Day 17: Tortola

I know I'm behind. I guess I just got too relaxed. Or was it because my mom took my computer hostage again? I think it was a little of both. Anyway.

Today we made it to Tortola. I had last told you that I had a big surprise planned today for my parents. Well, that didn't quite go as planned. I'm getting ahead of myself. So today I woke up at 3:30am. I laid in bed for a while watching tv, started to pack a little and then got ready. We went to breakfast this morning at one of the "sit down" restaurants rather than the buffet. We had our waiter "Z" as our head waiter but Renaldo was late today so he was assigned to another waiter. It ended up being perfect though 'cause like no one was in the restaurant. So "Z" was our waiter and Renaldo got to hang out with us basically the whole time. It was one of the funniest moments of the cruise. Renaldo had half the waiters hysterical laughing at him. He is just so funny. He brought over the guy he was assigned to work with today to introduce us and he was another cool guy. His name was Kendell & he is originally from Trinidad but now from NY. We talked with him a while. We also saw Daniel. Then we met another one of the restaurant "managers" who Renaldo calls his "lawyer",  as this manager always covers for Renaldo when he's late. He was very funny and picked on Renaldo which was great.

After our breakfast we were SUPPOSED to head up to the room and get our swim suits on for my parent's big surprise - Swimming with Dolphins! Apparently, once you hit your 60s you loose all sense of adventure. That's what I get having parents old enough to be my grandparents. It was obvious to me last night when I told my parents about the surprise they weren't really interested. This morning confirmed my feelings. My dad also began to get a tooth ache a few nights ago and by this morning it had gotten pretty bad. So I just decided to cancel the adventure and do something a little more AARP friendly... We took a 20 minute stroll around Tortola. Exciting huh? If you've ever been to Tortola than you'll know how not exciting that stroll is. Tortola has the tiniest little town you'll see. It's literally one street. They have two stores. A rolex store and a jewelry store. That's about it. So we strolled around there and were back on the ship by 10:30am. We headed up to the pool where my mom & I hung out for the day while my dad headed to the room to lay down. The three of us met up for an exciting adventure at the buffet and then crashed from the adrenaline of the buffet adventure back by the pool. My dad went off on his own again. While my mom and I were at the pool we saw Renaldo walking around by the pool. He was working the buffet today. The buffet is in the back (aft) of the ship and the adult only pool is in the front (forward) of the ship. You can take your food from the buffet or the fast food area anywhere you want, so each day they assign a worker for each side of the ship to walk up & down the ship collecting plates. Renaldo had this assignment today, however he was assigned to the opposite side of the ship as us. On one of his rounds he made it over to where we were so we yelled to him, scaring him half to death. He was so excited to see us. He stayed and talked with us for about 10 minutes until Daniel came by. Daniel is the waiter who is a manager in training. During the day he is a manager but at night he's a waiter. Daniel's job today is to walk the deck making sure that Renaldo and the other one assigned to walking the deck are doing what they should.  So Daniel comes around the corner and sees Renaldo on the opposite side of the ship he's supposed to be on talking with us. They both immediately start to laugh and Daniel jokes with Renaldo that he now knows his spots. Daniel then explains to us that Renaldo was just missing for 30 minutes 'cause he was hanging out with some other guests and now he was hanging out with us. So Renaldo heads back to his side of the ship and Daniel stays with us for a quick chat. Fast forward to about 30 minutes later and here comes Renaldo again. This times he talks with us for about 30 minutes. As we were hysterical laughing with Renaldo I see Daniel coming. So when Daniel's view was blocked I warned Renaldo. So Renaldo crawls over to about midship where there was a table and then stands up slowly fixing the table looking around all innocent. At about the time Daniel gets to us, Renaldo turns to face Daniel & almost walks into a passenger who was carrying dishes to put on top of the garbage pail. So Renaldo quickly takes the dishes from her and then happily walks past Daniel over to the garbage pail to dump some of the garbage on the plates. Daniel is now laughing shaking his head & stays over near us so that Renaldo has to keep moving. You really had to be there & know Renaldo's personality. It was hysterical. We stayed by the pool for a little longer and then decided that we were just way too adventurous today and better head back to the room to relax and then get ready for the show and dinner.

Tonight's show was the crew talent show. It was... interesting. Basically, most of the crew shouldn't quit their day jobs. It was a nice time though. They even did "Dancing with the Officers". Where one of the officers would dance with a guest. 4 officers did this. They would find a passenger and then practice during the 5 sea days and then they performed their dance in the show. It was interesting. After the "show" we headed to dinner. Dinner was another fun time, complete with lemons ala Renaldo. After dinner I called it a night, but my dad headed to see the comedian/magician. He said he was very funny.

Tomorrow is our last sea day. So sad!

Talk to you later!