Bahamas Cruise, Day 4

Today was Key West day!  While I enjoyed being off the grid for a little bit, I welcomed having phone service.  I didn't answer any work emails, but it was nice to know that there weren't any crisises at the office.  Well, there were some issues with our Outlook system and sending out emails, but since I wasn't planning to send anything out, that didn't really matter to me.  After breakfast, the six of us got off the ship and walked around town.  My goal of the day was to go to the Hemingway House and hang out with the Hemingway (polydactyl) six-toed cats.  Meg wanted to get some sand from the beach.  There was some tour that we could have signed up for on the ship for Key West, but the one that we wanted to do was cancelled. Oh well, we did to a fair amount of walking today and we saved money (~$50 tour vs. $13 for the Hemingway house only).

There was so much to see right off the ship.  A Tervis store caught my eye, so I had to go in!  I picked a cat tumbler and a Key West tumbler to commemorate my visit.  I also picked up a rabbit one for my sister.  After we got out of the store, I noticed our waiter walking up ahead.  I tapped him on the shoulder and said "Well, if we don't see you at dinner, we'll know what happened."  He gave a big smile and gave us some advice on what there was to see in Key West. 

Eventually our group of 6 split up into two groups: Meg/Megan/Kristin and Robyn/Page/me.  We found out later that Kristin wasn't feeling so well and went back to the ship not long after we split into groups.  Robyn, armed with her Key West map, led us to the Hemingway House.  There was a little wait to get in, but I didn't mind because I REALLY wanted to see the cats.  I was missing RJ.  We paid the entrance fee and immediately saw quite a few sleeping cats.  Robyn gave one a catnip mouse toy that she knitted and the cat went all crazy.  It definitely wasn't tired anymore!  We jumped in on a tour that was going on.  I thought it was amusing that while the furniture was off limits to humans, there were quite a few cats that were making themselves at home.  On our way out, we went to check on the catnip mouse toy and we found another cat playing with it.  The new cat looked like a fat RJ...some black and white markings, just rounder in the tummy area.

Cat with catnip toy

An RJ look-alike with the catnip toy

Check out this guy's toes!

Afterwards, Robyn, Page, and I went to the Six-Toed Cat next door for lunch.  While the food was good, I didn't think the service was great.  Page asked for some limes for her water.  The waiter came back later and put them on her plate with his hands and gave some lame excuse about how busy he was.  The public health side of me came out, and I whispered to Page, "Don't eat those!"  Gross, at least put them on a plate or napkin.  It would take 2 seconds.  You aren't that busy!  This is your job!


Six-toed cat paw table at the Six-Toed Cat

We made it back to the ship around 5 PM.  The crew made it clear that the ship was leaving around 5:30 PM.  An announcement was made over the loudspeaker that one person hadn't gotten back on the ship.  You're supposed to punch in your access card when you leave the ship and then you punch it in again when get back on, so the ship's crew can keep track of who's on and off the boat.  Page came by not too long after the announcement saying that the girl made it back on the ship.  "How do you know?"  "I saw her running to the ship.  I took a picture of her, wanna see?"  Whew, close call for that girl!

For dinner tonight, I had meat lasagna and tiramisu for dessert.

I got the drink of the day with the intention of giving Page the Royal Caribbean glass, but then she forgot it at dinner. :(

So much food!  I looked over at the table next to us at some point, and they were totally staring at our table.  I hope they were more amused than annoyed that we got so much food.  We can't let the appetizers go to waste.  Our table was on the edge of the room, so many times during the cruise we got the extra food that wasn't handed out. I made an excuse saying that we walked around a lot today and we were hungry.  They all laughed. 

Lasagna

Tiramisu

Megan, Meg, and me

Robyn, Page and Kristin

Robyn and I found a towel stingray in our room that evening.  He was even wearing my sunglasses. :)

After dinner, Robyn, Page, and I went back to the club for the second night of karaoke.  There was guy and two girls already that were clearly drunk.  Not in a funny way.  In a very obnoxious way.  They were playing with the machines, even though the host asked them to stop.  I think the host could tell that we were very annoyed with that group.  She finally got a bouncer to get them out, which took about 15 minutes and that delayed the start of the event. 

Anyway, once things got going, it was fun (and funny).  One guy from the night before came back with Shakira's "Loca" and totally danced with his hips.  You wouldn't know that he had some dance moves from his nerdy exterior.  The little girls from last night came back and sang individually and together.  The shy girl who cried because she didn't want to sing last night did "Rollin' in the Deep."  Her more outgoing fried did "California Gurls" and then the two of them did "Super Bass" together.  A mother (?) and daughter duo (I'm just assuming they were mother/daughter) did "Viva Por Ella".  The daughter was AMAZING.  Other songs that people did were "Can't Stop the Moonlight", "Three Times a Lady", "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."  There were a few songs done by a family...the son-in-law dedicated "Haven't Met You Yet" to his father-in-law, the father-in-law sang "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" and then the father/son-in-law with a sister-in-law sang "Boondocks" together.  I had that song stuck in my head the rest of the night.  Robyn made a funny comment to me later, "None of you is from the Boondocks."