed, they took us up to their control tower where we got to see the very expensive 3D projector, we learned that they’re currently tinkering with adding 3D effects into the live shows. For example, during the Blue Planet show, when they turn the whole theatre into an aquarium, they would use the 3D technology to make the actual fishes float around. #Excited!

Once that tour concluded, I once again checked the cruise compass and found out that there was going to be a Captain’s Corner, a very similar event, however this time, it would be the captain and his crew members answering questions about the ship. So I made my way over to the aqua theatre to attend that as well. 

Once again, very interesting, there I learned that, they don’t’ re-stock the food at every port of call, they only do it once, at the beginning of their trip. Based on past experience, they are able to calculate how much food they will require and they usually have just enough food for everyone on board, with the remaining, discarded food that people leave behind, they grind that food, but no clue on what they do with it afterwards. 

At night time or during the day, when the ship is set on ‘cruise control’ it only requires about 3 people to man the boat. The boat has stabilizers that can be put out if they’re traveling over rough waters, this helps decrease the rocking of the boat, and also helps the performers during shows.

Once that concluded, I met up with the rest of my cast over at the Park Café to enjoy our second lunch meal there. While there, I had two cups of the cream of mushroom soup and one of their famous salt bun roast beef sandwiches, I also had a cup of hot coffee sitting out there to cool down, and while I left my table to go back inside to get my second cup of cream of mushroom soup, I came out to find that everybody had left and more importantly my coffee that I had worked so hard on cooling was taken away by the server. 

I knew where we were all headed after, the Wipe Out Café for more food, but it just hurt that my coffee that I worked so hard on was taken away, so I had to start the whole process over again.

After lunch, it was time to take it easy and do a light activity, as we had our second dodge ball tournament of the trip coming up @ 2PM. We made a minor roster change this time, we bounced Eric and replaced him with a more active, younger, candidate, Derrek. 

This time the competition was not a Round Robin like the last time, this time it was strictly elimination, once your team lost, you were done for. The Sitting Ducks were up first! I wanted to call our team “I Like Balls”, however when I registered our team name, some stupid kids around us kept saying it over and over, kinda like mad gab, and laughing at me going, ha ha, he likes balls. Idiots! They said it so much in fact that the announcer/host realized what was going on. By having this as my team name, every time he would make an announcement looking for us, he would be on the microphone declaring that he liked balls. So that got ruined and I just went back to the default name of Sitting Ducks. 

We were up against a team from New Jersey, I think it was the same team that we played during our first tournament but not too sure, long story short, we lost. So our cruise Dodge ball record is 0 for 3.

I stayed along with some of the others and watched the remainder of the dodge ball tournament unfold, man, there were some shitty teams, we definitely could have taken those teams out, oh well, this will leave something to look forward to next time!

Once the tournament concluded, I went back to my room to change, ‘cause I wanted to go on Flow Rider, I wanted to go on this thing since Day 1, but never got the chance, ‘cause the lineups were too long, they were still long today, but I had absolutely no choice. So I toughed it out, I rode it all the way up until it was time to go back and get ready for dinner. 

But before that at 5:55PM in the Royal Promenade area, there would be a “surprise” Flash Mob dance experience. It wasn’t really a surprise, since they announced the classes and right before the event started, they even took over the PA system and announced that something was going to happen. So much for a genuine flash mob experience. 

After that I quickly made my way over to dinner, and surprisingly, I was only a couple of minutes late. Once again, we had our final 2 hour dinner session and gave our waiters Gio and Dennis a standing ovation and round of applause. 

After dinner Alfred and I were suppose to meet up with the Doctor/Lawyer set at one of the clubs, Dazzles and attend their Dancing Through The Decades dance event. However, tonight was also the last night for the Comedy show, and I wanted to do that more than meet up with them two. I ran into them on one of the main decks and told them that I was going to go watch the comedy show instead, and that maybe I’ll see them around later. 

It was a good decision, the comedy show was excellent! They had two main comedians, the first guy was easily forgettable, he wasn’t remotely funny and I saw several people walk out, if it hadn’t been for others telling me about the comedy show and how the second guy, AJ Jamal, is much better, I would have walked out too, but I hung in there and in the end it was worth it. This guy was genuinely funny. Once the show concluded we left the comedy club but stood right outside of it, he came out and started taking pictures with people who wanted one, and he sat down at a bench near us and we just shot the breeze for a good half hour, we made him laugh, he made us laugh, it was all good. He even gave Quenton some career advice about becoming a comedian. 

Once that session concluded, I told everyone that I was going to go up to Dazzles and try to see if I could find Alfred and them, lo and behold there they were right there, sitting, drinking and just chatting, so I joined them. We hung out for probably a good hour, before the party concluded, we were then going to move the party to another club, Blaze as that’s where it was suppose to be the “it” spot, but Alfred and the Doctor wanted to go to the casino and play some roulette, but the Lawyer and myself wanted to go to Blaze instead, we could have easily split up, but then the fun and atmosphere would have been ruined, and we all knew it, so no one suggested it. 

So we all went back to our rooms to grab some money and headed down to the Casino to play some roulette, and me to play some more blackjack, with the Lawyer quietly standing there watching me play. None of us came out on top, but it was a good time overall. 

We only left ‘cause they closed down the casino, it was already 3AM in the morning, wayyy past the Doctor/Lawyer’s bedtime. Alfred still wanted to go check out Blaze, but we didn’t think anybody would be down there still, so we just called it a night, since we had to get up early tomorrow morning to have breakfast and leave the ship.

Allure of the Seas - Day 6 - Viva Mexico

Today, I woke up with one thought and one thought only. I need to breakup with Andrew! I'll tell him that I think we should start seeing other people and that it's me and not him, and hopefully he won't take it too hard and understand. 

Breakfast would be in the Main Dining Room. Why? Because it’s an option and we’ve never eaten there for breakfast before. Same routine applied, eat breakfast, go back to our rooms to change and get ready, meet on Deck 5, then proceed to get off the ship together, and of course once we’re out there, take pictures and put on sunscreen. That was the schedule and I just accepted it.

Once we got into the port there was a lot of shopping to be done, but we didn’t bother with it now, since we knew it’d be there still when we came back.

We stood around for a bit and tried to decide on what we were going to do, there was the Forum Shops that the cruise line was recommending for some good shopping, but after talking to my group, discovered that they weren’t really interested in shopping. Go figure! Okay, so the beach it is then!

We walk towards the cab, I see a guy hold up a sign that reads he can offer rides for 14 people, we had a group of 15, Ly was off doing his own fishing excursion, I approach the guy to find out if he’s willing to take 15 people, he told him that we wanted to go to the beach area, he suggested a place that was about 15 minutes away, (every time one a Mexican, gave me a estimated time, I would add 10 minutes to it, no, it’s not a racial thing, it’s just that I think they shorten the time frame for you to get you to go with them, since you’re working on precious time). He said that for $40 it would include a round trip ride to the beach, entrance to the beach, and snorkel equipment would be included, this sounded like a pretty good deal, except one thing, the cost per person. I think we talked him down to about $30 per person, but still felt that it was just too much. At that point everyone in my group became an expert negotiator, and several people were shouting out different things and all trying to talk to him at once trying to get him to lower the price down, so I just simply walked away.

It wasn’t that I was upset or anything, I just felt that you guys got this and could handle it, I’ll go talk to another Mexican and see what he can do for us and compare. So I walk a little further up and talk to a bloke, I tell him that we want to go to a specific beach, the one the other driver recommended before, just so we would be comparing apples to apples, and he goes, why do you want to go there? That beach is full of rocks, it’s a great scuba diving spot, but not the best beach spot, he then suggests the Palancar Beach. Say’s that it’s a lot better, 5 minutes further though, but same deal, $20 per person, round trip ride, entrance into the beach and snorkel and kayaking would be included! Who knows he could have been working for that beach.

$20 per person sound alright, but the good part is that now we can negotiate and get it even lower, at this point I’m rejoined by my entire group, and we’re all listening attentively to the new information, I guess negotiations with the other guy didn’t go so well?

We talk to Alex, the tour operator guy and try to get him to drop the price down to $15, he said no he couldn’t do it, after some back and forth attempts at haggling, he said okay, he’ll do it for $120 for each van, since there was 15 of us, we would require two vans, some quick math tells us that it works out to $16 per person, okay so $1 higher than our projected mark, but okay, we’ll bite. Done!

So he walks us over to his two drivers and introduces us, coincidentally one of the drivers is also named Alex. He was a nice talkative guy, telling us about the area, asked us if there was any other places we wanted to go, such as shopping, a free tequila factory tour, or to visit some Mayan ruins. Did you say FREE tequila? DONE! I’ll take the Shopping and Tequila for $1,000 Alex! We had charted these two vans for about 4-5 hours, so it was definitely doable.

Once we got to the beach, the first thing they have us do, is to take a group photo of all of us with Sombrero’s on our heads, of course we all knew that they would try to sell us the pictures in the end. After that we get in and notice that it’s a rather small, private and secluded beach and not the cleanest. Not being clean as in the sand not being that pure white sand and the water not being clear ocean blue. But whatever, we’re here, let’s make the most of it.

So we easily find a spot to lay our stuff down. I walk to towards the restaurant and one of the servers ask Can I help you? I simply reply, Cerveza!  He says sure and begins to tell me what they have. In the end, I once again order the bucket of Cerveza’s, two Corona’s, two SOL, two Dos Equis, and throw on two bottles of water on top, and we start a tab!

Alex tells us that whenever we are ready for snorkeling or kayaking, just to tell him about it and he’ll set it up for us. Okay, but first let’s play with Wilson. Who’s Wilson? Wilson is a volleyball, did you not watch Castaway?

The volleyball court is small and the sand is sort of rocky, but it’s still playable and okay. We play volleyball probably for about an hour and a bit until I get tired and walk away and go sit with the adults and drink my beers. Shortly after I’m joined by the rest of the group and they tell me they’re ready to go snorkeling! Awesome, I’ll go tell Alex to set it up!

How many of us were there? Alfred, Karen, Sharon, Yuju, Derrek and myself. They sat us down in a little hut asked us what size shoes we wore for our flippers, gave us our goggles and introduced us to our tour guide, no word of a lie, his name was Pedro. Walked us over to a nice spot on the beach, where we were introduced to our underwater photographer, and once again no word of a lie, his name was Alejandro. Gave us life vests that we had to blow up ourselves, told us to put our flippers on and to march backwards, he even brought along a floating mat, just in case one of us gets tired.

So we all swim out there, and every time he sees something worth mentioning he’ll point and tell us to look down, i.e. fish, reef, starfish. He even dove down and brought up a starfish for us to touch and view. We were probably out there for about an entire hour, and this whole time, neither Pedro or Alejandro had life vests on, they were treading water the whole time, and they must have been more active than we were, diving back up and down to take pictures and grabbing starfishes. Incredible!

So after about an hour, we finally make our way back to the beach and return all the equipment.

There was no actual added cost to having a tour guide, all we needed to do was to just tip the guy at the end. I go to my bag to grab my wallet to give the guy a 20. Oh shit! Where’s my wallet? I look through my bag again and can’t find it. I then feel my pockets, oh phew it’s there. Wait a minute, if it’s there and I just came back from swimming, that must mean……SHIT! I had close to $300 in there too, none of the bills were ripped or anything, but needless to say, they were all soaking wet.

At that time it didn’t occur to me to use up all my wet money first, I was just planning to go back to my room, let them all dry out then exchange them in the casino, so Alfred tipped the guy the $20.

We still have few hours to go before we return to the ship, but we’ve all worked up an appetite, so we order lunch. Holy smokes! Lunch was expensive. Right from the get go when I ordered those beers and they wanted $3 a beer, I knew this place was a rip-off, but what can you do? We don’t know our way around Mexico, and we don’t know where to find those great beer prices.

How expensive was lunch? Let’s just say the prices were comparable to what you have to pay in North America. It was almost $10 USD for a plate of three tacos, and of course they give you salsa chips to go with your meal etc. So we ordered a few plates of different stuff, beef tacos, fish tacos, chicken and beef quesadilla’s, chicken fingers. In the end our food bill came out to $129USD. Can you believe that? Lunch in Mexico cost $130 USD! Insane!

Under the direction of the parentals, I paid them with my washed but legit money, they gladly accepted it. Before we left, we also purchased a few copies of the souvenir photo that we took before we entered the place, and of course, paid them with the wet money as well.

So off we go to have a quick tour of the Tequila Factory, where we learn about how Tequila is made and of course sample free Tequila! It’s a small factory in a little village, I suspect that it’s one of the local brands that produce their own and the stuff is mostly sold locally or to tourists like ourselves. At the end of the quick 15 minute tour, we’re given sample cups and we get to sample a variety of different tequila’s, starting off with the lighter and fruitier stuff, then moving on to a chocolate flavored one, a coffee flavored one, and finally on to the good stuff, where it is just pure tequila, we even learn how to enjoy tequila, by inhaling through our noses and exhaling through our mouths.

I don’t think any one of us got drunk off the very limited tequila that we had, but after looking through the pictures, they might have suggested otherwise.

Okay, back into the car for some quick shopping in town as our time was coming to an end. We get dropped off at a high tourist location that the moment you get out of the car, they offer you refreshments, water or booze depending on your choice, and they also give you a free bracelet too. They really know how to lure the tourists in.  Everyone just goes on in their merry own way and we just walk around for a bit. I walk and walk, then I stumble upon a store that sells beer. How much for a SOL? $2? Damn, we paid three earlier, okay I’ll take one.

We walk around and I finish my beer, okay, time to pile back in the car and head back to the port for some more shopping and then back on to the ship. While we were walking around on the ports, several times, I had Mexican vendors shout out the word: Pacquiao to me. They'd just go: Pacquioa. Pacquioa. In return, i'd go, no, De La Hoya, and they would just laugh. They must have thought I was Philipino. Dammit, this happened to me the last time, I was on a cruise too!

Time to get ready for dinner and start our nightly 2 hour meal. After dinner, we made our way over to the Amber Theatre to watch Blue Planet, right from the get go, it didn’t look like it would be as spectacular as Ocean Aria or Chicago, so I didn’t even fight my urge to sleep, I just let the sleep come naturally, however every now and again, I would be awoken by applause or a loud bang and I would watch the show. Of all the shows that we watched on the ship, this one was my least favorite one, I just felt that the choreography was a bit amateurish compared to the others and that it was lacking some severe production value. Even though, it had it's own unique and memorable moments.

Finally, the show is over! You know what this means, time for our nightly rendezvous with the Doctor/Lawyer set. But wait what’s this? Only the Lawyer showed up, the Doctor is too tired to hang out? What is this rotating shifts? We spend about 5 minutes standing up talking to the Lawyer, where she quickly updates us on her day, and then says, okay, she’s gonna take off as well. Oh wells.

Today, was Day 6, and having only about 4-5 hours of sleep each night, I was really frustrated today, maybe it was the fact that we got blown off by the Doctor/Lawyer set, maybe it was the fact that I missed out on two events (Mosaic and the Love Quest Show) because I had to baby sit Andrew or maybe I was just simply tired. Either or, I was irritated and had a short nerve, so I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, just in case something would set me off and I snapped at them.

So when we were all sitting at the Bow & Stern having drinks, I chose to sit by myself. Of all the times that I’ve purchased alcoholic beverages on this ship, or heard stories, not once have I ever been carded, but this waitress over at the Bow & Stern bar, decided to card everyone and everyone just complied. I tried to sneak my drink order in and asked for a Corona, but when she asked me for ID, I said forget it. To me this was an absolute insane request. Why? Because we’re all carrying our room cards, which acts as our identification while on the ship, they have different card types and different card codes to distinguish how old you are, plus when they swipe your card in their system, all your info pops up, age, picture, name, etc. So why on earth would you need to see another piece of ID?

Because I couldn’t get my drink from that bar, I just simply walked away, and walked over to another bar, ordered my Corona, and walked back over to where everyone else was. Later I’m sitting there and my Corona is finished and she comes up to me and asks me if I want another one. Yeah, no thanks sweetheart.

What happens when you drink? You need to pee. So I go to the restroom and on my way back, I find a tag along, who is it? It's Andrew. We're walking back towards the group, even though I had no intention of rejoining the group at that time because of my new +1. We walk by the rising tide bar and I see some people, look over in our direction and wave, so I turn to Andrew and say, hey, do you know them? Turns out, they're his family members, his parents, his younger cousins, his uncles etc, they were all having a good time without him!

After Andrew turned around, I noticed that his dad gave me a thumbs up! I have to admit, that thumbs up did hurt a little. To me, it signified that Andrew did have some sort of disability, and didn't have a lot of friends, so I know I set out with one objective and that was to break up with him, but after that incident, I just couldn't find it in my heart to do it.

So we headed on over to Sorrento's where everyone else was gathered, everyone else being our new cruise friends, and we all made the collective decision to go check out the after hours party and party there till we’re all tired and head for bed.

Allure of the Seas - Day 5 - Picture. Picture. Pictures!

Today, I think I woke up at around 9, had breakfast by myself at the Park Café and then did some exploring of the ship by myself, yes, it’s Day 5 and there is still more exploring to be done!

Afterwards, I think I headed down to the casino because they had double slot points between 9 and 11 am. My intention was to take about $100 camp myself in front of the Video Blackjack machine and play during their promo period to earn points for “free” stuff. Well that didn’t go so well, I ran into my aunt and my Grandma at the casino, hung out with them for the better part of the hour and watched my Grandma play penny slots.

She kept winning the bonus games, which made the game pretty fun! At one point, she ran out of credits, so she inserted another $5 into the machine, however, once you insert more money into the machine, for some reason her previous play settings of $0.01 per line at 40 lines plus the bonus play feature wasn’t remembered, so I was “smart” and told her to hit MAX BET. Whoops! That one little push cost her $4.50. I wish I could have told you that the machine saved my ass by letting her hit the jackpot or at least something, but nope, there was no such luck.

I felt bad, ‘cause under my direction and guidance, I cost her that $5, so I took $5 of my own money and inserted it into the machine for her, yano, to repay her for my mistake.  Nothing come of that $5 as well, so we walked away.

As we were walking away, I looked @ my watch and it was only 10:45, so I sat down at the video blackjack machine, played $1 a hand and played until the remaining 15 minutes of the double point promo concluded, and made sure that I cashed out at $5 ahead, to recoup my previous $5 loss.

After this session concluded, I went back up to the higher decks and bumped into Aileen and Quenton, they asked where I was headed, I told them I was headed to the Aqua Theatre to sign up for the Men’s International Belly Flop Competition. As we were going there, I told them of my plan that my intention was not to sign myself up, but to sign Ly up instead. When I got up to register the guy asked me where I was from, what my height was, all easy questions, up until he asked how much I weighed. I was puzzled for a minute, I didn’t know how much Ly weighed, then the guy suggested that I looked about 175, so I said, yeah, that sounds about right!

After this, we all headed up to the Wind Jammer Market place for our buffet lunch, we’ve eaten there for breakfast quite a few times, but never once for lunch yet. The lunch options and food, wasn’t that great. I only had a plate, then left with Alfred and Quenton over to the Wipeout Café where they served, burgers, hot dogs, and tacos! We wanted to try their tacos! It wasn’t too bad. nothing spectacular.

After lunch it was time for the Men’s International Belly Flop Competition, the plan about Ly being signed up was unveiled during lunch. However, when it came time to head on up to the stage, even though they made several announcements over the PA system looking for him, he never went up.

Once the competition had concluded, Ly and I headed down to the Casino for their Blackjack Tournament. I had entered a blackjack tournament on my previous cruise and felt that it was pretty fun, although short lived. There was no exception this time, $20 to enter, you get 500 chips, after 7 hands, the 7 people with the highest scores gets to make it to the final table where they play for the cash prizes.

I can’t seem to win any hands in a blackjack tournament so I can never make the board. After losing out on my first attempt, I decided to try it again, but this time with a more aggressive strategy, since there were people already on the board, and I knew I needed a certain amount in order to make the cut, but to no avail, I did not make the board.

Ly however, made the board on his first attempt with a chip count of 800. They were still accepting entries for people trying to qualify for the next half hour, so needless to say it was still a nail biting experience. In the end, his score wasn’t bumped and he was able to make it to the final table, where he busted out within a few short hands.

After my casino adventure for the day had concluded, I needed to get out and get some sun, since I probably spent about a good 4 hours in the casino that day. I went back up to my room to change to go ride on the flow rider, but when I got there, the line was packed, so I decided against it. So I wanted to go do some rock climbing instead, and to do rock climbing, I needed the proper foot wear, so back to my room to change, which was all the way across the ship!

By the time I got to the rock climbing wall, a good 45 minutes had elapsed since I last left Ly in the casino, and much to my surprise, he was there at the rock climbing wall as well, with Sharon.

After rock climbing, I was headed back to my room to shower and change for dinner, since tonight was formal night number two, and you know what that means! More professional photos!

As I was riding the elevator back to my room, the elevator stopped at the 6^th floor, which is where the gym was, I had only previously taken a quick tour of the gym, however, it seemed like I was experiencing a calling, since the elevator just stopped at the 6^th floor and no one got on or off, so I quickly hopped off, and spent a quick 10-15minutes in the gym.

After that, I finally went back to my room to shower and change, the time was probably only about quarter after 4 right now, and dinner, as usual, was not until 6PM. However, the parentals wanted professional photos to be done so we were all told to be ready and meet them at 4:45 to begin our photo session.

Holy! We spent the entire hour and 15 minutes taking photos, then finally made it to the Main Dining Room for our dinner, tonight was Lobster night, so pretty much all you can eat lobster, some people had two lobsters and a select few even went up as far as three lobsters!

Okay, dinner’s done, now what? Free time? Nope! You guessed wrong, more pictures! Dubai had booked another photo shoot session for 8:45, so we couldn’t go off on our merry ways. So we probably ended up spending about a good three hours just standing around and taking photos that day, before and after dinner, which made it seem like a 5 hour dinner session. You know you’ve spent enough time taking pictures that day when both Yuanna and Yuju are tired of taking photos!

Once photos were finally done, some of us went back to our rooms to change, i.e. Me. While others kept their attire. Next up on the agenda was to go watch the Ice Games! Ice Show. In this show, they take the classic board game of Monopoly and bring it to “life” on stage. Of course they create their own version of it, so instead of the typical Monopoly properties, they have you “land” on restaurants/shops that are part of the ship.

After the ice show, it’s time for Mosaic, they’re a five man vocal collaboration group where they “sing” but they don’t use any instruments except for their vocal cords. However, this show is not for Alfred and I, since we have setup a rendezvous with the Doctor/Lawyer set up in the game room.

So we head there only to discover that the Doctor showed up and the Lawyer is too tired to hang out. But whatever, we still hang out and try to talk about our day and what we have planned for tomorrow in Mexico. There’s the fear of running into Andrew, both in Alfred and my head, so Alfred comes up with the great idea of trying to move the conversation over to a bar area, hoping that Andrew won’t look there.

So we leave the game room and come across a fancy Champagne & Martini Bar. Shortly after we sit down, I see Derrek and his friend Anna walk by, so I tell my group that I have to go to the bathroom to be excused. Reason being is that I wanted to find Anna’s sister, Lan and Linh, ‘cause we were sitting in a pretty exposed area of the bar and I knew that Andrew would find us sooner or later. So I needed a backup plan.

They tell me that they haven’t seen them around yet, so they don’t know, damn, so I proceed to walk to the Sorrento’s Pizza place, ‘cause that’s where usually the group of people gather, hoping to run into them there. I run across some people, but not the people whom I’m looking for. Oh well, back to the Martini bar I go.

I get back there, try to rejoin the conversation, this is when I learn that the Doctor is from Shanghai and the Lawyer is from WuHan, a province in China? Shortly after I join them, I’m joined by my shadow, Andrew. Dammit! I knew he would find me. So I try to engage him into a light conversation, still hoping that the Doctor doesn’t notice how awkward he is, dammit, this isn’t working. Hey Andrew, let’s go for a walk to find others. I head back over to Sorrento’s Pizza place where I had seen others and stand there with them for a bit. That’s when Allan notices the scheming look that I have on my face and he knows I’m up to something, so I tell him what’s going on and what my plan is. Luckily he fully understands the situation. Phew! So he starts talking to Andrew, and tells him that Mosaic is playing and they do really good beat boxing, since Andrew is from New Jersey and likes that kind of stuff as well, so somehow Andrew goes there by himself to check out the show, and I thank Allan for his help and head on back over to the Martini bar.

So once again, I try to rejoin the conversation and boy is it a depressing conversation, Alfred is talking about all of his past failed relationships and how the next one he’s going into is going to be “the one” and he has learned that the Doctor’s current boyfriend is “the one”. So this is a pretty boring conversation, and shortly after I’m rejoined by Andrew once again! What is up with this guy?

I thought you were suppose to be at the Mosaic show? He says yeah, he was there for a bit, but it wasn’t anything special. So I take him out of the Martini bar, and I say, hey, let’s go check out the Card room and see if anyone is in there. So we go, nope, no one we know is there, just Derrek and Anna hanging out once again. So we head on back out over to Sorrento’s to see who is there now. My sole objective of the night was to pawn Andrew off to Linh and Lan. Why those two? Because they usually have a big posse hanging around them, and I knew that if I were able to find them, he would latch onto them instead.

So we’re back @ Sorrento’s and Allan gives me a big WTF look, like why are you back here, but he fully understands, still no Lan and Linh, so I say to Andrew, let’s go check out Mosaic, I wanted to see it too, might as well try to catch the last bit of it. And the last bit of it, I did catch. We walked in and they were singing their very last verse and after that it was applause and we just left.

Alright, back to Sorrento’s we go, might as well just stand there with a group of people that I can stand and relate to, but oh, wait, what do we have here? Lan and Linh, no kidding, I walk right up to them, right past their posse, without acknowledging any of them, and I give Lan a hug. I have never been so happy to see her before.

They both were like WTF are you doing? Why did you bring him here? Of course I had to play dumb and say that I had no idea that they would be here and that he would stick on to them like fly on shit. I don’t know exactly what happened, but all I know is that my plan worked out nicely, as I was talking to them, Andrew was nowhere to be found, he was walking around with the remainder of her posse.

So when they were distracted mid sentence in a conversation of their own, I just ducked out and went back to the Martini bar. I was probably able to join the last 10-15 minutes of the conversation, before the Doctor informed us that she was getting pretty tired, no kidding, you think you’re tired? I’ve been walking back and forth this entire ship for the past hour, baby sitting Andrew and you’re tired? Okay, so we say our goodbyes and set up another meet time tomorrow night.

By this time, the others had finished watching the Mosaic show and I was just briefing them on my nightly events.

So we're all standing by Sorrento's Pizza Place, if you haven't figured it out yet, this is the place to be, kinda like the main hallway in your high school where everyone hangs out. Well hey, look who it is? It's the Doctor. Turns out, after we left the bar, she went for a glass of water and was just heading back to her room, but since we were all standing there, she stood there with us and chatted for a bit longer.

The others knew what to do, they faded into the background, found seats and just watched. So it's Alfred and I, standing there with the Doctor and we're conversing. We're standing, we're exposed, want to guess what happens next? Yup! You guessed it! Andrew shows up out of no where. Great! More baby sitting!

So I ask him, hey where are the others? (Others referring to Linh/Lan and their posse) He tells me that he doesn't know, they went off to do something. At this point, Quenton can't take any more of  this, so he gets up from his seat, approached Andrew from behind, puts both hands on his shoulders and says 'Come with me, we need to talk', very assertively, might I add. Kinda like a bouncer tossing a guy.

So they go off and have their chat, five minutes later Quenton comes back, safe, and without Andrew. Alright! Way to go Quenton. Ten minutes more pass by and I feel someone standing next to me. I'm too scared to look, I don't even have to look and I already know who it is, it's Andrew. He turns to me and says, Quenton said you were busy, you don't look very busy. Facepalm!

I was at a loss for words at that moment. So I just continued to make some sort of small talk with him, while Alfred was talking to the Doctor. Next thing I know, Sharon and YuJu come up to Andrew and myself and introduce themselves to Andrew. That was a bitter sweet moment for me. I thought it was cute how they came up to try and help out, looks like everyone was trying to do their fair share. It was also hard to accept at the time because it felt like the group was pimping off Sharon and Yuju.

So I know how this works, they distract him, by bringing him over to the table where everyone else is sitting. Really guys? I mean, I know you're trying to help out, but introducing him to the group as a whole, is that really the best idea? I mean now he'll never leave!

I don't really know what happens next or what they talk about, but all I remember is that once we're done talking with the Doctor, which was probably about another ten minutes later, I turned around and Andrew was no where to be found....

Allure of the Seas - Day 4 - Breakfast At Tiffany’s

Okay, well Tiffany wasn’t around, so we went to Johnny’s instead. Once again the plan was to meet for breakfast before getting off the ship, since the gangway to get off for Jamaica wouldn’t be open till about 10:30.

I woke up, looked @ the clock, shit! It’s already 8:30. We’re supposed to meet @ Wind Jammer at 9 for breakfast. Wait a minute. Wind Jammer again? I’ve already eaten breakfast there twice! How about having breakfast @ Johnny Rocket’s instead? Breakfast is free there; only lunch and dinner do they want a cover charge. 

So I call up Aileen and Quenton, luckily they pick up and agree with the revised location change, we decide to divide and conquer, split up the phone calls and we’ll each call a bunch of people to tell them about the changes. After a few quick phone calls, neither one of us has much success in contacting people about the plan change. Oh well, off we go still.

I hop in the shower for a quick rinse, and make my way over there, some of the others (Aileen, Quenton, Karen, Ly and Eric) are already there and have ordered, I’m informed that the kitchen will close at 9:30 which is in 5 minutes, so I quickly order my orange juice, coffee, pancakes and bacon strips. 

About 10 minutes into our meal, Alfred and YuJu show up, Alfred’s already eaten, but YuJu hasn’t, we tell her to quickly check the kitchen, but nope, they’re closed, so off to Wind Jammer she goes. Suckah!

We then make our way back to our respective rooms to get ready, I learned my lesson this time, to not get ready before breakfast, plus, I wouldn’t have had time anyways. 

We finally make it off the ship and it’s probably about 11 by now, and what do you know? We have to stop and apply sunscreen on, do you people never learn? So as they apply sunscreen on, I quickly wander around the port for a bit, just browsing and taking it all in. I find an information booth and I inquire about Dunns River Falls, as some had expressed interest in doing it, the lady at the booth tells me that a round trip cab ride will be $35, and admission and water shoe rental will be about another $40, so all in all about $75. 

So I go back to the group and report my findings to them. Too much is going on, nobody is listening to me. After probably about a half an hour later, we finally all split up and part ways. Alfred, Yuanna, YuJu, Sharon, Quenton, Karen and Eric all make their way to the taxi stand to hire a cab that will take them to Dunns River Falls. Long story short, they were able to negotiate and get it down to $40 per person.

The adults, said that they would just stay within the port quarters, do their own thing and explore, in the end they ended up hiring a taxi van to drive them around town for $30 each, when they could have easily hopped on a trolley, for $15 each, I guess they wanted the added benefit of AC.

Meanwhile, Ly, Aileen, Derrek and I, hoped on a bus, that would take us to Doctor’s Cave for some snorkeling. This bus carried other passengers and would be making several stops along the way. We were informed that it was $20 for the ride and $5 for admission into the beach area, since none of us had any small bills, we voted that Ly would pay first and then we would pay him back. As we were getting off the bus, Ly handed Dion (our tour guide) a $100 bill, and told her that it was for all four of us, little did we know that, we were only suppose to hand her the cab fare and that the admission fare was separate. So when we got up to the gates, we had to pay $5 again. We thought that we were suppose to pay Dion the admission fee as well since, the people who got off at the previous stop, paid her and she came back with wristbands. Either we did it wrong or she ripped us off. Either way, we’re out five bucks, each!

So after paying admission, we walk in, and see that it’s a nice beach area, much nicer than the one we visited in Haiti, no rocks in the water. Within walking a couple feet on the sand, I’m approached by a girl, a working girl, no, not that kind of working girl, she’s a waitress, and she’s trying to sell me drinks. So I inquire about the Jamaican beer Red Stripe, I think it worked out to like $3 a bottle if purchased individually, but $2.50 a bottle if I purchased a bucket of 6. Not much of a deal, but still, that’s a no brainer, hit me! I’ll take the bucket and a bottle of water for the youngin. She delivers too!

So we find a nice spot on the beach, we make our way over to the lifeguard tower, we rent snorkel gear, $5 each, and begin to make our way into the water.  I’m sitting at the beach with our stuff, waiting to collect delivery on my goods, when the three of them come running back. What’s the matter? The water is too deep; we can’t make it out there. We’ll need to rent life jackets. That’ll be another $5. 

Okay, so we rent life jackets. And off we go again, into the water. I’m in the water, trying to get the hang of this, I look up and the others are already 200 feet away from me, how is that even possible? I just got my head wet. I accidentally took in one big gulp of salt water and was like this is it, forget it, I’m going back to the beach to drink!

So, I go back, drink about 1.5 bottles of beer, then make my way out to the water and try again. This time I calmed my breathing down and was able to make it out much further, further to where the reef and the fish were. At one point while we’re out there, a girl comes up to us and asks if that big shadow underneath is a shark, Ly tells her no, that it’s just a reef, and she goes okay good. So I tell her, if it was, we probably wouldn’t be able to save her. I don’t think she got it. I don’t think you got it either. See, we were floating around out there with life jackets on, her, on the other hand didn’t have one and was just swimming around freely, hence she is a much better swimmer than we are. I thought her swimming skills were pretty impressive. 

So after probably a good hour of snorkeling we head back to the beach return our equipment and walk our way over to the restaurant area to find some food. Our bus was suppose to come pick us back up in about an hour, so we had a bit of time.  What do we want to eat? Jamaican patties of course! I opt for the beef one, others had chicken, some even had both! After enjoying some nice Jamaican food we go back outside and wait for our bus to arrive. 

Back on the bus, we’re all still feeling upset that we each tipped our tour guide $5 each, when we could have probably just tipped her $5 for all of us, so we decided to make her ‘work for it’. Not by dancing, but by singing, we asked her to sing a couple of songs, and then asked her to tell us some information about her home country, once we ran out of material, we just sat quietly until we got back to the port.

Of course when we got back to the port, it wasn’t time to head back onto the ship just yet, although it probably would have been a good idea if you wanted to ride the Flow Rider with little lineup. We still had some shopping to do. So we walked around the little shops, shopping for some hand carved souvenirs. Ly bought a crab, whose legs can be taken off and put back on, so kind of like a transformer figurine. He also bought a turtle that looked like it was high, based on it’s eyes, and later on went back to the same stall to buy another crab, to make it a pair. 

After we were done shopping, I had bumped into Ray from the ship, and he told me that he spent about 2 hours at an Internet café, from then on, my mission was to find the Internet café! So we walked outside of the port, by ourselves. Gasps! And asked around for an internet café, within a couple hundred meters of stepping out of the gate, we were offered drugs, but they weren’t hassling us or anything, a simple not thanks with a wave was sufficient. Eventually we got to a gas station, where we asked the attendant, who told us it was just up the street, while here Derrek paid $1 for a bottle of pop. 

We got to the internet café, I asked the girl behind the counter how much for an hour…of internet, sicko. And she told me four dallas, so I paid the four dollars and we each took turns going on the internet checking our emails and such. While I was waiting for the others to finish, I noticed that they had a fridge with Red Stripe in it, so I asked her how much and she told me $2, awesome! I’ll take one!

I suspect that if we wandered even further into town, Red Stripe would have been $1, but we didn’t have the time or the desire to do so. Once this was all done, we wandered back into the port, as we were walking back, Derrek stepped in some sort of sewage and had to use the Jamaican branded Wata to wash his feet off.

Shortly after that, we ran into the others, and of course immediately swapped success stories, we learnt that the others also had patties and Red Stripe, however they paid $3 and $5, respectively. We only paid $2 for each patty and $2.50 for each red stripe. (Pssst. On the Cruise they only charge you $4.75 for Red Stripe, but then you gotta pay 15% tip as well).

The other’s just got back and were gonna wander around the markets for some more, while the rest of us just headed back onto the ship. 

I think I just headed back to my room to shower, and get ready for tonight's 2 hour feast as well. Of course, when I was ready, I swung by the casino and found out that it was closed during this port. Oh well, so I probably just walked around for a bit until it was time for dinner. 

During dinner a sort of trivia battle had somehow emerged, it was like our Tour Guides graduated from the same Tour Guide School, and were told to provide us with certain facts, and we were quizzing each other and trying to outdo each other with our newly acquire Jamaican knowledge.

After dinner we probably just hung around for a bit until the Battle of The Sexes show began. The first challenge, asked for about 4-5 volunteers from each sex, and they were each given a card with a number on it. The host would ask a question and the answer would be in the form of a number, if you’re holding onto that number, you would have to run out and arrange yourselves in that order of the number in order to win. 

The next challenge after that was to have a representative from each sex stand there, while members of your sex blew up balloons and stuffed your shirt with as many as possible. The guys won this challenge, easily!

The task after that was a Family Feud challenge, where, once again a representative from each sex would come up. Representing the males this time was our very own Alfred. Since there was no buzzer, you had to make the noise of your favorite animal, the lady chose a Dog as her favorite animal, and when the question was posed to Alfred, he said Car. Errrr…, they said animal, but I guess he was just doing it to be funny. 

Once the noises were settled, they were given the question: What is dry, but becomes wet when used? They each had to give their own answer first, and afterwards they would then be able to poll the audience. After polling the audience the first chance to answer was given to Alfred, when asked the question, he responded with sponge. I think sponge was the correct answer and it made it onto the board, so now he was given another shot at answering the question, and what does he say for his second answer? Sponge! WTF? All the males in the room were in an uproar, I was talking to a guy up on the balcony as this was happening, but I didn’t want to tell him that I knew Alfred. I think the host even asked him if he was sure and he said yes, then the host proceeded to say: Will sponge be up there twice? Nope! I don’t recall what the next answer he gave was or whether it was correct or not, but I think the males won this challenge. From that moment on, Alfred was known as the Double Sponge Guy.

The next challenge, they had a chair set out on each side, the objective was to get as many people touching the chair as possible, of course girls on one chair, guys on the other chair. Since the guys were all strong and mighty, they lifted the chair up high, and I thought for sure they would win the task, given all the extra room underneath it, but much to my surprise, the guys lost that challenge by a count of one. I guess because the girls are smaller in size, so they can fit more people around there, they even had one or two girls standing on the chair. 

After that was another round of family feud, and after that was the final round where you had to use the volunteer to help you pop a balloon and each balloon had to be popped in a different position. It was very entertaining to watch and it was also very nerve wracking. The ladies went first, and they encountered some difficulties with one of the balloons, it was blown up too small, so it wouldn’t pop, and I thought for sure the guys had this in the bag. 

Then when it was the guys turn, we were doing fine, all up until the very last guy, he couldn’t tie his friggin balloon and cost us a lot of time, at that point it was very nerve wracking to watch. But in the end the guys managed to triumph and win the “trophy”.

Okay, enough of that, time for bed kids! Alfred and I have to go meet the Doctor and Lawyer set for drinks on the Rising Tide Bar. The Rising Tide Bar is a small bar that every half an hour goes up and down between 2-3 decks, kinda neat. Since we all wanted to experience this bar, we decided to meet up there rather than our usual card room meeting place. So from there, we just sat and talked about our days and stuff. Then we all pretty much just call it a night.