How about a little update about what activities on the ship are like? Obviously the days in port are filled with sightseeing adventures, but what about sea days? What do we do to keep busy?

Well, lots! I’ll give a separate post later about our rooms and the food and instead just focus here on what there is to do (other than eat and sleep) on the ship. First and foremost, the obvious: pool / hot tub / sunbathing. That’s an obvious statement so I’ll just get that out of the way. 🙂

Each evening, we receive “The Currents” – a leaflet that tells what activities are scheduled for the following day. The schedule includes everything from shuffleboard and golf competitions for “Big O” points (points you get when you win or participate in an activity, to be redeemed at the end of a segment for cruise/ship-themed souvenirs) to presentations (e.g., about the locations we’re visiting – culture, history, etc., as well as “random” stuff like what Hollywood producers actually do or movies set in Mexico). Each night there is a production, which could be a comedy magician or singers or a Broadway-esque production. There are typically two trivias each day and two happy hours.

Aside from the scheduled activities, we find ourselves engaged in many various activities throughout the ship. On the top deck there is cornhole (called ‘baggo’ here), shuffleboard, and a golf putting area. We’ve done these several times, with mini competitions among ourselves on several occasions.

There is also a card room that has games you can check out, including chess, Monopoloy, mahjong, etc. We played giant Jenga here one evening.

We also brought a bunch of games with us. If you know us, you know we love games, so this shouldn’t be a surprise. So at any given time you might see us playing cards somehwere (Yaniv has been a popular choice so far), rolling dice, or doing one of any other number of games, whether in pairs or all four of us. Here you can see the four of us spread out at a happy hour playing Long Shot (a horseracing game).

There are also special activities on board that provide random entertainment. One day, for example, the ship had what was called a “country fair” where the various teams (housekeeping, bar staff, restaurant staff, casino, etc.) set up stations with games like you might see at a school carnival. So, things like ring toss, a putting game, a fishing game, darts, etc. You went through the different stations and got raffle tickets – some for just participating and more if you won / did well. For example, housekeeping had a competition that pitted two people against each other putting a pillowcase on a pillow. The faster person won… (It was actually quite fun.) At the end of the fair, you put all your raffle tickets in and tehy drew winners for various prizes. (I won – an Oceania glitter travel mug.)

Here’s Matthew doing the pillowcase competition, Ryan doing the cooking staff’s fishing competition (in the photo you can see our head Chef), John doing the restaurant teams’ golf putting game, and me doing the bar staff’s ring toss competition:

Of course, we also have a lot of “down time” where we do our own thing, including school work, work work, read, watch movies (those provided by the ship as well as ones we downloaded for our amusement), and just basically hang out. Somehow, the days go by and we have very little (if any?) “I’m bored” moments, so that’s good. 🙂