Carnival Splendor Journeys Review: Day 9 – Sea Dayfeatured

After our first two sea days, this cruise felt like it was going to go on forever. Not that that would be a bad thing. I wouldn’t have cried if this cruise never ended.

When we hit Antigua, though, everything started to go into hyper motion. Days that lingered on a little long suddenly ended before it felt like they really began. We’d come back to the room to tell Mom about our adventures in port and it was like, did we really just see that? Do that? Experience that?

And then, our final sea day, and our final day onboard the Carnival Splendor, was upon us. There was a ton I wanted to do and see, and one four letter word I didn’t want to hear until the sky was black.

Stephanie was sick with a capital S by our final sea day, but that’s no new thing in this fam – she gets sick on just about every Caribbean cruise we go on (especially in the winter months) and we now travel with a small arsenal of meds because if it’s not her, it’s usually me. So we had a quick coffee and pastry breakfast up on the Lido deck before grabbing some chairs out by the aft pool to lay out on for a few hours.

The weather was increasingly more humid throughout our cruise, culminating in this final sea day where, even though the temps were only in the low 80s, our skin was glistening the moment we stepped outside. Two hours at the pool and we hiked it back to our cabin to grab the Vitacoco I bought in San Juan and went to go sit by the casino. The temps around the ship varied depending on where you were, but the casino and the theatre were always kept the coldest.

Elsewhere around the ship, there were a bunch of Christmas Day activities – an early morning service and some other festivities – as well as the usual sea day trivia sessions, sales at the shops, games and the obligatory sea day men’s hairy chest competition. But our favorite thing to do on sea days is to do nothing at all, so once our room had been serviced, Stephanie went to take a nap and I alternated between tanning on our balcony and taking an A/C siesta in our max cool cabin.

We had free drink vouchers burning a hole in our pockets, so we skipped our traditional Christmas lunch (read: Chinese food) and the Chocolate Extravaganza in favor of the sea day brunch, where we toasted with Bellini’s to our final day at sea, and to our next adventure (the Horizon!).

Mom wanted to…four letter word…after brunch. Stephanie and I tried to go to Friends trivia (can you believe that, on a nine-day cruise, we still hadn’t played a single round yet?!), but the lounge was standing room only and we aren’t down for that, so we went back to the room and back to the balcony.

Because it was Christmas, our final evening was another formal night. Formal nights are stressful when you have one desk and three girls trying to get ready, and magnified when your room is in complete disarray because everyone is trying to…four letter word (or not, in my case). There was an early Christmas Show before dinner. We saw it on our Sunshine Christmas cruise two years ago and thought it was really spirited and our Splendor cast did not disappoint. If I haven’t already mentioned it, our Cruise Director, MarQ, was really fantastic. He’s one of the newer CD’s, but he’s learned from the best (read: Jamie Dee and Matt Mitcham, two of our faves) and he’s really fun, super sweet and an all around good dude.

We took some time on the promenade after the show because, well, we hadn’t really spent much time on the promenade on this cruise. The sea was as smooth as glass – a concept we’ve forgotten with the turbulence of the previous two winter Caribbean cruises we’d sailed on. The sun set on our final day onboard the ship and I hadn’t done a full walk around of the ship, I didn’t buy a single thing in the shops and I’d only had two Miami Vices. I was okay with it, too. I’ve moved past the point of getting sad when our cruises end because, to borrow a super cheesy cliché, when one cabin door closes, another booking window opens. Or something like that.

Because it was Christmas Day, there was a special dinner menu featured in the dining room, with all kinds of traditional holiday fare. The desserts were especially festive and everything was delicious, but our favorite server, Alex, must have been super popular because his section was already full by the time we reached the podium and we had to spend our last meal onboard with a new crew. We were especially bummed because it was our last day and we really wanted to say a proper see ya later.

Christmas Dinner

Shrimp Cocktail

Pumpkin Bisque

Oxtail Consomme

Christmas Salad

Grilled USDA Choice Sirloin Steak

The Turkey Dinner

Raspberry Holiday

Dulce Chocolate Spiced Pumpkin Pate

The entertainment for the evening was a big Lip Sync Battle showdown. I can’t say I’ve ever watched Lip Sync Battle on TV (even though it’s hosted by the celeb I’d most like to be my BFF slash personal role model, Chrissy Teigen), but you guys, it’s been a very long time since I’ve been this entertained by a non-production show on a cruise ship. Like, we’re talking I’m-laughing-so-hard-I’m-coughing-and-crying.

After the show, I couldn’t put it off anymore and that dirty little four letter word that wouldn’t touch my lips all day had to become a reality: I had to pack. I can’t decide if I hate packing to go on vacation more or less than I hate packing to come home from vacation. The latter is easier, the former is less depressing. Both stink.

We skipped the evening movie up on deck (A Christmas Story) and planned on grabbing pizza or hitting up the late night grill for one last hurrah, but we ultimately skipped that too. We had that bottle of Prosecco we’d brought onboard. You know, the one I tried to get everyone to pop open on our first (and second) day because we always wait for the end of the week (when someone is always invariably sick)? Stephanie and I grabbed some glasses and popped that sucker on the balcony. We spent plenty of time out there and yet it felt like we hadn’t spent nearly enough time enjoying it at all. I could have spent the entire cruise on that balcony and I don’t know if I’d have felt it was enough time – it’s some primo real estate! We drank our Prosecco and toasted to the next cruise on the Horizon and reveled in how beautiful a night it was. It was as if the sky was this crushed black velvet studded with Christmas lights. The light of the stars and the moon bounced up off the water and all there was left to see was the wake of the ship trailing off towards the infinite horizon. It was the perfect way to end another amazing cruise.