Christmas 2018 Diary – Day 6

We slept in a little, but not too late. Given that this was a sea day, we needed to be at the Splash Academy by 8:40 to avoid the long checkin line and make sure the kids had a spot in the program.

We ate breakfast at one of the the main dining rooms and got ready for the day. After dropping the kids off my wife took a nap while I went to the gym. I had a good workout overlooking the ocean, which was thankfully calm. By the time the workout was done it was nearly time to get the kids for lunch.

Lazy Afternoon

We ate in the main dining room again. The kids ate four(!!) orders of popcorn shrimp between them and wanted more! We headed to our stateroom after lunch and I felt extremely tired for some reason and fell asleep.

My wife took the kids to the afternoon Splash Academy session. I was so fast asleep I didn’t hear them leave. I woke up when housekeeping came by and noticed a sticky note on the picture across from the bed that my wife had left me. It was telling me where she was, but I promptly fell back asleep only to wake up to find a different sticky note telling me she was at a different place. Apparently she came in after I fell asleep the second time. I still have no idea why I was so tired but I did feel rested!

Dinner Experience

I woke up for the final time when the kids came back from Splash Academy. We had dinner reservations for our third dining plan credit at Moderno Churrascoria which is a Brazilian steakhouse. We got there as it opened and asked again about what the kids could order. They said the kids could use the salad bar and sample some of the meats off our plate and could order whatever they wanted off the kids menu.

If you haven’t been to a Brazilian steakhouse, what happens is that they bring around different types of meat and chicken and cut off a piece for you. They will keep doing this until you are full. There are usually a lot of different flavors and types of meat they will bring by including may options wrapped in bacon.

We sampled almost everything. My favorite was their signature beef cut. While my wife and Tomatico enjoyed a parmesan covered chicken drumstick. I half expected my wife to get crushed by a mountain of chicken legs she liked them so much. She said it’s as probably the best thing she had on the whole trip and maybe the best chicken she’s ever had.

The Brat Pack

This is the type of restaurant that can take a long time to eat at. Unfortunately we had to rush the end of our meal because we needed to get the kids to Splash Academy so we could get to a show. We wanted to see a 16+ only show called The Brat Pack which was themed after the movies in the 80’s. My wife ended up getting dessert and settling the bill (she had a drink with dinner) while I raced down to get the kids checked into Splash Academy. We then met at the theater.

We hadn’t gotten our reservations for the show before they were sold out. Technically we were standby, but they checked us in without a mention when the doors opened. We got excellent seats and the theater was only about 80% full. I really enjoyed the show, the characters and the nostalgia. The singing, music, and the performances were top notch.

In fact all the shows we saw were very well done with high production value. We see a number of shows per year. While we’re not super picky about the shows we see, we’ve seen enough to know when we’re seeing a professional performance and these shows were definitely in that category. It was easy to forget we were on a boat! Best of all this show, like all the others we attended, was free.

After the show we picked up the kids and went back to the room and called it a night.

Tomorrow was going to be the last full day of the cruise. How quickly it went!