talkorpi

Take 2. They got it right this time. Much better!

Ordered a hurricane from Outrigger bar. After about 10 minutes I was handed this. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe this is a hurricane. I’ll call it “industrial solvent” because that’s what it looked and tasted like to me. 😂😂

They had sushi out at the World Fresh Marketplace / Horizon Court / Cafe Caribe (seriously, which one is it called) this afternoon!

Pub lunch: Everything was absolutely delicious, including my probably-not-British beer! I hate peas but the pea soup was really good. I hate onions but the onion gravy on the bangers and mash was good. If you can get me to compliment something where the main ingredient is a food I don’t like, that’s pretty high praise!

It’s pub lunch so naturally I ordered wanted to get a beer. I don’t usually drink beer so I just asked for whatever British beer they had. This is what I got. I don’t think it’s British

Sorry this took so long. I took the picture this morning and completely forgot to post it here. Here’s the current officer board:

Next sailing (5-day 80’s cruise) will have 3,144 pax

Breakfast with a view! This buffet is much better than the one on Carnival. I actively avoid the buffet there but this one actually has a lot of good stuff. I think I am already becoming addicted to the chocolate chip brioche rolls…

Today’s Patter:

Some other notes: - CD Micca does a good job of balancing being visible to guests and being professional. Maybe it is because I am used to Carnival CDs who are all up in your face but while I haven’t seen him out as much as they are, when he is visible/making announcements they seem to do a better job of conveying what is going on and what not to miss. - Karaoke sounded like daycare. I seriously think Camp Discovery+ or whatever it’s called just made its way down to Club Fusion and dropped off the kids with a microphone. Hearing a bunch of little kids “singing” their favorite songs is cute for about 10 seconds and then hurts your ears pretty quickly after that - I wasn’t expecting this cruise to be as full as the last few since Spring Break in TX and surrounding states was in early March but I asked Guest Services what the pax count was and they said there are 3050 passengers aboard this cruise! That’s like right around 100% double occupancy. There’s a nice mix of “this is what I pictured princess looking like” and “how are you/your getting a whole week off for Easter when all I ever got off was Good Friday” onboard for this cruise.

Our reservation is at 5:40 each night. We showed up a couple minutes late on night 1 (still unpacking) and a few minutes early tonight since it was formal night and the dining rooms were going to be more crowded. Both nights we have been in and out by 7:00, which is perfect as the main show first seating is at 7:30. Gives me plenty of time to go in, get some decent seats, get us drinks at Wheelhouse, and come back to (hopefully) enjoy the shows. If you like to dine a little later, I would say 7:00-7:20 would probably be a decent time to make the 9:30 showtime since it would be a little busier and thus take longer. We requested a private table for two but you have the option to share. We are both pretty introverted and keep to ourselves so that’s definitely not for us but a lot seem to enjoy that social aspect so it is a popular option.

Day 2 Recap: Dining room breakfast was a nice way to start the morning. Did some trivia and fun activities in the morning including a neat fruit and vegetable carving demonstration before getting lunch at Salty Dog Grill. I think the entire ship decided to go up to the pools right at noon because it was PACKED. However, SDG was a pleasant surprise and everything was really good! For some reason today the activities were all scheduled like right at 10:00 and then nothing really happened again until 3:30. We took a nice break to relax and enjoy the outdoors, moving between the sun deck and our balcony (and no, I still can’t get over how huge it is). Did some trivia and lost by one point before getting ready for dinner and our first formal night. Tonight’s MDR dinner was incredible - I barely ever get to eat duck so I was SO excited to get the Duck a la Orange and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT. After our great dinner we went to Colors of the World. I… don’t know how I feel about the show? 5 minutes in I was preparing for a loooooong 45 minutes and wasn’t too impressed. Then it suddenly got really good with tons of crazy impressive Brazilian carnival type dancing and tango and it was very cool. And then the ending was really bad! The entertainment crew is very talented but I just don’t think the show flows correctly is what I guess I’m trying to say. Was a fun rollercoaster ride that’s for sure. After that it was a quick change back into comfy clothes and up topside for the NCAA national championship game. Was a cool experience to watch this on a ship at MUTS! Left at halftime to go play musical bingo. I actually got a bingo but didn’t call it out fast enough so I lost - oh well, it was still a fun game but definitely made a bit harder by being 1) late at night and 2) after I had 7 drinks today when it usually takes me a few months to drink that much… 😂 Overall, a great day at sea. I went ahead and booked Sabatini’s for tomorrow, and we also have the Pub Lunch so tomorrow looks like it will be all about food.

Y’all, it has only been ONE DAY and I already have a sunburn. That is one of the blessings of being Nordic/Scandinavian - I go straight from looking the color of sour cream to looking like a tomato in fifteen minutes 🫠

Sure. Here is everything that is listed. Honestly, I would rename this section to be “oops I forgot my toiletries” - feel like that would be more fitting

MDR Dinner (Formal Night #1): Crab Cake (very good, had a slightly spicy flavor which was unexpected but a very nice surprise) Gnocci in Truffle Cream Sauce (really good but really rich - couldn’t finish) Pan-Fried Snapper (Good, interesting flavors) Duck a la Orange (The best thing I have eaten so far - cooked perfectly, excellent taste, crispy skin with moist meat, really good side pairings) Crepes Suzette (we didn’t love this - the batter had too much egg and so it kind of tasted like ice cream with scrambled eggs 🥴) Chocolate Hazelnut Bar (really good, super sweet and rich dessert so the small portion was perfect)

I ordered a drink on ocean now while watching one of the game shows (music bingo) in Explorers. Made it through the whole game show and it never showed up. Hoping I don’t get a knock on the door at midnight with my london lemonade

Ended up pulling some outdoor dining chairs to watch the game. Not the big cushy loungers but those were in very limited supply and watching this on a cruise ship is a pretty unique experience so I’m still happy!

Hi! So I asked and they said that she is in fact going in for dry dock but they didn’t know if there would be any changes, if any. I’ll let you know if I hear more details but for now that’s all they were able to tell me.

Hi all. Been a busy evening. Will get to a full rundown later. Right now we are trying to watch the NCAA national championship game on MUTS but for some stupid reason they put away all the lounge chairs in the stadium seating area so there’s nowhere to sit. Whoever made that decision - I have some questions

Okay, I’m starting to see why people have gripes about the Medallion app. The journey view section of the app is not at all accurate. Activities have been following the printed patters that I have been requesting but the announcements and whatnot tell you to use the journey view in your medallion app. For example, I was looking forward to origami lessons at 2:00 this afternoon. I showed up to the venue and no origami was going on. Turns out it was at 11:00 this morning as listed in the patter, even though the journey view says 2. Not ruining my cruise or everything but it just seems more complicated than it needs to be. I would honestly rather just have a PDF download of the day’s patter that you can scroll through on the app as that would minimize the inaccuracies.

One thing that I am pretty disappointed with (my first negative so far) is the merchandise available onboard. I always get a baseball cap from every vacation I go on as tradition and there are very few options onboard (only two choices, a bright pink foam trucker hat or a khaki colored baseball cap that I don’t really love). There’s no sweatshirts or polos either, only long sleeve t-shirts and some leftover “real love boat” merchandise. Perhaps the biggest violation is that there are no ship models either. I was hoping to get one for my collection since it’s my first Princess cruise but I was told they didn’t even have any in stock on day one of our cruise. Very disappointing. Maybe I just caught the ship at a bad time - it is moving to Alaska in a week and a half after all and there are already a lot of cold weather items and jackets out - but I was hoping there would be at least a decent selection of merchandise onboard. Guess I’ll have to hunt on eBay over the coming weeks.

Been a busy morning. Had our first trivia of the cruise - I did terribly (only got 6 right) but the winner only got 11/22 so I would say it was pretty rough all around. After that we had the martini demonstration which was pretty entertaining and impressive. It’s a hot and sunny day in the middle of the gulf so the pools are all packed to the brim. We had Salty Dog grill for lunch (sorry, no pictures.) Tacos and burger were great. I might get crucified if the Carnival forum ever finds this out but I liked this burger better than the last Guy’s Burger I had on CCL last year 😳 Resting now before tonight’s busy formal night. We have since passed the Allure - idk why she is going so much slower than we are if we are going to the same port!

Today’s patter. I would like to note that the journey view in the app does NOT match up with the paper patters. I’m going to trust the paper versions

MDR Breakfast (the menu is pretty much the same everyday so I will just post it this once) Not pictured: whole milk, skim milk, coffee, and hot chocolate

Well, good morning everyone. Woke up to a rare sight: accompanying the sunrise was the Allure right next to us. Yes, it looks much bigger and much closer in person!