sid_9169

Exactly a year ago this week I had my very first experience with the CitizenM hotel brand at the Miami World Center location in downtown Miami… Turned out to be a bit of a rocky start with the check in process, and then the realization that the room itself was roughly the size of a cruise ship cabin. Fast forward to January of this year, and I stayed at the Brickell location which happens to be right across the street from one of my favorite drinking establishments in Brickell… With it being Memorial Day weekend, hotel prices were in line with the cost of flights. (Expensive) I went ahead and reserved a room again at the CitizenM Brickell location, so at least it'll put me at ground zero of my favorite neighborhood in Miami, as well as stumbling distance from SoCal Cantina, where I assume that I'll end up at some point the evening prior to the cruise. I ended up paying around $270 for this tiny room, which is quite a chunk of ching for such a tiny space, but I'll only be there for the night, so … There's a Metro Mover station as well as the Brickell stop for the Metro Rail just blocks away, which pretty much puts the entirety of downtown Miami and beyond at my fingertips… ***Couple of pictures of my room then. I'd imagine that the room I'll be in tomorrow will look pretty much identical.

We've had a few wackos in here customer-wise today, but other than that it hasn't been too terrible. I'm trying to figure out what to pair with my margaritas and packing this evening.

Popping in hoping read about how great Royal Caribbean is, but it appears as if things have taken a turn for the worse... Hopefully y'all avoid whatever cooties are lurking around there and salvage what's left of the perfect not so perfect day...

I'm going to be test driving a "new to me" hangover prevention supplement called Cheers Restore... I actually bought some of this back in early 2020 intending to use it on upcoming cruises. Of course that never happened, and they sat up there in my kitchen cabinet until they expired. I guess I could have at least gotten some use out of them with my daily bouts of heavy drinking, but they just slipped my mind. Costs about 35 bucks on Amazon for a small bottle, so hopefully these things work magic. Getting older, I just don't seem to bounce back like I did only a few years ago... I'll also be armed with my Water Boy hydration multiplier for the mornings after... Much more expensive than Liquid IV, but supposedly higher quality...

This will be my first time flying into FLL, so I'm not familiar at all with the layout. "C" is on a different flight about an hour earlier than mine, so the plan is for her to go ahead and get the rental vehicle and I'll meet her after I land. Boarding pass is printed, and with a bit of luck we'll cruise right through the remainder of the day. I still haven't packed a single thing, so I've got my work cut out for me when I get home...

I stalked flights to Miami for months leading up to this sailing, and prices ranged from sky high to even higher. Lately I’d been paying somewhere in the mid 400s for Miami flights, but these rates were running in the six, seven, and even eight hundreds just to get from Atlanta to Miami… I took a wait and see approach, but it appeared that it was just going to be expensive no matter what, I assume due to the Memorial Day holiday. I even began looking into budget airlines, but many of them included a layover in some other far away city, so I just kept keeping an eye out. About a month prior to the cruise I ended up getting a check in the mail for an item I'd dropped off at a consignment shop months earlier. I figured it'd be around a hundred or so, but to my amazement they actually sold the item for over a thousand dollars, and my cut was almost five hundred! This turned out to be completely “found money”, as the thing I was trying to sell was something found in a storage unit last summer that didn't even belong to me. A “fancy chair” that I came “this close” to actually throwing in the trash, but I figured I might get SOMETHING for it, so… With this newfound chunk of change burning a hole in my pocket, I decided to just take it as a sign from the Universe that things were beginning to break my way. (As if that would ever happen, but I was trying to be optimistic) Anyhoo, long story even longer, my ex, who y'all might remember as “C” from the Norwegian Encore cruise back in 2019 decided she might like to fly down to Florida with me just to get out of town for a couple of days. She had been looking into flights to Ft Lauderdale which usually ends up being cheaper than Miami, but then you have to factor in the cost of getting from there to Miami. She had already planned on renting a car, so the stars were aligning towards at least not forking out seven or eight hundred dollars for the Miami flights. I ended up finding some non stop flights to FLL for a little under five hundred, and just booked it, as it was free money to me anyway…

About a week or so before the cruise I went ahead and pre purchased the Cheers beverage package as usual. It runs about $565 for an eight night cruise, but I had a couple of hundred in OBC, so that took a little bit of the sting out of the price. In the spirit of maybe trying not to drink as much on the cruise, I'd considered not even getting it, but 365 ÷ 8 is $45.62 per day, and that includes water AND all my coffees and whatever… I'm hoping to be able to get a seat at the bar at Alchemy, but I suspect that I could camp out on the first day just to try and cement my place there. I likely don't know any of the Alchemy bartenders there either, unless I get lucky. I've had some pretty good luck with the “good tip” straight off the bat to try and keep the drink's coming quickly if I can't get a spot at the main bar, and end up out at the outer bar, which is unique to the Vista class of ship as far as I know … (***For whatever reason, the $200 in obc doesn't show up on this invoice, but I called my credit card and the total charge is $365...)

I was down to my very last pair of earplugs, so I took a walk up to Home Depot during my lunch break... I only use a single pair for two nights, so I need at least five pairs to make it through 9 nights, including one in Miami. They had them on clearance for $2.44, but it didn't scan that price, so I had to walk the cashier all the way back through the store to show them the price tag. They said that was for a different item, but said they'd honor the price since it was mistakenly put in the wrong place... Either way, I wanted to try and get my daily walk out of the way, since it's supposed to be raining later. Only a little over three hours to go now at work, although I suspect we may even close a little bit early!...

Since I'm going to be going completely “radio silent” once I'm on board, I'll be bringing along my pen and notepad to keep up with each days activities, which will mostly just be eating and drinking and laying out in the sun. Yes, I do much prefer an actual written hard copy version of notes rather than trying to type everything into my phone, which the entire goal of this vacation is to stay away from as much as possible. I guess that I'm a lot closer to a boomer than a millennial in that regard…

I suppose the idea of a nice easy work day went straight out the window about a half hour into the day... It's almost lunch time now, and I'll be having whatever happens to be in the fridge here, which I believe is spicy kimchi and some potato salad. I promise an increase in the quality of food p0rn as the "review" progresses...

Since there wasn't one already, I started a Cruise Critic roll call for this sailing, but it never really gained any traction. Seems like 99% of the action happens on other social media sites now. This one only had 143 views and 12 replies, while there were over 900 members elsewhere.

Once again I'll be sailing in an inside cabin, which I've pretty much gotten used to after all these years. Obviously I'd rather have a balcony, but with the costs of cruising ever rising like everything else, it has everything I need: a bed, shower, toilet, ect… When selecting a location, I always make sure to have cabins above and below me, so as to minimize the possibility of noise from public areas or night clubs and such. I can't even imagine being one of those people who book cabins that are subject to any number of situations that could result in being kept up for half the night due to excessive noise. I also bring my handy dandy ear plugs just in case… The price I ended up paying for this sailing was right around $1,786, not including gratuities and the beverage package. That comes out to $223 per day BEFORE those items are added in. Either way, I'd be hard pressed to find a land vacation to the Southern Caribbean for the same amount or less.

This final day before the long weekend, already lazy coworkers seem to have forgotten how to do their job altogether... I'm determined to do whatever it's takes for me to make it till quitting time, even if I have to do everything myself...

Around the beginning of October 2023 I was poking around looking into possible future bookings when I came across some 8 night Southern Caribbean sailings on the Carnival Horizon. I'd spent my 50th birthday on board the then new Horizon back in September of 2019, and I thought it'd be nice to go back and conquer the second Vista class vessel once again. I've really gotten spoiled with all the dining options on the new Excel class, but one thing that's missing on board the newer ships is one of my favorite on board restaurants: Jiji Asian… I made a reservation for that the very first night since it's been almost five years since I've had it. The only other specialty dining I have pre booked is the Steakhouse for the next to last night of the cruise. I will miss some of the additional dining options on the newer, larger vessels such as Shaq's Big Chicken, Emeril's, and Street Eats, but I suspect that I'll survive a week in board with the available dining options.

Gotta try and make it through one more day here at the 'ol salt mine before vacation officially begins... I'm hoping for a nice smooth work day, but the final day prior to vacation is usually a rocky one. I sure could've used one more hour of sleep this morning.

For the first time in years I've decided not to even purchase an on board internet plan and really unplug from the World. (Something tells me that if I did purchase a plan then I'd slip back out of “vacation mode” straight into “Live Review mode”...) But I do want to try and give something back to all you members of the Cruise Critic community that's supported me so much over all these years, so here we go!...

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore”… William Faulkner Back in January, at some point around the middle of The Tribe cruise, I decided against doing a full “Live Review” of this upcoming sailing on the Carnival Horizon. Not the full Monty version anyway… Ever since 2017 I've been spending countless hours on board taking pictures, writing content, and battling the headwinds of on board internet. It's a LOT of work, and I really enjoy all of the back and forth with all of you readers, but after seven years (minus the 18 month “pause in operations”) I really need a vacation just for myself. I thought about doing a scaled back type of “Live” review, and at one point even considered creating an entirely new username and doing a “phantom Live Review”, masquerading as a brand new Cruise Critic member. Then I figured that would defeat the entire purpose of attempting to just have a nice relaxing vacation… In the end I finally decided to compromise and do a little “before” but mostly”after” sort of “reverse engineered” version of my original format, with 90% of it happening afterwards.

Thinking about you and Patti today Mr Jamman... Even after ten years, I know that when certain dates come around they're always a time to reflect on the good times...

I remember hanging out in that exact spot back in January!... Good times:)

Saturday morning trivia: did you know that The Misfits were named after Marilyn Monroe's final movie before she "died"...