Cruise 2010 Day-by-Day Recap: Saturday

When we left off, I had fallen into bed in a drunken stupor around 4 a.m. We had to be in the lounge for the first tenders at 9:00 a.m., so I was planning on getting up at 7:30, but my body decided it did not want to sleep past 6:00. Helpful!

You may remember that one of my favorite things about cruise 2009 was the room service breakfast/coffee delivered after a night of drinking. I was really looking forward to it Saturday morning this year. Too bad it never showed up. I called twice and they just said they were really busy. All I wanted was some coffee and a piece of toast! Yoi.

We eventually made it to the Dynasty Lounge. Wow did I feel awful. My own fault, I realize. All I wanted to do was lay down. Unfortunately there was a delay with . . .  something, and we ended up waiting in the theater until after 10:30. From the conversation around me, I could tell that I was not the only one who wanted to curl up in a ball somewhere, which made it even more entertaining when they called for wristbands "red one," and there was a spontaneous, albeit quiet, "red one!" from the crowd.

If I thought waiting in the lounge was rough, it was nothing compared to the tender. This was about the point I was vowing never to drink again. Eventually, though, we made it to Half Moon Cay, which was so gorgeous you could hardly believe it was real.

Our first order of business was to rent clamshells, and I collapsed onto a beach chair for a bit. Eventually the island started to fill up and the fresh air cleared my head, so I walked around on the beach finding all my friends who were on later tenders. There was a stage on the beach set with 5 microphones, and rumor was there was going to be some sort of performance at 1:00 or 1:30, so off we went in search of lunch.

I had been worried about vegetarian food at lunch, but it was for nothing. The Carnival reps on the phone before we left told me there'd be nothing but salad, but there was actually a ton of stuff including veggie burgers, which the cook offered to prepare on a separate grill for me and then delivered to my table fully dressed. Our lunchtime entertainment was a family of chickens scurrying under the table.

After lunch, we went back to the beach where nothing was happening, but a crowd was gathering around the stage anyway. Eventually we were rewarded when the NKs sped up to the beach in their own boat, like something out of Miami Vice.



I thought there was going to be some kind of performance, so we went up to the side of the stage. Standing in the full sun was almost unbearable. It was scorching hot. That worked out for our benefit, because almost as soon as they hit the stage, Joe and Jon declared they were going swimming and ran off toward the ocean.

I decided there was no way I was going to remain sweating my face off near the stage if there were two NKs frolicking 30 ft away in the water, so off I went too. I didn't swim after them or even bring my camera (above photo is courtesy of my roomie Malina), but it was nice to be swimming in an idyllic setting in the vicinity of New Kids.

I went back up near the stage for a bit and enjoyed the view of Joe walking around in his swim trunks (as he did for the whole day), but after 10-15 minutes I was just too hot up there and had to retreat back to the water.

Elizabeth and I watched most of the beach games while neck-deep in the ocean. That meant we couldn't see much. We were aware people were limbo-ing, but that's about it. I missed the races. Not sure what the other games were. I didn't mind not being able to see because where we were was perfect. We decided we'd like to watch all NKs events from the waters of HMC.

By then it was maybe 2:30-3:00. The rest of the day was centered on staying out of the sun. We had been applying super high SPF throughout the day, but Andrea was bright pink. We walked around looking for shade (which was no longer available under our rooted clamshell) and water. Around 4:00 we decided to head back to the boat, not realizing NKOTB had just done the same. This meant we had a nice welcome party upon arriving back at the Imagination.

I intended to nap before dinner. It didn't work. So we went to dinner. Then we tried to nap again, unsuccessfully. Every time I shut my eyes on the boat I worried I was missing something. Group B had their concert that night. We only had to get ready for PJ night. Beach day followed by PJ night was a great idea. The last thing I wanted to do was put on heels.

So, okay, I was a little bit in love with my PJs. Back when I was hoping for an 80s night, I was planning to dress as Lucky Star Madonna. When that didn't work out, my PJs became the next best thing. A t-shirt featuring -- wait for it -- Lucky Star Madonna, along with the giant lace hair bow and 80 jelly bracelets I had bought for the original outfit. (Who says I don't sleep wearing 80 jelly bracelets? I don't, but I could.)

Saturday was the antithesis of Friday. We drank Diet Coke (and one vodka-based drink, but just one!). And the theme ended up being a mashup because we were in PJs, the NKs for some unknown reason wore togas, and the DJ played a lot of 80s music. Loved it!

Sadly, the PJs were a lot tamer this year. Not just tamer, nearly Puritan. In my t-shirt and shorts I was among the least dressed. Not much entertainment people watching, but there were a couple fun ones.

Joe performed, Donnie performed, there was random group + audience singing to Summertime. Keeping in line with the rest of the day, it was disgustingly hot - still - all night. Dancing to the non-stop dance marathon that was DJ Cheapshot had us overheated, so it was nice to cool down with self-serve ice cream.

After 3:00 the crowd started to thin, and it was around 3:30 that one of the most awesome parts of the cruise happened. Jon decided he was tired of watching everyone sing and joined in himself. He did three or four songs. The best was One Song. Here are the others.


Then Donnie took off half his toga and started talking about Cruise 2011. Not too long after that, we decided things couldn't possibly get better so we went to bed. Best deck party ever.