ZEBRA CRASHES HONEYMOON ON CARNIVAL VISTA August 26-Sept 3 Review

[bluenoser2]

As if planning a wedding for their daughter wasn’t enough, the Trepid (trepid is a word right? I mean, Intrepid is a word but it’s certainly not us) Travellers decided that wouldn’t a honeymoon cruise be a lovely gift for their daughter and brand new son-in-law (he still has that new son smell). There was just one catch. Well maybe more than one. They, the parents, wanted to go too. I mean, who gives an amazing Mediterranean cruise as a gift, and doesn’t want the same for themselves? So, after securing their permission, which they granted with great alacrity (“Wow! This is great! We’ll have our own photographers!” Ask me about that comment later….) we excitedly neglected the planning of the cruise, for the planning of the wedding. Sigh. My favourite part. Planning the cruise. Neglected. For months. Oh, yes….one more catch. There would be a zebra. A tiny zebra. Stripes. Florence Stripes….INtrepid Zebra traveller extraordinaire. This was met with less enthusiasm – the daughter after all, is still embarrassed by her mother pulling a zebra out of the purse at every photo op on every vacation. What could they say though? They were getting a honeymoon. So that’s the beginning.

 

 

Some background on our stellar cast of characters then. You’ve already heard of Florence – she’s been on most of our cruises since discovering we were seeming to make a habit of taking one annually. Apparently she IS married, but that’s a whole other story we won’t get into today. Let’s just say Larry is NOT a traveller. Next we have Mr. MacGeever, my wonderful husband, who can get ‘er done with the best of them, plans down to the most minute detail, remembers everything I forget, can make anything work as long as he has a safety pin and some duct tape (in this case hot pink duct tape…..), and is my favourite travelling companion. Then there’s Bubby and Cubby (here you need to use your vivid imagination and see little red floaty hearts above their names every time I mention them…so in love, so young, so photogenic…..And then there’s me. I’m the one who lurks around Cruise Critic and then indulgently writes reviews that are excessively long because, hey….I just finished planning a wedding, survived it, managed to remember everything important for the cruise, AND have just realized I can stop looking for things that match the little mint green fabric swatch I had in my purse….along with the zebra.

 

 

So why this cruise you ask? OK, maybe none of you asked, but play along. We have been on one other Mediterranean cruise – actually it was our very first big ship cruise – years ago when MY parents paid our way – on the Inaugural voyage of the Emerald Princess. It had been the perfect cruise for us, and still our favourite. Mr. MacGeever, lover of all things shiny, new and BIG, wanted to try out the Vista. He also has wanted for some time to get to see Sicily, land of (some of) his forefathers. This cruise fit the bill, and was just days after the Big Event, and ended before everyone had to go back to school and return to reality, so it was obviously meant to be.

 

 

We live in Canada (insert polite applause here) in the Maritimes, in Nova Scotia. We aren’t big spenders (except on airfare apparently) and if you’re looking for my reviews of drink of the days or the bars, you probably should just quietly leave now, because I didn’t have any. Well, except for that one limoncello sample…..

 

 

 

So…here we go! August 23: Travel Day

 

After the wedding went off without a hitch…well, just one hitch and that one was planned…. (Get it? They got hitched….ok, sorry), and oh yes, getting married in the town some of us lived in would have made life easier, but no – we did the event in Bubby’s Papa’s town in New Brunswick because she liked the church there. We left it all behind to come home, do laundry, pack (being extremely thankful for my Excel spreadsheet which told me what to pack since I had no brain left at this point) and prepare for the 23rd.

 

 

 

 

When that glorious day dawned, we completed our packing, and were ready by 9:00 a.m. Unfortunately our flight wasn’t leaving until after lunch. Yes, we had an hour and a half drive to the airport, but still. So we held off until 9:30 and then merrily went on our way, with passports, spouses and zebra accounted for. Normally Mr. MacGeever and I travel pretty light and like to do carry-on only, but for this cruise we allowed one checked BIG bag to go through, which had all our shoes and the guys suits for formal nights. After all, Cubby wanted to use his super cool black suit from the wedding again…and my, he did look dashing in it. Almost as dashing as his Father in law, but not quite.

 

 

 

The Halifax check-in was slow but uneventful. No one was pulled aside to be patted down, or luggage contents spilled out. Did I mention Bubby is Anxious? Like really ANXIOUS. About anything. About everything. We were lucky to survive the security. Once on the flight we found overhead bins for our bigger carry-ons (insert cheers and wild applause here) so no worries. Except for Bubby. There were several things to be worried about, but we kind of ignore her at that point. For our own sanity. This is the part of the trip I do not like. Having to travel backwards (not literally) to Toronto before we really get to start our forward trip to Barcelona.

 

 

 

 

All went well for most of the flight, except for the descent which apparently was pretty bad – now, I’m usually the one with motion sickness, but when we landed I looked at everyone else and realized how green they all looked and asked “was it bad?” I was met with eye rolls and expressions that equalled the profound statement “DUH.” We had pizza and salad at the airport before boarding the LONG flight.

 

 

 

 

 

BY THE WAY: Did you know you CANNOT buy a watch battery in an airport (at least past security)? My lovely watch, my favourite watch, stopped minutes after landing in Toronto. Really? It couldn’t have quit the day before, or even at 9:00 that morning so we could get a battery BEFORE we left and when we had nothing to do? Mr. MacGeever is good. But he’s not that good. After making many inquiries, the final place we asked told us they are not allowed to sell them, because the instruments they would have to use to replace batteries are not allowed past security. Really. Mr. MacGeever mumbled something to the effect of “I just use my thumbnail….”

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[SenatorsFan]

I can't wait to read more!:)

Heather

[1959kar]

I'm looking forward to reading your review and seeing what mischief the zebra gets into : ) I love your sense of humor

[easyboy]

Great start. Following.

[DJW8385]

Following [emoji106]🏾[emoji106]🏾

 

 

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[les37b]

Looking forward to the rest... I did one for the same cruise but posted to "Review" and still to be vetted.

 

Would have been looking forward to the "drinks" review..... but I expect it may be included for different reasons. I can think of 21 ! lol

[bluenoser2]

AUGUST 24, Travel day continues and BARCELONA is reached!

 

 

(notice Florence is sporting the mint ribbon from the Big Event, along with her own veil.....she's always stealing the show....)

 

So after filling Bubby and Cubby (remember the little red floaty hearts….) with enough Gravol (Americans read Dramamine) to combat motion sickness and hopefully let them sleep, we had a perfectly calm flight all the way to Barcelona.

 

 

(Honestly, by this time, you could just hold up a camera and Bubby and Cubby went into automatic smile mode...even having to share the shot with Flo. )

 

 

 

Mr. MacGeever, who had been sure that we only got a “snack” before landing, was pleasantly surprised, though ever so full, being still stuffed with pizza, finding out we got a hot meal shortly after take-off. It was on this flight that all of us decided that when we grow up we do NOT want to be a flight attendant. There were some discontent passengers complaining profusely about “THEIR” cubby (Really? First of all, the only one who had any ownership rights on Cubby was the one wearing his ring. Secondly, Cubby? Are they in kindergarten? ) was full and they were going to have to put their carry-on rows away from their own personal self. We had found room for ours, even though we were in Zone 5, the lowest class of commoners filing on board.

 

 

Anyhoo…..here’s today’s BY THE WAY installment:

 

By the way, if you have occasion to fly Air Canada Rouge and are like me, oblivious to new trends in the flight industry, a good thing to know is yes, they have “In flight entertainment”. However, this is only if you have (a) remembered to bring your I-pad with you and (2) downloaded the Air Canada app BEFORE getting on the plane. All this Mr. MacGeever had done. All this, the rest of us had not. Yes, yes, you can rent an I-pad for a paltry $10, but that wasn’t going to happen in this thrifty bunch. Fortunately, Mr. MacGeever had a double ended thingy that I could plug my headphones into and we watched a movie together. How romantic I know. Did we give it to the honeymooners seated behind us? I think not.

 

 

Our meal came, we aborted the movie, we ate, and then dozed for the rest of the flight. Or at least “rested our eyes”. I had taken the advice of one savvy traveller (possibly an Intrepid Traveller helping this trepid traveller) and packed some comfy socks which helped me stay cozy and warm under my pashmina AND the blanket from the airline, and that oh so large and fluffy pillow they give you. We were roused to the lights becoming brighter, and little packages being tossed in our general direction, along with some juice. The packets contained some variety of processed bread-shaped anomaly. I think it was banana flavoured. Possibly replicated somewhere in the depths of the vessel.

 

 

We arrived in Barcelona sometime after 9:00 a.m. which for us was 4:00 a.m. to beautiful clear skies and very warm temperatures. After a VERY long but (again) uneventful customs line, we were re-united (Sing it….come on, sing the song – you know you want to….there, for those of you old enough to remember the song, I have possibly engaged it in your mind for the rest of the day) with our one checked bag (wild cheers and foot stomping), used washrooms and found our way VERY easily to the taxi queue.

 

 

So when I, one of the Trepid Travellers, tells you it was very easy – you KNOW it was simple. It was easy and very quick to get a taxi for the 4 of us and the 5 of our bigger bags. We did pay 1 euro each for the 4 bags in the trunk area and the fare was around 35 euros. We had wisely put our apartment address on a business-size card (as advised on CC – insert more cheering here) to give to the driver who didn’t really speak any English, but who was very quiet, respectful and a good driver.

 

 

 

We got to the Casp 74 apartments in our jet-lagged stupor before 10:00 a.m. and found the reception office. That was easy, trying to remember to PUSH the door to open it was apparently beyond any of our mental capacities at the time (and several times after). The reception people here were wonderful, spoke fluent English, and helped us during our 2 day stay with any questions we needed answered, or directions we needed procuring. Beside this small office, was the door to the apartments, so back outside we went, delighted that we were allowed to check in so early, and back inside using our key card up to the fourth floor where we had been upgraded from a standard 2 bedroom apartment to a “deluxe” 2 bedroom apartment.

 

 

The tiny elevator was a bit more comical than we had appreciation for that morning, but we wedged our four selves and five luggage plus small carry-ons in and arrived at the fourth floor relatively unscathed, but feeling as though we had all grown a little closer on the ride up. Upon entering the super clean, super modern apartment we were punched in the face with the most heat we poor Canadians had experienced in our existence. Surely we had checked about air conditioning when we booked the apartment last year. Surely we hadn’t forgotten to look for that. Please let this not be our fault…..Mr. MacGeever was madly trying to figure out how he would remedy the situation, and how he could jerry rig some kind of cooling situation with the materials available when I suggested calling reception with the first of our questions. “Is there air conditioning?”

 

Miraculously, as though she had been just counting the seconds until we phoned (and thinking we were a tad late), the wonderful woman at reception replied calmly, “it’s behind the second door – close it and you will find the air conditioning”. Right. Seek and ye shall find. We had been seeking in all the wrong places. Air conditioning engaged, we sat as still as possible waiting for it to take hold. Which it did. Sitting still was VERY dangerous. We had good intentions of no naps on this day. When the air had cooled to allow movement, we inspected the bedrooms. This was ours.

 

 

 

We gave the bigger bedroom with the swanky bathroom to the newlyweds, and we took the smaller bathroom and bedroom for ourselves. (And Florence.)

 

 

 

Their bathroom caused a little angst for Bubby (what doesn’t?) as she wondered aloud (we keep telling her to think INSIDE her head to no avail) why there were two "toilets". We explained, she exclaimed “EEEOOOOOOOW”. Other than that outburst, this may have been the quietest place I have ever stayed!

[Crusin Karen]

What a FUN start! Can't wait to read more. Congrats to the newlyweds!

[pcvtmom]

Loving your writing style!

[Club Disney Chandler]

I am all in for this review! What a great way for me to start my Monday, thanks so much. Loving it so far

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[Florings]

Loving this!! Waiting for more....

[maryann2]

I love your writing style. Thank you for taking the time to do this review. Laughing as I read along.

[JaniceB]

Following...

 

PS We went on our daughters honeymoon this summer, too. They asked us to join them, funny how marriage brings everyone closer!

Edited September 12, 2016 by JaniceB

[*Cassie*]

Loving your review and looking forward to more!

[georgiacat]

Thanks for writing another review. I had wondered what happened to Florence. Congratulations on the wedding (Bubby's? or ) Looking forward to the rest of the story.

 

We will be visiting your country in 2 weeks as we are going on a Princess Canada/New England cruise. Put in a good word for the weather for us, please. Soooo excited.

[johnlcruise]

Outstanding. Looking forward to the Rest Of The Story

[CruzinNoony]

I'm loving your review!!:)

[mabones]

Following along. Looks like this will be a nailbiter, for sure!

[PghCruiseGrrrl]

Fellow Princess cruiser but following for the entertainment value!

[bluenoser2]

Following...

 

PS We went on our daughters honeymoon this summer, too. They asked us to join them, funny how marriage brings everyone closer!

 

 

Indeed it does! Glad to hear that we aren't the only ones tagging along on honeymoons!

[bluenoser2]

Thanks for writing another review. I had wondered what happened to Florence. Congratulations on the wedding (Bubby's? or ) Looking forward to the rest of the story.

 

We will be visiting your country in 2 weeks as we are going on a Princess Canada/New England cruise. Put in a good word for the weather for us, please. Soooo excited.

 

 

Yes indeed - Bubby got married. And I'll work on the weather - it's a glorious day today - the humidity decided to leave yesterday and though it was chilly in the house this morning (I had to wear socks for the first time in ..... I don't know) it warmed right up again. We'll keep those leaves on the trees for you too.

[crusinpsychRN]

Loving your style!

[bluenoser2]

 

So, off to the grocery store to lay in supplies. (Stay with me here...yes, we are STILL in Barcelona...you've got to work with me to get to the cruise.)

 

A small grocery store awaited just around the corner. The neighbourhood was ok in the daylight, so we felt safe walking, and it was very close to all the things we would later go to see. Side note: Mr. MacGeever goes for a daily constitutional walk every day at 5:30 a.m. in the morning, local time. He saw more action, than we ever did. Maybe action is a little extreme.

Sleeping bodies was more like it.

 

 

Exploring the grocery store was an entertaining excursion in itself. We had decided that our time in Barcelona would not be spent in all the fine dining establishments the city afforded, saving our hard earned and saved money for other things…..it didn’t hurt knowing that in two more days we would be eating far more than we ever would need to. Here’s a question….. (Interactive part of the review) Why do Europeans not refrigerate their eggs (and by eggs, I am speaking of the kind found in grocery stores….)? Replies are welcome. I know. I could Google it. I like you better.

 

 

 

We stocked our spiffy spacy kitchen,

 

 

 

(sorry for the blur, but that's more realistically how we were seeing things that day)

 

 

had sandwiches, one had a shower, others fell into a short coma, and then we headed out for a walk. We had 3:30 p.m. tickets for Sagrada Familia, so we started out on foot. It was 28 degrees Celsius, no humidity – a beautiful day. When we were in Barcelona years ago, Mr. MacGeever and I had circled the outside of the cathedral from a distance. I was chastised by my sister-in-law (who I call The Quilt Whisperer, but that’s yet another story) for not getting tickets to go inside. There would have been no going back to Nova Scotia without having seen the inside THIS time. She was right.

 

 

 

 

Even dear Bubby and Cubby (you know the drill by now…you can add sweet sappy music if you like…with the floaty hearts. Hall and Oates “You make My Dreams Come True” works well) who have NO patience for interiors of ordinary run of the mill cathedrals (!) were duly impressed. There were hundreds of photos taken, and I think we all actually listened to the audio guide which was very interesting. (We are NOT good tour participants as a rule. Very limited attention spans.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MJSailors]

Hello Marla!

I have enjoyed reading your posts on the Princess forum about the Princess cruises you have taken and was pleased to find this review on the Carnival forum while I was reading another interesting review written by Mitsugirly.

One of our nieces who is twenty- something travels very frequently to some very interesting places (Egypt,India ,Paris to name a few). She always sends us a postcard as my DH and I like to travel as well - but we choose less exotic,but beautiful and interesting places such as Alaska,Bermuda and Caribbean Islands.

She also has a travel companion- a stuffed cow named..... Cow!

When she signs her postcards,she includes a small drawing of cow's face- very cute.

We just received a card from her yesterday and my DH noticed Cow's drawing .

I told him about a lady who posts on CC who travels with a stuffed zebra and poses this cutie in many of her travel photos. He thought it was a clever idea!

Then, just as I was speaking about you, I see a review of your most recent cruise.

I hope Florence and all her travelling companions enjoyed this honeymoon,I mean vacation! Congratulations to your daughter and son-in-law. I wish them many happy years together.

I think both you and your hubby are good role models for them. Travels together with humor is good for a marriage!

I look forward to reading your review as it appears on CC . I enjoy your writing,photos and most of all,your humor!