The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, The Dancing, The Dark Side, And A Cruise!!!

June 28, 2017 - Day 8

Today was performance day. Initially, Skye's coach wanted them all to meet early but she changed her mind to let the girls experience the early hour with their families. I have no notes for today and so far, odd pictures but here we go.

We were up at 6:30am and on a boat as soon as humanly possible. We went through the same thing as yesterday (except stopping to put her costumes and shoes in a locker walking in and back to the world of Harry Potter! We rode Forbidden Journey first. We pretty much walked on. This was the first time for the kids. Skye had to sit on her flip flops. She was a little nervous but ended up loving it! Then we rode the train (which was a first for Skye). For some reason we were shoved in a car with another family of four who thought is perfectly acceptable to sit two to a side up against the windows so we really couldn't move much or see well. I should have just refused that car. It is really too small for eight people, especially eight people who don't know each other! And it really wasn't that crowded so I don't know why they would do that! We walked through all the Harry Potter things on this side again and headed for the front.

We met the coach and gradually others started showing up at the stage in City Walk.

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The girls had a few small white tents to change in. The stage is small. And i was suprized that there was no type of fan or other item to circulate air under there! The girls were dying! The people they worked with yesterday at their clinic (where they were taught three audition dances and then they got to pretend they were at an actual audition) were there. Skye was in most of the danced they were doing so she had a lot of quick changes.

Now, I'm going to bore most of you with dance pictures. This is a small portion of the girls in each dance (except her solo and duet) and some of the girls are add ins.

Polar Express...this is Competition C whihc is the most advanced level that DOES NOT contain high school girls (due to IHSA rules if they are in competitive dance they cannot compete with another group until after the IHSA competitive season and most of our Advanced Level girls are on a Poms team at school). Skye does this group just to be able to compete earlier, she is also in the Advanced Levels.

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This is Kyra, Ashley, Liv, Skye, and Gianna.

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Next is Material Girls Just Want to Vogue which is Skyler and Kyra's duet...they took OVERALL at State with this!

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Next was The Greatest (Sia) for Advanced Lyrical.

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This is Sarah, Rachel, Skye, Christina, Isabella, and Desirae.

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And next was Skyler's solo to Car Radio (21 Pilots) which was the second OVERALL that year!

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This
was not her costume but the underneath of the Sia costume becasue they had a super short amount of time to change and her costume is long sleeves and lacy and lined with silky material...she would have dies in that!

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Up next for Skyler was Smash It (In a Black Tuxedo)...

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This, again, was Rachel, Isabella, Skyler, Sarah, Christina, and Desirae.

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There were a couple of other little dances and Skye's Tap was put in as a filler but I don't have pictures of that (I think I was changing my camera strips) and they did one of her advanced classes as a trio because they needed one more dance because Skye needed enough time to change for her next dance. She was in every other number. By the time they were done, those girls were red faces, breathing heavy, and soaking wet! We did gather a little it of an audience throughout the show that did not actually belong to us but really, would you stop to watch a dance show consisting of some kids you don't even know??? It was a fun experience for them but the heat was crazy for that much activity!
 
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And I found the pictures I thought I should have had from earlier this morning so let's pretend this post is before the dancing posts!

Here was the view from our window at 6:30am...

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And on the way...

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And the walk back to Harry Potterland...

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Entering The Lost Continent...

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And entering Hogsmeade...

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We stowed our stuff in a locker and rode Forbidden Journey and then here is our smooshed car on the train.

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Kind of awkward!

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Off the train...SKye was Dis...oops, I mean Unibounding, as a Minion!

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I don't know why Penelope came with today???

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More pictures around town...

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We realized we did not have time to Escape from Gringotts right now so we headed up front...

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Past the Mummy ride (which both kids, after being scared senseless yesterday, said they wanted to ride again!)...

And Jimmy Fallon...

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and the Monster Cafe...

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past the Rip Ride Rocket...

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Past Minions...

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Out to City Walk...

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To the stage where we waited for the show to begin...

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And then we're all caught up...I think! At some point in the show my strip in my camera ran out and i started using my phone which is where i think my pictures got all messed up...hopefully we're back on track now.
 
After the show the girls changed. Skye is anti t-shirt and does not like to be told what to wear and had plans to be a minion today so she did not wear the shirt that they had made.

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Left to right : back row... Rachel, Sara, Ashley, Christina, Miss Liz, Isabella, Desirae, and Gianna.
middle row... Ava, Miranda, Ari
front row... (don't remember her name, she's not on the team, just someone's friend), Skyler, Olivia, Liv, and Kyra

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A close up with the plaque they received for dancing there...Ava, Skyler, Olivia, Liv, Miranda, and Kyra.

Then we went on our own separate ways. This was our last day at Universal and we had a lot to still do! And at this point in the day we were starving! I had found out this morning that there were no Green Eggs and Ham! I wanted that as that was one of the only things I remembered from the last time we were here when Tyler was 18 months old. It says it is only open at busy times...don't know how much busier that mid-summer is but whatever. We found a stand behind the stage area in City Walk (the receipt just says "Coke Icon - 429) and Tyler had grabbed a hot dog and we got three drink refills (which we had not bought the additional day yet so we paid a small amount for because that stand did not do the actual daily refill addition). The total was $14.02.

We headed back in....

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That morning my feet were killing me! So on our way back in we stopped at the Trading Company not thinking i would find anything cheap. Well I was right...cheap they were not but comfy...YES! $40.42 later I had my next non-trip related souvenir (adding to my Mickey umbrella) that as just black flip flops but are so super comfortable they were worth every penny! It was 12:20pm at this point.

We headed back to Suess Landing.

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There was a decent line for One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish and the Caro-Suess-el so everyone passed on those but they are very cool looking. We headed into Circus McGurkus Cafe Stoopendous for lunch at 12:37pm..

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The place is fun and colorful. Part of The high in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride goes around at the top of the restaurant. It is large so it did not seem too crowded but there were a lot of people there. Kyra and her family showed up as we were finishing our meal.

We decided on a Chicken Sandwich...With French Fries for Tyler.


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He enjoyed it. The chicken was a huge chunk on a bun, plain of course. It was real chicken and not a pressed chicken patty. The fries were decent fast food fries.

Cary and I ordered the 2 piece fried chicken dinner...With Corn on the Cob and Mashed Potatoes & Gravy...and one with a side caesar salad and one with a side of fries. Skye and I were kind of sharing...she wanted the corn and potatoes and I could have the chicken.

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The chicken were big meaty pieces, a large very good sweet corn (Skye ended up with Cary's and I got mine), and the potatoes were good. The caesar salad was really good according to Cary and the fries were the same fries with the chicken sandwich obviously. This was a really filling meal that is actually quite different than what we would have expected to see at a fast food joint in a theme park.

Skyler ordered the Chicken Caesar Salad with the dressing on the side.

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She really enjoyed this. It had crunchy fried chicken pieces on it and tortilla strips on top. She ate this all along with a corn on the cob and all the potatoes she could snag.

We also bought the day's refill on our cups here too.

Skye and Cary took some pictures when we were done eating...

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We were all full and had really enjoyed our meal here. I think in the future we would return here for lunch. Our total here was $70.75.

 
After lunch we rode The high in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride. It was a walk on and it was cute. Then we headed to The Lost Continent.
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We did Poseidon's Fury. It is not a ride but a walk through show but it is really cool! I did remember this from when Tyler was little too and I was glad it was still there.

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It has some really neat special effects and different kinds of stage areas. We really liked this attraction.

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And we headed back towards Hogsmead.

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It was really crowded back there so we headed on to Jurassic Park.

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We spent quite a while in the building cooling off, using the rest room, playing with all the stations in there. It was really crowded but the activity stations weren't so we got a lot of hands on.

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Then we headed in line for the Jurassic Park River Adventure...which we had no idea of what it was. We had come around the way that we had not caught sight of the end of the ride. We knew it was a water ride but not the full effect of that it was. They load you really quickly and you have to get in and get your stuff stored fast...and we were off. Enjoying the ride, thinking it's cool and then we hit the restricted area and all heck broke out...all of a sudden we were plunging 85 feet down a VERY watery plunge!!!! I think Tyler left a little bit of himself at the top of that hill! Skye was scared but she loved it. Cary and I were surprised! OMG, what a ride!

We finally found the end of the ride (which had we seen prior to getting in line I am sure Tyler would not have ridden).

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Skye loved standing in the drench one and was soaking wet after a couple of runs!

Then we hit Skull Island Reign of Kong. Again, we knew nothing about it except that it was new.

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This might have been the longest wait we had here.

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It was cool and we all really enjoyed it...even chicken Tyler.

We walked through Toon Lagoon and it started raining so we donned our ponchos and looked through some shops but with the rain a lot of things were closed at the moment. We headed into Marvel Super Hero Island and still were shopping as it was still raining. We rode Spiderman, it was cool! Cary wanted to ride The Hulk...

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But since it was raining it was down for now. We back tracked to the Captain America Diner at 4:42pm. We grabbed a table near the window. Tyler got a Chocolate Chip Cookie for a total of $1.91.

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While Tyler was getting his cookie Cary and Skyler ran to Chill - 152 for snacks.

Skye got vanilla soft serve in a waffle cone and I got swirl soft serve in a waffle cone.

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And Cary for a cup of vanilla soft serve with caramel and reeses pieces with whipped cream.

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It was ice cream, cold and good. It was a great snack for the hot afternoon and a good place to wait out the rain. Our total was $18.08.

As the rain began to slow down, Cary walked over to The Hulk. They were lining up again but he came back to drop off all his extra items because NOTHING can go on that ride AT ALL. Then he went back to line up and rode and was back in about 15 minutes. The kids and I just relaxed in the diner waiting...good deal all around. The rain had just made it more humid outside.
 
We walked back out into Marvel Super Hero Island.

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And walked through the Port of Entry.

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And back into Seuss Landing...

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Looking back towards Toon Lagoon...

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At 6:27pm we stopped at Fire Eaters for some food.

There's a small area with tables next to the ordering window.

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We all decided on two items to sample and Cary ordered. Cary and Tyler waited while Skye and I found a seat. There was no one else there when we arrived. It took a while for our order to be ready. I don't know if this was normal and everything is regularly made to order (I doubt it) or if they just didn't have anything ready.

We decided on an order of Chicken Stingers (with Hot Sauce) with fries.

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These were really good in a vinegary hot sauce. They were four large chicken tenders. We also were given a cup of ranch dressing...which helped because they were pretty hot. And the fries were the normal fries we have had other places here.

We also grabbed a Gyro Platter served with hummus.

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This was really good, but small. None of us eat hummus so I cannot comment on that. But the gyro was my favorite here...it was hot and the meat wasn't burnt and dry like it is a lot of the time with gyros.

For our wait we were given a Brookie....

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The kids loved it...chewy brownie with a chocolate chip cookie baked in the middle...what's not to like???

Over all we enjoyed this place. It could have been faster but as far as the food goes, it was great.

We did have a large family come over and grab a couple of tables in the small table area and they let their kids run all over. Now, we were outside so it wasn't that huge a problem except that your kids should not be running around touching my chairs and table while they are running around...well, these kids were and no one was paying the least bit of attention to them...except me and Skye who were a little put out by this.

But that is not the venue's problem...all in all, we think we will be back here.

Our total was $20.86.


We then walked a few feet and stopped at what is listed on the receipt as Oasis Coolers.

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It was a bit more crowded in this area. The only table we could find was right in front of a family changing a large child on a table top...RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER FROM THE BATHROOM!!!! Skyler just about flipped!

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We decided on sharing a Beef Kabob Combo with cheddar sun chips.

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This was REALLY good...we should have gotten two! Skye snagged the Sun Chips and Cary and I shared most of the kabob...Tyler had a taste...he liked it too but i think he ate most of the chicken before.

This I would definitely order again!

Out total here was $13.31.
 
Right near Oasis Coolers was this guy who was making jokes and talking to his audience.

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And of course we ended up back in Diagon Alley. We rode Escape from Gringotts. skye rode yesterday with her girls but the rest of us had not. We all really liked it...not sure which ride we liked better though.

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Cary and I found a bench under cover (it was misty on and off) while the kids ran around using their wands. After a while we started slowly heading up front.

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On the way out we hit The Film Vault so Cary could but a Universal Monsters T-Shirt (I think there are pictures of it later)...for $31.90.

We grabbed our stuff out of the locker and headed to the boat dock. We headed back to our room knowing we needed to get mostly packed up. When we got there we found this...

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I don't know why this picture was taken but this is the set up between the beds...

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And we packed up as much as we could and got to bed for our next big adventure to begin tomorrow!
 
We woke up early the next day so we could all shower and be sure everything was packed up so we could head down stairs.

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WOW...that's a lot of stuff! We had bell services come up and grab our stuff and they took us down to check it in for now. We were supposed to be catching a bus to the Port between 9:30am and 10:00am. So we headed to Starbucks as it was really just about the only table service kind of place open for breakfast.

Cary ordered an Iced Caramel Macchiato...

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Skyler and I had the same kind of drinks. Hers was Mango something and mine was berry something...I forget what they were exactly and the receipt is of no help!

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Tyler had water from the room...he's not a Starbucks kinda guy. We were all pleased with our drinks.

Looking at the pictures and the receipt I am really confused...I think Tyler ordered an english muffin with just egg...

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Which he enjoyed but to me seems awfully dry. I think Cary actually ordered a regular sandwich but got the same thing Tyler ordered so went back to complain and was told to keep it but got his correct sandwich. Skyler ate the wrong one. I had a Crumb Cake...

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All of this took quite a while because it was really crowded in there. More of our traveling party arrived at Starbucks while we were there.

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This "meal" was what it needed to be but to tell you the truth, I can live without Starbucks and don't see the draw...

We paid $39.34 for a mediocre breakfast that we had to wait a while to get and then it was incorrect. We'd be back if we needed to but I would not plan to stop here again.

After we were finished eating we headed up to bell services and the loaded all our bags on a cart and we headed out to where our bus was waiting. It was a smaller bus than anyone thought it would be and the luggage was supposed to just fit in the back but with how many passengers we had and all of their luggage and costume bags and all of our luggage that was for a much longer trip it was very tight. THe guys helped the driver play Tetris with the bags until they were all loaded and we headed off. Of course the dance families that find themselves the most important snagged the best seats and didn't worry about anyone else's trip but we all got on and were on our way Port Canaveral soon enough.

The ride was about an hour, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes and I was getting more and more nervous the closer we got!


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Now, this being the first time we have cruised since The kids' father and I went on our honeymoon around 20 years ago, I was extremely nervous. And I certainly was not put to ease by anyone working at the port.

We pulled in and parked the bus and someone came over immediately with carts for our tagged luggage. It was all put in a big bunch making it difficult to get to your own luggage. We had tagged all of our at the hotel but no everyone did. We were really not explained what was going on and told that as long as all of our bags were tagged we were fine to head to the ramp to the check in area. THis will come back to bite us in the butt later.

So we head in and rather than us all moving as a group, you know, so the experienced cruisers could maybe help along the not so experienced, we all just went our own way. So first we had to go through security. I had read the little bit of info incorrectly and we still had a couple of bottles of water with us...OMG, you would have though we were trying to bring a weapon on board...ok, no big deal, take them, I don't have a problem with it. It was not the water itself that was the problem (unlike at the airport), it was the plastic bottles...if they had been in glass (like beer or other alcohol) we would have been fine. That really wasn't the issue though...I had no problem leaving the couple of extra bottles I mistakenly left in a bag...the problem was how rude the people were about it. And it was not even very busy at the point. I'm pretty sure we were not the only people not to have cruised before so you'd think a little understanding might be in order. They were worse that the TSA...well maybe not the Orlando TSA. So we get through that line and head to check in. That actually was much smoother than I expected. Everyone had to hold their own passport card and boarding pass. But other than that it was all smooth...and that woman was pretty nice...but not very informative about what we did next. I guess we weren't moving to the next step fast enough because we were promptly yelled at to get to the area of our boarding group. Our boarding group was 08. So we found that and headed there. We ran to the restroom...girls first, boys next. They were coming around yelling to squish over...I felt like I was on a Disney bus! It wasn't too much longer before we were allowed to start boarding. So we waited our turn and headed up the ramp to the ship. And had no idea where to go. Where we came in on the ship was on the opposite end of where our room was and there was a section of the middle that obviously did not go all the way through so to get where we needed to be we had to go down and around. But we couldn't go to our room yet. It was still early. But food was out! So we had to find that deck. And we eventually did but it was chaos there. We found a small table to gather around and we took turns going to the buffet. It was huge but it repeated a lot of the same things. Only the buffet was open at this time, not the smaller windows. Cary and Tyler got the Bottomless Bubbles package so they could get pop. Skye and I were good with the free iced tea and lemonade and water. We were kinda shocked that the cups were small kid sized cups though. We each got some food.

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This much have been mine...salad bar , i have no idea what is next to it, fruit, cold pasta in red sauce, salami, a cake pop, and some other desserts.

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Same plates but showing the drink cup for the included drinks.

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This was Skye's plate...salad, cold pasta with red sauce (which she did not like), potatoes, and cheese.

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A close up of the desserts.

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I think this was Cary's...fruit, jello, don't know what is surrounded by jello, a chicken thing, potatoes, and carved beef.

All in all, not a great start. I remember my only other cruise having food that was out of this world. At this point I was really hoping this was just what they offered today...while in port...and it'd get better as we cruised. Unfortunately, the same food was offered for the buffet for the whole cruise. I'm gonna tell you right now, we were extremely disappointed and I am convinced we were on the K-Mart Blue Light Special of cruises. And if not, then cruises have changed a whole lot since my one and only other one and are definitely not for me!
 
I appreciate you posting your experiences and honest opinions! I am in customer service and I kept thinking that just a bit more effort or patience on the employees behalf could have left you with a totally different set of experiences and it made me sad that so many people are apparently doing jobs they dislike and don't want to excell in. I look forward to reading about the rest of the cruise, even if it WAS a Blue Light Special! I hope you had good weather, at least!
 
Not too long later, we were allowed to go to our cabins. We were in stateroom om deck 2 which was towards the back of the ship. We did not get to pick our rooms, they were assigned by the trip coordinators. We had people all over the ship.

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They were still delivering luggage so we went out looking around.

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We traveled back to our room and our luggage was there. We unpacked. There was plenty of room for all out clothes for the next three days. The bathroom area was small so we could only put out things we absolutely needed. At this point we noticed Skye's Polar Express costume was missing! When they were in the tents changing they all just had their stuff all over their area but there were multiple people in each tent. So we figured someone picked hers up. We texted the other people that were in her tent and none of them had it. There was one girl who was in Polar Express with her and did not come on the cruise but was at Universal...guess what? Yep, she had it! Kyra's mom and the extra kid and her mom drove and the girls that did not come had their extra stuff in Kyra's truck but it was too late to get to it! Skye was so upset! We texted her coach and waited. And then we realized we were missing our Magical Journeys laundry bag that had out cups from Universal and all our extra snacks and Tyler's chocolate frog in it. We asked our room service guy who was right in the hallway and he said he'd check with the luggage services. A little while later he came back and said they didn't have it. It was tagged and with all the other luggage so I didn't know what happened. He suggested we check at the service desk. When we did that, they did not have it but said tio check back because if somewhere along the line it lost it's tag it would show up.

At this point it was time for our muster drill. Ours was not far from our room and we had a real funny guy working our section. They were giving kids under the age of 13 paper wrist bands...so Skye did not need one but she was asked how old she was multiple times. We did not have anything to do dance wise today so we changed for the pool and hung out. Tyler didn't come with us. He had found the basket ball courts up top and was gone! The pools and hot tubs were all VERY crowded with kids all over the place...it was crazy! The adult only pool was almost empty but Skye was with up so that wasn't happening plus is was a little boring back there.

We all met up in the room to get ready for dinner...Tyler was full of sweat and started not feeling well. But he showered off real quick (which for Tyler was a feat!) and we headed to the dining room. We were near the middle of the ship for we just had to get to the elevators up and back. Our dining room (early seating) was at the back of the ship.

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Our table was right by the window and we were sharing with Kyra's group (who we were not quite getting along with at that point).

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Each table was set with a complimentary bottle of wine.

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And bread and butter...two different kinds of bread and everyone loved one of them and the other (the grainy one) only a few of us would eat.

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The menu had about four appetizers, four entrees plus to up-sell items, and four desserts to choose from that didn't change very much each night...a little bit not much.

For appetizers I had the springrolls...

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These were good but I don't do peanut sauce...

Skye ordered the caesar salad...

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It was small but she enjoyed it.

Cary ordered the Shrimp Cocktail...

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Which was three average to small sized shrimp...they tasted good but there was not much there.

Tyler ordered the calamari...

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Which was about five rings...he was gradually feeling worse and worse. Before entrees were served he ended up going back to the room and we had his boxed up to go. We figured it was a combination of motion sickness and heat since he was on the upper deck playing basketball sweating his butt off for hours. The waiter said the gift shop would have motion sickness meds to purchase.

For entrees Skyler had the chicken with potatoes and broccoli.

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It was fine. Bland. Boring. It was just as it is pictures...three broccoli florets, three pieces of potato and a piece of chicken breast. It was food and for her bland is ok...but it was really not the food I expected to be eating on a cruise!

I ordered the Salmon.

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Yep, three chunks of potatoes, two broccoil florets, and three pieces of carrots. Yep. That's it. The salmon was a little better seasoned but I think Salmon has more flavor to begin with than chicken breast.

Cary and Tyler had ordered the Steak with a baked potato and three pieces of broccoli.

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This actually came with a sauce which they both had on the side. They enjoyed this enough but it was still lacking in flavor. At least they had the sauce to dip in. The waiter came around with the fixins for the baked potato (sour cream, cheese, bacon bits) so that was something. Tyler's never got eaten.

This is the view from our table...

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For dessert Cary and Tyler got the chocolate cake thing with vanilla ice cream...

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This was pretty good.

I had some sort of strawberry cheesecake thingy...

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Again, it was good.

Skye just had vanilla ice cream because nothing else appealed to her.

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It was ice cream. All in all, dessert, although small, was probably the best course. We were very disappointed with the choices and the actual presentation and the taste...boring would be the best description.

 
After dinner we took Tyler's food back to the room and he had been sleeping. He was still not feeling very well. We gave him a cool wash cloth and told him we were going to go find some motion sickness meds...and he went back to sleep. We also told him that if he wanted to eat, his food was there or he could order from room serviced if something else sounded better. Then we walked up on deck.

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Big Baby was played over and over and over throughout the trip.

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Those were the soda cups from the bottomless bubbles package that Tyler and Cary got. They weren't big but you could only get one at a time and you had to get them from one of the bars on deck and there was always a ton of people waiting around the bar. I am sure, in the end, that they got their share of pop to make it worth while but it was just not an easy set up.

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We hung out for a while.

We tried to find the "gift shop" that we were told had motion sickness but no one in any shop know where I could buy it. But someone told us we could call room services and they would bring some (for a fee). So that's what we did...
and then decided to call it a night. We were exhausted. Having the early dining slot seemed to make it difficult to get to any night time shows. So we did not see any. We mostly tried to eat and swim and relax. Some of that worked well, some not so much.
 
What cruise ship was this? Hoping Tyler bounces back quick. Too bad about the dance friends / tables mates. Hopefully they didn't sour the cruise too much.
 
In the morning...

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Skye and I were up and out first. We walked around a bit...

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And then headed for breakfast.

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Skye got two hard boiled eggs, hashbrown coins, a pancake, two sausages, and scrambled eggs. I had lucky charms with milk, chocolate milk, a banana, sausage, ham, hashbrown coins, french toast, scrambled eggs, and an eggs benedict.

Then we went for seconds.

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Which added a bowl of fruit, a banana for Skye, ham, Belgium waffles, and a bagel with chream cheese and maybe a piece of cold cut ham???

Breakfast was the best meal of the day from the buffet I think...but it is hard to ruin breakfast.

Cary and Tyler made it upstairs and ate too but I know Tyler took it easy this morning. He was feeling better with the Meclizine in his system but didn't want to push it.

We headed back to the room to gather our stuff and found this guy...

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We were docking this morning in Nassau. We did not have any plans for today. We did not book any excursions because everything was super expensive and our trip was already costing enough in all. So we were going to get off and explore and return back to the ship. See this is someplace I had a hard time with too. Universal was rough planning because there was very little out there but the cruise was even worse. When I cruised 20ish years ago we docked near a beach where we just had to walk past the vendors trying to sell you anything they could and onto the beach. I don't know if that has changed or if it is just a dock at a different area but our dock was near the entrance to shopping district. No beach in sight. No help in finding a beach. We didn't really want to wait in line to get into the shopping district. So we hung out on the dock a bit and then just went back on board.

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I know I had pictures on the dock but cannot find them??? I'll add if/when i find them.

When we got back on board we hit the pools and hot tubs (which were still pretty crowded). The pools were really cold though and the hot tubs were really hot...so it was an odd sensation. We ate lunch of the same buffet as all the windows were closed while docked. And basically tried to relax. There were movies and music videos playing on the big screen too. All in all we had a relatively relaxing day. Tyler was feeling better and back on the basketball court but careful to drink enough water and took some time out to swim with Skye here and there.

We did not use the kids club because Tyler was too old, even though he would probably have gone to the teen club (being he was just 18) with the older girls, and Skye was at an age that all her buds would either be in the younger group or the older group so she'd be there by herself. In the end the younger girls only went once
because they were not thrilled with it (they tend to be more mature than your average kid) but the teens loved theirs for the evening dance club. And they are strict on ages so even though Skye would rather have gone to the teen club (as would Tyler have) it was not allowed.

Some time in here we checked back with guest services about our missing bag and the lady did not speak very good English and, I guess, didn't understand what we were asking her but kept telling us she did not know...but did not attempt to get someone to help us who would understand. Finally, after about 10 minutes "talking" to the woman, we asked for a manager and he knew exactly what we were talking about and knew where it was and got it and we were gone within 3 minutes.
The bad thing was that it was obviously kept someplace where there was no air conditioning because the chocolate frog no longer looked like a frog and any other melt-able item was mound of whatever it was. So we don't actually know if the chocolate frog was $10 worth of chocolate or not...

 
What cruise ship was this? Hoping Tyler bounces back quick. Too bad about the dance friends / tables mates. Hopefully they didn't sour the cruise too much.

We were on Carnival Liberty...after review, it does look like it is generally the budget ship of the Carnival fleet and Carnival is apparently the budget line...which makes sense for a group outing like we were taking. It was a great price. But we did find out why...you get what you pay for. I don't remember what I cruised on before but it was before Disney had their own cruise line and I think it was a line that was working with Disney ad Land and sea trips.....and I keep wanting to say it was Princess but I am not sure. I do know that if we even cruise again, Carnival would be my last resort choice.

He did feel better by the next morning but we did keep him on the meclizine every 12 hours throughout the cruise just in case. I really think it was more a overheating thing but it could have been that and motion sickness all mixed together.

Dinner was awkward for sure but the girls were ok and we all tried to be civil...it worked out.
 
So we hung out in the sun all day relaxing and eating until it was time to get ready for dinner.

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This was the entrance to our dining room. There was a Gold (I think) dining room but I don't know if that was for the later seating or if there were different packages you could have purchased to get better options or not. We didn't have any choice in these kinds of things (if there was any) since we were a group.

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Dinner time coincided with leaving port.

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I do have to say, we had a great table placement for dining since we were right by the windows.

I guess each night at dinner there was a theme...it was not overly displayed or stressed though and it was certainly not represented in the food.

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The same bread and butter...

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For appetizers Skye had the Caesar Salad again...

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...which was the same as yesterday.

I had the scallops...

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Which was mightily disappointing...with three very small scallops and not even an ice cream scoop of grits. It tasted good but was such a tease.

Tyler and Cary ordered the Shrimp Cocktail...

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...which was the same as yesterday.

For entrees Cary ordered the ribs...

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...served with a cornbread muffin and a small bowl of baked beans. He enjoyed these but again, he was happy he would be able to hit a buffet or a hamburger window in the near future.

I had the prime rib...

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...with two onion rings and a baked potato. Again, the waiter came around with the fixins for the potato. It was good but too done for prime rib.


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Tyler has the same steak that he ordered (but didn't eat) the night before. It was exactly the same.

Skyler had the salmon I had the night before. It was exactly the same.

For desserts Cary and I had creme brulee...

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It was a bit watery but had an ok flavor.

Skye and Ty ordered the chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream again...

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Which was the same as the day before.

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All in all, we were disappointed in the food but we didn't have a lot of choice at this point (literally).

After dinner we went back and changed for the pool and headed down. We grabbed chairs mid deck because we planned on swimming and handing out for the evening.

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Tyler headed to the arcade and checked out the casino...he was able to hang there but I didn't let him know he could gamble. He came back to watch Moana later. Skyler ate her weight in soft serve ice cream. One of the machines had strawberry but mostly vanilla and chocolate. The buffet and food windows seemed to close pretty early which was a bummer.

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But we hung out until Skyler fell asleep on the chair.
 
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The next morning (our day at sea) was a busy one. Skye, Cary and I ran to grab some breakfast quickly but had to get back to the room ASAP for Skyler to get ready.

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Their performance was late morning. They were performing on a small stage in an unadvertised session. We all were provided t-shirts/tank tops to wear to advertise. So basically, it was a performance for parents. Skyler was upset because the decision was made to just cut her out of the Polar Express dance since her costume was missing rather than have everyone wear something else (which would have happened for some of the other dancers if it had happened to them!) and it was a very bad rendition without her (it was a trio at this point because one of the other girls (the one who had her costume) did not come on the cruise at all).

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The stage was tiny and round with a cut out round step up right in the middle. So, this took some getting used to as they have never danced on a stage like that and their dances were choreographed for a regular performance stage.

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There was no "back stage" area so the girls were just sitting and changing off to the side of the seats. Weird!

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