Blake Shelton & Friends Cruise Day 4

Day 4 of our 7 day journey, stop / port number 2 was in St. Thomas another Virgin Island. We had a snorkel / scuba dive excursion booked for today. We were looking forward to it and pretty excited but unfortunately that didn't last to long. 

We took a windowless taxi bus across the island to what we were told was a private beach that only local residence come to. (and of course the tour we were on) We were broken down into 4 group and we were number 3 I think. We were able to snorkel around the area were we were while we waited for our turn to scuba dive. After pretty much fully exploring the area around us, we saw the first group of scuba divers coming past us. That's when it accrued to us that we were going to be scuba diving right were we were snorkeling. Which mint we weren't going to be seeing anything different or remotely even worth wild. The sea life was extremely sad, we saw a few colorful fish swimming around and a few random creatures but nothing overly exciting.  

Our tour guide / instructor was so rude and really had no clue what she was doing. She was extremely bossy and talked way to much. This was a first for Nancy & I but Sarah had scuba dived before. She was telling our guide about it her experience in Hawaii and she basically said "yeah well that's there and that's not how we do our beginners course". She was extremely snarky and had way to may rules / policies that she didn't even follow. We enjoyed our time together the 3 of us but it really didn't go much further than that. 

 She had showed us a hand signal to make if we were having problems or if our ears were bothering us. Well unfortunately my ears started giving me problems, I tried fixing them like she showed us but it just didn't help. She told us to tell her (not the others in our group) and she would go with us to the surface. I tried toughing it out for a bit but finally it just became unbearable. I make the hand signal to her twice, while she was looking right at me. Let me tell you she just gave me the "ok" sign and kept going. I was so frustrated, I was almost in tears it hurt so bad. 

I slowly made my way closer to the top of the surface and it kind of helped a little. Only to come back down for a picture with the girls. I couldn't get all the way down though, I blame it on the frustration of my ears and the heavy crap on my back. I think I would have enjoyed it more if we would have had a better instructor and a better place to dive. 

We weren't the only ones complaining about how awful we though she was. The others on our tour were as well. In fact we ended up canceling our excursion for the next day because if it was anything like today we didn't want to waste our money. 

We did have some fun with it, so it wasn't a complete loss. 

 Back on the ship and ready for the evenings show. I absolutely love this picture of Nanc. and I :) 

  Up on the main stage was the all time famous Neal McCoy.

Let me tell you the man can dance, he's got moves like you wouldn't believe and for being as old as he is that's pretty impressive. He completely stole the show and rocked the ship. He by far put on the best show the whole week. Many times we said the cruise should have been called "Neal McCoy and Friends Cruise" I can't wait to see him again next year on the cruise. (fingers crossed all goes well and he's back again)

 The nights not complete with out a bottle of wine and a couple mixed drinks. The bartender outside the show door asked us if we wanted her to go ahead and get the bottles of wine and have them ready for when the doors opened. Is it sad that they know us all to well, not at all.....she got us our wine. :)

 Enjoying the evening with the Spouse & Nick. 

 The guys who ran security at the main stage were awesome. We got to know a few of them and would hang out with them early into the mornings after the last show. They had a tough job keeping all the crazy fans back behind the reserved seats and from coming down front during the show to take pictures. It made for some good laughs and great people watching. 

Matt with the hat is Nicks (above) brother. He was the main stage production assistant. He ran the stage if you will and helped put everything together, so each show went off with out a hitch. He had to manage getting each band / artist's equipment on and off stage and set up. We wanted to show them all some love one night so Sarah made these fabulous signs that we held up through out the show. We got a few laughs and thank you's out of it. These guys worked far to hard with little appreciation. 

 Larry & I from "Her & Kings County", who doesn't love a curly mess of hair. lol Their band was more of a rock-ish-country mix, with 5 guys and a girl. They are actually coming to the South soon and I'm hoping to try and make it out to see them. 

In the Bliss lounge that evening it was a silent night dance party. Pretty much what that mint was everyone wore head phones and the music played through them vs through the speakers in the lounge. So you had people out dancing on the dance floor, in their own little world to the songs played in there head phones. Everyone was listening to the same thing, but standing in there in the moment and its dead silent but you have people on the dance floor makes it pretty comical. Nancy and I got out there and danced to the Cupid Shuffle and did a little country two steppin but that was about it for me. It was hard to keep them on when you were dancing, I kept having to pull them back up. You would see other people kinda head bobbin to the beat and some singing along. It made for some good laughs. Surprisingly enough it was actually a big hit and went over pretty well. Thankfully though they only did it that one night. 

I've never heard of a silent dance party before, have you???