friday. Day 6. oh great, mexico.

We woke up at 900am.  We were already docked at Cozumel, Mexico, but we'd decided to stay on the ship, as Mexico is dirty and disgusting, and our ship is very nice.

Before heading to breakfast, we made our way to the zip line at the back of the ship on deck 15.  The zip line runs from basically the stern of the ship to midship, going over the boardwalk.  At first only Avery was going to do it, but Steph decided to do it, and I figured what's the point of going on the only ship with a zip line if you're not actually going to do the zip line?  I actually ended up going twice since there was no wait.  The first time I was pretty nervous - too much so to look down - but the second time I was relaxed and looked down at the Boardwalk and really enjoyed it.  Pretty awesome.  Then we went to breakfast, then to the gym, then to the pool.  We swam for a bit, then me, Sheldon and Avery went down to the promenade and got personal pizza pies (small ones) at Sorrentos, the pizza place (which is free/included).  Steph got a tuna sandwich at the Park Cafe, and Lisa went to the buffet.  I didn't love my pizza - I probably shouldn't have told them to put blue cheese on it (the regular slices were always good though) - so I went up to the buffet and grabbed a plate of Mexican food to bring down to the pool, while Lisa bought the official Royal Caribbean cookbook.

At the back of the ship on the pool deck are the Flowriders, basically small pools that simulate waves.  There are two, one on each side of the ship.  One is for surfing and one is for boogie boarding.  We did both.  Steph and I were able to stay on the surfboard for about 1 second before falling, which is actually pretty fun as the waves carry you up and to the back of the pool.  Avery stayed on for about ten seconds, but he had done it before and had a lesson on a different ship.  Boogie boarding was cool too, and we were able to stay on for a bit longer.  We went back to the pool and swam a bit more, sat out on lounge shares, and shared a Mango-Passionfruit margarita.  Before going back to the room we went down to the Boardwalk to climb the rock wall.  I only made it about halfway twice, but Steph climbed all the way to the top, very very impressive.

Shabbos began at 730.  We went to the dining room at 630, where we had pre-ordered kosher food and a bottle of Baron Herzog.  I asked out waiter, Dennis, where in the Philipines he is from.  He said originally Leyte, then moved to Manilla, and now Venezuela City.  I told him my grandfather fought there in WWII.  He seemed to appreciate that.  We very quietly sung Shalom Aleichem and Eishet Chayil, then stood and made kiddush.  We washed our hands with a glass at the table and ate Zomick's challah rolls.  For dinner we began with gefilte fish, which came hot in some kind of tomato sauce.  I don't think they were supposed to heat it up... All the food was packaged, prepared, frozen by some company in Florida and came in black plastic containers which they opened at the table.  Then we had chicken soup with matzoh ball.  Some of the matzoh balls were normal looking; mine had broken up into the soup.  For the main Steph had chicken and brisket, and I had meatloaf and pepper steak.  I got the meatloaf because I figured ground and processed meat would be better than like a steak cooked, frozen and reheated.  I think I was right.  Dessert was an apple strudel... It was okay.  Not our best dinner of the trip, but we didn't starve.

The evenings show was Blue Planet, which combined the singers and dancers from Chicago with the acrobats from OceanAria. We sat in the second row and it was actually really good, a typical cruise show with singing, dancing, acrobatics, hanging and flying from the ceiling... It was cool. At 1030pm there was a ‘70s dance party in the Royal Promenade. They played music, everyone danced. The cruise director and staff were all in 70s costumes and dressed like the Village People. They gave out t-shirts and rings with flashing lights. When it ended we ran to try and catch the cruise director before he disappeared. Early in the week we had written a note asking "Where are you?" and telling him to have a meet and greet. He read it on his daily morning show on the cruise channel on tv, but pointed out we didn't sign out names. After the 70s party we caught him and told him we had written the note. He laughed and told us we should come to the Q and A with him and the captain in the morning. We said we'd be there. Then we went back to the promenade and had our nightly coffee and cake. Then we slept.