After a day of roasting in the sun, snorkeling in the turquoise ocean, and swimming at beach you can imagine how deep the sleep was last night. We awoke to the drastic realization that we were sun-burned, but not nearly as bad as we could’ve been if we’d neglected the sunblock. Today’s theme is “One Last Hurrah.” Here are the pictures.
I can’t be really sure, but I suppose that the conversation with “gun-in-the-mouth” lady scared us off from going back to the dining room for breakfast. We’ve never been back. And today, we were too lazy to even make it up to the buffet. We just called room service and had a continental breakfast in bed. Today would be our last day in the Bahamas. We were docked at Road Town, Tortola, and we only had half a day to do some swimming, buy some local arts and crafts and sample the local fare, so we had to get moving.
We stepped off the ship at around 8:00 a.m. Since we were both planning on doing some swimming at local beach neither one of us cared very much about how we looked. We immediately found one of those taxi-trucks and climbed aboard for what would end up being the best rollercoaster ride $6 could buy.
Imagine, if you will, a one-lane road weaving its way up one side of the mountain the island was made from and down the other side. Now imagine a large F-450-sized truck with a bus welded to the back doing 40 to 50 mph on this road. Most of the time the only thing separating your taxi and a sharp 200-foot plummet is small metal rail. Now take that one-lane road and make it a two-way road. Then just for kicks add some light drizzle. The rig we were riding in roared up the road, often moving over to the very edge of the road to allow oncoming traffic to go by. And just to add to the experience cars would skid to a stop as we rounded corners simply because there was only room for one at a time. Then came the downhill portion of the adventure. It was stressful enough to worry about whether or not we were going to be killed or fall off the road, now we had to worry about those things AND pray that the brakes weren’t going to fail. What makes this whole situation so much more entertaining is the fact that Alicia slept soundly, with her head in my lap, the whole time.
No worse for the wear, we arrived at Cane Garden Bay. The first thing I noticed about this “resort beach” was the level of poverty. Homes were dilapidated, cars were useless, and it seemed that there were chickens and roosters everywhere. We turned few corners and stopped on a dirt road next to a hotel, that, in my young, single days, would’ve been an adventure I would’ve enjoyed. But you wouldn’t catch me in that hotel these days. Blame it Hilton & Marriott. This was the end of the ride. We climbed out of the taxi and walked in the direction of the beach. We emerged onto a beautiful beach looking out onto a gorgeous lagoon-like cove. People began offering to rent us beach chairs. There were tables with snorkeling and swimming gear for rent. The entire beach was lined with pubs, bars and restaurants. We found a place in the sand next to a freshwater stream flowing out from the jungle and underneath some coconut trees. Once the towels were laid out and the sunscreen applied, Alicia and I dove right in – me into the ocean and Alicia into her book. Although the water was clear and warm, the sand below offered up no treasures – no shells, no coral, nothing. Well, not “nothing.” We did end up finding three aluminum cans, a plastic plate, a beer bottle, some bottle caps and a coconut tree frond that had somehow washed out to sea. While I was frolicking in the ocean (I’m not sure it’s a good thing when men frolic), Alicia was laying on her Carnival Miracle courtesy-beach-towel on the sand reading her book. Unbeknownst to her a small, scruffy black puppy was playfully scampering up the beach toward her. This dog had obviously been told over and over how cute it was and felt that its sworn duty was to show everyone (especially the tourists laying on beach towels reading books). The puppy ran right up to Alicia’s face. Alicia recoiled in repulsion and terror. This whole scene was even more hilarious to me, watching from 50 feet out in the ocean, because I knew of her total disdain for anything having fur. Once the puppy had sufficiently proved its point and convinced Alicia of its cuteness, it continued on its way. This seemed to Alicia to be a good time to go swimming. Splashing into the small waves, she made her way out to me. Being the wonderful, sacrificial husband that I am, I offered her my goggles. She took them and began to adjust the straps and BLOOP they were gone. She had lost her grip on them and they fell into the water, sinking to the bottom. We both just looked at each other for a moment before I dove under and blindly began feeling along the sand for them. After surfacing again and again to catch my breath, I realized that they were probably long gone. Some poor sap and his wife would find them someday, buried in the sand as they looked for shells and coral. I stepped toward an apologizing Alicia and felt something under my foot. Without moving my foot, I submerged myself and surfaced again with my goggles. Alicia had had enough swimming and we decided that two hours of swimming was enough. We exited the ocean and began to gather our things. We packed up and headed back to the waiting taxi.
So, remember that paragraph you read about the taxi ride TO the beach? Let’s just say that I never imagined that I would long for THAT ride. The trip back to the dock was twice as bad, except that this time we had to swerve around goats that were grazing on the side of the road. As I got myself right with God, Alicia beamed with a smile and occasionally let a “wheeeee!” slip out. This is the same woman that jumps every time I quickly turn around and say “boo!” I’m glad she enjoyed it. I knew that if we died, at least I’d be going to heaven.
We arrived back at the dock and decided to go aboard the ship to drop off our bags of beach gear. When we’d done that, we headed off to the rows of street vendors hocking affordable, (read as cheap) touristy souvenirs. We went from tent to tent looking for items that the kids would like and would represent our trip to the Bahamas. We found beautiful coral and seashell necklaces for each of them. Alicia honed in on what I assume was a handcrafted necklace with a very pretty ornament made from wire and green stones. It fit her style perfectly. As we shopped a woman sat in her tent belting out a song that consisted of the same line over and over - “Bettah gate red-ay. Jesus ees cah-men!” Remarkably, it blended with the marketplace atmosphere perfectly.
True to form, we insisted on sampling some of the authentic food from the island. We wandered up and down the busy street looking for just eh right place that didn’t appear to be a trendy tourist trap. But, we soon realized that those types of restaurants were probably deeper into the city than we had time for. We had to be back on the ship at 12:30 p.m. and it was currently 11:45 a.m. After passing the same restaurant two times we finally conceded to eat at Pusser’s Pub. When we walked in the ambiance was very cool. There was an obvious British influence in the pub, but it was mixed with items and artifacts from ships and the sea. Alicia and I had looked at the menu outside so we knew what we were going to order when we sat down. The waitress was a little surprised when we told her our order upon being seated. The food came fairly quickly – conch fritters and Caribbean jerk-seasoned chicken. We shared the food, eating it as quickly as we could and paid the bill. Now the fun would really begin. It was 12:20 p.m.
There have been a few moments on this honeymoon that I’ve been glad that Alicia is fit and athletic. This was one of those times. Not unlike our run through the streets of New York, we had to cover a respectable distance in a short amount of time, so we started running. Our running turned to sprinting as the time ticked down to 12:30 p.m. We arrived at the dock, out of breath, and sweating (most of it was condensation from the humidity) only to find a line of passengers waiting to get on the ship. We made it. We didn’t need to run.
Still a little hungry, we headed to the lunch buffet to eat. We went through our normal routine “divide and conquer”, going our own ways to get the food we wanted and then meeting to find a table. Since we ALWAYS sat in the same general area, it worked for us.
After lunch we made our way to the Fountainhead Café to sign up for the Talent Show. We’d read about it the night before and thought that it’d be fun to perform the Evolution of Dance routine we did at our reception. The rules were simple. Due to the fact that they assumed there would be a HUGE demand to be in the talent show, there were only going to allow six acts. In the event that there were more than six entries they would hold a drawing. Alicia and I arrived early, and already had our music with us on a USB drive. The night before I cleaned up the timings a bit and swapped out the Michael Bolton song we danced to at the reception with the love song from Titanic. Long story short there were 7 groups that showed up and a drawing was done. We were in. Binky escorted us to the Phantom Lounge and had us run through our acts one by one for a sound check. Those men and women who were planning on singing were going to be accompanied by the ships’ jazz orchestra. Alicia and I asked to be last so that we could maintain the element of surprise. It was finally our turn and we took the stage. The music started and we stumbled and tripped our way through the first 1 minute of music and then said “Okay, we’re done.” There simply is no way to describe the look on Binky’s face as we exited the stage. The best way to describe it was a look of terror and nausea. “Don’t worry,” I said as we passed him, “we’ll practice and be ready.” He obviously took no comfort in my promise.
Because of the day’s activities and the pending late night performance we decided to take a nap – a good, LONG nap.
After our rest, we got dressed and headed off to dinner. Tonight’s selection was really, really inviting - beef stroganoff, rack of lamb and black bean enchiladas. While Alicia passed on them all, I decided to try them all. Somewhere around the middle of the stroganoff my stomach sent a message to my brain that it wasn’t happy anymore and that the black bean enchiladas I had already eaten were quite enough. My brain sent a message back telling my stomach to shut up and keep working as the rack of lamb was placed in front of me. Thus began the total revolt of my digestive system. We wrapped up dinner and walked through the ship on our way to the Mad Hatter’s Ballroom where I would reprise my karaoke stardom. As we rounded the corner into the Fountainhead Café I caught wind of the all-you-can-eat sushi bar now in full aroma. And that’s when the surrender flag went up in my stomach. I darted into the next restroom where I… um… well… gave the rack of lamb, the stroganoff and some of the black bean enchiladas back to the ship.
Four years of studying theater taught me that the show must go on, so I entered the Mad Hatter Ballroom and submitted my name for another round of karaoke. This time, however, my performance didn’t have the same… pizzazz. I sang “Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole and, while Alicia said it was good, it was just not the same attention-grabbing, show-stopper that my previous performance was. Honestly, I was okay with that since I was trying very hard to forget what had just happened moments before.
After one more nap, Alicia and I prepared for the talent show. We practiced our slow dance in order to make it stiff and awkward, the rest we were already prepared for. Alicia dressed in the same beautiful black dress she had worn to the first elegant dinner and I wore black slacks and my favorite blue dress shirt and tie. We polished ourselves up and headed down to the Phantom Lounge.
The Lounge was full. I estimate that nearly 300 people were seated by the time Alicia and I arrived and sat with the other performers in the reserved rows up front. We were told what order we’d be performing in and were pleased to learn that we were going fifth. The first man performed “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” by Barry White. It was really good. The next man performed “I Write The Songs” by Barry Manilow. It, also, was well done. Next a sweet, old black woman got up to sing “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” She sang in a very warbled, opera voice and spent most of the time off-key, but everyone applauded her willingness to be on stage. Next an older black man peformed “Oh Danny Boy” on the harmonica to a taped accompaniment. His performance was about 4 to 5 seconds ahead of the music, but again he received his applause. These two performances only made what Alicia and I were about to do more perfect. We were finally announced as “The Purdys” and took the stage. The Titanic music started and we began our terrible, elementary attempt at slow dancing. You could feel the tension in the room as hundreds of people asked themselves if they would stick around for 5 minutes of this awful display of dancing. Just as the audience couldn’t take any more, the record scratched and I burst into rendition of Elvis as “Hound Dog” blared through the speakers. The audience went crazy. Suddenly everyone sat back down. Alicia pushed me aside and took over with “The Twist” by Chubby Checker. On and on we went from song to song, making our way through the decades of music until finally the record scratched again and Alicia joined together again in our awkward slow dance as the Titanic theme played out. It was over. We bowed to a standing ovation. The audience LOVED our performance. We had now become “THAT couple.” After a brief interview by Lenny, the activities director, we exited the stage with our bottle of champagne, a ship on a stick and a talent show certificate. The last singer took the stage to sing “Just Once” by James Ingram. He did a great job and the talent show was over.
The lights came up and one by one people came up to us to shake our hands. Some even gave us hugs of congratulations, each one expressing their enjoyment of our dance. Some confessed that they were on their way out of the Lounge when our dance took its exciting turn. Many people that we’d met on the ship waved at us, but one of our friends in particular made his way to us – Dave from Connecticut. As I was talking with some other “fans” Dave asked Alicia if we were going to join him at the Orpheus Bar later. Alicia, under the impression that we were going to bed, told him the unfortunate news that we would not be hangin’ with Dave tonight. We finally made our way out of the Lounge and started to head toward the elevators when I decided that we hadn’t basked enough in our fame and suggested that we walk through the ship together. I was not prepared for what happened next. As we walked into the casino applause broke out. We graciously smiled at everyone as we passed. Some people chose to follow us, still applauding. We left the casino and entered Metropolis (the open space where the glass elevators were) and other talent show attendees shook our hands and patted us on the back. We finally reached the other end of the ship and entered the elevators with some other people. The elevator doors shut and all became silent. After a few seconds of quiet, someone spoke up asking “You’re the Purdys, aren’t you?” We smiled and said yes. “What a wonderful job you did. Are you professional dancers?” We chuckled and I said “No, just two people without inhibitions.” Everyone laughed and the elevator doors opened up to the Lido Deck.
We turned a few corners and reached the Orpheus Bar. Alicia found a table and I headed to the bar to get our amaretto sours. When I returned to the table, I found Alicia sitting with Dave. She had noticed him sitting a few tables away and went over to him and asked him if he’d like to sit with us. So we DID end up hangin’ with Dave, anyway. Alicia, Dave and I talked about random topics – our dance, his life in CT, our future in Utah, our kids, his kids, and other random topics that came up. After an hour or so, we said goodnight to Dave and headed to our room.
It had been a great day – a day that began on a warm beach ended with our last hurrah on stage. Neither of us can imagine how the remaining days of the cruise will ever compare.
I can’t be really sure, but I suppose that the conversation with “gun-in-the-mouth” lady scared us off from going back to the dining room for breakfast. We’ve never been back. And today, we were too lazy to even make it up to the buffet. We just called room service and had a continental breakfast in bed. Today would be our last day in the Bahamas. We were docked at Road Town, Tortola, and we only had half a day to do some swimming, buy some local arts and crafts and sample the local fare, so we had to get moving.
We stepped off the ship at around 8:00 a.m. Since we were both planning on doing some swimming at local beach neither one of us cared very much about how we looked. We immediately found one of those taxi-trucks and climbed aboard for what would end up being the best rollercoaster ride $6 could buy.
Imagine, if you will, a one-lane road weaving its way up one side of the mountain the island was made from and down the other side. Now imagine a large F-450-sized truck with a bus welded to the back doing 40 to 50 mph on this road. Most of the time the only thing separating your taxi and a sharp 200-foot plummet is small metal rail. Now take that one-lane road and make it a two-way road. Then just for kicks add some light drizzle. The rig we were riding in roared up the road, often moving over to the very edge of the road to allow oncoming traffic to go by. And just to add to the experience cars would skid to a stop as we rounded corners simply because there was only room for one at a time. Then came the downhill portion of the adventure. It was stressful enough to worry about whether or not we were going to be killed or fall off the road, now we had to worry about those things AND pray that the brakes weren’t going to fail. What makes this whole situation so much more entertaining is the fact that Alicia slept soundly, with her head in my lap, the whole time.
No worse for the wear, we arrived at Cane Garden Bay. The first thing I noticed about this “resort beach” was the level of poverty. Homes were dilapidated, cars were useless, and it seemed that there were chickens and roosters everywhere. We turned few corners and stopped on a dirt road next to a hotel, that, in my young, single days, would’ve been an adventure I would’ve enjoyed. But you wouldn’t catch me in that hotel these days. Blame it Hilton & Marriott. This was the end of the ride. We climbed out of the taxi and walked in the direction of the beach. We emerged onto a beautiful beach looking out onto a gorgeous lagoon-like cove. People began offering to rent us beach chairs. There were tables with snorkeling and swimming gear for rent. The entire beach was lined with pubs, bars and restaurants. We found a place in the sand next to a freshwater stream flowing out from the jungle and underneath some coconut trees. Once the towels were laid out and the sunscreen applied, Alicia and I dove right in – me into the ocean and Alicia into her book. Although the water was clear and warm, the sand below offered up no treasures – no shells, no coral, nothing. Well, not “nothing.” We did end up finding three aluminum cans, a plastic plate, a beer bottle, some bottle caps and a coconut tree frond that had somehow washed out to sea. While I was frolicking in the ocean (I’m not sure it’s a good thing when men frolic), Alicia was laying on her Carnival Miracle courtesy-beach-towel on the sand reading her book. Unbeknownst to her a small, scruffy black puppy was playfully scampering up the beach toward her. This dog had obviously been told over and over how cute it was and felt that its sworn duty was to show everyone (especially the tourists laying on beach towels reading books). The puppy ran right up to Alicia’s face. Alicia recoiled in repulsion and terror. This whole scene was even more hilarious to me, watching from 50 feet out in the ocean, because I knew of her total disdain for anything having fur. Once the puppy had sufficiently proved its point and convinced Alicia of its cuteness, it continued on its way. This seemed to Alicia to be a good time to go swimming. Splashing into the small waves, she made her way out to me. Being the wonderful, sacrificial husband that I am, I offered her my goggles. She took them and began to adjust the straps and BLOOP they were gone. She had lost her grip on them and they fell into the water, sinking to the bottom. We both just looked at each other for a moment before I dove under and blindly began feeling along the sand for them. After surfacing again and again to catch my breath, I realized that they were probably long gone. Some poor sap and his wife would find them someday, buried in the sand as they looked for shells and coral. I stepped toward an apologizing Alicia and felt something under my foot. Without moving my foot, I submerged myself and surfaced again with my goggles. Alicia had had enough swimming and we decided that two hours of swimming was enough. We exited the ocean and began to gather our things. We packed up and headed back to the waiting taxi.
So, remember that paragraph you read about the taxi ride TO the beach? Let’s just say that I never imagined that I would long for THAT ride. The trip back to the dock was twice as bad, except that this time we had to swerve around goats that were grazing on the side of the road. As I got myself right with God, Alicia beamed with a smile and occasionally let a “wheeeee!” slip out. This is the same woman that jumps every time I quickly turn around and say “boo!” I’m glad she enjoyed it. I knew that if we died, at least I’d be going to heaven.
We arrived back at the dock and decided to go aboard the ship to drop off our bags of beach gear. When we’d done that, we headed off to the rows of street vendors hocking affordable, (read as cheap) touristy souvenirs. We went from tent to tent looking for items that the kids would like and would represent our trip to the Bahamas. We found beautiful coral and seashell necklaces for each of them. Alicia honed in on what I assume was a handcrafted necklace with a very pretty ornament made from wire and green stones. It fit her style perfectly. As we shopped a woman sat in her tent belting out a song that consisted of the same line over and over - “Bettah gate red-ay. Jesus ees cah-men!” Remarkably, it blended with the marketplace atmosphere perfectly.
True to form, we insisted on sampling some of the authentic food from the island. We wandered up and down the busy street looking for just eh right place that didn’t appear to be a trendy tourist trap. But, we soon realized that those types of restaurants were probably deeper into the city than we had time for. We had to be back on the ship at 12:30 p.m. and it was currently 11:45 a.m. After passing the same restaurant two times we finally conceded to eat at Pusser’s Pub. When we walked in the ambiance was very cool. There was an obvious British influence in the pub, but it was mixed with items and artifacts from ships and the sea. Alicia and I had looked at the menu outside so we knew what we were going to order when we sat down. The waitress was a little surprised when we told her our order upon being seated. The food came fairly quickly – conch fritters and Caribbean jerk-seasoned chicken. We shared the food, eating it as quickly as we could and paid the bill. Now the fun would really begin. It was 12:20 p.m.
There have been a few moments on this honeymoon that I’ve been glad that Alicia is fit and athletic. This was one of those times. Not unlike our run through the streets of New York, we had to cover a respectable distance in a short amount of time, so we started running. Our running turned to sprinting as the time ticked down to 12:30 p.m. We arrived at the dock, out of breath, and sweating (most of it was condensation from the humidity) only to find a line of passengers waiting to get on the ship. We made it. We didn’t need to run.
Still a little hungry, we headed to the lunch buffet to eat. We went through our normal routine “divide and conquer”, going our own ways to get the food we wanted and then meeting to find a table. Since we ALWAYS sat in the same general area, it worked for us.
After lunch we made our way to the Fountainhead Café to sign up for the Talent Show. We’d read about it the night before and thought that it’d be fun to perform the Evolution of Dance routine we did at our reception. The rules were simple. Due to the fact that they assumed there would be a HUGE demand to be in the talent show, there were only going to allow six acts. In the event that there were more than six entries they would hold a drawing. Alicia and I arrived early, and already had our music with us on a USB drive. The night before I cleaned up the timings a bit and swapped out the Michael Bolton song we danced to at the reception with the love song from Titanic. Long story short there were 7 groups that showed up and a drawing was done. We were in. Binky escorted us to the Phantom Lounge and had us run through our acts one by one for a sound check. Those men and women who were planning on singing were going to be accompanied by the ships’ jazz orchestra. Alicia and I asked to be last so that we could maintain the element of surprise. It was finally our turn and we took the stage. The music started and we stumbled and tripped our way through the first 1 minute of music and then said “Okay, we’re done.” There simply is no way to describe the look on Binky’s face as we exited the stage. The best way to describe it was a look of terror and nausea. “Don’t worry,” I said as we passed him, “we’ll practice and be ready.” He obviously took no comfort in my promise.
Because of the day’s activities and the pending late night performance we decided to take a nap – a good, LONG nap.
After our rest, we got dressed and headed off to dinner. Tonight’s selection was really, really inviting - beef stroganoff, rack of lamb and black bean enchiladas. While Alicia passed on them all, I decided to try them all. Somewhere around the middle of the stroganoff my stomach sent a message to my brain that it wasn’t happy anymore and that the black bean enchiladas I had already eaten were quite enough. My brain sent a message back telling my stomach to shut up and keep working as the rack of lamb was placed in front of me. Thus began the total revolt of my digestive system. We wrapped up dinner and walked through the ship on our way to the Mad Hatter’s Ballroom where I would reprise my karaoke stardom. As we rounded the corner into the Fountainhead Café I caught wind of the all-you-can-eat sushi bar now in full aroma. And that’s when the surrender flag went up in my stomach. I darted into the next restroom where I… um… well… gave the rack of lamb, the stroganoff and some of the black bean enchiladas back to the ship.
Four years of studying theater taught me that the show must go on, so I entered the Mad Hatter Ballroom and submitted my name for another round of karaoke. This time, however, my performance didn’t have the same… pizzazz. I sang “Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole and, while Alicia said it was good, it was just not the same attention-grabbing, show-stopper that my previous performance was. Honestly, I was okay with that since I was trying very hard to forget what had just happened moments before.
After one more nap, Alicia and I prepared for the talent show. We practiced our slow dance in order to make it stiff and awkward, the rest we were already prepared for. Alicia dressed in the same beautiful black dress she had worn to the first elegant dinner and I wore black slacks and my favorite blue dress shirt and tie. We polished ourselves up and headed down to the Phantom Lounge.
The Lounge was full. I estimate that nearly 300 people were seated by the time Alicia and I arrived and sat with the other performers in the reserved rows up front. We were told what order we’d be performing in and were pleased to learn that we were going fifth. The first man performed “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” by Barry White. It was really good. The next man performed “I Write The Songs” by Barry Manilow. It, also, was well done. Next a sweet, old black woman got up to sing “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” She sang in a very warbled, opera voice and spent most of the time off-key, but everyone applauded her willingness to be on stage. Next an older black man peformed “Oh Danny Boy” on the harmonica to a taped accompaniment. His performance was about 4 to 5 seconds ahead of the music, but again he received his applause. These two performances only made what Alicia and I were about to do more perfect. We were finally announced as “The Purdys” and took the stage. The Titanic music started and we began our terrible, elementary attempt at slow dancing. You could feel the tension in the room as hundreds of people asked themselves if they would stick around for 5 minutes of this awful display of dancing. Just as the audience couldn’t take any more, the record scratched and I burst into rendition of Elvis as “Hound Dog” blared through the speakers. The audience went crazy. Suddenly everyone sat back down. Alicia pushed me aside and took over with “The Twist” by Chubby Checker. On and on we went from song to song, making our way through the decades of music until finally the record scratched again and Alicia joined together again in our awkward slow dance as the Titanic theme played out. It was over. We bowed to a standing ovation. The audience LOVED our performance. We had now become “THAT couple.” After a brief interview by Lenny, the activities director, we exited the stage with our bottle of champagne, a ship on a stick and a talent show certificate. The last singer took the stage to sing “Just Once” by James Ingram. He did a great job and the talent show was over.
The lights came up and one by one people came up to us to shake our hands. Some even gave us hugs of congratulations, each one expressing their enjoyment of our dance. Some confessed that they were on their way out of the Lounge when our dance took its exciting turn. Many people that we’d met on the ship waved at us, but one of our friends in particular made his way to us – Dave from Connecticut. As I was talking with some other “fans” Dave asked Alicia if we were going to join him at the Orpheus Bar later. Alicia, under the impression that we were going to bed, told him the unfortunate news that we would not be hangin’ with Dave tonight. We finally made our way out of the Lounge and started to head toward the elevators when I decided that we hadn’t basked enough in our fame and suggested that we walk through the ship together. I was not prepared for what happened next. As we walked into the casino applause broke out. We graciously smiled at everyone as we passed. Some people chose to follow us, still applauding. We left the casino and entered Metropolis (the open space where the glass elevators were) and other talent show attendees shook our hands and patted us on the back. We finally reached the other end of the ship and entered the elevators with some other people. The elevator doors shut and all became silent. After a few seconds of quiet, someone spoke up asking “You’re the Purdys, aren’t you?” We smiled and said yes. “What a wonderful job you did. Are you professional dancers?” We chuckled and I said “No, just two people without inhibitions.” Everyone laughed and the elevator doors opened up to the Lido Deck.
We turned a few corners and reached the Orpheus Bar. Alicia found a table and I headed to the bar to get our amaretto sours. When I returned to the table, I found Alicia sitting with Dave. She had noticed him sitting a few tables away and went over to him and asked him if he’d like to sit with us. So we DID end up hangin’ with Dave, anyway. Alicia, Dave and I talked about random topics – our dance, his life in CT, our future in Utah, our kids, his kids, and other random topics that came up. After an hour or so, we said goodnight to Dave and headed to our room.
It had been a great day – a day that began on a warm beach ended with our last hurrah on stage. Neither of us can imagine how the remaining days of the cruise will ever compare.
2 comments:
Who took all the pictures of yall dancing?!? Another one of the contestants? I'm glad y'all knocked the socks off of everyone! What a great feeling to walk around the ship knowing you are "that couple". Miss and love you guys!
The wife of one of the other performers took pictures for us. She said she had a hard time because she laughing so much. It was fun.
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