Foto Story Friday #33 a bit of the ship

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

OK I promise this will be the last Foto Friday about my cruise. I'm sure everyone is tired of reading and seeing it!

The MS Veendam
All the halls in the ship look very familiar.... if one were a drinker, one could get lost quickly! Thankfully, we don't drink and therefor did not get lost.
Our cabin door: 159 veranda deck.
Our cabin.
The bathroom
An attempt to get the whole thing. In the tiny corner of the room that you can't see, that is where the toilet is, set at and angle in the corner. A very cozy room.
This area was labeled 'teens only'. Um, yeah I don't think I'd be letting my teens up here unsupervised! Nope Nope Nope! Oh yeah, thankfully I left my teens, tween and littles all home with my parents! There was one teen up there relaxing. This cruise had very few children and teens on it.
The first day before shoving off, there is a manditory lifeboat drill. Don't they look so comfy? :)
Waiting in the Ruben's Lounge for the nightly show. Most of the shows were prefaced with 'no recordings or photos may be made or taken of this performance'.
Our tour group met a few times during the week for lectures and or movies.
We dined twice in the 'fancy' restaurant, Rotterdam Dining Room. The second night was the master Chef's Dinner. The servers and chefs put on a show while you dine featuring your dinner. Don't I look cute in my chef's hat? the rest of the table were party poopers! But we did have enough hats to take one home for each child.
They paraded all around the 2 deck dinning room. We being 'open seaters' were seated on the lower level (The food was all the same no matter where you sat. You just didn't have to wear formal attire on the lower level. You did have to wear long pants and a polo type shirt for the men. They seemed to be more flexible with the women, as I was not asked to change and came wearing shorts to the knee. This is a sore subject with Troy, as he was asked to change when wearing shorts to the knee.)
In they danced with the napkins.
They made a big flourish to place it in your lap.
The music was such that our friends danced in their chairs!
In with the next course.
In case you need to know how set a formal table. It does look very nice set this way but who has time on a daily basis?
More dancing and twirling with the salad fixings.
There were musical numbers.
A few of the servers really got into the dancing part.
And for dessert: white chocolate chef's hat hiding a chocolate cake.
More songs.
The finale.
Pretty isn't it? Very tasty too.
The Veendam dancers and singers.
This was the only performance that we were encouraged to take photographs of after-wards.
Each evening we were greeted by a different towel animal. They also offered a towel folding class one of days and you could purchase a book, which we did for a gift.
Looking straight down from our veranda.
Troy and I enjoying the fresh sea air.
This evening they had a game show: Call My Bluff. It was similar to Balderdash, where a word was given and each of the three presented their definition and you voted with applause on the right one. We learned interesting things like the word for a person born with only one buttock.
And as is being demonstrated in these shots, there is a word for the movement women make while trying to get into the dreaded pantyhose!
He continued to wear the hose, it was hilarious!
We also learned the meaning of the word fullfart (...it is OK if you want to go grab your dictionary and look it up...)
Another evening we were greeted with this cute puppy.
Then we found this guy hanging by his fingers!
In the midsection of the ship is where you will find the shops, casino, bars, lounge front desk and library. Running for a few decks is this ladder.... named Jacobs Ladder.
This old trunk was pretty cool and heavy.
Our last towel creation a cute snail.
Notice the guy in the bathrobe? He spent the entire week wondering around in this get-up!
He's another shot. We spent the whole week trying to catch a picture of him unsuspectingly. You'll notice that in the first shot that I was caught by those around him in line. We speculated on what he was or if he was wearing anything under the robe.
The last few hours before disembarking in Tampa, we found him in the library.
I guess he could have been wearing his 'Daisy Dukes' under the robe. I wonder if we were the only ones to find is outfit entertaining? Were we the only ones to take his picture. Poor guy, a celeb with out even knowing it!

I commend you for enduring this cruise marathon, next week something else.

Foto Story Friday #32 -- Kohunlich, Mexico cont.

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

For our last excursion foto-story I give you the rest of the ruins ruins at Kohunlich, Mexico. After the Howler monkeys, we looked around at this huge area. Kohunlich is a massive site. We couldn't even see everything because of time restrictions. 4 hours on busses, leaves very limited time at the site for exploring. I could have spent hours wondering around taking pictures.

Last week I left you in the plaza.    Through the plaza there was another temple dating back to BC times.  There were ruins all over but I hurried over to see this temple.
First sight of it..... well, not really, I was trying to get it without a bunch of people.... didn't work though.  I really like the thatched roof.
Shot from the corner looking up.
there are three gods flanking each side of the steps.  You can see two of them in this shot.
Second  face of the left side.
Top face on the left.  Our guide said they were covered and as they pealed back the layers, they found these perfectly intact faces.  He said that they would get tired of say the gold and cover it in jade or the other way around and often if you you are lucky you will find layers of precious stone or metals.
Troy climbed up this temple.  
The rooms at the top of the temple.  There were three small ones.
The view from the top of the temple.
Looking down the steps. I stood up here waiting for the perfect shot, never happened.  The people do give it a perspective though.  There were several others standing up there with me, in the shade listening to our guide and hoping for The Shot. One guy who gave me camera envy and I were talking.  He said that he'd gotten in trouble for taking pictures with his tripod.  He has such a fancy camera and a big 'ole tripod, they assumed he was professional.  I told him that he gave me camera envy and he just laughed! :)
Top face, right side.
Middle face, right side... this one is a double face.
Bottom face right side.  I do wish I could remember all that our guide told us, but I can't.
Looking up the steps.  You can see Shelby our guide and owner of Liahona Guided Tours.  He is full of info.   
Another corner shot, from a little different level.
The back side,just look how tall it is!
The other corner.
I didn't take this one, my friend, Cami did.  We were rushing back to the buses for lunch and the ride back to the ship.
I wanted to go peek around these low wall to see what was back there, but the time was gone. :(
The palace from the back.
The guys working hard to restore this building.  Go ahead and enlarge it, the top guy, he saw I was taking their picture and tried to get his buddy to pose.  He put on his best smile for me.
One last look as we rushed to the bus.

We grabbed our sandwich, chips and drink and set off.  We didn't get far, as the Mexican police had the cars in front stopped.  The let the bus by.
But the cars were a different story.  As we watched from our seats, they got the people out and searched the car.  I guess they were making sure nothing was taken from the site.

I was unable to get a picture of the gals standing on the side of the road peddling their wares.... cut-up fruit, and drinks in water bottles.  Scary!
headed back to the ship. (picture by my father-in-law)  next week I just might show you a bit of the ship fun.....