Last day at Sea...9/12

( I know you must be tired of reading about our cruise, since apparently I even

got bored with writing about it:) Sorry for the delay in posts...

I love the ocean and I have thoroughly enjoyed our cruise, but I'm so desperate to walk on land that I'm starting to get a little anxious. As pictured above it is a beautiful sight to be completely surrounded by this wondrous ocean, and I know that I will miss the opportunity to wake up to scenes like this one taken from our balcony. I'm not sure if it is a combination of 7 days away from my babies, food nausea or the fact that I haven't stood on steady ground for two days! Needless to say we have had more than enough time these past two days to explore our ship, lay around by the pool reading and eat everything we could get our hands on. I really had to focus on the luxury of being able to sit around for hours reading without interruption and being able to eat at any given moment without having to think about it or clean up afterwards:)

I apologize if this is not as exciting for you as it was for us; however, I have to make sure all the memories are recorded for posterity's benefit, including myself so I don't forget anything about this wonderful vacation! Pictured above are some of our favorite pastimes on the "Freedom of the Seas". Starting at the top left, Kendall is modeling one of his favorites, the hot tub. There were two of these hot tubs that are suspended over the ocean off the side of the ship. Although I could not enjoy these particular moments of relaxation due to the pregnancy, Kendall made sure to take full advantage of floating over the ocean while simmering in a hot tub.

Next pic, to the right, is one of their three pools. This particular pool is designated for the party crowd, it was always hoppin' with live music, belly flop and men's sexy leg contests, and lots of rowdiness. Needless to say, we didn't hang out at this pool at all, not that we were not "cool" or ready to have "fun", just more about the nice, quiet, "adults only" pool. Of course the all you can eat, any time of day, soft serve ice cream machine was located here, so there was plenty of checking in on the party crowd every time we got an ice cream craving!

Although "our" pool (first pic, second row) was much smaller, we spent the majority of our time laying around peacefully reading books and relaxing. Okay, so we were usually some of the youngest ones there, but that doesn't make us "old". It's great when the most stressful part of the day is fighting the other guests for a beach chair in the shade. Pictured in the bottom right is the third pool, kids H2O Zone. Of course, we had no need for this pool either and sometimes pitied the poor parents stuck there with kids running around crazily. Don't miss understand some parents apparently think that being in the middle of the ocean makes it safe to turn your children loose to roam the ship at will, so there were plenty of unsupervised children running around.

The last pic (bottom row, left) is called the Flow Rider, which is a surfing simulator and apparently one of only three in the world found on a cruise ship. You guessed it, never tried this one either; however, it was so much more fun to watch people wipe out then to actually do it yourself. They have a camera on the Flow Rider so that guests can sit in the comfort of their room and watch people wipe out on TV. You may worry that we didn't optimize our cruise, since there was so much we didn't experience, but we made sure to play a round of mini-golf on their course (pictured second row, right). It is just as difficult as you may have guessed to play golf on a moving vessel with 30 mph winds keeping your ball from a hole in one!

Entertainment galore! The shows were absolutely amazing and a different one every night. Cruise ships usually get a bad rap for having lame entertainment with not much talent, as was my experience on a previous cruise; however, the Freedom of the Seas surpassed all expectations. There was a different show every night, and every single one of them was great. The highlight of my day was each morning when the "Cruise Compass" (the schedule for each day outlining activities, food and current entertainment) was delivered. Apparently there is a group of entertainers, actors, singers, etc. who are hired by the cruise ship for a six month contract, but then spend the first two months in Tampa, Florida at a training facility learning the shows and routines. Then they get to board the ship and spend every night showing off their talent, and they were actually talented to my surprise.

The ship had a huge theater called the Arcadia which could seat 800 people. So the first night we were there almost 45 minutes before the show to make sure we could get a seat. Turned out not to be an issue because there were so many seats and each show played twice every night to alternate the early and late dinner seatings.

One night there was a broadway show that highlighted different Broadway musicals. Then the same group did an entirely new show the next night that was a parody of different fairy tales. One night there was a special magician who did some pretty impressive illusions; however, he was only there one night. So we were wondering how he just jumps on and off the ship for a show, or if he starts the cruise with the rest of us and just hangs out all week until his night for the show? There was another guy, black soul type of singer, can't even remember his name but they acted like he was famous and that we should feel stupid for not knowing him! The funniest show was the "Dating Game" in which they warned us may only be appropriate for adult audiences, which apparently includes us. The problem being that although the cruise director who served as the Dating Game host knew that he would be appropriate, he could not guarantee what the contestants would say. It was very humorous and quite impressive how well some couples knew each other, I started to worry that Kendall and I would not have done so well at the game.

As I mentioned in an earlier post their was an ice skating rink on board and they did a couple of shows which were just as impressive as anything Disney on Ice could perform. In fact these skaters are not only flipping each other in the air and swinging them around by their feet, but all while on a vessel swaying in the middle of the ocean. I was impressed only a couple fell during our show; however, I heard in the other shows they were falling quite a lot because of the turbulent seas.

There was also a show in the ice rink venue called "The Quest", and they didn't even ice skate. We weren't sure what type of show it would be, but its all we could find to do on our Cruise Compass during that time slot so we thought we would check it out. Once again they warned us that the content would be for adult audiences only, and oh my gosh, they really meant it this time. It was so outrageous, inappropriate, vulgar, etc. that I feel bad looking back even now that we didn't get up and walk out. The Quest turned out to be an "Amazing Race" type of game in which the entire audience was in full participation, divided into teams, with two people selected to represent each team. The cruise director would call out a quest and the team reps would have to get someone on their team to participate and race to the judge first. For example, I can probably only share one example that was appropriate for my blogger audience, the first team to get a man wearing lipstick, running in high heels, while wearing a bra. Yes, there were plenty of women racing to get their bras off to be the first to win the quest. Lets just say some people are very competitive and will do almost anything to win a game, including men willing to drop their pants and share their underwear with the entire audience, and I don't mean boxers! I will be scarred for life:)

I have to say that our favorite pastime was simply sitting in the Schooner bar, a piano bar, late at night listening to a very talented Australian play anything you could think of from memory on the piano. There was a lot of Billy Joel which is one reason Kendall had so much fun belting them out with the rest of them. He was very impressive, the piano player that is, but the real fun would begin when the crazy ladies, same ones every night, sitting around the piano, would get so drunk they didn't care how loud or bad their singing was or how ridiculous they looked.

We may have failed to participate in some of our ships amenities, but we made sure to catch as much entertainment as possible. We even ventured into "The Crypt", a disco club, one night to see what kind of crowd there was, and it wasn't our crowd. There was "Oliver Twist" a bar located at the highest point of the ship, with a talented band made up of Filipino men, in which their accent was so strong that even if you knew the song they were singing you couldn't make out the words they were saying and I'm pretty sure they were trying to speak English.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the pics way back a few paragraphs. All of these pictures are taken in the Promenade where there was also something entertaining all the time. That is an elephant on our ship, he was part of the Circus in the Promenade, I'm still trying to figure out how many little men are inside making him function. The small picture in the upper right corner is a trapeze couple performing high above. The last night they showcased all the staff behind the scenes by showing you how they make ice sculptures, towel animals, carvings out of fruit, etc.

It truly was a wonderful week, and although it has taken a month to blog about it, I feel I've relived it again and sadly realized how easily I have forgotten details in even this short time. So I appreciate your patience as you endured day after day of cruise blogs, so that I could document all these memories and read them over and over and over again....