Tropical Contact Highs: Eight Breeze-y Nights in the Southern Caribbean (Part 9)featured

by Nicole on May 22, 2014

Since the clocks were turned back last night, we had an extra hour in our day, and when we woke up at 9:00 am, the clock read 8:00 am. No one was complaining about that extra hour on our last day! The skies were much less ominous than the previous morning, so we grabbed our swim gear and headed up to the Lido deck for breakfast.

Breakfast, you ask? At this point, do you even need to? Arepas. Tortilla. Salsa Verde. Side of fruit. Cup of coffee. Lather, rinse, repeat.

We headed out to the aft pool for some swim time and sun. More swim than sun because the skies were overcast, but for our last day at sea? We’d take it.

After a couple of hours, the clouds made way to some very intense sunlight, and it got really hot really fast. We didn’t last too long outside after that and headed back to the room to pack. Well, Mom and Stephanie packed. I napped. Because damn it, if I had to go back to work in two days, I’m getting in all the rest I could get. Our room steward left us a bonus towel creation with our luggage tags and debarkation papers.

Stephanie woke me up a couple hours later to grab lunch up on Lido. Lunch time on the last sea day always equals Chocolate Extravaganza.

And Chocolate Extravaganza? That equals lots of cakes, candies, ice cream swans and various fruits and baked goods dipped in a chocolate fountain. It’s incredibly decadent.

Unfortunately, as wonderful as all of that looked, I didn’t crave any of it. Maybe because they weren’t offering chocolate dipped arepas (at first, I was totally kidding with that but now I’m thinking about it and it actually sounds delicious. Take note, Carnival). So I ducked out on the Chocolate and grabbed some tacos from the Blue Iguana Cantina, which believe it or not, were nearly as good as the tacos I get at my local taco joint.

We all headed out to the Lanai deck after lunch for some hot tubbing, and the hot tubs out on the Lanai were perfect. We’ve found on a few of our recent Carnival cruises, the hot tubs were either incredibly tepid or way too hot, but the hot tubs on the Breeze’s Lanai were perfect – warm, but not too intense.

The only problem we had out on the Lanai is that it was very difficult to track down a bar server to get drinks. I think we were out there for almost an hour and no bar service. Carnival’s loss, my liver’s gain. We also noticed there weren’t towels out for grabs to dry off with on the Lanai on the Breeze, as there had been on the Dream. Those two things aside, it was gorgeous and peaceful and perfect for an afternoon hour.

When we were nice and pruney, we headed back to the room to shower. I sat out on the balcony for a bit with my iPad, determined to get through as much of the Hunger Games trilogy as I could. Since we skipped tea time on our other sea days, we decided to give it a go since it was our last sea day and it is kind of our tradition.

We were taken to a private table on the aft of the ship, with a lovely view of the wake. There were so many things to love about this tea service. First thing, for the picky eater in me that is grossed out by seafood, they finally stopped cross contaminating the offerings by using separate tongs for the salmon sandwiches as they do the other sandwiches and pastries. Secondly and even better? MACARONS! They had macarons! Listen, I’ll complain until [insert your favorite cliché here] about the ghastly animatronic screens and the lapses in service in the dining room dinner hours, but tea time? Tea time is the one thing Carnival consistently gets right. While I wish they still had live orchestral music playing throughout the event, it’s a minor detail to an otherwise cherished event. Please, Carnival, don’t cut back on this one.

Tea time was followed by…another nap. For me. I was exhausted coming into this trip and I spent the entire trip catching up on my sleep. It was a short nap, though, and afterwards, we all took a stroll along the upper decks.

Stephanie and I decided we wanted to grab some drinks at the Red Frog Pub, so we headed inside and, well, traffic jam at the Carnival shops. THE DEALS AREN’T THAT GOOD, Y’ALL. The quality of the products they offer isn’t that great and the savings are marred by the markup in value.

Once we cleared past the hoards of deal hungry shoppers, we quickly made our way to the Red Frog for some live music and a fishbowl.

We eventually headed outside to enjoy our fishbowl (which we never managed to finish) al fresco with the sunset. They have a little patio-like setup outside the Red Frog Pub that’s kind of like a hidden gem. It’s a really nice area to enjoy a drink.

Unable to delay the inevitable any longer, after we gave up on the idea of finishing this fishbowl and still having a productive evening, we headed back to the room to finish up packing (or, rather, so I could start packing while Mom and Stephanie finished).

When the closets were emptied and everything packed up, we decided to go grab dinner on the Lido deck. Between the tension amongst the wait staffs the evening before and a menu we didn’t care for, a nice, relaxed meal at our own pace seemed like the perfect end to our day. Many of the offerings were the same as what was being offered in the dining room and everything was delicious and fresh.

I went back to the room to continue to pack up while Stephanie and Mom went down to the purser to check on our accounts. The mysterious on board credit that appeared at the beginning of our cruise was gone, and it turns out, wasn’t on board credit at all. Apparently, if you’re a Platinum cruiser, your laundry credits show up as on board credit on your account, but if you don’t use it for laundry, it doesn’t transfer over to cover other charges – it just disappears. I was done packing by the time they settled the OBC dramz, so we put our suitcases out in the hall and headed out.

Without a farewell party (sigh) or a show (double sigh – it was a repeat performance from a hypnotist that performed earlier in the week), we just kind of wandered around the ship.