It's My Birthday Cruise - Day Five - Carnival Valor - Last Sea Day
After years of cruising, I've found that each cruise has a little different feeling to it. For instance, one cruise we couldn't get enough of Guy's Burgers. Everyday we would have a Guy's burger for lunch and an afternoon snack. Another cruise it was ice cream all the time. Yet another cruise we did the steakhouse almost every night. Apart from food, we had a cruise where we took an afternoon nap no matter what. Or we made sure we played Bingo everytime they had Bingo. On this cruise, there really wasn't a "thing" we latched onto. One thing we usually always take advantage of is room service in the morning before we head up for brunch. Today was no different. Coffee, juice, and yogurt while we got ready.
Brunch today was pancakes for me and Dave had the steak, eggs, and salmon. We used our free drink coupon that Platinum members get. I did the "Kiss on the Lips" and Dave did a cappuccino. Out of all our meal times, the service during brunch had a lot left to be desired. It wasn't our wait staff team that was the problem, but the bar staff. Our drinks weren't delivered until we were almost through with our meal. Our poor waiter was running in circles trying to track down the bar waiter to find out the problem. If I had any complaints about the service, it would be just that one small thing. And even then, it wasn't a big deal or ruined the day or anything like that.
After brunch, we decided to try the slot tournament once again. We used Dave's BOGO. A happy note - the gal at the casino cage let us know we had Casino cash - and gave Dave and I $25.00 each. So our slot entry fees for both days ended up being free, plus we made an extra $5.00 each. We played our round in the tournament. This time no such luck in advancing to the finals - so we took our money and headed on up to the Lido Deck to "Cruise for St. Jude".
We gave our donations and bought our shirts. We danced on the deck, and played a game of Phase Ten. We ate lunch again upstairs at the Bar B Q place. It was also the chocolate buffet. Dave came prepared, and filled up a Ziploc with chocolate dipped orange peels.
Dave brought some work to do - so he headed back to the room to do a few hours of work - while I headed to the casino to play some cards. At 2:30 we did the Military Appreciation and then the Veterans Table and Tea Time.
After that we took our invitations and attended the Platinum and Diamond Reunion Party. They had various "games" set up. One of the games was to guess the epaulets, one was match the baby picture, and guess the ship. I filled out a form for each one and put Dave's name. Sure enough, he "won" the guess the epaulets. Dave hates being singled out for anything, so when they called his name he was so red. He received his award and bottle of champagne, which we gave to his fellow army buddy that we met at the Veterans' Table.
We ate our last dinner in the dining room, and tipped our wait staff team. They performed a final time, and called me up to dance and sing with them. I told Dave we've been cruising too much if I know their dances and their songs.
The dancers did a new performance called "Far From Over". It was a nod to the 80's. This time they had the full crew of male dancers and a new male singer. All was going well until about the third song in when a shipboard announcement interrupted the show. Once it was finished the microphones turned back on, the background tracks that the musicians use kicked on, and so did the voice for the lead male singer - he was lip syncing. The curtain came down and the last thing the audience heard was the female singer saying - "that was bad - that's the pits". It took a few minutes for the dancers to change their outfits and they proceeded to the next song of "Footloose". There was the Prince song "Purple Rain" and the male lead at that point, gave up trying to match his mouth with the song - and was off with the lip syncing. The female lead wasn't lip syncing at all - and you could tell as she danced and you could hear her breathing. My personal opinion was the guy was probably coming off of being sick since he wasn't there the first night - and probably didn't have his voice at 100% - so it really wasn't a big deal to me. I was more bugged by the fact that even though this was a new show - they recycled a lot of the same songs they used from their "Just Rock" show - down to the dances and sets. I'm all for recycling, but the last few songs were exactly the same. Overall, I'd give it a B- show. It was still worth seeing, but a bit off.
The other critique I would have is that there seems to be a lot more butt floss with the gals' costumes during both performances. I'm not a prude, but I'm not there to see butt cheeks for the sake of being risque. Also, the Purple Rain number during the 80's show - was a Rated "PG-13" almost "R" performance by the two dancers. Several families with children got up during that number and took their kids out. Pretty much the dancers went to second base rounding to third on a motorcycle while the singer lip synced to Purple Rain.
After the show, we did the 80's Trivia in the lounge which included a sing along. The theme of the cruise seems to be 70's & 80's. It was in the shows, the music played in the clubs, and the different days of Trivia. It was a lot of fun. For the 80's trivia - sing along Frankie changed into an 80's outfit complete with big hair band wig.
Dave and I decided to call it a night and we were in our room by midnight. Next morning we were off the ship by 9:00 and headed home. Sure, we had a few minor things pop up - but nothing that would diminish our cruise in any way. It was a solid cruise!
