Belly Flop!!!

Definition: the art of diving into water belly first.

Have you ever seen a belly flop competition? Royal Caribbean hosts a belly flop competition on their main pool deck each cruise. Our competition was held on day 3. It was a full day of cruising. Gabby and I were lounging by the pool having some drinks and reading our books. All of a sudden we hear the MC start announcing that there will be a belly flop competition in 15 minutes. Thoroughly intrigued, we hang around to watch. We were not disappointed. 9 men and 1 incredibly courageous woman all lined up to do belly flops.

They introduced everyone in turn. Right away I noticed the ginger from Detroit. He was funny and captured the crowd, and after the first round it was clear this wasn’t his first time. His belly flop was by far the best, most satisfying to watch. He had a practiced form that was perfected. By the end of the competition, the entire pool deck was on their feet shouting out scores and holding up how many fingers (1-5) that he deserved. In the end the ginger from Detroit won, no contest. Perfect 5s on all 3 flops.

Thoroughly entertained, Gabby and I go back to our chairs and enjoy the rest of the day.

Let’s back up for a minute and go back to the night before. After a successful day of galavanting all over Nassau, we decided to take our afternoon siesta, from 5-7. We woke up and got ready for dinner. After dinner we walked around to see a little more of the boat, since the day before we were so out of it from driving over night to get there. We found the theater, asked a guy walking in if he knew what the show was. He said no but immediately lit up telling us about the show tomorrow night. Turns out he was the singer from the group from Nashville, TN and they were headlining the show the next night. He was so enthusiastic about it we decided we had to go back the next night to see him. But anyway, more about him later. Back to Monday night. We decide to go check out the club, Vortex. It’s about 10:30 at this point. We go up to the deck it’s on and find three other girls outside the club. They said it wasn’t open yet so we all took pictures for each other (because, insta. Duh) and then went back to the pool bar for a drink. Sitting at the bar, I started to really not feel good. I told Gabby I wasn’t going to make it to 11PM to go to the club that night. She agreed so we went to get some tea and go read and go to bed. Yeah. Not sure when we got old, but we did.

We go get our tea (I was really too excited about it) and head back to the room. We were in the elevator with some guys that were maybe early 20s. As we get off on the 9th deck one of them says, “enjoy the coffee” as they all start laughing. Gabby turns around without missing a beat and goes “It’s tea!” And we both started cracking up and continued on to our room. Yes, it’s official. We are old.

All that being said to bring us back to Tuesday. Cruising all day, with the belly flop competition. After our epic old lady fail the night before, we had a plan for our day. We were going to stay up and go to the club that night. After our day of lounging on the pool deck, we went back to our room for our daily 5-7 siesta (best part of our trip, I swear). We decided we would open our wine as we got ready at 7 for dinner. We pregame. Go to dinner, come back to our room, drink some more of our wine. At 10:15 we head down to the show–the one the guy the night before told us about–with the remaining glasses of our wine. The show was amazing. We were so glad we met the lead singer in passing so we knew about it. When it was over, we headed up to club vortex. It was 11:30. We had made it! And we were ready! Of course, getting to the club as soon as it opens means it’s pretty slow. We ordered some shots and drinks and hung out on the dance floor, people watching. As the club started to fill up, we started to walk around. We run into none other than the ginger from Detroit, Belly Flop champion. Gabby strikes up conversation with him, telling him I’m single and we are looking for my future husband. Well look no further!

“I don’t know if you realize, but I am pretty much a celebrity on this boat”

“Oh, I noticed.”

“So it’s just the two of you on the cruise?”

“Yeah, this is my sister Gabby, just us, girls trip”

“Well that’s awesome, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a hair stylist. What do you do?”

“What would your future husbands dream job be?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it.”

“Oh come on, every girl has. What would it be?”

“Honestly, anything that makes as much or more as me at this point.”

“Like a doctor?”

“Yeah that would work”

“Good, because I’m a doctor”

“I’m sorry, how old are you?”

“26, I’m incredibly smart and graduated early”

“Ok Doogie. Sure”

“Wanna get a drink, cruise girlfriend?”

“Yes, Gab, lets go get drinks”

We all go to get drinks. Belly Flop is full of it, but he’s fun.

At some point, I tell him he reminds me of my brother because he’s a ginger. Around the same time Gabby’s telling him gingers are awesome, she married one. He puts, what he thinks is two and two together, and gets so freaked out thinking Gabby’s my biological sister, not sister in law and she’s married our brother.

“Cruise girlfriend. What kind of family are you??”

At this point I’m dying, I am laughing so hard. This poor ginger from Detroit is so distraught thinking we encourage incest. I’m trying to explain to him that she’s my sister in law, not my biological sister. After what seems like forever, he finally accepts that no incest has happened, and we are ok people.

Periodically throughout the rest of the night he would disappear and then I would hear “Cruise girlfriend! Where are you?! There you are! I thought I lost you!’

Needless to say, Gabby and I did not succeed in finding my future husband in the club. But we did find some serious entertainment and a few free drinks. Moral of the story is, don’t miss out on the belly flop competitions on your cruise. You just might find a cruise boyfriend. If you’re lucky, he’ll find a way to get you drinks on his unlimited tab.