Analog187

Sure thing!

This was our first VV cruise and it was certainly an different but fun experience. I have been on around 50 something cruises. My wife has been on 7 or so. I have a lot more pics on my public facebook page which is at https://www.facebook.com/travelingwithjef/ Day 1 Our boarding time was 3:15 so we got there at 2. I figured they’d let us in earlier. They line you up by boarding time. After a half hour, they let us in. Only took us 15 minutes to get on the ship. Hard to beat that. Our cabin was ready right away. Its a little smaller than other balcony cabins. Instead of having a bed and a sofa, the bed can be moved to the side so it turns into a sofa. Kinda weird but we don’t spend a lot of time in our cabin anyway. The bathroom is likewise a little smaller but I don’t feel cramped. The shower has a door which is always nice. There’s a rainfall shower which is great in addition to a handheld shower. The towels are like cheap motel towels. Pretty surprised to see that at this price point. There’s a fridge in the room with nothing in it which is nice. The closet is strange. It has the smallest drawers ever. Not sure what’s up with that. The bed is very European. Very firm with no sheet. Just a duvet like in European hotels. The AC is also not incredibly cold and it does shut down at night. Again, very European. That makes the cabin warm at night. We brought little fans which help. The balcony is nice and that hammock is incredible. Might have to but one for the house. Just gotta figure out how to hang it up. We went to explore the ship. There’s definitely a funky atmosphere throughout the entire ship. Lots to expose and plenty of places to take pictures. While there’s a big age range they are definitely trying to attract the under 40 crowd. Although the ship isn’t sold out, it certainly seemed busy. There’s a lot of little venues but since so many are little, it doesn’t take much for the spaces to feel a little crowded. That being said, there’s usually somewhere to go to get away from the crowds. The arcade is small but free. There’s also free shuffleboard tables and foosball in addition to a ton of boardgames. Looks like a lot of people went right to the karaoke booths to sign up but we’re doing that on day 2 (today). Those are also free. Near the arcade is a casual restaurant counter serving popcorn, wings and more importantly candy! I’m basically a giant 5 year old so free saltwater taffy, Swedish fish and gummy bears is very exciting. Haven’t tried the wings yet but they look good. They also have pretzels and cheese but the cheese has peppers in it so that’s not for me. We went to dinner at Extra Virgin which is the Italian restaurant but it’s more hipster Italian than your old school Italian restaurant. See my review on the page for more info but it was good. Certainly better than most food in the average main dining room. We then went to the comedian in the Red Room. It’s a good sized venue. The line to get in was pretty long but by the time he started there was still dozens of seats available. He was OK, not the best. Hopefully the other comedians are better. We then went to the around the world in 80 minutes show put on by the resident drag queen the Diva. I had no idea what to expect. The line to get in was also long. This was in The Manor which is a smaller venue. I got the last two seats. The good news is that there’s more than one show as there’s one on day 2. The show was hilarious. One of the funnier things I’ve seen in a while. Lots of singing which was actually pretty good, a lot of humor and a lot of audience participation. I highly suggest checking out anything the Diva puts on. After that we packed it in for the night. There was a pajama party that we could have gone to but we were wiped so that wasn’t gonna happen. Overall, a very different but fun experience. The main pool area Day 2 We had breakfast at the Galley. Already discussed that. We then went to hang out by the pool for a while. It was really busy. So much so that if someone got up from their chair for a second, someone else asked if it was available within 30 seconds. Not a lot of shade but we found some. As we live in Florida, pools aren’t that big of a deal to me compared to when I lived in NJ. We then went to lunch at the Galley. Covered that already as well. After that we went to this coffee-themed game show. It was hosted by The Diva and it was really funny. The only negative is that it was held in the Roundabout. There’s no soaring atrium like other ships so this small space is the closest thing to an atrium. Problem is that it’s just not set up for any type of show. If you’re sitting anywhere, you probably won’t see much. Instead you have to stand. Seems like holding shows and performances there was an afterthought. Not the end of the world but a poor design choice. We then went to use the karaoke room for an hour. We reserved the time slot that morning. There are three different rooms available and each one holds a different amount of people. I am not a karaoke person and I’ve never actually done it. Despite that, it was a lot of fun. We could stop and start songs, goof around and do whatever without anyone watching. Highly recommended. Dinner was at Razzle Dazzle. I can’t even begin to tell you what type of restaurant this is. Eclectic I guess? Anyway, I had the fried chicken and biscuit. Chicken was good but the biscuit was amazing. A little dry but once they got me some butter it was incredible. After dinner we went to Dual Reality which is kind of like a circus show meets modern dance. It was supposed to be a take on Romeo and Juliet but there was something about a game and a referee. The basic plot elements were there but the specifics were a little confusing. Regardless, there was a variety of performers doing different things and they were all really good. It was very unique. Highly recommended. Again, a fun and chill day. The WiFi continues to be horrendous but since so many people are off the ship at the moment, it’s not bad. Day 3 Puerto Plata and Scarlet Night After breakfast we went to walk around the town. While I’m sure several things were closed for Easter, I felt like there wasn’t much to do there outside of Taino Bay (I’ll get back to that). A lot of the town seems run down. However, there are several Instagramable spots like Umbrella Street, Kite Street and Pink Street. See my pics. There’s also a cathedral and an old fort. Took us about an hour and a half to do everything. After getting lunch on the ship I went back our to explore Taino Bay and use the lazy river. Taino Bay is this huge cruise port area filled with shops, restaurants and a big pool area. See my pics for more. The highlight for me was the lazy river which was one of the bigger ones I’ve been in. One lap takes 20 minutes. The current could be a little stronger but it was great. I went around 3 times. I think VV did a poor job of explaining that area to people. There weren’t a lot of people there and I heard several people ask if the lazy river was free. The whole pool area seems like it would cost money so I can understand the assumption. After all that sun and walking around I needed a nap. We decided to go casual for dinner so we went with pizza and wings. The pizza took a while but they gave us a buzzer so it was nice to not have to wait in line like Carnival. The pizza was about on par with Carnival so it was good. The wings on the other hand were awful and the Buffalo sauce was bland. Not my deal. As we walked around after dinner we could see that they were getting ready for Scarlet Night. Blowup octopus tentacles and fish were all over. We went to the 7pm comedian. He was OK. He had a horrible British accent (which he admitted was the worst you can have in the UK) and he clearly couldn’t handle a 45 minute set so there was a lot of filler. Some of his jokes were funny but overall not my thing. We then went to the 15 minute show that explains what Scarlet Night was all about. It was a singer that said something about an octopus falling in love with a sailor? Meh. I think they could have just said it’s a fun party and this giant octopus looks cool. There was then another comedian but as we were making our way to that show I can see that Scarlet Night was definitely getting into full gear. Everyone had red on and there was a lot of partying. This comedian was from Scotland but his accent wasn’t bad. He’s definitely more professional and he did a great job. Best comedian so far this cruise. After that we went up to the pool area to wait for the big Scarlet Night party. A lot of people had the same idea as all the chairs on deck 16 overlooking the pool were taken. If you’d rather watch the party, deck 16 is where to go. If you want to be in the party, head to deck 15 where the pool is. I feel like 90% of the ship was there. The Diva and the hostess kicked off the night with the shows performers dancing around the pool. They then got in the pool and splashed everyone. They then invited everyone else to join them to dance in the pool so there was a mad rush by people to remove their shoes. At that point it just turned into a full on dance party. Really fun. Between all that and all the sun, I slept 9 hours. Probably could have slept 11. Taino Bay Day 4 Sea Day This was a pretty chill day. Worked out after breakfast. Then we looked around for some shade. That’s very difficult to find on this ship. We did find some nice chairs on deck 7. The lifeboats are right there but you still have a view of the ocean. They’re a little short for me so I had to find a little table. Stacked some towels on it (so my feet weren’t on the table) and it worked out. We were there for a few hours relaxing and reading. Shuffleboard was right there so we taught another couple how to play. They then destroyed us. Lol. Went to our karaoke at 4pm that we reserved. That was fun but again, so glad no one else heard us. Dinner was at the Wake, the steakhouse. I got the filet which was so good I had a second one. The show tonight was Ships in the Night which is more of a traditional production show. It was good. The singer himself was good but the song selection wasn’t the best. The dance was great. They really try to include a plot in everything and I think it would work better with just a theme but that’s just me. We called it an early night after that. Days 5 Bimini We saw no rush to get off the ship so we got off around 10:30 and took the tram to the beach club. By the time we got there we could only find one umbrella left. The only reason I think no one else took it was because it was closed. They probably assumed it was broken. It was nice but nothing compared to all the other private islands. This of course is just a private area and not an island so it’s impossible to compare them. That being said, the water is incredible but for some reason, it was cold. Guessing there was a current bringing water in from the north. Probably be much warmer a week from now. There’s also two pools but I found them to be pretty cold as well. Regardless, we had a nice time just relax at the beach. Overheard complaints about the cabanas which loomed like a joke to me. A lot of people complained about the lack of chairs. I just don’t think this place is big enough for this ship. I was hoping for normal lunch food but Virgin has to try to do everything upscale so I waited to get lunch on the boat. We left around 2 and I finally got a chance to hang out at the pool since there was hardly anyone there. The pool is small but the water was a good temp. Dinner was pizza again. It took over a half hour. I think they forgot about us because it wasn’t until I said something that our pizzas were ready. While we were waiting I got a pretzel with cheese and a hot dog from Social Club. The hot dog was good but the pretzel with cheese was awesome. I’m sorry I waited until the last day to figure it out. Heidi then played trivia so I was in the arcade while she was doing that. I beat Sunset Riders and I played a round of Golden Tee Golf. There really wasn’t a lot going on in the early evening that interested us so we decided to call it a night early. I really wanted to see Untitled Dance Party Thing but that was at 10. After that was a 15 minute circus act. Kinda late for the last night. Bimini Day 6 You have to be off the ship at 10:30 so it was nice to not have to get up early. We chose a 9:30 slot. Got to breakfast around 9 and there was pretty much nowhere to sit so another couple allowed us to sit with them. Went down to deck 7 at 9:30 and got right off the ship. No big crazy line or anything. Couldn’t have been easier. Customs was a 2 second picture stop. We were in the car by 9:45. Doesn’t get any easier than that.

I was in the spa for most part but the first sea day was warm, not hot from what I remember. Second day was warmer. Last sea day seemed colder in the morning. Didn't stop people from laying out though.

I don't keep these maps as I create saves so that I can plan a walking route and then as I visit a place, I delete the save. When I'm done, there's nothing left on the map. Pretty easy for you to do though. Mazatlan is really easy to navigate as most things are near each other. My recommendations include Nidart, Michael's Gallery, the colored houses, the cathedral and the Mercado. There's also a ton of coffee shops that are great.

You're welcome, I'm glad someone appreciates it.

Wow really? I haven't been on Celebrity in forever. Post 2020 cruises have been on NCL, HAL and Carnival. NCL had more of a selection but everything was cold. They had serious problems with keeping food warm across several ships. HAL had a good sized buffet with a lot of international selections which isn't my thing but I remember there being enough for me to find some good stuff.

The food post covid has been so bad that I thought this food on the MDR was pretty good but a lot depends on what you order and what you like. I do agree that the buffet is just awful at this point. I don't even bother with any of the hot food at the buffet on Carnival. 100% agree about the jacuzzi and for sure it was oversold. A lot of people complained about debarking but we were the first group off so were lucky. I had a feeling it was going to go downhill fast when I saw that hallway of people crammed like sardines getting angry that we were walking by them.

I am a TA. I do a write up for my clients/prospective clients in my group.

My wife is in no hurry to get back to Carnival as a result of this experience. I'm hoping a different class ship will change her opinion.

We did Dover to Rome. Such a great cruise. I'm not sure what the Panorama had better food and entertainment but it did. My guess is that they have limited food that they can get in Europe. I'm not sure if the bigger ships have more space for the better shows and/or to store all that stuff. I wish. But for such an older ship, I enjoyed the Pride.

Background - we are a married couple, no kids, late 40s, from Florida. Both retired although I'm a travel agent now which is more of a fun hobby than a career. This is my wife Heidi's 7th cruise and I lost count of all of my cruises but it's close to 50 at this point. Most recent cruise was on the Pride last year. Pictures are on my Facebook which is public at https://www.facebook.com/travelingwithjef I have a few things I still need to add. This was a casino deal so we had an inside room. Sorry for the length but I wrote this for my travel agent group so its rather detailed. Excuse any typos or grammar issues as I wrote a lot of this late each night when i was wiped out. TLDR - we had a great time although there were a number of issues that we experienced. While they didn't ruin the cruise for us, it was more surprising since it was so repetitive. A number of other guests encountered the same issues and/or other issues as well with a few people saying that this was the worst cruise ever. We roll with the punches so it would take a lot to ruin a trip for us. I think there's a serious training and/or management issue on this ship that has not been present on any other ship I've ever been on. Hopefully they can get things figured out sooner rather than later. Day 1 We stayed at a hotel near LAX the night before. The drive to the port was uneventful until we got to the pier itself. Then it took about 45 minutes to drive about a mile. I’ve heard from other TA’s that this is not common at all. A few people on our cruise said it took them over an hour to get through this traffic. There has to be a better way. Once we were dropped off, we quickly found out that despite repeated warnings that we can only show up during our boarding time or we would be turned away was not true. They were letting everyone that showed up get in line. Although we were one time, a lot of people around us in line had boarding times for an hour later. I knew that was going to happen. Despite that, boarding wasn’t that bad. Took about a half hour. We did the muster check in right away which was took 5 seconds. They checked us in and that was that. We knew that the Lido would be a nightmare so we went to Pig and Anchor instead. Not impressed at all. It was very blah and tasted just like the regular buffet food. We then went up to the buffet just go get some funfettie cheesecake which is only available on embarkation day. It was awesome. We walked around the ship to check out the different areas. We then dropped our stuff off at the room and was greeting with someone’s underwear hanging in the shower. The room steward blamed it on a new guy. Once we were settled in we went to the spa tour. It wasn’t that exciting as there was some high pressure sales but the thermal spa looked nice so we signed up for that. We mostly relaxed and then the sail away started. Long Beach isn’t incredibly scenic and other than Catalina Island off the coast, it’s mostly open ocean so we didn’t bother to hang out on the deck too long. Heidi wasn’t feeling too great so we just went to the buffet for dinner. Nothing special. We did some gambling and then checked out the Welcome Aboard Show. It was OK. After that was the comedian. He informed us that the other comedian that was supposed to board the ship had an emergency and he couldn’t make it. This was a PG show and I’m guessing he doesn’t have a ton of PG material so he did this improv thing with the audience. It was kinda funny but not generally our thing. It was more G than PG really. After that we did some gambling. Not the most exciting first day we’ve ever had but some of that was on us. Day 2 – First Sea Day I really enjoyed the bed and bedding which is funny because Holland America is supposed to be nicer and I found that bed to be horrible. The room mostly stayed cold but it got a little warm here or there but still much better than other ships where the AC seemed to shut off in the middle of the night. We decided to try the Sea Day Brunch. It starts at 8:30 and there was a big crowd waiting to get in. It was a little chaotic. There should be a better way to handle that. Our waiter told us that since it’s the first brunch, there would likely be a long wait. I wanted to say “didn’t you just have one of these yesterday?” but I was polite. Sure enough, it took about an hour to get our food which was cold and not very good. Having just been on a Carnival cruise a few months ago, I know what the food is supposed to taste like and it was off. Not a great experience so we decided that we are one and done with the brunch on this cruise. After breakfast I did the ropes course. There was already a long line for the Sky Ride so I skipped that. I had a Go Pro on my wrist but they wouldn’t allow me to wear it. I didn’t have the strap for my head so I couldn’t use it. Heidi didn’t want to do it so she got some good pictures of me. I thought it would be too easy since it was on a ship and open to little kids but it was actually a little challenging. You could go around as many times as you want. There are several sections where there are two lanes so you could go around again for a different experience. It was fun and I’ll probably do it again. After that I went to the casino. While I was gambling, Heidi took a make your own pasta class. She really liked it. The only issue with it was that no one told us about it until 2am the night before. It wasn’t in the planner. There were no tickets or nothing else to confirm that she purchased this or where to go. If you forgot when it was going to be, there was no reminder anywhere. She was worried that it had been canceled. We spoke with guest services and it took them a while to figure out. Not the best communication. The line for Guy’s burgers at lunch was really long so I said forget about it. Just got some stuff at the buffet. After that, we went to the thermal suite. It’s different and maybe a little smaller than others I’ve been to but I like that there are 4 rooms – a hamman, an infrared sauna, an aroma therapy sauna and what’s basically a dry sauna. In the middle is a very shallow jacuzzi that your supposed to lay down in so the jet goes on your back. It’s nice but I do miss the therapy pool. There’s heated seats but not enough of them and three rain showers that don’t all work properly. For a ship that’s only a few years old, there’s definitely some deferred maintenance in the spa area. Chipped tiles, broken features and there was a faucet that had fallen out of the wall in the hamman. No one seemed inclined to fix that. Although different and not as large as it should be for a ship this size, it’s still pretty nice with the hamman being the best feature. However, some people just don’t understand that this where people go to relax. There’s a lot of loud chatty Kathy’s there with one guy that was basically scream talking. There was also a lot of garbage that no one was picking up. In the relaxation room, there was no water or when there was water, it was warm. Just not a relaxing vibe at all. I’m still enjoying it but I doubt I’ll be napping like I usually do. Dinner was elegant night we both got the steak. I wanted mine medium rare with nothing on it and she got hers medium with the sauce on it. Mine was medium and her’s was medium rare so they mixed that up. Thankfully it wasn’t smothered in sauce so I made due. What’s funny is the steaks tasted completely different. The medium tasted much better than the medium rare. Not sure what was up with that. Also, something happened with our waitress. After our plates were cleared, a waiter came over and apologized about something having to do with our waitress. I’m guessing he had to cover for her in addition to his own tables as he seemed frazzled. Sure enough, our desserts took a while to come out and when they did, my wife’s ice cream was mostly melted. Not a big deal but at this point, there seems to be a pattern developing on this ship. The show tonight was Soulbound. It was very creative. The set and costumes was a Halloween/New Orleans type of vibe but the music was R&B. I would never think of mixing those two things together but it was very well done. We were quite shocked as we do not usually like the singing and dancing shows on ships. There was somewhat of a story and all the songs fit the theme. I really can’t believe someone put this together but you have to be insanely creative to think all of this up and make it work. Whoever that is did an amazing job. The only negative I can say about the shows in general is that the theater is pretty awful. A lot of people were complaining about trying to see so there’s a ton of shifting around before the show starts as people try to find a seat with a decent view. After that the plan was to go to the comedy show. Despite getting out of the theater pretty quickly once the show ended, we quickly came across a massive line 15 minutes before the doors to the comedy club opened. This would mean that we would wait in line for over 15 minutes not even knowing if we would get a seat and then we’d have to wait another 25 to 30 minutes for the actual show to start. That wasn’t how we wanted to spend our time so we hit the casino for a bit and called it a night. Day 3 – Second Sea Day We opted for the buffet and that’s pretty much what we’re going to do for the rest of the cruise. We always get omelets and they were fine. Not the best but fine. I’ve found that a lot depends on who makes them so I am going to try different people. There were these cappuccino muffins there that were amazing. Hopefully they have them everyday. After breakfast we went on the SkyRide. The wait was about 15 minutes and part of that was due to a few people that went really, really slow. I had my Go Pro around my neck and no one said anything so I was about to get some good video. It was a lot of fun. Not too challenging at all. I’d do it again but I wouldn’t wait a half hour for it. After that I went to the casino and Heidi went to trivia. The machines at this casino seems tighter than when we were on the Pride but that just might be our luck. We’ll see how the week goes. For lunch we went to the Italian restaurant which is free for lunch. You choose your pasta, your sauce and any additional toppings. I went with the linguine alfredo (since fettuccine was not an option). It was incredibly bland. Heidi wasn’t impressed by her pasta either. We did however have a nice view of the water and we saw a number of whales which was nice. I think we’ll stick to the buffet for lunch moving forward since the other options aren’t working out for us. On the way out, I did notice that there was a coffee and cream cheesecake at the buffet. It was really good. I have to stop eating cheesecake but it’s really hard to pass up. Carnival is doing a good job with the desserts on this ship. Spent the afternoon in the thermal suite and it wasn’t as noisy as yesterday at first but as the afternoon wore on, it got louder and louder. A lot of it has to do with the jacuzzi. Since it gets shoulder to shoulder in there, everyone gets really talkative. Completely different than other ships with different set ups where people can space out more in the therapy pool. By the time I came back to the room, I felt like a million bucks. Nice and relaxed. We had some time to kill before dinner so we went to the casino. It was looking ugly there for a while and then towards the end. We played several games and other than Heidi winning $36 on one game, we were striking out left and right. I wanted to play once last machine and on my first spin, there was all this noise and I didn’t even know what was happening. Well a whole bunch of stuff happened and the entire process probably took 6 or 7 minutes but when it was done I won about $82. That helped dig us out of a hole so we called it a day right there. Speaking of the casino, I should mention that getting a drink is hit or miss. Sometimes your drink takes 5 minutes, other times it takes 30 to 45 minutes. On the first night, the waiter say he was all by himself. Why is he all by himself when the casino is packed? No idea. Today the waitress disappeared for over a half hour. She did apologize and said she ran into an issue. Don’t know what that issue was but at least she acknowledged that there was a huge delay. Unfortunately there’s no bar so you have to rely on the waitstaff. The good news is that when you do get a drink they are really good (at least for me). I like frozen drinks and the ones I’ve had are the best I’ve ever had on a ship. Not sure but I hope they keep it up. I question how much alcohol is actually in some of these drinks but that doesn’t really matter to me. Dinner tonight was chicken parm. I had low expectations but it was actually really good. I was shocked. Too bad I can’t get that every night. The butter pecan ice cream is pretty good as well. We split that. The show tonight was Rock Revolution. Mostly 70s songs which is not really my thing except for harder stuff like Hendrix but once again, it was a great show. I really like that they big the stage into the audience. There was some good laser effects and at one part there were drones flying around. That really blew people away as it was very well done. I’m usually bored by singing and dancing but this so far has been great. We were going to do some other stuff after the show and we did find the band at the Havana bar which had Cuban music. I love bands like that and the few minutes we caught sounded great. However, Heidi wasn’t feeling well so we packed it in. We can be pretty boring but since we travel so much, we don’t feel the need to cram our days with a million things. Day 4 – Puerta Vallarta We had a tour today which took us to the mountain village of San Sebastian. We prefer cultural tours over the typical touristy stuff and this was as close as we could get here as just about everything else seemed touristy. Not saying there is anything wrong with that, it’s just not our thing usually. I hate big tour groups where you follow the guide with the flag so thankfully that’s not what this was. They split us up into groups of 12 and we went into a little tour bus. Not the most comfortable bus in the world but we’re used to these things by now. The tour guide was great. Gave us a lot of great information. The village is high up in the mountains so it takes quite some time to get up there. Before we got there we stopped at a tequila factory. We got to taste several different types and they were all really good. It was a small family operation and Heidi got a bottle for her father. We then drove about 20 minutes more into the village to stop at a coffee plantation. This could have been good but it seemed more like a stop to just buy coffee more than anything else. Sampling the coffee was only done at the end when we had about a minute to spare and there was nothing to mix it with. It’s difficult to sample scolding hot coffee in about 60 seconds. I did my best and it tasted like burnt coffee so if you like Starbucks, you might like it. I’ll stick to my Costa Rican coffee which is incredible. Another 10 minutes up the road was the main area of the village. It was really cool looking. Something out of a movie. We saw a bunch of school children heading back to school from their lunchbreak. There’s a lot of touristy towns that seem fake to me in the sense that they are basically created or preserved for the sole purpose of tourism. While tourism is a big part of the local economy, people actually live and work there so that was nice to see. It was originally a mining town founded by three powerful families in the 1800s but now tourism and farming are the main drivers of the local economy. Since this is quite far from the port, the town is not overrun with tourists. It seems diffuclt to get away from the crowds over the last few years so it was nice that it was just our tour group. Our first stop was lunch which was a four course meal. Everyone loved it. We then went to a local museum where the tour guide told us about one of the families that founded the town. The family still owns the house and the museum which is really just one room. We then had a half hour to walk around the town. It didn’t seem like enough time at first but the village is small and it wound up being a perfect amount of time. The highlight is the church which was absolutely beautiful on the inside. The cobblestone streets and the arcitecture are pretty much exactly what the village looked like in the 1800s based upon the pictures that we saw. Once it was time to go, we had about an hour and half drive back to the ship. They put on some music which was a little annoying. It bothered Heidi more than it bothered me. Once we got dropped off at the port we had to walk by the countless shops. Heidi got a shirt and as usual, they tried to play the currency conversion game. You know, where an item is advertised as one price in US dollars but when you pay by credit card, it’s in the local currency which does not match the US dollars price once you convert it. They are banking on you not doing the math. We paid cash to keep the price what it is. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that some places charge more to use a credit card but that’s not what this was and I’ve seen this nonsense in other countires even if you pay with cash. We ran into this in Egypt last month. My back was killing me from the uncomforable van so we hit the thermal spa as soon as we got back on the ship. The haman was way too hot. We told someone about it but of course, nothing was changed. That part is still broken by the way. There weren’t a lot of people there so it was nice and quiet. It was really nice. For dinner I had chicken noodle soup, swordfish and keylime pie. The soup was good, the swordfish was good for a cruise ship and the keylime pie was excellent. The roll they gave us was so good I had to have another one. Tasted really fresh. I could have just had a giant pile of those. It’s funny how the food on this ship is better than the last one. I really don’t know what explains that but I’m going to try to find out if it’s just luck or if there is a reason for the difference. There was no real show tonight but instead the two new comedians we picked up today had a performance in the theater. I’ve noticed this with Carnival where they don’t bring on magician or something like that and instead put the comedians in the theater for one night. Park of the cutbacks I assume. Both of the comedians were excellent and I wish the show was longer. They aren’t playing tomorrow so it looks like we’ll just have them for 3 nights. That’s too bad because they were great. After that we ran right across the ship to go to Quest which was being held where the comedy shows usually are. I really didn’t now what to expect because the CD was nice and all but he was very reserved and laid back so I was expecting a rather boring Quest. Boy was I wrong. He did an amazing job and he emphasized that you cannot take any pics or video. He also did NOT tell anyone not to get naked. See where I’m going here? I mention this because I’ve had other CDs say nothing about pics and video but emphasized to not get naked. This was probably one of the wildest Quests I’ve seen and I’ve seen some that were really crazy. Quite a few people got….never mind, what happens at Quest, stays at Quest. Needless to say, I almost died from laughter. It was a long day but certainly a fun day. Looking forward to Mazatlan tomorrow. One thing I wanted to add was that I put some more of the cappuccino muffins in a ziploc to take on the tour today. Those things are just amazing. Carnival is killing it with the deserts on this cruise. Again, I don’t know what explains that as the food should be pretty standard across ships. Either way, I’m impressed. Day 5 – Mazatlan We weren’t in a hurry to get off the ship so we slept in a little bit. By the time we got off the ship it was after 10am. Since the cruise port is rather industrial, there’s a little tram that takes you to the exit for free. You pass by a ton of new cars getting ready to be loaded onto ships. From the exit, you follow a blue line to the center of town. The walk takes about 20 minutes. There are of course a million taxi drivers right there. I did a lot of research on Google Maps and saved a ton of places to check out. Using those saved spots, I created a walking tour around the historic center of Mazatlan. This was such a great port. If you’ve done a ton of European ports, you’ll be a little let down but if you adjust your expectations to Mexican/Caribbean ports, it’s really nice. There’s a ton of great shops, cafes and other places to check out. While you’ll find plenty of touristy T-shirt shops near the ship, the center of town has a lot of shops that sell things that were actually made in Mexico. This includes all sorts of art from paintings, to masks, to sculptures. One store actually had two artists painting masks while we were there. While we didn’t get anything, it was still great to check out. The cathedral is beautiful and it was a great spot to rest and figure out where to go from there. The mercado was massive. There were touristy shops of course but there was a ton of other stores such as produce, meat, spices, seafood, etc. So it was an interesting mix of locals and tourists. We grabbed a coffee and an awesome donut at one little place. Both were great. We then found a store called Michael’s Gallery with more made-in-Mexico stuff. It was cheaper than some of the other stores but it had the same higher end souvenirs in addition to some amazing furniture. If it didn’t cost a fortune to ship, we would have got some end tables. Heidi bought some really nice stuff such as ornaments and glasses. For being high quality, it wasn’t that expensive. For lunch, we stopped at a little cafe called Esinti. I got a white mocha. Heidi got a smoothie which was amazing. She also got soup which she liked a lot. Again, not that expensive. We continued our tour to the colored houses which are really nice but it’s hard to get a great picture of them. I did the best I could. From there we walked up to where the cliff divers were supposed to be but I guess they weren’t there due to the low tide. I was looking forward to seeing them too. Oh well. Still a great spot to take pictures. By this time, we were pretty wiped out so we took an Uber to the lighthouse. It was only $2 and it saved us from walking uphill 25 minutes. The lighthouse itself is really small but it’s on a hill so I guess it didn’t need to be tall. Not too exciting but it still got a nice pic of the harbor right there. The walk to the ship from was about 10 minutes. Across from the port is a Xoxo which is kind of like the Mexican Circle K. I got a Mexican coke in a glass bottle. While I can get them back home, I prefer to get the real deal in Mexico when I can. While I know there is more to see of the Mazatlan area than just the central historic part, I think that the shops, cafes, art galleries, mercado, the various historic sites and the architecture make it a really cool place to check out. While it was certainly busy, it wasn’t overrun with tourists. It was easy to get a table at the cafes and to check out the shops without dealing with crowds. I’m guessing most people from the ship went on a tour or took a taxi to another area. Unless there is a must-do tour that you see for Mazatlan, I’d consider walking around and checking everything out. We had such a great time. Once we got back on the ship, we went right to the thermal suite to relax. We were there for almost 2 hours. My feet really needed those jets in the hot tub. Dinner tonight was in the Italian restaurant which was comped for us. It’ll be our only specialty dining restaurant this cruise. While we like the steakhouse, I just don’t think the price justifies the experience. For pretty much the same price, we we can get better steak in St Pete Beach whenever we want. We were on Holland America last year and we went to the Italian restaurant there. I was far from impressed and since the companies are part of the same company, I had low expectations but since it was free, I really couldn’t complain. The price is pretty cheap though if you did want to pay for it. The bread that they bring you is incredible so we were off to a good start. For an appetizer I got the arincini with extra sauce. As I expected, there was no extra sauce so I asked the waiter to bring me some. I’m not sure why, but it seems really hard to get special orders done right the first time almost anywhere these days. Anyway, extra sauce was brought out right away and wow, this was the best arincini I’ve ever had and I’ve been to the best Italian restaurants in the NY/NJ area (with Patsy’s run by my buddy Sal in NYC being my favorite). If there was a place near me that made arincini like that, I’d have a table there with my name on it. Heidi got the burrata and that was great too. It was massive too. I got the chicken parm and it was really good. The sauce surprised me as it was a little sweet which I normally don’t like but it was balanced out with a little spice. I’m very picky with my sauce so I was surprised that I liked it so much. Again, I asked for extra but they just made it normal. It was just barely enough for me so I didn’t ask for any more. I really liked the chicken parm from the the MDR the other night and while this was step up, it was far from anything Sal would make me at Patsy’s but it was on par with the best chicken parm in the Tampa area. Also, it was a massive piece of chicken. They give you a ton of food. Dessert was a chocolate biscotti with cream filling and a side of coffee gelato. Wow! As I said before, Carnival is killing it with the desserts and this might be the best one. Despite how stuffed I was, I had to eat the whole thing. I’m glad there isn’t a scale in the cabin because I easily gained a few pounds from that dinner. Easily the best we’ve ever had on a cruise. We will be going there on future cruises for sure. No show or comedy tonight so we had some time to kill until the Love and Marriage gameshow. Instead of watching Deal or No Deal we went to the casino. While we didn’t ultimately win much of anything, we had really long win streaks that allowed us to play without really losing for a long time. That allowed us to rack up some much needed point. I did pretty well on a Lighting Link game. Heidi did really well on Sweetie and then she killed it on the Power Wheel for quite a while. I think we only lost $20 in almost 2 hours which was nice. Still way behind on points though. Going to have to step things up over the next two day. I should mention that the casino was mobbed. I’d say 95% of machines were taken at any one time. When someone got up from a game, someone else sat down within seconds. They could probably double the size of the casino and it would still be busy. Thankfully it wasn’t that smokey where we were. After that was the Love and Marriage Show which is always good. My only issue is that this was another cruise where they don’t separate the couples. I prefer it when they are separated and the CD talks to them more about their answers. That’s where you hear some of the funniest things. It was still a good show though but I’ve been to better ones. It was a long day but a ton of fun. Easily the highlight of the cruise. Day 6 – Cabo San Lucas This is a tender port and I had read that it can be really hectic. There was a notification from Carnival that it’s very busy from 8am to 9:30 so we went right at 9:30. It wasn’t bad at all. It was a nice tender ride over but when you get to the marina, you’re bombarded with people trying to sell you tours, taxis, etc. I’ve been to dozens of other ports but this is one of the worst as far as that is concerned, at least in my opinion. I’ve been to Cabo before and unless you like drinking or going fishing, there’s just not that much going on there for me. Thankfully, we met up with a couple that we are friends with that live in La Paz. They are rather famous in Mexico (former politician) so I’m sure they appreciate when their American friends just treat them like normal people, lol. We had a great brunch at the Ledge which has a nice view of the arch. We took an Uber there (which was easy to get) and then they drove us back. Traffic was pretty hectic so I don’t recommend renting a car especially if you have a short day like we did. We had to be back on by 2pm. Once back on the ship, we headed to the spa to relax and then we went down to the casino before dinner. Although we checked in for dinner everyday at 5:30 and never had more than a 10 minute wait, tonight the app said it would up to a half hour (although it only took 5 minutes as I think someone bumped us up). It was elegant night again and lobster tail was on the menu which was probably why there was such a wait. You can order two of them for free so that’s exactly what we did. They were pretty good. Not the best lobster you’ll ever eat but better than what I’ve had on other ships. After that we went to see the show in the theater. Tonight it was Celestial Strings. Wow, what a great show. This one was probably my favorite. There was a wide variety of songs including Nothing Else Matters by Metallica with all of the songs enhanced with violins. The singing was operatic at times which was great. There was so much to like about this one from the set to the costumes in addition to the dancing, singing and of course, the amazing violins. I was very impressed. I hope other cruise lines bring their entertainment up to these standards. Day 7 – Sea Day Last day of the cruise. Our day followed a similar pattern for the most part. Casino, spa and more casino. Nice relaxing day. It was a little colder out as we were heading north but there were plenty of people outside trying to get what little sun and warmth they could. The lines for lunch today were insane everywhere you went. I decided to finally try the pizza and it took a good half hour to get my food. They really need more people at the lunch spots to help out. One extra person could make a huge difference. There’s just no efficiency whatsoever. We weren’t impressed with the dinner menu so we thought we’d go back to the Italian restaurant again. Since we had a 7pm reservation, we went to the 6pm comedy show. It was a PG show and the comedian admitted that she struggles with PG shows. That was very obvious. It was less of a comedy show and more of her telling stories and talking to the audience. Not my favorite. Dinner was not like it was two nights ago. The couple next to us were complaining that they had been waiting over an hour for their food. They were really pissed because there were other issues before that they didn’t get into. It took us about 45 minutes to get our appetizers and it was obvious that the waitstaff was very frazzled. Not sure what was going on. While the food was good, it didn’t taste the same as the other night. Our only guess is that the chef was out sick or had to be somewhere else so this is a different chef. No idea but there was something going on that night. Either way, still probably better than the MDR. The theater had the video and presentation about the different nationalities of the crew but we already saw that on another ship so we didn’t mind missing that with our 7pm dinner reservation. We hit the casino before the late show which was the two comedians again in the theater. Heidi found one machine that she kept winning on so that was fun for quite a while. The comedy show was pretty good although one drunk guy kept heckling them and almost got thrown out. After that I went back to the casino to play the last $20 I had wanted to play but I turned that into almost $100 and then cashed out at $70. Took me quite a while. Day 8 – Embarkation We woke up at 7am to go to breakfast. We were thinking that people would have gone to breakfast a little later but it was mobbed. Thankfully we found a seat. They were out of a lot of things like muffins. I’m guessing people are taking stuff for the ride home. I had to get someone to bring more out. They weren’t really on top of things which seemed to be the theme for this cruise. We opted for express disembarkation which meant that we were one of the first groups off the ship. The notice said to meet in the restaurant at 8:30 so we left the room at 8:15. The elevators were pretty mobbed so I had the smart idea to keep hitting the button until it gave me a different elevator. It was a good thing I did that since the second elevator came first and by the time the doors were closing, I still didn’t see the first one arrive. Before we even got on the elevator, I got a notice on the app at 8:25am that our group could disembark. Being on a higher floor (9) has its advantages as there was no one else on the elevator. We stopped at several other floors but no one could get on as the elevator was full with all of the bags people had. Once we got to 4, it was pretty crazy. Several long lines and lots of people going two different ways. I guess this first group was huge. As we walked towards the gangway, we passed another open doorway which was roped off with a crew member telling people that they have to wait. It was mobbed and those people were really upset to see all these other people (us) going by them. Not sure what actually happened there but I’m happy we didn’t get stuck in that. It wasn’t exactly mid-ship but it was close. We had used the aft elevator so that might be the better way to go. It wasn’t the fastest disembarkation ever but at least we weren’t standing still. It probably took us about 20 minutes to get from the elevators at deck 4 to the rideshare pick up area. Not bad at all really. I almost always use Lyft so I hit the button right as we were about to go outside. Wait and Save said up to 15 minutes but there was a driver right there so it wound up being only 3 minutes. Glad I waited. There was no traffic getting out of the port or going to LAX. Took a half hour and it only cost about $52 which is about $20 less than what the ship would have charged so that was nice. Final thoughts We had a great time I was impressed by the food and entertainment as both seemed like a big step up from the Pride. However, I don’t think this ship was built right for the number of people that it can hold. For example, Guys Burgers seems to be exactly the same on this ship as it is on ships that are much smaller. There’s also staffing, training and a few maintenance issues especially in the spa area. A few people said it was the worst cruise they’ve been on but a lot depends on your personality. I’m sure others said it was the best cruise they’ve went on. The upper floor of the theater might be the worst designed theater I’ve ever been in. I’ve never seen so many people change seats over and over again trying to find the least worst seats. I think we’ll try to avoid this ship class in the future if I have a choice. Regardless, I wouldn’t be in a rush to go on this ship for at least a while as they have some training and service issues to address first. We do like Carnival though so hopefully we get another casino offer for a cruise that we want to go on. I will continue to recommend Carnival to my clients but I’ll have to go over a few things about this ship at least until it gets to dry dock later this year to make sure that some of the issues that they might run into won’t be a big issue for them.

That's what I meant. As a travel agent, that has not been my experience. I guess it depends on how you compare things. Looking at March 2024 for example, Enchantment starts at $732 for a 7 night whereas Odyssey has an 8 night for 756.

I asked this to the CD on a recent Carnival cruise and he said that he hasn't heard anything over there but he agreed that all of the lines need newer small ships. They can't keep these small ships going forever and ports like Tampa can't accommodate the newer ships. So something has to give at some point. They'll either build some smaller ships or give up sailing from/to certain ports. Tampa is rather profitable as they can charge more for the convenience of not having to travel to the other side of Florida. I know a number of people that will only cruise out of Tampa instead of going on better ships out of PC.

Yes, kind of a strange situation since the website says otherwise but you can bring back alcohol and use it in your stateroom. There's a big sign as you get on and off the ship that explains this. Not sure why it's different for Europe but it's pretty cool. Security will remind you that its only for your room. Not really sure how they would possibly know as you can put a drink in glass or a bottle and there's no way anyone would know where you got it from or what's in the bottle. Obviously, if you bring a bottle to dinner, that's a different story but otherwise, I don't see how anyone would really know.

Most of my cruise pics are from our ports but if you want to see some Quest videos, everything is on my public Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/travelingwithjef

No, but you can take on 12 cans of soda per person so that would be 24 cans between the two of you. I would highly suggest doing that as that is exactly what we did. I kept the soda in the fridge and brought it to the MDR or wherever I was eating and it was never a problem. The waitstaff always knew to bring me a glass of ice for my soda so after the first night, I didn't even have to ask.

US Dollar

Day 10 – disembarkation This is never really a fun day especially with getting up so early. They let us off the ship a little early and getting off was just as painless as getting on. Nothing worse than those giant lines. Didn’t have to deal with that here. There was no real signage once you get out of the terminal but it isn’t that big so it was easy to figure out. Got on the bus to the airport and had to wait for it to fill up. In typical Italian fashion, it was pretty warm. Takes about an hour to get to the airport. But as far as disembarkation day goes, this is as smooth as it gets. Final thoughts – we were really impressed with Carnival. We were expecting to hate the on board experience and just like the ports but we liked this much better than our last cruise which was on HAL. We also liked it better than NCL. I was really impressed by the room especially since it was an inside cabin in an older ship. The bedding was better than anything we’ve experienced on NCL. The Hub app is great and easy to use. I missed Quest so much and I’m glad my wife got to experience it. The food was more miss than hit but that’s really been the same with every cruise post-pandemic but Carnival had enough of the good food to help me avoid having to deal with the bad stuff. The entertainment was great and the Pride has such a great use of space. Having a comedy show every night was great but there were usually two and sometimes three shows every night. That’s really awesome. I would tell a lot of people to avoid Carnival over the last few years but it looks like I was wrong. If you stay away from the booze cruises, they have some great ships and amazing crew. We’ll definitely be back.

Day 9 – Sea Day We went to the brunch again and this time we both got one of the brunch specials. I got the 12 hour french toast which was pretty much Texas toast french toast. My wife got a skillet cake which was basically a think pancake. Both were pretty good except we ordered syrup and they gave us honey. I asked the waiter for syrup and he said they don’t have regular syrup because they can’t source a lot of things outside the US. He said they don’t have regular syrup, normal sausage links, grits and a million other things. This matches up with what the lady at the sandwich station said. Makes me wonder what I would think of the food if the cruise left out of the US. Guess I’ll have to find out one day. I’ve been on other cruises that left out of a port in Europe (2 in the last year, not on Carnival) and this wasn’t an issue – at least as far as I know. So the brunch was good but would have been much better with syrup. We then hit up the casino and it was pretty brutal. Our favorite pig game was really bad to us. Oh well, that’s gonna happen. My wife then went to play trivia and I hit up the steam room. The buffet had some type of chocolate thing going on at lunch. They had a chocolate fountain and all sorts of other goodies. It was very popular. Needless to say, I had a big lunch. We then went to the Q&A with the cruise director. It was pretty good. We then played some mini golf which was interesting since it was windy. I don’t think most people even know its up there. My wife played more trivia and I hit up the steam room one last time. One guy was upset that he just found out about it today. It helps to watch videos, read reviews and check out the deck plan. Dinner was at the MDR again. Just had the chicken again since I had such a big lunch. They did a big dance thing at the end. It was funny just like the other ones. There’s just a lot of good energy on the ship. A bunch of passengers got up and danced with the crew. The older woman really got down. She probably has 30 years on me and has more energy than I do. There was a comedian in the theater at 7:30, a show was 8:30 and another comedian after that at 9:30. The show was some type of guess the music game or something. We weren’t very interested in that so we saw the one comedian, went to the casino and came back for the other one. I got to watch a woman win $10,000 at the slot machine next to me. She was freaking out as I would be. It was nice to see someone so happy. Wonder how often that happens. After the second comedian we called it a night.

Day 8 – Cartagena Another early day catching our our with Spain Day Tours. This one went to Murcia and then back to Cartagena. I wasn’t incredibly excited about this tour but it turned out better than I thought. Like a lot of Spanish towns, Murcia is a nice little town with a great cathedral. We did a walking tour and our guide was great. Since it was Sunday, we got to go in the cathedral to watch a few minutes of mass and to check out all the temples on the inside. We also got to go inside of this private club to check out a small part of it which is decorated like the Alhambra so that was really cool. It was nice to visit a city that I probably wouldn’t have visited. We then came back to Cartagena and half of the people on our tour decided to just go back to the ship since it was really hot and they already saw Cartagena on a previous trip. Kinda seemed odd since it would have probably been cheaper to just catch a cab or a bus to go to Murcia and then come back. This was the part of tour that I wasn’t too excited about up to this point. It felt weird that we paid a tour company to show us around a town when our ship was a 5 minute walk away. However, our guide was so great that this turned into the best part of the tour. We saw one of the first submarines ever built in the world. The locals are very proud of that. We had some free time on our own so we hunted down a restaurant that had what my wife wanted. Our guide said it would be easy but it really wasn’t. Eventually we did and they actually had air conditioning which was surprising. When we met back up with the tour we were taken by bus up to see the ancient Roman theater. There is no way we would have hiked up there to see that so that was awesome. We then got to see the old bull ring. Seeing both really made the whole trip for me. The guide offered to take us to a spot to get a good picture of the ship but we were all wiped so we opted to just get back on the ship. As soon as we got back on the ship, I jumped right in the pool. It was nice and warm unlike the pool the other day. I then hit up the steam room and sauna to relax. After a quick nap, we watched the sail away. Dinner tonight was lobster tail and since you can order more than one entree, I ordered the steak that is on the menu every day to make it a surf and turf. One of our table mates did that as well. I’m sure a lot of people did. The lobster tail was great which was a surprise. Probably the best thing I ate in the MDR. My steak was the opposite. Easily some of the worst steak I’ve ever had. Basically prison food. I can’t believe they serve that. After dinner we hit up the casino and we finally hit 1500 points so we could get free drinks but it was impossible to find anyone to actually get us any drinks. We’ll have to get some tomorrow. There was a production show tonight but we just didn’t have time for it. On the way to the comedy show we caught a minute of it and it seemed good. Once again there were literally no seats at the comedy show. This is really annoying because there has to be some extra seats somewhere on this ship and they refuse to bring them in. Even if it is only 10 seats, that’s 10 people that don’t have to stand around or just leave. Guess they just don’t care? No idea. We killed a little more time in the casino and then went to go see Quest. This has always been one of my absolute favorite things to do on a cruise and it has been over a decade since I’ve gotten a chance to see it. This one did not disappoint and it was fun to see my wife’s reaction since this was her first time. Just like over 10 years ago, you have people with a bag full of stuff so they can win the game. Takes some of the fun out of it. I’m not a fan of cheaters but they don’t change up the game so this allows people to do it. Regardless, it was still amazing and we had such a good time. I got a lot of it on video. Really looking forward to a relaxing sea day tomorrow. The plan is to spend a good chunk of the day in the steam room and casino.

Day 7 – Malaga We had to get up early to meet our tour which left just a few minutes after the ship docked. We usually don’t book ship tours and this cruise is no exception. We used Spain Day Tours to take us to the Alhambra in Granada which I highly recommend. The guide on our bus was British which was nice as it made her very easy to understand. They do small groups so there was only 16 people on the bus. I was able to sleep a little on the way there. Our guide did a great job of explaining stuff to us the entire way there which made the 2 hour drive easy to deal with. Halfway there we stopped at a rest area to use the bathroom and get some food. I was able to get a sandwich for lunch which was helpful. Once we got to the Alhambra, they split us up into groups of 8 and we were handed off to our local guide. She was also great. This is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Spain and it was absolutely mobbed. Would not have been fun without a guide as there’s a lot to know and a lot to navigate. We love history, art and architecture and this is a perfect blend of all three. Really amazing place and the weather was perfect. We were there for about 3 hours. Although we didn’t walk all that far compared to previous days, our feet were killing us since there’s a lot of uneven walkways. Definitely worth it though. After we were done, they took us down the hill into Granada but they are not allowed to take the bus into the town center and we just didn’t really have enough time to walk there and back. So we just hung out near where the bus was and had some drinks outside at a bar. It was nice to relax and the beer was great. On the way back, most people fell asleep. Most of the bus was snoring in unison except us. It was a long day as expected but it was a lot of fun. Really great tour. We were hungry by the time we got back so had a pre-dinner meal. I finally tried the Blue Iguana. It was good but the chicken was a little spicy. About an hour after that we went back to the MDR for dinner and it was OK. Had the chicken again but it was a little tougher than the other day. Not the end of the world since I just ate not too long ago. Kind of expected that which is one of the reasons I didn’t bother waiting. They had that woman sing yet again. Its just really tacky at this point. I really doubt anyone is really interested in that. We hit up the casino for a few minutes and then we went to the comedic magician, Greg Foster. I really wasn’t a fan. His tricks were pretty lame and there’s a ton of filler in his act. He’s supposed to be a comedic magician but he gets really serious and then he talks about how his mom died, etc. It’s a real downer and I am really shocked that someone at Carnival thinks this is a good act. He’s done hundreds of cruises and I guess there’s only so many people like that available to work ships but this was the worst magic act I’ve ever seen on a ship. That show ended right as the comedian from two nights ago was starting so I ran downstairs to get us seats since they were so hard to get before. I liked him much better this time and he had this great act at the end where he put mouths on two people so he can control them like ventriloquist dummies. I’ve seen that before but it was done really well. Then he sung in two different voices at the same time. That was wild. He’s very talented. I’d loved to see his adult show but we just can’t stay up that late with our tours. Back to the casino after that where we had some big wins and then some losses to about break even for the night. I’m still amazed at how much playing time we’ve got out of our money. I expected the slots to be really tight but that hasn’t been my experience. Had I played this long at the Hard Rock in Tampa, I would have probably lost my house by now. As expected, it was a very long but also very fun day. Kind of a similar set up tomorrow. Our tour is going to leave right after the ship docks.

Day 6 – Cadiz We originally tried to book a tour to see the white villages but there wasn’t enough people so we didn’t go. That turned out to be a good thing since it was a little overcast so I don’t think we would have got good pictures. We would have also missed out on Cadiz which is an awesome little city. This is my type of port. You get off the ship and you’re right there. There’s free museums, really great cathedrals, plazas, beautiful parks, narrow streets, awesome architecture, etc. We had such a great time. Only took a few minutes for me to put a walking tour together and we pretty much went everywhere. We found a park filled with monk parakeets which we have in Florida but they are still cool to see. I also saw a wild cockatiel which was amazing. First time ever for me. It was just a lot of fun and the highlight was the Cadiz Cathedral which had a great audio guide. I also really enjoyed checking our the Mercado which had a big focus on seafood. Checking out all the different seafood they had was really interesting. There’s also a free history museum and a free archaeology museum. We didn’t get a chance to check out the archaeology museum because we had to wait to be let in and we had other things to do. After walking 5 and a half miles in the heat on cobblestone streets, we were tired. There was really nothing for me to eat in town and I didn’t want fast food again so my wife ate some tapas while I went back to the ship. I had that chicken sandwich again but this time I had them put the buffalo sauce on it. Really amazed with how good that is since I’m very picky with buffalo sauce. Too bad they don’t have wings anywhere. I then took a much needed nap real quick. I got some stuff done on my computer and then we had some time to kill so we both took a nap since we were so exhausted. By the time we woke up, it was time to watch the sail away so that was nice to watch. We didn’t like anything in the MDR tonight so we opted for the buffet. As is the case with a lot of ships lately, the food in the MDR is similar to the buffet. I tried the pizza for the first time and I was not impressed. It also took forever as the guys working there had a lot of problems getting it together despite no one else being in line. I won’t be back but I really didn’t want another sandwich. I think this is my main problem with Carnival. The buffet is very limited. I feel like its the most limited that I’ve ever seen. Guys burgers makes up for this during lunch but during breakfast and dinner, you don’t have that option. Its a good thing I like the omelets for breakfast or else I don’t know what I would have done. We were going to check out the production show but decided to bail on that because there was just too much else going on. That’s never a bad problem. We always like doing the art scavenger hunt and we almost got all of it right. The two we got wrong could be easily switched. After that we spent some time in the casino and had fun. Saw some woman win almost $1,900. We then checked out the comedy show. This was a different comedian that also came on the ship yesterday. I liked him better than the guy yesterday. I’d like to check out the R rated shows for both of them but we just can’t stay up that late especially since our tour leaves right as the ship docks tomorrow. It was busy tonight but it wasn’t crazy packed early like it was yesterday. After going back to the casino for a few minutes, we went to the silent disco. That’s one of those things I’ve known about for a long time but never actually tried it. It was fun but when you took your headphones off, it was really funny to watch people dance with no other noise. There were three music channels to choose from. One was always playing funk which was good, one played newer music which was mostly good and the other was just really strange. Pretty cool concept but I’m an old club rat so I prefer loud dance music. Tomorrow is going to be a really long day but I’m looking forward to it.

Day 5 – Lisbon Since we’ve already been to Lisbon, we didn’t bother to get off the ship. We slept in and by the time we went to breakfast, there was almost no one there. Too bad it can’t always be like that. I went to work out after that and it was also empty. Real nice. Went to lunch and was hoping to get a BLT on a pretzel bun but they can’t source them outside of the US. Bummer. Had a good chicken sandwich and the buffalo sauce is actually really good. Surprised by that. Since we were right by the Serenity pool (adults only area) we figured we’d get a clam shell seat and just hang out there all day. I tried both water slides. The green one was dry in one part so I got a big of a rug burn. Between that and the stairs, it was one and done for me. The yellow one is nice. Otherwise we just hung out for a while. I went to the sauna and steam room for a while which is always great. Can’t get enough of that. Before we knew it, we were sailing away from Lisbon. We watched the sail away for about a half hour and then headed in to get ready for dinner. For not doing a lot, the day went by really fast. They had half priced drinks for 2 hours which was really nice. You don’t really see that on cruises too often so we took advantage of that since we don’t have the drink package. For dinner we went to the steakhouse. We go to nice steakhouses fairly often and we recently went to Ruth’s Chris for my Mom’s birthday. This steakhouse was better than RC. The service was excellent too. I wasn’t a big fan of the cheesecake because it wasn’t a traditional NY cheesecake. They put something in it that I didn’t like. My wife loved her melting chocolate ball thing. It was a great experience. Probably the best cruise steakhouse we’ve been to. We went to the casino after dinner and did OK. There was this crazy guy screaming the entire time which annoyed a lot of people. I just don’t understand what’s wrong with some people. We caught the 80’s production show. That was really good. I’m not a huge fan of production shows but Carnival seems to put a lot of work into their shows. Lots of great effects and choreography. The cast is very talented as well. Looking forward to their other shows. After that we went to see one of the new comedians. I’m not sure what changed but we got there 15 minutes early and there was literally nowhere to sit. I had to ask a woman to sit up so I could sit and my wife stood behind me despite my protests to switch that up. The first four shows weren’t like that at all. People got there 5 minutes late and got a seat. Maybe this guy is well known or whatever. No idea. He was funny but he really wasn’t my style. My wife liked him better than I did. We went back to the casino after that and we were up, then down and then the last machine we played kept hitting so we about broke even. Maybe its just luck but I’m impressed with how much we’ve played vs how much we’ve lost. The only downside is all the damn smoke. Its impossible to escape. Another great day. Looking forward to 3 days in a row of Spain.

We've been to Europe many times pre-pandemic and it never felt really crowded but we'd never go in the summer. European tourism has been crazy this summer. We were in the UK for almost 3 weeks. We've been to Scotland before and it was empty. Was mobbed last month. I figured it was because of the summer but that's over and Europe is still mobbed.

Day 4 – Porto We got to change our clocks back because Portugal is in a different time zone. We really needed that extra hour of sleep. After breakfast we walked off the ship and immediately saw the long line for the hop on hop off bus and knew we didn’t want to mess around with that. We’re kind of turned off from them after our Norway cruise. The tram is a short walk from the ship and its only a few bucks to get into town. You also get to beat all the traffic which was nuts. A couple at our table got half their tour canceled for some reason and they think it was due to the traffic. Porto was absolutely mobbed. I thought Europe would be a little better now since the summer is over but nope, everyone is still traveling. The tram was absolutely packed and there were just a ton of locals out all day. Our first stop was this bookstore that has connections to Harry Potter. My wife likes HP so I thought I’d take her there first before it gets crowded. The line to get in went for blocks. Must have been hundreds of people on line and it didn’t seem to be moving at all. I should have known. Seems like anything with ties to TV shows or movies are incredibly popular. So we bailed on that. We checked out some view points which were really cool. The city is great. Really nice architecture so it was nice to walk around and just take it all in. We then were going to check out this palace which is more like a presidential palace but it was also mobbed. We stood on line for almost a half hour and it seemed like we had about an hour in front of us so we bailed on that. Lines were kind of the theme for the day which really surprised us as we’ve been to Europe so many times pre-pandemic and lines were rare. They seem to be the norm now. We checked out a church and the line moved pretty quick but it turns out that the line was to get up into the tower which you have to pay for. Luckily I figured that out before we got to the end as we just wanted to go in the church which was free. It was really nice like a lot of old European churches are. We had McDonalds for lunch. Lame, I know. None of us are into Portuguese food and a lot of the restaurants in the touristy section get horrible reviews which is par for the course. After lunch we made our way down to the waterfront which was really cool to check out. You get a great view of the bridge which was designed by Gustave Eiffel. Only problem with that is that everything is back up the hill and those stairs would have killed us in that heat. We are obviously not the only ones as there is a funicular to get you back up the hill. The cost is 4 euro a person and they only take cash. There was a bit of a line but it only took about 15 minutes. The line got much longer by the time we got on. We then went to the main cathedral which is a quick walk from where you get off at the top. The line also moved pretty quickly which was nice. This is a great cathedral and it was cheap to get in. Viking had a ship in and one of their tour groups got in at the same time we did so that made certain parts pretty crowded. What was odd is that they only stayed in a small area and didn’t seem to really check out the entire cathedral. Not sure what was up with that. Admission includes the tower but we had our share of steps today so we didn’t need to do that. From there we got to walk on the bridge which had incredible views. At that point, we had walked almost 5 miles and it was time to call it a day. We took the tram back to the ship but we stopped at Lidl first. These are way better than what they have in the US. The lines were incredibly long which seems to be common at European grocery stores, especially Lidl. The bread they had looked really good but I was done with lines for the day. If there’s another one somewhere we’ll try again. Back on the ship, we got a little bite to eat before lunch was wrapping up. After catching up on a few things, I went back to the room to take a quick nap. The phone woke me up and it was the front desk checking up again on the noise in the hall way. I told them that we haven’t had any other issues and that I really appreciate them calling. The guy called back 5 minutes later and said that he wanted to apologize again for the inconvenience and something about drinks. Didn’t really quite pick up on what he said but I thanked him anyway. 15 minutes later went to leave for dinner and there was an envelope outside our door with an apology note and 4 free drink tickets. That’s really crazy because its not like I made a big scene out of this or anything. Carnival just continues to impress. They had that woman sing again in the dining room. I know Carnival does things different but it just seems really off. Maybe other people think its great. She sung two songs. Not the end of the world but I could do without it. After that they had the wait staff dance and that was just a lot of fun. Much more my speed. This one guy really got into it and they even got some passengers to join them. I had the prime rib which was OK. After dinner we hit up the casino and we about broke even. My wife killed it on this one machine and then we quit while we were ahead but I say we broke even because we had lost some on previous machines. We played for about an hour and a half so not really losing any money after all that is pretty good. We caught the comedian we like for his last show. This was PG show and it was better than his previous PG show but all of them were really good. We get two new comedians tomorrow. We then checked out the 90s dance party in the club. There was pretty much no one there and I’m not really sure the DJ understood the assignment. We stayed for 15 minutes and most of the music was either not dance or not 90s. I had a feeling that was gonna happen as I think 1/3 of the passengers are going to be in the casino all night. We then went up to the Mega Deck party and at least there were some people out there but Frankie indicated he was expecting a bigger crowed. Again, everyone is in the casino. It was fun though but it was all line dances and other than the cupid shuffle, I don’t line dance. Fun to watch and of course we had to do the cupid shuffle. We did some other dance but after that I wanted to call it a night. This was another fun day. Tomorrow is Lisbon but we’re gonna stay on the ship and use it as a sea day. We have 3 ports in a row coming up so it’ll be nice to relax. Lisbon is a great city but if its anything like Porto, it’ll be a mob scene. Since we’ve already done everything we’ve wanted to do there on a previous trip, we really don’t need to go this trip.