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We felt we had an early start to the day. We didn’t set any alarms, but of course Maddie wanted us to get up bright and early at 7am. So, we took our time getting ready and headed to breakfast in the dining room. We decided to go to the playgroup at 9am which is the time slot for the 6-18 month age group. When we got to the playgroup, we were informed that we were NOT supposed to turn our clocks back the previous night as we had and it was really 10am. Oops. It didn’t seem to matter as the only other child that showed up was in Maddie’s age group. Maddie seemed to enjoy playing with the Little People (familiar to her with all the ones she has at home!). She didn’t cling to me the entire time like she did with the first playgroup.

While Maddie and I were at the playgroup, Daddy went to the casino to play some video poker. I knew that things must not have gone well when he returned after not being gone too long! After the playgroup, I wanted to play a round of Bingo. They have this crazy newfangled device that tracks 30 cards at once. It plays for you! I thought that sort of took the fun out of the game, but the value was good. At least they gave you some bonus cards you could punch manually. I didn’t win anything, but I did get to stand on the last card (one away). So close!

After Bingo, it was about time for lunch. We had lunch in the dining room, as usual, and discovered that you actually have to tell the waiter if you’re interested in Brasserie 30. We thought that the lunch in the dining room was always the special “Brasserie 30″ service – a “quick” 30-minute lunch. We always complained a little to each other that the lunch seemed to take more like an hour. Apparently, if you tell them that you want the quick lunch, they pretty much get your lunch to you in less than 30 minutes. This is great with a squirmy, impatient toddler!

After lunch always means naptime! We strolled Maddie around Deck 5 until she fell asleep. Then we took turns reading on the deck with her and playing video poker in the casino. Gabe won back the money that he lost earlier in the day (and then I lost about the same amount) by hitting four Queens.

The ocean provided GREAT white noise. Maddie has a white noise machine at home that helps her sleep, so the decks of the ship were a great substitute. It was a bit windy and chilly, so we decided to go inside after a little while. Unfortunately, the art auction was going on in the Centrum, and the gavel woke up Maddie.

We tried to stroll around Deck 10, but she didn’t get back to sleep after that. We were very concerned about what that would mean for dinner that night.

Since she wasn’t interested in continuing her nap, we let her run around the decks for a bit. She loved it, of course, since it continued to be her favorite thing to do on the trip. We then headed to the Solarium for a snack. They had some sort of Mexican pizza that wasn’t all that great. We overheard someone talking about TV Tune trivia which reminded us that it was about to start. We headed to the lounge to participate. The cruise director and his wife ran the game, and it was almost exactly the same as the one on our last cruise (including the cruise director’s wife doing her best Flipper impression). Oh well, it was still fun to play and to watch people acting out the various shows for bonus points.

We headed to the Crayola Beginnings art session before dinner where most of us tried to keep our toddlers from ingesting markers and paint. I kept trying to take the markers away from Maddie, but somehow she kept finding more. At one point, I snapped at Gabe for letting her have a marker only to find that the instructor had given Maddie the marker. Oops. Oh well, she should know that markers and one year olds don’t really mix.

We went back to the room and packed some more of our stuff since we needed to have our suitcases outside of the room by 11pm. Dinner service was slower than usual tonight, and Maddie did not make it very long. Gabe and I took turns entertaining her while the other ate and socialized with our new friends. I got a photo of our waitstaff, but I have no idea what their names were since we missed the first night of introductions. We exchanged contact information with our tablemates. The waitstaff sang another song together, but they had quite a few technical difficulties with the back up music. They finally just sang without the music.

After dinner, we headed back to the 10th deck to see the sunset. We were determined to be there at the right time this time!

We had plenty of time, and not very many people were there to see the sunset. We always felt like the ship had plenty of places to explore and it was easy to find a secluded spot to relax.

Maddie had a great time. I love the determined look on her face in this photo.

She’s such a cutie!

Two separate groups of people came up to the 10th deck since conditions were allegedly perfect to witness a green flash. We waited patiently and looked for it (while taking a ton of continuously shot photos), but it didn’t happen.

The sunset was quite pretty, anyway! It’s neat to see the sun setting on a flat horizon.

We went back to the room to finish our packing and get Maddie into her jammies. We were greeted by a towel elephant and the rest of our stuffed animals, including Maddie’s new octopus that she received for being a part of the Royal Babies program.

Gabe put Maddie in the sling, and we walked around the ship so Maddie would fall asleep. It was Gabe’s turn to play poker, but since the table was getting full, he let me play for about an hour while he put Maddie to bed. I should have skipped it as it wasn’t a good session for me! A few bad hands had me losing most of my buy-in. I went back to the room where Maddie was now peacefully sleeping in the pack-n-play, and Gabe went to play for several hours. he didn’t do too well either and “cashed out the easy way.” Oh well! We had a great time playing poker on the cruise. It was a treat to actually get to play live poker again, even if it wasn’t the best playing conditions.