2019-02-27: Snorkels and Lounge Chairs

We woke up, got dressed, and headed to Le Jardinier again for breakfast this morning. There was a sign at the restaurant entrance that informed us they had moved to Cricketeers Pub due to the inclement weather. We found that a little funny since the weather was fine. We made our way to Cricketeers Pub and were quickly seated. We both had eggs benedict for breakfast.

After breakfast, we headed back to our room and got changed into our swimsuits. We were able to re-book our snorkeling to today so packed everything we needed for that. We headed to the aqua activities desk for our 11:00am booking. We were signed in and boarded the boat shortly afterwards with about 10 other people. It was still a little windy this morning so they weren’t able to take us to their preferred spot. They found a slightly calmer area and stopped the boat. We were off the boat a few minutes later. This was our first experience in the ocean with our full face snorkels. Mine worked alright, but Amanda struggled with hers a bit. Water kept leaking into her mask. We returned to the boat after about half an hour of snorkeling. The reef wasn’t the best we’ve seen. We saw a few small fish swimming around but that was about it.

We returned to the resort and rinsed off our gear in the room before hunting out a couple of lounge chairs. We ended up at the pool outside our room again which we were happy with. It is quiet and well protected from the wind. We spent the afternoon hanging out in and out of the pool. We went over to the Mariner’s Grill for lunch and Andre the butler stopped by with drinks a couple of times.

We returned to our room around 5:00 and got ourselves cleaned up. We went for a walk around part of the resort we hadn’t seen yet before heading to the dock to catch a boat across to the island. We had a 6:30pm reservation at the Royal Thai restaurant on the island. Andre met us at the dock and stayed with us until we boarded the boat.

We sat on the outdoor porch at the restaurant. We had a nice view of the main resort across the water as the sun set and all the lights came on. Amanda had a green papaya salad, I had some minced pork and veggies wrapped in rice paper, and we shared an order of spring rolls as an appetizer. We both had pad thai for our main course. Amanda had shrimp in hers with a side of fried rice and I had chicken in mine with a side of steamed rice. We both had coconut creme brulee for dessert. It was a very enjoyable dinner. The creme brulee was delicious!

After dinner, we walked to the beach and took in the view of the resort across the water. We saw a couple of cruise ships sailing by in the distance. Using an app on my phone, we determine they were the Nieuw Statendam and Harmony of the Seas. We stopped and said hi to Diana the parrot before boarding the boat back to the main resort. We stopped by the stage area briefly to listen to the band playing. They were playing elevator type music which we didn’t care for so we returned to the room for a bit. After about an hour, we headed out for our nightly sea life hunt. We saw the usual sea snakes and urchins as well as some sort of sea slug and a couple of lobsters. We ran into one of the security guards who shone her high powered flashlight into the ocean for us at one point. It was very nice of her, but there was nothing exciting to see. We returned to our room afterwards and called it a night.