Day 4 Harmony of the Seas Cruise Trip

GUESS WHAT! We woke up and landed in Jamaica!! We were super excited for more action-filled activities. I think we were starting to feel a bit dizzy or sea-sick on the boat…

The boys went down Park Cafe?) for breakfast. I really wanted to sleep in, so my dear Nancy went down to grab me some food. Bless her soul.
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It’s essentially a big area full of lots of shops selling all kinds of souvenirs and a few bars!

 

Waiting for our bus to arrive! For today’s shore excursion we chose the Good Hope Thrill Seekers’ Pass!

Reminder: bring cash!! You’ll want to tip tbe guides along the way when doing activities on shore excursions.

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Our bus driver and tour guide were super funny and made us laugh the entire way! What’s even funnier was that our bus was originally a bus from Japan (all the warnings and text were written in Japanese, it even used a map of Japan routes).

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We learnt that Jamaica has 41 types of mango!! And we didn’t get to try any :(. I really love this photo btw, it was taken during a bumpy bus ride so bit blurry.

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The boys are ready.

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Okay, I didn’t have fancy go pros like everyone else did to take photos and such during the ziplining we did… So please take this picture as evidence I did go on it! We had three guys that helped a group of us zipline through some beautiful hill tops. They cracked a lot of jokes and made us laugh the entire day!

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It was kind of confusing after the ziplining, because we thought there would be someone guiding us from one activity to another. But they basically drop you off in this area that has everything and you need to kind of manage your own schedule.

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Sorry Brenton, you weren’t looking in this photo. But we had a lot of fun on the adventure course! I’m kind of scared of heights, but I got used to it after a while :).

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TIME TO EAT. Because we said so. This ginger beer was much needed. It was so hot! It tastes like ginger ale but with more fresh and prominent ginger taste.

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This is the most amazing jerk chicken we ever had. The meat was so tender and the flavour was just… amazing. Sugoi. We definitely put some HOT sauce on that 😉

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We would just recommend getting jerk chicken without the sides…

We squeezed in some river tubing! Sadly it started to rain while we were on it. Creds to Nancy for her hard effort in getting a photo out of her gopro video LOL.

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SO, who’s a fan of rum?! I don’t really know my alcohol, but we had to try this famous one since we’re here! Appleton Estate rum. My stepfather has clients that send him this every Christmas. It’s quite expensive x.x

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The history behind this place is incredible.. being established in 1749. That’s like over 268 years old?! Dayum.

 

 

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We tried three kinds: Signature blend, reserve blend, and the rare blend. For those who haven’t tried rum, I’d describe it as liquid fire going down your throat. I’m not sure how appealing that sounds but the burn strangely felt kind of nice.

Signature blend: it’s aged around 4 years and has a beautiful light amber or honey colour. It’s warm and more fruitier tasting, bit of orange peel taste in there.

Reserve blend: This was our more preferred one. Bit stronger, and aged for an average of 6 years. You can taste more spices and the colour is a bit darker.

Rare blend: We were lucky and got to try a newly opened bottle of this! This was REALLY strong, it just hit us. This is aged for an average of 12 years. It has a much darker colour and tastes more woody? I can’t explain it. It was too strong for me… that’s all I remember. XD.

NOTE: do not buy any liquor when you’re on the cruise, because when you go through security before heading back to the ship they actually confiscate it…? I’m not sure why they wouldn’t warn you beforehand?

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As we were leaving we ran up to the top to see the view. There was one guard dressed in a safety vest that waved and shouted us goodbye as we were leaving. He got us to shout something back and overall we were left with such a good impression of Jamaica haha.

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And we’re back to our original dining area! Our servers were so sweet and said they were wondering where we went and that they missed us T^T.

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The Maryland crab cake. The sauce was very yummy but I wished it was more fresh crab meat. I feel like it tasted like imitation crab meat??

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The roasted garlic soup. Nancy says it’s yummy!

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Ahh the french onion soup. Can’t really go wrong with this, other than it’s super oily and you feel like you need a salad after haha.

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This was the ahi tuna steak! To be honest, this wasn’t as good as I was thinking it would be… but the colours are beautiful! 🙂

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In case you were wondering, this is how we ate every night on the cruise. These are only the entrees too XP. And yes. We get quite a few stares.

What a night! we just did more trips to snack places and the mix bar (the guys bought the drink package and really needed to get their money’s worth… LOTS OF ALCOHOL lol).

Stay tuned for the next post whoo!


Michelle is out!

Day 3 Harmony of the Seas Cruise Trip

Day 3 we landed in Labadee! We have to admit we were tired and wanted to sleep in a bit so we left the boat a bit later.

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We were super excited to finally get off the boat. This is also the first time being able to see the whole boat!

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The water is just so beautiful here (as seen in cover photo hehe)! Labadee is one of the spots that the Royal Carribean bought so it’s just a tourist area. And of course a mandatory picture of the place’s name with the ship in the background

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We were trying to find the perfect palm tree to take a photo with. Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen. ahahah

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I got two platefuls of food hehe. The buffet was okay, there was very watered down juices available. But all the fresh fruit that I wanted to eat!! WATERMELON and pineapples MmmMmm.

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Oh look, Nancy’s foot completed this picture. 🙂

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It was here where I first met Timothy.

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He even introduced me to his family.

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We were pretty lazy this day and just played fail volleyball, looking for seashells and splashing in the water! P.c. Brenton

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Justin’s the best ;). Can’t ever be overprepared. P.c. goes to Brenton Chung

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We came back to find our room attendant made some cute animal with towels! Not quite sure if this is a dog or a goat or something… what do you guys think?

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We all have assigned dining rooms to eat at, but today for some reason they brought us to the American Icon Grill? I think we all agreed we liked the look of it better than the usual one we go to. Maybe because it was well lit up with all the open windows to look outside.

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Anyways the MOST important moment you guys have all been waiting for is dinner!

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Terrible photo sorry. But here we have Justin a bit tipsy ahaha.

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The chilled shrimp was okay, it tasted just like the shrimp platter you get at superstore with that typical cocktail sauce.

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Salmon Tartare! Not bad, bit bitter though.

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Justin got the Iceberg wedge. Not really the best tasting and it’s kind of difficult to eat, but if you miss veggies, this is the thing to order. (we’ve been eating way too much meat on the cruise haha)

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The papardelle? Nancy’s theme on the cruise ship was TRUFFLE. It was really good the first beginning bites but then it got to be a bit too heavy.

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The almond crusted haddock. It was alright, not much flavour. I wish the almond slices were thinner and the potato underneath was really dry.

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The grilled New York Sirloin steak. It was kind of dry and tasted like slightly spicy seasoned beef.

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Grilled chicken breast. We’ll just leave it at that.

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Justin ordered the rack of lamb. It definitely couldn’t compare to the Jamie Oliver one we ate. And it was way too overpowering for me. Though Justin says it melts in your mouth (he was also a bit tipsy so I’m not sure about his judgement :p)

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I believe this was a mango cheesecake with passionfruit drizzle. It wasn’t what I expected :(.

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If I remember correctly this is the apple pie with ice cream? It was good!

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For the boy’s room, look what the room attendant did! haha

Anywho the server we had today was super sweet and funny! She called me Michelle, ma belle :3. What did we do the rest of the day? O.O It’s a blur. Was this the night we cracked the wine bottle open in the room?


LOVE.

Michelley

Day 1 Harmony of the Seas Cruise Trip

*This is going to be a bit of a blog with some details of activities we did, but I promise you it is still mainly about food!!

It was a dream that after we graduated from university I said that all of us needs to go on a cruise. And Michelle being Michelle… well… dreams need some action to come true! So here we are. On the Harmony of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship (at least for now), we go!

We went with the Royal Carribean and had an excellent experience with them! They make planning, scheduling, and signing up for things so simple and easy!

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Here we are right before we board!

The ship is enormous! There is so much to see and do! We didn’t eat at all yet and the first thing we chose was Boardwalk Dog House. And big surprise! It serves hot dogs and has a variety of toppings you can put on top. (not sure if it was just the one time we tried it but the bread was super hard… like it was stale)

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I got some apple… something sausage. The sausage and toppings was yummy!

 

We got too excited with everything while we were exploring the ship and had to try out the snacks at MiniBites.

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It’s more like froyo actually. Our human milk detector, Nana, let us know. :3

Along the way we saw an ice cream machine and being the kids we are we lined up… patiently :). We even convinced health guru Brenton to eat one. 😀

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Did we even finish this?

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The guacomole though…

To be honest, this was around an hour or 2 hours before our dinner. Did we ruin our appetite? Keep scrolling to find out muhahahaha.

But first some quick photo sessions by our photographer Brenton. And the counting of drinks start to make our drink package worth it haha.

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We took a while to find our assigned dining room (Silk) hehe. But we were excited to look at the menu!

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We discovered you can order whatever you want… as much as you want…

When we saw escargot on the menu we all actually got one for each! It was yummy… but so buttery omgosh.

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Nancy’s Chicken Waldorf Salad, clean and healthy. But we wished there was some more sauce as it was quite dry.

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Next is Michelle’s caesar salad. Not very healthy ahaha. It tastes just like your typical caesar salad. But the uncut bottoms made me wonder how clean it really was hmm.

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Justin ordered this yummy Beef Carpaccio. I think it only appeared for the first day :(.

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Horseradish- Crusted Salmon. This was really yummy D: (I wish there were emojis on WordPress! I need to EXPRESS MY FEELINGS)

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Nancy made the best choice! Wild Mushroom Risotto. What I love about white truffles is that it gives a bit of a garlicky flavour and the flavour is intense but disappears quickly. Sounds like something you don’t want but it makes the meal a lot lighter and allows you to keep going for the next bite.

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Justin got the Grilled New York Sirloin Steak. He got it medium rare and ate it up quickly so me assumes it must’ve been yummy!

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Brenton got the Chef’s recommendation of the Prime Rib of Beef. Not bad! It was moist.

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Justin got this cheesecake. I wish I got this, it was light and a good size to finish off a meal. The syrup is a bit too sweet for my liking though.

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I got the (Nancy trying to help me figure out the name of this)… I think they described it almost like a lava cake, which got me really excited! But it wasn’t hollow on the inside at all. This dessert was too heavy for me but luckily I had the ice cream (as seen below) to help me with this chocolately dessert.

Update: Nana found out it was called the Royal Chocolate cake and it said it had dulce de leche and chocolate fudge (where was the chocolate fudge though? D:)

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I was craving ice cream after having ice cream… It said sugar-free, but it was still sweet and oh, so yummy!

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Nancy got this creme brulee! We wish it was a burnt a bit more at the top and wish it was more even all around. But the inside is what we love the most! The custard is light and airy and not too sweet! (If you guys want good creme brulee, I recommend Izakaya Tomo in Edmonton, Alberta)!

 

Anddddd that concludes the first day of our trip! We got to play around with the bionic bar. These mechanical arms shake up all kinds of drinks! You can make your own recipe too and other people can order and rate your drink!

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Stay tuned…

 

-Love Mish.