Day Four ~ 5K and Crawling

 

On our last cruise, I organized a 5K for about 140 people on the ship. The Wonder (what we cruised in the fall) and the Magic, the ship we were on for this sailing have a running/walking deck. Deck four goes completely around the ship so that you can get your steps in, or in many cases, get some miles in. A 5K on deck four is just about ten laps around the ship. This cruise the interest in the 5K was even greater with almost 300 people wanting to participate. I had a medal created for the group and those who wanted to participate, ordered the medal through me. There were 280 people who got medals. There were at least another 30 who opted to do their miles, but did not want a medal (so I honestly did not keep track of those after a certain point). With this many people wanting to participate, I had to put together two separate events. This was day one and tomorrow would be the remaining cruisers. 

This was a very early day after staying up late to watch the show the evening before. I told the cruisers I would meet them on deck before 7am to hand out medals, get our group photo and go over runners etiquette! For anyone who runs in any race (or walks) there are certain ‘rules’ one SHOULD follow. We went over these. The 5K was on the honor system. I did not keep track of any one persons laps, they did their own. For some, they may have done it over several days, due to their own physical limitations. These are the ones who truly triumph these events. They set out to do something and they got it done! This is the medal I had created for our group.

After we were done with this first day, it was on to breakfast (of course Dale already had one breakfast, lol). I actually had to get my own Bodi workout in before I could go get breakfast since I was on a mission to not fall behind. Thankfully, I brought my weighted resistance bands with me since there were many days I could not get into the gym. The gym on the ship is small. There were a lot more dedicated people this trip that made it hard to get into the very small weight area to do my workouts. But, needless to say, I got my workout in and then it was off to breakfast, we had some ‘crawling’ to do today!

Today, was the beginning of the Pub Crawl (and also day one of the Cabin Crawl). For anyone who is not familiar with what a pub crawl is, someone organized a group to go from each pub, bar, or lounge on the ship as a ‘group’. The Pub Crawl, which was knick named the Big Ditchers Pub Crawl for the Panama Canal. Phillip, who organized this, had buttons made for everyone, which was great to show our participation. We started the pub crawl in Cove Cafe. The Cove is a coffee bar, but they also have smoothies, mimosas and other alcoholic drinks. Dale started his day with an espresso while I had a latte. Something we found on this cruise was the edible straws. These worked really good if your drink was cold. I didn’t know it that day, but they actually had coffee flavor ones which were great for enjoying your latte.

After we finished at Cove, everyone moved on over to Signals, which is the pool bar in the adult section of the ship. Dale had a beer here and I had a drink of the day, no idea what that was at this point, but this became my go to, trying each day the ‘drink of the day’.

The next stop on the Pub Crawl was Pinocchio’s where people could also grab pizza. Well, this was also the start time for the Cabin Crawl (notice the title of this episode is ‘crawling’). A Cabin Crawl is when you get to visit other cabin categories to get a glimpse inside. We were visiting other cabins today and would be showing our cabin tomorrow. The person who organized this event split people up and selected who got to see which cabins. This was our first time staying in an Oceanview so I was excited to share our cabin with others. We were selected though to see one of the most coveted cabins on board! The Walt Disney Suite! There is also the Roy Suite, which is identical but on the opposite side of the ship, The Walt was port side and the Roy was starboard side. The following photos are just a glimpse inside this beautiful cabin. Kimi was so kind to share her cabin with all of us. In addition to letting us view it, she also had beer, wine or Mickey bars for us! This suite was stunning. There were two separate bedrooms and bathrooms, a dining room, living room, sitting area which opened for sleeping. A very large deck that ran the length of the cabin. A full soaking tub (OMG!!!)! 

We did stop and see a few other cabins, but this was the true highlight of this event! After we visited the cabins, it was time for a group photo! We had a facebook group with 900+ people on it. Many of us were gathering for a group photo in our matching shirts. When we did our Hawaii cruise, the person who created our group shirts was kind enough to offer them at cost, unfortunately, I don’t think this was what occurred on this sailing but we still bought a shirt to participate (this was not a requirement at all). This is a handful of the many, many people on this sailing.

After our group photo, it was off to Soul Cat Lounge to finish out the afternoon of the pub crawl. This is where we finally really met up with friends we met back in 2015 on the DVC sailing which I ran that fb group for. It was so great to meet up with Rebecca and Jerry (so much so that we are sailing with them again next April). I have no idea what I was drinking in this photo as I did not keep track, and this was only my second drink of the day (yet it was the fourth stop on the pub crawl). 

Afterwards it was time to take a rest before dinner at Animator’s Palate. We of course did some photos in the atrium after dinner and before going to Key’s to relax after dinner. This evening they were Encanto background. You’ll see the ‘magic’ that was added to the photos. I have no recollection, but hoping we went to bed a little earlier than the night before since we have 5K part two tomorrow morning.