Day 6
We had a relatively early start this morning and I had set our alarm call for 7:00 AM. I have to say it is nice being woken up by the horn of the Magic and the Wonder, which is the ring tone that I use for my alarm at home, but there is nothing quite like being woken up by Mickey in the morning. However, this morning I had beaten Mickey to it. I was wide awake at 5:00 AM and as I did not want to wake Graham up, I decided to do my first Fish Extender run. I had made little lime green Mickey pins for everybody participating in more than one Fish Extender group. Conditions were quite bumpy and I got a good workout especially as I did not always end up in the direction I wanted to go in. It almost felt like I was going from side to in the hallways rather than forward. When I came past the laundry room on deck 2, there was a lot of water in the hallway. There were actually puddles on the carpet. I assume all the movement of the ship had made something leak. When I saw a member of the housekeeping staff in one of the public areas, I alerted her to the problem.
After my early morning exercise, I was tired enough to go back to bed. I got another hour or so of sleep before Mickey called. When he did, we got up and dressed. I quickly packed everything that I needed for my jewellery workshops. The backpack that we were given as part of our
Castaway Club gift came in really handy. Once we were ready, we headed for the gym. Graham wanted to do a stretching class and I figured I may as well have a glass or two of iced water while I was there. Once I had my water, I said goodbye to Graham and headed to the Cove Cafe.
I had agreed to host a total of 9 jewellery workshops during this cruise. As I knew that I would be awake at the crack of dawn anyway on the way to Hawaii and as many people in our group came from the East Coast and would suffer the same fate, I had decided to offer an early bird workshop on the sea days going to Hawaii at 8:00 AM every morning, which was supposed to be held at the Cove Cafe. I got there quite early and had a Mocha and some pastries for my breakfast. I then staked out a spot, which was large enough for the group. However, I very quickly I realized that this would not work. I had done a jewellery workshop in the same spot on the Magic in 2010 and that worked great. However, there is one big difference. The Wonder has the extension to accommodate access to the Outlook Cafe. Even though it is all glass, it does take away a lot of the light making this area quite dark. The Outlook Cafe does not open until later in the morning, which is why I had chosen the Cove Cafe for the morning classes. However, I did see people go up and come down from the Outlook Cafe while I was sitting there. I asked one of the bartenders about this and he told me that the bar in the Outlook Cafe was not open until later, but that I was welcome to take my coffee upstairs and sit there. That was the solution to all of my problems. I sorted out the kits for the first workshop while waiting for the others to arrive. Once people started to arrive, we moved upstairs. Two people could not make it as they were feeling unwell, but they left a message for me with the staff at the Cove Cafe. This actually worked great as due to a time clash for one of the participants, I had to add a 7th person to this workshop. Now we had 5, which is a perfect number.
When I was asked if I would be running the jewellery workshops again as I had done on our previous longer cruises, I was a little bit at a loss as to what project to do. Some of the things that I had done before were too intricate to really work on a moving ship and others proved to be too time intensive. It also had to be something that I would be willing to do with multiple groups without losing the will to live. I was just about ready to give up, when I had a newsletter from one of the wholesalers that I get my supplies from with a great design idea. It was one of their ideas for Valentine's day and was a charm bracelet with heart and flower crystals. I liked the simplicity of it. So I took the general idea and thought what I could do with it. I came up with 4 different themes: beach with flip flops, creatures of the sea and blue crystals; pirates with various pirate related charms and crystals in the colours of the ship; princess with crowns, pumpkin coaches, a castle, a crystal slipper and blue crystals and a fairy/ Champagne Girls version with fairies, flowers, a champagne glass and pink crystals. I made up some demo pieces and they looked great so I decided to run with it.
The workshops were a success. Everybody turned up on time and if people could not make it for whatever reason, they let me know. It was a great way for me to spend some quality time with small groups of people and chat while we were working. Although I had put a lot of time into this preparing everything before the cruise, it did not feel during the cruise that I was giving up my time or working. I just had fun and I know the people doing it had fun, too.
After the workshop, I had to rush off for the DVC member celebration. It has become a standing joke in our house that they never have a record of us. We even cruised on points once and they still did not have us on their list. Fortunately the member celebration was listed in the Navigator. They actually did it different this time. They did two member celebrations and what deck you were on determined which one to go to. They actually told us that there were 1100 DVC members on board. When I got there, I was recognized by one of the DVC staff. We had been on the same cruise previously. I got checked in and got my baseball caps for our both of us and they added me to their list. I was told to find a seat and come back to check in a bit later as they were waiting for more gifts. I was also asked to come by the DVC desk at some stage to pick up my welcome gift. I ended up sitting with somebody from the jewellery workshop. Once I saw boxes arriving, I went back to check in and received a very smart writing portfolio which I will get a lot of use out of.
Pretty much as soon as I had sat down, a server came round with Mimosas. Against my better judgment, I had one. It was very nice, but maybe not such a good idea on a virtually empty stomach. Still, it did not do me any harm. They then played a team game. They had done this on previous cruises and it was a lot of fun, but this time it did not really work because the venue was not ideal and I am still don't know which team I was supposed to be on. I chatted with the other people on my table. Once the game was over, they talked a bit about Aulani, the DVC resort on Oahu. They advised that they still had spots on the tours a available. I would have loved to do one, it I was not sure when we would get back from our excursion. So I had to pass. Then came the inevitable sales pitch. It was pretty low key though. They drew some names out for some prizes including a nice on board credit. Unfortunately I did not win anything. When we left, everybody got another gift. We got a blue reusable shopping bag which contained a really nice cross-body backpack.
After the DVC Member Celebration, I was a bit at a loose end. I took my jewellery making stuff and my goodies back to our cabin, picked up my book and my swimsuit and headed up to the Rainforest Room. I checked Graham's usual haunts (pool, gym, Rainforest Room), but could not find him. This did not matter too much as we had arranged to meet in the atrium at midday to get some lunch. So I just enjoyed relaxing on a heated tile lounger with my book. I was surprised that the Rainforest Room was nearly empty, especially because it was a sea day and it was not too warm outside. I left the Rainforest Room a bit earlier as I wanted to get a photo with Chip and Dale. The line to see them was quite short and they were wearing their tropical outfits. By the time I got to the front of the line, Graham had arrived as well. So when I had my photo taken, we headed straight for lunch.
I'm sorry you had the table to yourselves, I hope it ended up being ok. Love all the pictures!
