Oasis of the Seas - Belly Flop Contest

The last two days of the cruise were at sea, heading back to Port Canaveral from Sint Maarten. Nancy and I did some interesting things, and I will talk about them in a future post. But today I want to talk about the International Belly Flop contest that was held at the outdoor Aqua Theater off the Board walk. Located on the stern of the ship, there different shows in the theater that we missed, but I made the effort to stop in and watch the contest on Friday at 1 pm.

The whole contest was being filmed and played on two large screens on either side of the 15 foot deep pools. Every other row was beach chairs interspersed with wooden benches. I got myself a good seat in a chair with my camera ready...

One of the screens at the Aqua Theater

There was bar service so I oredered myself a Corona, and I took a few pictures of the climbing walls and local area.

Climbing wall on Port side of Oasis of the Seas

The area behind the Aqua Theater is called the Boardwalk. Completely outside, it reminds of you being on the Boadwalk at Coney island or Daytona Beach or some other beach resort. They even had skke-ball, free hot dogs at a hot dog stand, candy store with salt water taffy, and a bar and a restaurant called Johnny Rockets.

View from my seat looking back to the Boardwalk

The Royal Caribbean logo is displayed prominently over the pool on the stern...

Royal Caribbean Logo

There was a second climbing wall. The rooms to the right of the wall are some of the bigger suites where the rich people stay. Some of them were waiting for the contest to begin...

Rock Climing wall on Starboard side of Oasis of the Seas

Our host for the day was one of the two cruise directors. You could always find them on channel 14 in your room, talking about events and happenings. She had them place "The Hurt Box" in front of one of the two pools....

Cruise Director starting the Belly Flop Contest.

They had an open registration and limited it to seven divers. each diver was introduced and entered the pool area from the Boardwalk. You could watch it on TV or live. The first contestant was a measley 180 pounds...

First Contestant on large screen

First contestant Live

The nest five contestants were introduced, ranging in size from 185 to 225 pounds...

Another contestant

And another, I caught pool and big screen

And another, getting a high five from the cruise director

And then they introduced the last contestant. Weighing 300 pounds they did not say his name, and he had listed his home as the North Pole....

North Pole Contestant at 300 pounds

Dress in red with white trim, this jolly fella filled the big screen with his size....

Contestant #7

And then the contest began. The first guy dove high but everything but his belly hit the water first...

First Contestant Dives

Scoring was done by crowd participation. The hostess told us to put up our fingers from 1 to 5, where 5 was the best. She would scan the crowd reading off the fingers. The first got got a lot of ones and twos. She told one fan that was not the right finger for scoring a one. Ha ha. The next series is contestant #2.

#2 prepares to flop

#2 flops live

#2 big screen replay

Contestant actually scored a 4 point something. It was a great bellyflop. The next guy did not do as well. The hostess called it a butt pucker, where your natural instinct is to protect the boys.