watermelonqueen99

22 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

 

I go to YTD right when they open at 5:45 and usually get out in 45mins. It helps knowing what you want ahead of time and order when they bring the menu. Usually once a cruise they’re really slow and it’ll take an hour or so. That’s usually one of the formal nights.

45 mins I could do.

On 11/27/2018 at 5:34 PM, grandmarnnurse said:

Ok. See, for us, that IS the evening, and we relish it. We are not big drinkers or party people, so our “fun” is in the long dining experience. But if you are looking for something more sit down but faster, try a NCL ship that has an O’Sheehans Irish Pub. It is a full service sit down restaurant that offers a full complimentary menu 24 hours a day. Not to mention, their MDRs are more like restaurants—not big banquet halls—and Freestyle Cruising enables you to dine wherever and whenever you want. It may be more to your liking. We loved it because it is much more casual. 

Thanks, good to know! We plan on trying NCL after we turn Platinum with Carnival next year.

5 minutes ago, grandmarnnurse said:

Omg—-you should hav eaten in the MDR! Food is far better than just grabbing Lido buffet. I love to grab food in buffet for lunch or breakfast, but without a doubt, the main attraction to us is a nice relaxed meal in the MDR. I think you would find it far more than “keeping you alive”. I guess we are just foodies, because the MDR dinners are what we look forward to on a cruise.

We have eaten in the MDR before, and it just takes too long and it's too late and too much food for us! I wish Carnival had some sort of in-between, fast-casual dining venue in the evenings!

I'll be back tomorrow with the final installments!

Friday, November 2nd, 2018, con't:

Our day pass included transportation to and from the resort, the salsa making and dance lesson, full access to the beach, pools, buffet, open bar, and water toys. I believe chairs and towels were extra. After the cooking and dancing, we walked around and got some pics of the grounds. To be honest, it wasn't that scenic, but here are some photos:

We weren't feeling the whole beach and pool thing, so we headed back to Puerta Maya. We enjoyed this excursion, but we had done the "original" Salsa and Salsa tour through Carnival via our re-routed-due-to-a-hurricane cruise in 2016. We both agreed that one was much better. We got to make our own margaritas on that tour, plus several salsas. Also, instead of open bar, it was basically just unlimited margaritas. We would take 2 sips of our drink, and our waiter was right there refilling us, and they were NOT weak. I actually don't remember the ride back to the ship after we were done. I wish I could say that was the first or even last ride that I don't remember, but that would be a lie. But anyway, we had a good time, but I probably wouldn't book this particular excursion again.

We made our way back to the ship. Some of her sisters had joined us. (Take that however you'd like.):

I gotta give another shout out here. This time, to the guy waiting to re-board, wearing the penis balloon animal on his head with accompanying blue dangly bits and a female part replica in the back. The dance you performed while stroking said balloon animal ranks up there with any live performance art we've ever seen. Rock on, my man. You belong on Broadway.

We got back on the ship, cleaned up, then headed to the lobby and did some people watching. We caught up on notes and emails. Pretty soon, the most exciting event on any cruise was about to go down. The event that everyone looks forward to from day one: the Invicta watch sale. There were also other riveting activities being offered such as the puffy eye seminar. As exciting as those things sounded, we decided to roam around the ship for a bit. We ended up visiting again with our karaoke bartender buddy. Later we grabbed some pizza on Lido before heading to the piano bar. We closed down both it and the casino bar, enjoying the company of our new friends. We headed back to our room, sad that we would be waking up to our last sea day. We crashed, and I dreamed that we woke up the next morning on the Lido deck wearing nothing but towel animals and Invicta watches.....

To be continued......

Friday, November 2nd, 2018:

Today, we were in Cozumel. We've been here many, many times, but it's still one of our favorite ports. We were up early and had a small breakfast on Lido, as we knew we were going to be eating on our excursion. I didn't see any flies, so I had a few things. The bacon was actually crispy. What the crunch?! I had never experienced that before on a cruise. We got off the ship and walked around the shops for a little bit. I am obsessed with not having lines or wrinkles on my face, and always pick up plenty of Retin-A when we're in Coz, so we got that out of the way. We had booked the Salsa Salsa tour through Shore Excursioneer, and eventually headed to the Royal Something or Other shopping center near the Hard Rock to meet up with our peeps. Soon we were all headed to Playa Mia. On arrival, we got our wristbands and were instructed to hang out here until our chef arrived:

 It was open bar, so we ordered some rum punch. It tasted weird, but it was alcohol so I drank it anyway:

 Eventually we were led up some pretty steep stairs to the room we would be doing our salsa making and dancing:

We would be making a few different types of salsa and guacamole:

We had a great host and a great group. The tortilla chips and open bar were flowing, and although the drinks were quite weak, we were having a lot of fun:

A fun twist was that before you could take a sip of your drink, you had to raise your glass and shout "salud!" If we didn't our host brought a shot of tequila we had to down. C and I were the youngest people in our group by a minimum of 15 years, so this part was an absolute hoot. When we were done making our salsas, it was time for the salsa dance lesson portion of the excursion. Like I said earlier, I'm a Zumba girl through and through, so I loved this part. When we were done with that, we had another chef come in with some taquitos and quesadillas for us to try. This was the aftermath. RIP food and drinks:

To be continued.......

Thursday, November 1st, 2018:

Today we were in Belize, another port we're not really that crazy about. My only goal was to get off the ship and get some Moho chocolate. We slept in pretty late, and ended up going to Cucina for lunch. I didn't have a lot of hope, because we ate here on our first cruise and it wasn't great, but I just couldn't swallow another Guy's. (Too easy, not even gonna bother.) However, it was surprisingly not bad. I don't know if you'll be able to read them, but here are some dinner ($15 upcharge per person) menu pics. Lunch is free, and you mark on a piece of paper what you want. Forgot to get a pic of that menu:

 I had linguine with bolognese sauce and mushrooms:

 C had linguine with Alfredo sauce and chicken. The empty plate next to the bowl used to contain bread. He ate it before I had a chance to take a pic. Rude.:

After lunch, we went down to deck 0 to catch a tender. (I REFUSE to call it a water shuttle. I am not here for that.):

Getting closer to the mainland:

We walked all around the port looking for Moho, and we couldn't find it. I was devastated to learn I would not be getting any chocolate in Belize. We took the tender back to the ship. Passed this pretty girl along the way.:

We decided to go get cleaned up for the evening. Afterward, we did our usual people watching and card playing in the lobby and Ocean Plaza. We ended up not leaving port until almost 6 PM. A passenger fell ill while in port and was being treated. I sincerely hope they made a full recovery and are safely back home now. We grabbed a drink and decided to run to the room to get a quick bite from room service. We both ordered the $5 chicken quesadilla. I think I had about 2 bites of mine:

We hung out in the lobby for a little bit, and I want to give a shout out to the man who was in the priority line at guest services with an empty beer bucket on his head. Any time I start to feel bad about some of my questionable choices on the ship, I'll think about you, bro. We spent the evening in the piano bar and had a great time as always hanging with Zach and our new friends. We had to be up early for our Cozumel excursion the next day, so we left a little earlier than normal. We reached our goal of 15, so I can't recall how we made it back to the cabin or what dream I had, but we didn't wake up in the hallway the next morning, so I'm calling this a win.

To be continued.......

35 minutes ago, dcgrumpy said:

Thnaks. Geez, my husband will not be happy to hear this.  I may have to keep him drunk all week so he doesn't notice. 

That's always a good strategy! 😀

42 minutes ago, fyree39 said:

Yay!  You're back!!  I'm enjoying every word. 💗

Thanks for sticking around!

Wednesday, October 31st, 2018, con't:

When Guess Who was over, we headed back to our room to get ready for the evening. Afterward, we headed up to Lido to look for some food. I got in line at the buffet and loaded my plate with blackened chicken, a baked potato, and a salad. At the end of the line, as I was getting some shredded cheese, a fly flew up deep out of the bowl. It was so disgusting. I had made this entire plate of food, and I had to waste it all because no way in hell was I eating it after seeing that little bastard come out the cheese:

C was in line at the deli, so I went over and asked him to get me a meatball sandwich. It was scorching on the outside, and ice cold on the inside:

They did have a cute dessert out, but I just couldn't eat anything off the buffet after Flygate:

We went down to the Ocean Plaza to see what was going on. There wasn't much, so we kept walking through the casino. We peeked down into the lobby and there was some sort of story time going on:

We headed down to the lobby bar to grab a drink. We both had Blue Long Island's.:

My notes get vague here, and I can't find my FunTimes from Halloween, but I know we hung out with our bartender friend in the karaoke lounge for a while, watched a little bit of the Halloween costume party in the lobby (we normally would dress up but I had some last minute costume issues before we left home, so I just dressed as I normally do so people probably thought I was dressed up anyway), and eventually headed up to find something to eat at the deli. I think this might have been a Reuben, can't remember. The best thing on the plate was the truffle sauce on the fries, and it was just okay.:

C had a hot dog.:

The food kept us alive, that's about all I can say. Zach the PBE had the night off to rest his voice. Rude! We eventually made our way to the casino bar and shut it down while striving for 15 and chatting with a new friend we had made earlier in the cruise. We made our way back to our cabin, while discussing how much more fun the Halloween cruise was out of NOLA last year vs. Miami. We fell asleep, and I dreamed that C and I went trick-or-treating in the nude down on deck 1, asking for liquor instead of candy.

To be continued......

1 hour ago, dcgrumpy said:

Great review so far. We're on Magic in February for our first Carnival cruise. Looking forward to it.

 

Was there no other band besides strings? On other cruises my husband and I usually end the night hanging out in whatever venue the band is playing in. 

I believe there was a Latin band, maybe an acoustic player here and there. But no upbeat variety band. The evening entertainment was usually the string band. Fortunately the piano bar was on fire, so it made up for it. Thanks for reading, and have a great cruise!

1 hour ago, Jerseygirl1416 said:

You are so funny! I’m glad you’re back😂

Thanks, it's good to be back! 😀

Wednesday, October 31st, 2018, con't:

Eventually our laundry was done and fortunately nobody had pulled my draws out of the dryer and put them on the dirty table like they did on the Dream, so I didn't have to cut a b&%$h. We dropped our laundry off and headed to the Ocean Plaza. Superhero trivia was going on, and we sat and listened to it while attempting to do this Clue crossword:

That s*&t was too hard for me, so I gave up. I like crosswords that have questions like "3 letter word for what pirates like to drink," and "7 letter word for your favorite hobby." So I decided to just listen to the trivia, even though I have no interest and my idea of superhero is this:

After superhero trivia was over, they were doing outrageous law trivia. C wanted to stay and listen. We remembered this trivia from our first or second cruise, but that was many Cheers packages ago, so we didn't remember any of the answers. We did learn that it is illegal to make ugly faces at dogs here in Oklahoma. Please don't tell my mom's elderly, obese weiner dog this information. That little heifer will have me arrested for sure because I give her the stankiest face I can every time she tries to steal my hot dog at every cookout.

Before we left the Ocean Plaza, I snapped a pic of the game area looking toward the Red Frog:

We headed to the lobby to grab a drink and came back to the OP to watch people play Guess Who. There was one lady who was waaaaaaaaay too into it. She would huddle with her group like she was planning military strategy:

To be continued...

Wednesday, October 31st, 2018, con't:

We decided since we were in port and most people were off the ship, it would be a good time to do some laundry. We decided to go down to the deck 2 launderette, just so we could get a pic of the exact same room on the exact same ship that started our cruising addiction. Room 2264, cove balcony:

On our way to the laundry, we passed this door with this sign on it. It's blurry, but it's basically saying "ya'll b*&^%#s next to us need to keep your nasty-@ss trays and plates out the front of our door." If this was you, we need to be friends immediately. Also, I needed to make my own sign saying something like "I wish you MF's would stop slamming the damn doors at all hours." Seriously, it was ridiculous. Never noticed it on our previous cruises, but it was awful. But anyway:

Just in case it helps anyone, you use your S&S card to start the washers and dryers. $3.00 per load. I will refrain from making a tasteless joke here. I will not ~come~ down to that level:

This was the price for the detergent and dryer sheets, etc. But I get packets of Tide in the travel size section at Wal-Mart for $1, and just bring dryer sheets in a baggie from home:

To be continued.....

Wednesday, October 31st, 2018 con't:

After we took the pics at Pixels, we went down to the lobby to get a drink and people watch. I also caught up on my notes and C caught up on some work emails. I also snapped a few pics around the lobby. Here's the Shore Excursion desk:

The basic Carnival drink menu:

A quick glance over at the Fun Hub in the lobby. FYI, you cannot access adult sites from these computers. At least that's what another passenger told us. I wouldn't know:

To be continued....

Wednesday October 31st, 2018, con't:

Next we'll take a look at the Pixels area. We usually don't buy any pictures when we cruise. We take plenty of pics at home (I'll just leave it at that), and we cruise fairly regularly so we just don't bother. But, in case you're interested, here's some info. If you follow JH's Book of Faces, you're familiar with Mr. Radu's photos. Now you can purchase them onboard:

Finally, you can get your pics on your phone! So now, when you're scrolling through your gallery looking at all the porn you downloaded, you can come across that pic of Grandma on formal night:

Some of the deals they offer:

They have these stations set up throughout the area to view your pics. I usually have to make sure nobody is behind me when I'm scrolling through my pics, so this would be a little weird for me. But, better than trying to find your printed picture among thousands of others like we did waaaaay waaaaay back in the olden days when we first started cruising. (2014):

To be continued.....

This poor review, abandoned just like my morals! Things have been crazy, and we spent Thanksgiving with my family, so I'm still trying to recover from the trauma of that. So, I'm  gonna crack on with some more ship pics and try to wrap this up before next Halloween!

Wednesday, Oct 31st, 2018, con't:

I love the grandiose of the atrium. I hate that on the newer ships, it's not open all the way to the top. We always try to ride the glass elevator all the way to the top and back down at least once every cruise just because we're basically 12 year old grown folks:

A quick peek into the tablecloth-less MDR, just to piss off those who are triggered by it:

Something from an ancient civilization called a "library.":

A quick look in the Escape Bar, which I really liked the ambiance of, but there never seemed to be anything going on in there:

To be continued.......

Be back tomorrow with some new installments! 

6 hours ago, jakeawhite said:

We cruise very differently (all about the food and the shows here) but I'm in love with your reviews!  Keep it up! Thanks for keeping us entertained! (Apparently I only use exclamation points!)

Haha! I love exclamation points too! Thanks for reading! 

13 hours ago, pacruise804 said:

You were lucky.  We had a cruise where the atrium bar staff was more interested in wiping down the counter and cleaning the blender than even acknowledging our presence for drinks.  The other time we stopped hoping for better service (it was hard to get much worse) the drink itself wasn't very good.  Not a fan of the ginger beer they use in the dark and stormy - very harsh but not in a good way. 

This was definitely our worst bartender experience ever! 

On 11/17/2018 at 10:52 PM, Cruzinbabe06 said:

Will be on the Magic in January, first time.

 

Thank you for taking the time to post your review!

 

I luv it!

Thanks for reading! Have a great cruise!

32 minutes ago, fyree39 said:

What makes a bad bartender? asks the non-drinker.

They were not the least bit friendly or personable. Didn't hardly say a word to us, just held out their hands for our S&S cards when we walked up. We tried to avoid this bar as much as possible. 

Wednesday, October 31st 2018 con't:

More pics peeking into the shops:

I've said in my previous reviews, I don't "get" designer handbags. I just don't carry around anything that valuable to justify it. I like to go through my own bag when I'm posting these types of pics just to reassure myself I really don't need a $200 bag. So let's see what's in WatermelonQueen's "She Wants the D" mini backpack that her mom got her for her birthday: A dishwasher pod thingy that I got at the Freeosk at Walmart. A receipt from Christie's Toy Box for edible draws.  2 jolly rancher wrappers, and a business card for our local massage therapist who gives happy endings. Or so I've heard. Yep, still don't need a designer handbag. But if that's how you roll here's some handbag porn:

I thought this was purty:

A little bit closer look at the lobby bar. The bartenders there were terrible and didn't deserve such beauty:

To be continued......

Wednesday, October 31st, 2018, con't:

Let's peek inside Cherry on Top. Here you can order a bottle of champagne and flowers for your temporary cruise sidepiece. Or for your partner that you're cruising with, whichever.

More Cherry on Top stuff:

**Side note: we were looking in the windows at Cherry on Top, and C yells "hey, baby, you really need this." I figured it was something super sweet and romantic that made him think of me. I was right, it was a flask with an anchor on it that says "Cruise Diva." Eat your heart out, Romeo and Juliet.

I'm pretty sure this is what heaven looks like in the mind of my sugar crazed 12 year old daughter:

And on that same note, this is what heaven looks like to her mother:

I'm not really a wine drinker, but C is. I'm not nearly bougie enough to drink the fancy stuff he likes. (Mad Dog 20/20 that costs $3 a bottle.) Also, wine to me it tastes like if the smell of dirty feet picked up the smell of rancid fruit at the strip club at 2 AM,  hooked up at the Motel 6, and had a baby. Which actually sounds pretty hot. But anyway, if you're into that, Carnival offers a wine package:

To be continued.....

Wednesday, October 31st, 2018, con't:

Looking down onto the lobby area:

Fun Hub and ATM:

Let's take a quick look at the casino:

And a glimpse across the shops where you can buy you a hot, floral pattern blouse that would make every Golden Girl jealous and would make you the envy of everyone at your next bridge game:

To be continued.....