Day 5 - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - Sailing Day

 Day 5 - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - Sailing Day

Our fourth day on the boat was a “sailing day” which means we stay on the boat the entire day while we sail to Turkey.  The kids were SO looking forward to a day full of swimming & relaxing with ice cream all day long.

We woke up trying to figure out what time it was.  They had told us to change our watches/clocks forward one hour, but we also didn’t pay for internet on the ship so we didn’t know if our phones would change automatically or not (we assumed they wouldn’t).  So we woke up & had to find a clock in the hallway to see what time it was.  Our clocks & phones did NOT change like we assumed so now we knew how to schedule the day based on that information.  The ship had a day FULL of fun since all 2500 passengers were to remain on the boat all day. 

We went to the dining hall for breakfast & I had the MOST amazing breakfast EVER (& wound up eating it every morning for the remainder of the trip).  It was a vegetable breakfast bowl with onions, peppers, zucchini & squash, tomatoes, & warm goat cheese with 2 fried eggs on top.  It was incredible.  That goat cheese is just my favorite thing & to add it to veggies is amazing.  At breakfast we looked at the ship’s activity schedule & planned out our day.

The first activity we participated in was the “Name That Tune: Disney Songs” Trivia Game.  We played against all the other families on the ship & out of 25 songs, we missed one (which we totally knew but overthought it. . . We knew it was Randy Newman, but Toy Story seemed too obvious choice so we went with Brother Bear (which I KNEW was Phil Collins, but nobody would listen to me). Randy Newman did Bug’s Life too so I thought maybe it was that.  It was the song “Sailing” from “Toy Story” but the part they played was 3 seconds of the part you don’t actually hear much of in the movie so we just were clueless.  So we came in 2nd place which isn’t bad.  Two other teams got all 25 right & had to do a tiebreaker which was “the other Randy Newman” soundtrack which was Bug’s Life.  We were proud of our 2nd place. 

After that we walked through all the shops in the mini mall then explored the art gallery.  The kids wanted a little bit of rest time so they all laid down in their rooms to watch Avatar the Last Airbender together while Trek & I explored the ship more & of course got more ice cream. 

For lunch we ate in the dining hall again & had amazing mozzarella sticks with spicy chicken sandwiches.  We ALL ordered the same thing & it was SO SO SO GOOD.  The chocolate cake for dessert was one of the kids’ favorite desserts on board. 

We all got into our swimsuits to spend the rest of the day swimming, but we got hit with a giant rainstorm & they closed down decks 9-11.  It was crazy.  During that craziness, Canyon hopped onto an elevator to go back to his room but didn’t tell us & we LOST him.  He knew where he was, but we didn’t.  We spend a good 45 minutes with each kid on different floors of that huge ship trying to find him.  He HAD gone back to his room, but he didn’t have a key to the room so he was wandering around the boat wondering what to do.  The stinker.  He knows better than that, but made a bad judgement & had the consequence of feeling alone, lost, & afraid.  Luckily Trek found him trying to find us & all was well again.  We had some good talks about the importance of staying together.  The teens ended up spending time in the teen area playing games while Trek & Craiger played some video games in the room.  I took Canyon & we went to the puzzle area of the ship & worked on a 1000 piece puzzle for 2 hours.  We were having fun.  Then we watched the “Sexiest Man” competition which was HILARIOUS.  (They were just random guys picked from the audience who had to answer hilarious questions, model, & just be silly. . . It was all in good fun).  Canyon & I laughed the whole time. 

After that we grabbed everyone again & played board games at one of the tables on deck 5 for about an hour which was a blast.  We played Citadels which is a family favorite of ours.  When 5:30 rolled around, we weren’t even hungry so we opted to eat a late dinner at the buffet that night.  It was good, but not nearly as good as the dining hall. 

After dinner, we made our way to the Spotlight Lounge on Deck 6 to enter the “Name that Cartoon Character” trivia contest.  Our family WON that one which is hilarious because we guessed on the Southpark character’s name & got it right.  (None of us watch South Park).  Trek & I knew all the 80’s & 90’s characters & our kids knew all the modern ones.  All the kids won blue highlighters for winning. 

Our last activity of the evening was the Singers Showcase show at the theater which was fantastic.  The singers on the boat were incredible & we loved watching them perform every night.  We finally got to bed around 9 so we could get up extra early for our busy day in Ephesus, Turkey the next day.