Sunday 7 November 2010

days seven ate nine

We were at sea the next day, and the only thing I had booked that day was the ice show (that I had queued up for for over half an hour to get the tickets on our first day).

James had booked himself a spa treatment which was a facial and a shave (which was due to finish five minutes before the start of the show)...

That morning we had gone to bingo again...

...and again we didnt win anything! Well apart from $5.00 on the pull tabs that we were given when we bought our tickets - we actually went posher than the paper tickets by buying a tracker that actually plays the cards for you - all you have to do is yell bingo when you win!

James spa treatment was booked for 1.30, so we went and had lunch and then James went up for his facial shave. I meantime went down to the casino to cash in the win and promptly spent another $20 too on the Wheel of Fortune Machine, and no I didnt win a sausage! And yes I know that the only true winners are ever the casino!

Anyway I made my way down to where the ice show was, got an aisle seat and when next to it so James could easily find me when he came down. I put my fleece on one of the seats to save it.

A Norwegian party were sitting behind me and one of the ladies asked if she could sit in the seat next to me, I said no it was for someone who had just popped out to the toilets and that he would be back soon. It was still 10 minutes before the show was about to start and there were spare seats around so I didnt feel too bad!

Just then an announcement comes over the tannoy saying "no saving of seats" and I felt someone prod me in the back (I turned around expecting it to be James) and it was the Norwegian bloke saying "did you hear that no saving of seats" I just turned around again hoping that James would be back soon.

The show started and James still hadnt turned up, I kept getting text messages from him saying that he was on his way...

The show itself was really good, but I dont think that James would have enjoyed it.

He still hadnt turned up by the end of the show and afterwards the Norwegian bloke said "thanks for not allowing my wife to sit next to you that was very considerate of you" I thought to myself blooming cheek I queued up half an hour for these tickets and if I want to save a seat then I will!

Anyhow not wanting anymore aggro I waited for him to leave before I went back to our cabin, when I got back there I found a note saying that he couldnt get into the show (because there was lots of people standing at the back and were blocking the aisles :o().

I easily found him in the buffet and he looked all shaved...

...when I asked if they had used a cut-throat he said he didnt know because she had covered his eyes up - LOL I guess it was so that he couldnt see all the faces that she was pulling while trying to navigate around his mis-shaped face ;o).

That night we had our second formal night, I knew that I had put on loads of weight because the zipper on the dress that I had bought didnt go up half as easily as it had in the store.

FYI I still havent dared weigh myself yet!

The next morning we were in Boston, and because we were returning from Canada, all non US citizens had to report for immigration (they didnt make us do this when we went to Canada - I guess that there were far too many Americans on board and would have been a complete nightmare).

They said that the immigration people would turn up at around 7am so we got down at 6.30 and there was already a queue of 20 people. More people were joining the queue behind us apart from a load of Germans who decided to jump in the queue where one of their party was saving "their" place. There was a huge South African guy who took exception to this and was yelling out to all who dared jump in the queue in front of him "go to the back of the queue you are not getting in front of me" A couple of people from the ship did come down to see what the commotion was about and tried to fob us off by saying that they had asked to go through immigration early because they had an early tour.

A couple of people did listen to him and go to the back of the queue - but largely Royal Caribbean did nothing to stop the queue jumping - and they werent prepared to do anything about it either!

James even made a complaint at customer relations (after going through immigration) about it too but the guy who he spoke to didnt really understand what he was saying, and wasnt really interested either so he gave up.

We finally got off of the ship and were waiting for the start of our culinary walking tour, we had a walk out of the terminal (as we had an hour to kill) but couldnt really see anywhere that we could walk to.

We got on the trolley bus that was taking us into Boston for the start of the tour. My favourite stop had to be Marias Pastry Shop as we got to try little samples of all of her pastries, they were delicious ;o). We tried samples in the other shops (there was a coffee shop, greengrocer, cheese shop and an off license where we got to try some Limoncello) we went to but nothing else was as nice as those. From the off license James bought a bottle of Crystal Head Vodka as a present for his brother.

We finished the walking tour outside Quincy Market, where I got to eat a totally unhealthy corn dog - incidentally they didnt serve these on the ship at all which I was totally gutted about.

We went to have a look around the shops just after I had finished my lunch and the heavens opened - the rain didnt seem like it was going to stop anytime soon - so we decided to call it a day by about 2.30 pm (the ship wasnt doe to leave until 5.30).

We got back to the ship and half expected them to confiscate the vodka (when they x-rayed our bags) as it was illicit booze (but they didnt seem to care by that point).

Our final day was another at sea day, but we decided to try our final hand at bingo (both sessions)...

...as the grand prize still hadnt been won in the morning -James thought it was rigged so it would have to go to a final session - the prize was $3000 (we wanted some of that ;o)).

There were several British people working on the cruise and one of them happened to be selling the tickets for the final mega big prize bingo, I decided to have a bit of fun with her...

...when I got to the front of the queue I asked for an "electronic doobrie" - she said to me "did you say doobrie" and I said "yes, I thought I would give you some Britishness ;o)", then she asked where we were from and I said Essex, and she was from Essex too - unfortunately it still didnt help us win the big prize - but it did bring a smile to her face ;o)

On our last day we were given the gratuities that we had pre-paid - I was expecting a book of ten vouchers that you could hand out to people who you wanted to tip - but no we were given four vouchers each - one for the cleaner stateroom attendant, one for the head waiter (we didnt know who on earth that was) one for the waiter and the final one for the assistant waiter, so we gave the stateroom attendant her ones and divided the other six (giving three each) to the waiter and assistant waiter (after all they did keep plying James with extra starters) ;o).

When we were given the vouchers we were also given our labels together with instructions for disembarkation - we were astounded that we were in one of the first groups to be able to leave the ship ;o).

Hooray this meant that we would be able to get any last minute shopping at the Jersey Gardens Outlet Mall before making our way back to the airport...

to be continued...

4 comments:

Kelly said...

again, LOVING the titles :)

Maybe you could email Royal Carribien and use the phrase....we were waiting in line and people were cutting in line in front of others....because if you came to me saying someone had jumped in queue, well I would have to use my rather large brain and figure out what you were talking about. I imagine some people might not have that resource. Although, and you can add this in your complaint, they could have had a freaking dictionary available for instances like this!!!!!!!!!!!

Didn't win a sausage, eh? Well, it's probably for the better as it might have been spoiled ;)

All this talk about the activities on the ship, are you going to talk about what it feels like being on a ship at sea? Just wondering....

Oh, and have you seen Sweeny Todd? The movie with Johnny Depp? They use a cut throat in that movie ;)

Al said...

Okay, the following comments should hopefully be in some sort of order. I hope you're sitting comfortably and paying attention!

1. Surely part of the fun of bingo is actually marking off the numbers, so having something that does that for you takes some of the fun away? I've never played it properly so I might be wrong. It might just be there to make it easier for Doreen to chat to Ethel about her bunions and what Violet said to Maureen, I don't know.

2. It's a shame that James didn't make it to the show, but if you're confident that he wouldn't have enjoyed it anyway... :-) I had a feeling something was going to go wrong when you said that his thing was due to finish 5 minutes before the start of the show. As for those Norwegians, perhaps you should have said that you were waiting for someone who would be joining you and maybe they wouldn't have been like they were. Benefits of hindsight though.

3. [Insert comment about German's and queue jumping here, with sunbed and towel reference too]. If they really did have an early tour then it's up to them to make sure they're there early enough to clear immigration in time.

4. Maybe you should have tried bribing the person who was selling the bingo stuff to see if that would have helped you win the prize. As a consolation though, remember that it would only have been worth just over half that amount in our money.

Anonymous said...

I hate when people cut in like, they think thier time is more important than yours.
Boston has the best seafood. I was there and found the best place to eat, they had great shrimp and lobster.

chocolat lover said...

thanks Kelly ;o)

LOL as they say the States and the UK are 2 countries divided by 1 language!

I have already e-mailed RC but forgot to mention the cutting in line...

...I think that I will mention it as an aside if they come back to me.

It was very rocky on the ship and you could definitely feel it moving - I will try and elaborate more on this in my next instalment ;o)

I havent seen Sweeny Todd yet...

Al - I quite agree that it took away some of the fun in playing bingo - and a couple of the old dears thought they had won when they hadnt!

Perhaps I should have worded what I said to the Norwegians better - so they could understand me better...

I cant see why the Germans didnt get up in plenty of time either...

Very true about the exchange rate...

Connie - I do love all of the different food that you can try in new places ;o)