Friday the weather was beautiful, so of course we all decided to sleep in a bit. Who needs the sun and warm sea breezes when in just a few short days we’ll be back in New York dealing with sub zero wind chills, ice and yellow snow.Junior Miss had a slight bout of seasickness and wanted to hang in her stateroom watching a movie till it passed, so we headed up to the Oceanview Café to try out the breakfast buffet. Typically on the trip so far we’ve had breakfast in our room, or at Blu, and once in the Aqua Spa area, people and the service we encountered was first class in each case. The buffet though, that was a little different.

People seem to act just a little different when they’re in a buffet atmosphere. Seems the hunter and survival instinct kind of takes over, and for the most part, will step over a small starving child to get to the sausages. Not that I have a temper or anything, but I think that one of the reasons we generally avoid buffets as a rule, is that I often find myself looking to smash one of these rude clods square in the face with a tray.

I’m looking around trying to decide if I’d prefer a muffin or a croissant, a woman with a little too much baby fat for a 60 year old shoves me aside to grab 4 glazed Danishes. I’m patiently waiting for a learning disabled senior who’s trying to determine which button to push at the coffee station, when I’m sideswiped by some clown with a porn moustache who apparently really needs the caffeine more than me.
Probably the last time you’ll see us at the buffet, but on a positive note, we sat eating and staring out the window and caught a glimpse of a small school of dolphins swimming and leaping from the water. Chrissy said that performing was in their DNA, sort of like Carrot Top.

We headed back to check on the child after breakfast, she still wanted to rest a bit but was feeling somewhat better. Decided it was time to carry on with our primary mission of the day – lying around on lounge chairs, drinking frozen concoctions, reading and making anyone who decided to join us in the hot tub feel somewhat uncomfortable. Happily, it wasn’t too long after we settled in that Junior Miss came down and found us. A ginger ale and some pizza and she was ready to go. We hung around until about 3:15 when we heard sandwiches calling us from the Oceanview Café. Know what you’re thinking, that we had a bad experience with breakfast, why chance it with lunch? Well, we’ve walked through there several times during the trip and we hadn’t stopped to sample from the cold cuts station, and dammit, it was just time!

Time was most definitely not on our side this day. Remember, it was 3:15. Guess what time the cold cuts station closes down. Of course, 3pm. There was plenty of pizza and pasta. There was fruit and ice cream. But there were no sandwiches. There are some sad things in this world, but the sadness of desiring a sandwich so much you can almost taste it, and then the sandwich drawer being slammed shut is a pretty bad sad. So we grabbed what we could and then decided to walk around and see if we could find things we haven’t yet seen. We found the game room and played some video games. Then we went out to the front of the boat and played some half court basketball. Chrissy and I were happy to be getting a little exercise, but Junior Miss wanted to go inside before she got too much sea salt in her hair and would have to shampoo and condition again. So we headed inside and hung around a little more reading and getting down to doing nothing.

Friday night was another formal night. So while Chrissy and Junior Miss looked all formal and fancy, I decided to leave my ill-fitting tuxedo in the rental bag and simply wear the suit I brought. It’s nice.

Apparently, being slightly informal on this formal evening led to an informal approach to requesting a few extra drinks throughout the course of the day and evening, and by the time we got to sit down and explain to our wait staff at Blu why dinner was not as good last night because we strayed to another restaurant, I was already four steps too far down a dangerous path.

The wonderful staff again delivered an extra large bowl of peas for Junior Miss, and I recall having two desserts. But we couldn’t lollygag after eating for too long as we wanted to get to the Theater for the late show. I recall some singing and dancing and even the emission of an occasional chuckle. Then it was off to the Martini Bar where we sat right across from the Captain and a bunch of his crew boozing it up. Again we had to wonder aloud “who was steering the damn ship?”

Traveling along the eastern Caribbean in January, you get to experience a little “daylight savings time”. As we approached St. Kitts we had to set the clocks up an hour, and tonight was the best part of the time switch, we get the hour back! That’s right, at 2am, we move back an hour. That means the bars are open an extra hour, and extra hour to party! Chances are, if you’re reading this, and you’ve had the great misfortune to actually meet us, you know this cannot be good.

Sure enough, we polish off about fifty bucks worth of martini’s with silly names and figure it’s time to head back to Quasar to dance the night away! Things sort of disintegrated from there. The usual assortment of sloppy drunks were already there, slipping and slobbering all over themselves. (Hint – if you read their blogs, you’ll read about us in the same context). Junior Miss’ friend James comes in, as does Steve the comedian, and a bunch of the singers and dancers from the shows. Being among the few adult passengers still not yet old enough to be considered creepy, we manage to mix in with them without creating a situation for security to be called in.

There was yet another dance-off, and plenty of hijinks and merriment. At some point we started to notice the bartender putting away the liquor. It was nearly 3:30, which meant that our internal clocks were closer to 4:30am. That’s one of the nicest things about being on vacation, is that when it comes to your alarm clock, annoying bird sound kitchen wall clock, internal clock or biological clock – you forget them all and really only check the time once a day to make sure you’re not late for dinner. This night however, as we closed down the club, we distinctly knew what time it was…time for bed. Even Junior Miss – the dirty stay out was a bit tuckered out.

Sometimes, it’s amazing to look back on an evening and realize we never truly know what awaits us on the other side of the sun, if and when we awake.