i woke early on day 4 of our cruise to the ship pulling into Jamaica. The kids woke soon after and we got ready and ate quickly to go out on our excursion.
Jamaica had some fun stuff to choose from, but unfortunately Magnus was too little to do much of any of it. He was too young to tube down the river, and so short to go zip-lining. We didn't really want to split-up, so we chose an excursion that we would all enjoy.
Ya, mon!
We met our bus and guide for the day and took a long ride to Reggae Hill. While we rode our guide was very funny, interesting, and informative. She told us all about the rich man city where only doctors, lawyers, and political officials live. They have their own grocery stores, dentist offices, etc. It is a gated community and you can only get in if you live there. She also told us about Bob Marley, the Jamaican flag, and the plantations there.
Oil rig in the bay
It was a very informative ride.
Once we arrived at Reggae Hill the theme for the day was relax. We figured out quickly that most people do this excursion because they just want to eat and drink all day.
But it was still fun and entertaining. They had a live band playing reggae music and a lady singing (she was terrible. Luckily she only sang a few songs every hour or so).
We had our little circle of chairs and we were brought unlimited drinks. Luckily they had several non-alcoholic drinks. The servers figured out quickly that we didn't drink and stopped bringing all of the cocktails to us.
It was such a fun experience. They brought us dish after dish of delicious Jamaican food. All of it was very yummy. The kids weren't huge fans, but Andy and I liked it a lot.
We chose this excursion because there was a river for the kids to play in. They had a great lifeguard who watched them the whole time and rescued them when the river current started taking them too far away on the rafts.
There were lots of little fish and frogs that they kept trying to catch.
People kept riding up the river on these big rafts. And there were also people riding down the river on tubes.
There's the lifeguard in his yellow kayak rescuing Daphne on her raft.
Besides the band and singing lady there was amazing dancing. There were various trios that had such fun costumes and it was so fun to watch the different Jamaican styles of dance. They had a drummer to keep the beat and he was so good.
The lifeguard made a train with the kids and paddled them all around the river. He was such a nice guy.
We had a fun and relaxing day. When it was time to ride the bus back to the ship, they offered us drinks one more time. We all took one and soon after Laylah came over to Andy and me and said hers tasted weird. We both sipped it and realized there was alcohol in it, probably rum. She was mortified. They must have gotten some drinks mixed up because they had always offered all of the kids virgin drinks. Whoops! We laughed and laughed about it.
magnus had to pee in a cup on the bus ride back.
Pretty ocean.
Not sure why this photo is sideways
After arriving back Andy took the two little boys back to the ship. I took the older kids to souvenir shop. We found some awesome stuff, and the girls found some ladies to braid their hair (that is all they wanted) and then we realized that Andy had taken our money back with him. Oh man the kids were bummed. I was way too exhausted to go all the way back to the ship, go through security twice, and then walk all the way back to the markets. I promised we would find all of them an awesome souvenir the next day on Haiti and they were happy with that.
Our towel animals for the day
We all showered and went to the arcade before dinner for a bit. After eating the kids were wasted, so they went back to the room for some downtime. I went back as well and had a nap.
After that Andy and I decided to go do some of the fun adult stuff they have on board. Before we left we put the kids to bed. I forgot to mention that most of the kids were doing fine on the boat, but every once in awhile one of them would get a little seasick. I would give them a meclizene pill and then they would be fine. However, Daphne gets motion sickness and car sickness easily, so she needed a couple pills every day. I forgot to give her one before we left and later found out she threw up several times. Poor girl :( I felt terrible.
They had a Battle of the Sexes game going on in one of the lounges and it was soooo funny. The men barely beat the women. It was a blast.
Afterwards we went and played bingo. Now, normally Andy and I would never gamble, but they had included free bingo games in Magnus' wish packet, so we used it. We didn't win. Bummer.
After Bingo there was a Love and Marriage game show. Oh my goodness, it was a hoot. Andy and I got chosen to be one of the couples in the game. They chose one couple by seeing who had been married the shortest amount of time, and one who had been married the longest amount of time. Then they had people stand who had been married anywhere from 10-30 years. There were about 10 couples standing (I forced Andy to stand) and they made us pretend to be at a rodeo. Well, most couples had the wife jump on their back and pretend to be a bull, but Andy threw me right up on his shoulder and ran up on the stage like a crazy person, bucking around like a bucking bronco. Oh my, I was terrified. I thought I was going to fall off in in a skirt in front of hundreds of people. But we made it back to our seats and the audience voted for the couple they wanted with applause. Andy and I won and got up for the game.
The game was hilarious. There were all sorts of (inappropriate) questions. But guess what? We won! Our prize was a bag full of Royal Caribbean crap (that's what the game show host said, haha. It included a backpack, t-shirts, a hat, water bottles, scrap booking paper, and some other stuff), we won a bottle of champagne, and we also won couple's spa service on board the ship, We also received a dvd copy of the whole show that we found out was being filmed after the fact. We also found out they would be airing the game show for the rest of the cruise on the cruise information channel so that everyone on the ship could watch it. Nice. But it was so fun and a great, hilarious experience.
And just a sidenote: throughout the rest of our trip random people would see us and say, "Hey, didn't you two win the game show?" or they would mention something about the show that happened or that one of us said while doing the show. It was so funny and kind of embarrassing.
As we were walking down the promenade someone spotted us and grabbed us and made us come into the bar. Everyone cheered for us and I don't know if I have ever been more embarrassed. We sat for a minute and listened to the live music, and then we tried to sneak out and everyone was like, "No! Stay! Open your champagne!" Haha, we pretty much ran out after that, waving our apologies. We headed back to our room to go to bed. We were so exhausted! Every day is fun, but so tiring. Too much fun to be had!
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