Carnival Inspiration (Jan19) Trip Report: 4 Nights, Stormy Weather, Tons of Fun!

[t4jes]

We just got off Friday off the Inspiration out of Los Angeles (Long Beach specifically) for a 4-night cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada. 

 

The West Coast has typically gotten the short end of the stick in the cruising world – I’m grateful for all the help here for cruising in general, but found looking for information about the cruises out of California not as common, particularly for these older ships. 

 

So, I’ve decided to try my hand at a more detailed trip review including a few photos for our sailing! I’m probably not as exciting as others who’ve written, but I find remembering the trip to be therapeutic for myself, helpful to relive a vacation I wish I was still on, and great to refer back to later for memories. Hopefully it can be helpful to others also, but if not, at least it’s good for me. 

 

First of all, those of you who do these long photo logs detailing all these areas on the ship--- way to go. I don’t know how you do it. I have to confess, there are times when I’m reading, and you mention that you forgot to take a photo of food, that I silently judge just a little bit wondering if you set your mind on it, how could you forget? However, this trip, there were MULTIPLE times where my husband had to remind me whether I was going to take a picture of food or something. So, I publicly apologize for those fleeting thoughts that past through my mind when reading. It’s hard work, and I probably will not have nearly as many photos as I probably had imagined when I decided I wanted to do this. In fact, the only reason I’ll have some of the photos is because my husband enjoys photography and takes more photos than me, so if you see a great photo, it’s probably him. But without further ado, here goes.

[Jamman54]

Looking forward to your review as we will be on the Inspiration in April.

[t4jes]

About Us: 

My husband (41) and I (37) live in Los Angeles-ish and decided to take this cruise about 5 months ago. We went on the Carnival Legend to Alaska in 2016 for our honeymoon and loved it (Read Here)! It was my husband’s first cruise, and my third. 

 

Before that cruise, while I didn’t mind cruising, I always found it to be a little constricting for my travel style in my 20s. I remember going on an NCL cruise and thinking, this would be great if all I wanted to do was relax, but I wanted to explore! However, I spent a good amount of my early 30s living abroad (in Africa no less) and doing a LOT of traveling, which means that my desire to explore has lessened a lot more. Nowadays, a relaxing vacation where I don’t have to make decisions and have "exciting" travel sounds amazing . This is compared to the days when I had to figure out how to get to Zambia from Malawi on a “luxury bus” through three countries, which really just meant you had your own seat for 12 hours, which is great for Africa, but absolutely no leg room because the whole floor was filled with packages that they were carrying over as this luxury bus also seemed to serve also as a shipping vehicle. Or the time my friend and I were sitting on a tarmac in Malawi in a plane when they told us that the plane (was a large passenger plane) had a problem, and they were looking for the man who might be able to find the "toolbox" to help fix the plane. If I could only describe this airport to you - it's literally a completely plain building with maybe two computers from the 90s in the whole terminal. 45 minutes later, they report to us that they've found the man who might know where the toolbox is. We had already given up hope that we'd leave that day, but the airline had not. 3 hours later, they told us what we all already knew - there was no way in the world they could fix that plane with that little "toolbox" that they had. So we ended up begin grounded for another night as there was only four flights a week TOTAL out of that airport. Great memories, but nope, I don't choose that type of excitement anymore.

 

All that to say, these days, we take vacations to relax rather than to explore and see the world. Cruising allows us to do both – see the world and relax! We’re hoping to grow our family very soon, so we know that these days are limited and we want to enjoy as much relax time as we can before things get crazy!

 

Background: 

In August, for our anniversary, we had talked about going to Catalina Island for a day to celebrate. I’d been many times in college for a camp that I used to go to, but my husband had never been. While we started researching, we discovered it’d cost us $70+ per person for round trip ferry tickets – that didn’t include hotels or any food. At the same time, we were thinking of planning a vacation a few months later in January (as that’s my biggest lull in work) but didn’t really want to travel far. As I searched cruises, I found out that we could get on a 4-night cruise in an inside cabin that would take us to Catalina, plus give us lodging and food for 4 nights for not that much more than if we went to Catalina for a day! That sealed the deal and we booked Early Saver rates. The prices never ended up going down, but we did find a deal with extra OBC, so I did call in for that.

 

We had debated between taking a Sunday-Thursday (Imagination) or Monday-Friday (Inspiration) cruise. My husband and I both work Sunday mornings so we decided to just take the extra day off of work during the week rather than trying to rush to make the ship departure and lose a few extra hours of being on the ship on embarkation day. I’m glad we made that decision. After we booked, I also found out that the Inspiration was going through a short dry dock in late November (whereas the Imagination wasn’t getting it until this year). There wasn’t much information about it other than hearing that they updated the sushi express station and some general maintenance. I was hopeful that we’d see an update in the cabins, as I had heard many say that the ship felt dated, particularly in the cabins. This trip report will address some of the things we saw, including some pictures.

 

Introductions done, will come back later to really start this guy off! 

Edited January 20, 2019 by t4jes
Added a link

[supercarrie]

Excited for this review! I have been on the Inspiration (and also the Imagination) several times. We also live in SoCal. However, I haven't been on either in 3 years, and are going back on the Inspiration next month on a 4 day. It will be our 2.5 year old's first cruise! My in-laws are also coming along, and it is their first cruise, too.

[t4jes]

Preparation and Embarkation Day (Monday) – Stormy Stormy

The Saturday before we left, I was in the bridal party for one of my very best friends for her wedding in San Diego. Because of the wedding and cruise, we had been tracking weather very carefully. It was scheduled to rain the day of the wedding, but as it got closer, we had been praying that the rain would not disrupt her special day. And the day came, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous! 

 

However, the next few days were looking terrible – and the worst days all seemed to fall on the four days of our cruise. It bummed us out a little bit as we were looking forward to some good weather, and it didn’t look to be in plans for this vacation. While we were well aware that taking a cruise in January could mean bad weather, it is really rare for us in LA. In fact, up until this week, most days have been comfortably in the upper 60s/lower 70s and sunny for the past 3 months straight! 

 

We had hoped that things would be different, but we woke up Monday morning, and it was indeed raining hard. We finished up our packing (and put a lot of extra tape onto our luggage tags to make sure they were waterproof) and went to the bank to change some of our bigger bills into 1s and 5s for tipping. Because of the weather, we had also prepped extra warm clothes, extra card games since we had a feeling the outside decks wouldn’t be super usable, and some ponchos from REI. 

 

We live 28 miles from the Long Beach Cruise Terminal. For a 4 night cruise, we had considered driving to port. It would have cost us $22/day for a total of $88. I checked uber/lyft apps to try to get a sense of how much it’d cost us to do that instead. It ended up being about $35-40 each way though that would change depending on the time of day. With tip, it might end up begin about the same, or just slightly less, so we decided to do ridesharing to save us the hassle of needing to drive in traffic and also think about parking/lugging our baggage through the garage. 

 

 

It was very rainy on the way down, so it was nice that we weren’t the ones dealing with the rain (LA drivers don’t have a good reputation when it comes to rain). Our uber down ended up costing $37. Our driver had never been there before, but the signage was quite clear and we made it to the cruise terminal fairly easily. The driver did need to grab a ticket to bring us into the drop-off area which was on the bottom floor of the parking garage. 

 

While porters were actively helping other people with their luggage, we actually needed to wave a guy down to take our bag. We tipped him $2, and he seemed surprised in an “it doesn’t seem everybody was tipping” kind of way and he thanked us. He told us he’d get the bags to us in an hour or two. We did keep a carry on roller bag, a cooler bag full of sodas, and our backpacks, so we still carried quite a bit on. 

 

The staff out there directed us into the terminal. So this terminal is in a huge dome, and apparently used to be home to the Spruce Goose. Now, Carnival has taken it over, and it’s quite nice! Way nicer than the Seattle terminal we were in a few years ago. Our check-in time was 12:00-12:30, but we arrived at 11:50. They directed us to the “Too early/too late” line, but it pretty much wasn’t any different than if we went to the “On-time” line. They checked our passports and scanned our boarding passes. 

 

The Dome from the ship

 

 

 

For the most part, this was smooth, but we hit a little bit of a snag. We were directed to Guest Services because apparently, there was some mistake with my husband’s entry since has a foreign passport but has a green card. We went over, and the guest services lady checked her computer and said there wasn’t any mistake and stamped his paper for him to go through. While we were there though, she said that there was no credit card linked to our sign and sail card that she could see. I know for sure that I entered it in, but gave it to her again just in case. Weird. We proceeded to the boarding ramp, but then I was turned back to Guest Services because they hadn’t stamped my boarding pass. I guess in the process of taking care of my husband’s, they had forgot to clear me.

 

All in all, even with all this, it only took us no more than 15 minutes from exiting our uber to boarding the ship, and that included walking up this ridiculously long ramp, and then going across the gangway. It was on the gangway that we could feel the weather the most! It was windy, and we were leaning forward to try to resist it so we could keep moving forward. They ended up still having photos on the gangway. They were quite funny with the wind blowing in our hair and we almost bought them, but I didn’t love that my luggage was in the photos because I just wanted to keep moving so didn’t put them to the side, so we passed on that one. 

 

 

We were very relieved to be on the ship and out of the cold. We entered in on Deck 7 into the atrium area. Very quickly, a woman tried to sell lanyards (which we had already had and didn’t need), and get us to try to sign up for a Dreams Studio photo session - which I had read about online but didn't think I wanted. We declined, being frustrated at the attempts to get us to buy more things right from the get go. In hindsight, I wish we ended up signing up for the photo session, which I’ll explain later during a future day. 

 

 

It was about 12:10 at this time, and the staterooms wouldn’t be open until 1:30, so we opted to just head up to the Lido deck for lunch. The elevators took us to the Promenade deck, and then we walked across the ship and were supposed to go up one floor. I believe they did this instead of going straight up to Lido because of the rain and didn’t want people to potentially slip and fall, but it did require us to walk stairs with our bags. We had attempted to take the elevator up one floor but there were way too many people, so we just carried everything up. 

 

When we went on the Legend in 2016, the Funships 2.0 upgrades hadn’t been made yet, so we had never experienced Guy’s Burger or Blue Iguana Cantina. I listen to a lot of trip reviews from Cruise Radio and had heard a lot of people talk about these burgers, so we were looking forward to trying them. We split up and my husband got the burger and I explored the buffet but then ended up getting tacos. He was done a lot earlier than me because at the time there was practically zero line for Guy’s Burger. Unfortunately, that meant the burger was cold, so my husband thought the burger was only mediocre. I enjoyed it and can see why people really like Guy’s Burger. I was pleasantly surprised by Blue Iguana tacos. They were very good. 

 

 

 

It was about 1:00 by the time we were finished with lunch and I had suggested we walk around, but my husband was content staying at the table (and playing Pokemon Go), so I left him and explored decks 9, 10, 11, and 12. It was lightly raining, but I was able to see most of the upper decks. The slides weren’t open (in my original dream about this cruise, I had imagined myself going on the pool the first day – but with the weather, this was not to be. It did end up opening for part of our cruise, but I was too lazy to want to change and try it). A few people did try mini-golf even in the inclement weather. Main pool was closed, but there were people in the Jacuzzi already. I took a few pictures of the decks I explored and then headed back to find my husband around 1:25.

 

 

 

Next up: Our stateroom and some of the Dry Dock updates

 

[Khunter3]

Enjoying your review. While we get the short end of the stick on the west coast, we always have a great time on the ships out of Long Beach and look forward to the Panorama in the future

[t4jes]

Stateroom (Embarkation Day continued)

I went back to find my husband at about 1:25 and we gathered our belongings and made our way down to our stateroom right at 1:30. They seemed to be well open already, so it’s likely that they might have been ready a few minutes earlier. 

 

Our Stateroom

We were on the lowest deck on Riviera (deck 4) in an inside cabin – R138 specifically. On our last cruise to Alaska, we had a somewhat obstructed balcony view. We really enjoyed it for Alaska, but didn’t find ourselves using it on a normal day that didn’t have the spectacular views. This vacation was about budget and relaxation, and we decided we wanted to give an inside room a chance. Since this was a Fantasy class ship, there weren’t many balconies anyways as all of those were suites. There were fairly inexpensive upgrades to rooms with portholes and outside windows, but we stuck with the inside cabin, mainly because the idea of sleeping in a room with no light (thus no chance to be woken up by the morning sun – I’m fairly light sensitive in the mornings and can’t really sleep in once the sun is out) was very appealing. 

 

We chose a low deck mid-ship to minimize the possibility of seasickness (which really wasn’t a problem even with the weather and when the deck seemed to be moving). While we were far from the action, other than the embarkation and disembarkation day, we were able to easily find elevators to get up to the top and back down to our room quickly. 

 

As we prepared to walk into the room, I was really curious about the condition of the cabins, since I had read so many people complaining how outdated these Fantasy class ships were. With the November dry dock, I wanted to see what they did with the rooms. 

 

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised and thought the rooms were in great condition. The bathrooms had definitely been completely redone and looked nearly brand new. On these ships, there was no couch, but we found the cabins to be adequate – plenty of storage and comfortable. The King bed did get a little bit annoying as they didn’t really have anything to close up the gap in the middle, but overall, we were really content with our cabin. I have nothing to compare to pre dry dock, but I wouldn’t have considered the rooms worn and old at all. 

 

Started to unpack already before I remembered to take a picture

 

Hard to see - but this is all new and shiny!

 

We also liked that it was an inside cabin. We had brought little plastic candle lights (since they were leftover from the wedding I was in) just to provide a little bit of light, but pretty much loved the pitch black for sleeping. The fake window was actually kind of nice and make it feel less claustrophobic and box-like than if it wasn’t there and provided a nice ledge for me to place my books and such. We also appreciated that we could turn off the lights by the bed and by the door. I don’t remember if we had that in the past, but for a room as dark as an inside, it was nice to have easy access. There were also three or four reading lights throughout the room on top of the main light. At least one of them was in a random spot that was nowhere near the bed or where people might read, but nice to have them.

 

While there was only one outlet in the room, and one small outlet in the bathroom for a shaver, we were able to make do --- and my husband uses a LOT of electronics. We brought a small 3 pronged extension, but then brought a multi-USB port charger. That was completely adequate for our two iPads, my Kindle, and our two phones. I can understand why folks might not think the one outlet is enough if you have larger machines that you need to run like laptops or medical equipment, but for the average person, you can make it work if you just get the right things. 

[t4jes]

We decided after getting settled in to check out the Fun Ashore and Fun Aboard that afternoon, since I didn’t catch any of these on our first cruise. Also, one of my motivations was that I really wasn’t sure what would happen on this cruise because of the weather. I was pretty sure that we wouldn’t make Catalina Island because it’s a tender port and because of the storm, but I wanted to hear if they would address the weather during the presentation. (Sneak peak – they didn’t). 

 

On our way walking toward the theater, we did see the new permanent Bonsai Sushi Station they put in during the dry dock. Definitely really new and classy, but really underutilized. I think in my whole time there, I only saw somebody order from it once, and we didn’t order at all this trip. It looked decent, but we have a lot of decent sushi places in LA, so it didn’t seem worth it to pay extra for something we get fairly regularly. 

 

 

 

Beyond the staterooms and Bonsai sushi, the only other things we noticed that seemed to be newly updated were the pools (though they were mainly shut down and not being used during our time on the cruise due to weather) and some of the public bathrooms. While portions of the ship clearly seemed older, these updates did make the whole ship not feel like it’s 20+ years old. 

 

Back to embarkation day: We arrived at the theater a little bit after the show started and found some seats upstairs in the balcony. We met Orlando, our CD from Jamaica. We arrived a little late so didn’t get raffle tickets before they raffled off their first prize. This presentation was basically a sales pitch for different excursions in the two ports with a few raffles thrown in between. We did end up getting our raffle tickets into the box. I felt bad for Orlando – the people who did win were mostly super quiet and did NOT seem excited at all. Probably the highlight was when he was looking for a 3 year old and a parent volunteered her daughter. As soon as Orlando went up to her, she turned around and made a beeline to run away from him. It was really cute and funny all at the same time. He ended up gifting her some candy and a build a bear certificate. They did pull the only man to win up on stage and made him dance for the prize.

 

 

We didn’t win anything (pretty much story of our cruise). Plus, Orlando made no mention of the weather and what we should expect with the itinerary with the rain, at least during the show. That would change very soon after… which I will get to another day. 

 

 

 

[t4jes]

Shortly after the Fun Ashore and Fun Aboard show, as we were getting ready to head to the Muster Drill (which by the way, Orlando mentioned usually only takes a long time because people head over way too early), we heard an announcement. Originally, our cruise was scheduled to stop at Catalina Island on Tuesday, Ensenada on Wednesday, and Sea Day on Thursday. I was fully expecting them to just cancel Catalina Island. Instead, they announced that they were switching up the schedule and that we were going to have our Sea Day on Tuesday, and go to Catalina on Wednesday and Ensenada on Thursday. Honestly, I was a little surprised, as the weather reported it was just going to be bad on Catalina every day so I wasn’t exactly sure why they were doing this. 

 

We headed to the Muster Drill station which was in one of the lounges on the Promenade deck. Our last cruise, we were outside so this was a lot better. It was fairly quick and easy, and they didn’t make us wait for those who weren’t there. While we were waiting, I was checking the weather and the Carnival app and the Weather Channel app weathers didn’t match. I had a theory that maybe their weather reports weren’t accurate and they told us they were switching up Sea Day with Catalina Island to appease people rather than making them think they wouldn’t make port (and thus receive a ton of complaints), and that they’d then tell us the next day that we’d have another day at sea, or move down to Ensenada on Wednesday instead. My husband and I weren’t too fazed – we would’ve been disappointed to not go to Catalina as that was one of the original reasons we booked this cruise, but mainly just wanted to go on this cruise to relax. We’d just roll with whatever happened. 

 

Muster Drill Station

 

After the muster drill, we went up to the Lido deck and only things that were open were deli and pizza station, so we grabbed a half prosciutto pizza. This pizza felt a lot faster than when were on the Legend last time. They’d go to the back and pop out with pizzas very quickly – I have no idea what’s going on back there, but it was efficient – far more than I remember. 

 

 

The ship started to sail and with at least other people, we got sucked into the Liquor Tasting event at the stores. This was the most “booze cruise” moment of the whole cruise. We packed into the hallway to wait to try one little sip of a liquor of your choice (they had four choices) while they tried to hype up the crowd so they could hand out raffle tickets. We grabbed a bunch, which ended up sucking us into a greater vortex. As we walked in the store, we tried another sample which was Amarula. If you’ve never had it, it’s a cream-based liquor that’s made out of a fruit that’s native to Africa. My brother and his fiancé had mentioned that they were planning to serve some at their wedding, since she’s from South Africa, so we decided to buy some of these limited-edition sleeves for them. 

 

Liquor Tasting Event

 

We asked the guy about customs and duty, and he said it didn’t matter how many we bought if they were bought on the boat. They only cared if you bought them off of the boat. I don’t really know if this is true or not. We researched later and found that the info he gave us wasn’t true officially. We did declare the extra liter of alcohol (since we also bought a bottle of scotch), but they just waved us through. 

 

Back to the craziness in the duty-free shop. Because we had grabbed a bunch of tickets, we decided to stay for the raffle which would take place in 15 minutes. While waiting, they kept handing out these different fliers for different free things, including a charm bracelet and a gem necklace. The store was PACKED, but they were doing whatever they could to keep people in the store. I was already a little annoyed and claustrophobic, but my husband and I decided to just stick around and see what the raffle would be like. Very disappointing. We waited maybe 20 minutes of sales pitch for them to call one name. I was about ready to leave, but then they announced they’d be giving out the free charm bracelet. Since we were already there, we decided to stay and try to claim one. How long could it take? 

 

Mistake. The lines took forever, and they were trying to sell charms. Even though these were free, they needed to scan every single person. We were maybe 5^thor 6^thin line, but people were crowding the counter, and it took maybe half an hour to finally get to the front. You know that feeling when you really don’t want to be somewhere anymore, but you’re so close to the front that you didn’t think you should leave?  We got our bracelets but at this point, we’d be in the store for almost an hour and half and I was cranky and annoyed. 

 

We decided to head to the MDR. Like last time, we chose to do Anytime Dining. We never were given the option to sit with others, and were always just placed in a 2-person table, which was fine by us. This night, we were told there would be a 20 minute wait and were given a pager. We went to the library and grabbed the game “Guess Who” (there were not many games there). We played once, and shortly after, our buzzer ran – probably for a total of fifteen minute wait. 

 

The food was good. I don’t remember everything we ordered particularly for our appetizers, and in my intro, I mentioned I forgot to take photos of a lot of things. I do know that I ordered the Miso Salmon off of the Port-of-call menu, and my husband got the Flat Iron Steak. The salmon was VERY good. I’d order it again in an instant. I think we skipped dessert so dinner moved pretty quickly – I think we were out in less than an hour. 

 

Kale Caesar Salad - dressing was a little different, but overall good

 

Flat Iron Steak - Good. My husband enjoyed. 

 

Miso Salmon - very good! If you like fish, get this! 

 

We walked around a little bit and stopped by the Alchemy Bar. I don’t drink a whole lot, but was hoping to have something special the next day. I decided to stop and ask the mixologist what she could make for me if I didn’t want any sugar (added or in fruit juice/mixers) since I’m diabetic and try to limit those. Her name was Michelle and she explained a bunch of things she could make for me that sounded great. She was really knowledable and I asked if she’d be there the next day and she said she would. I decided I’d want to go there the next day on Formal Night and have her make me a drink.

 

I wanted to check out the Welcome Aboard show that was at 10:15pm – again, since I’ve never been to one. It was more raffles and then a short preview of the Playlist Production performances. Nothing particularly exceptional, and only somewhat entertaining.

 

 

After the show, Orlando had a conga line go to different parts of the ship, where he’d give out free stuff. We started by going to the atrium where we had a dance contest where winners would win a free cocktail. We had some fun dancing, but left right before they gave drinks since we wouldn’t drink them anyways.

 

 

We ended our first day on board with my husband getting his favorite dessert – an ice cream cone, and headed down to our room to sleep.

[t4jes]

Here are Day 1 Fun Times: 

 

 

[t4jes]

And Day 2 Fun Times: 

 

[centralcalicruzer]

Nice review so far. For some reason, after post #8, your photos are not showing in the succeeding posts. 

[memoak]

Your photos are  not posting and the links are not "clickable"

[t4jes]

3 hours ago, centralcalicruzer said:

Nice review so far. For some reason, after post #8, your photos are not showing in the succeeding posts. 

 

2 hours ago, memoak said:

Your photos are  not posting and the links are not "clickable"

 

2 hours ago, fyree39 said:

No photos. 😞

 

Bummer, are any showing up? I'll try to tackle it tonight and see if I can get them to work. 

[t4jes]

This will be a REPOST. Trying to post again with photos. It worked on test forum, so please let me know if this works now! 

 

We decided after getting settled in to check out the Fun Ashore and Fun Aboard that afternoon, since I didn’t catch any of these on our first cruise. Also, one of my motivations was that I really wasn’t sure what would happen on this cruise because of the weather. I was pretty sure that we wouldn’t make Catalina Island because it’s a tender port and because of the storm, but I wanted to hear if they would address the weather during the presentation. (Sneak peak – they didn’t). 

 

On our way walking toward the theater, we did see the new permanent Bonsai Sushi Station they put in during the dry dock. Definitely really new and classy, but really underutilized. I think in my whole time there, I only saw somebody order from it once, and we didn’t order at all this trip. It looked decent, but we have a lot of decent sushi places in LA, so it didn’t seem worth it to pay extra for something we get fairly regularly. 

 

 

 

Beyond the staterooms and Bonsai sushi, the only other things we noticed that seemed to be newly updated were the pools (though they were mainly shut down and not being used during our time on the cruise due to weather) and some of the public bathrooms. While portions of the ship clearly seemed older, these updates did make the whole ship not feel like it’s 20+ years old. 

 

Back to embarkation day: We arrived at the theater a little bit after the show started and found some seats upstairs in the balcony. We met Orlando, our CD from Jamaica. We arrived a little late so didn’t get raffle tickets before they raffled off their first prize. This presentation was basically a sales pitch for different excursions in the two ports with a few raffles thrown in between. We did end up getting our raffle tickets into the box. I felt bad for Orlando – the people who did win were mostly super quiet and did NOT seem excited at all. Probably the highlight was when he was looking for a 3 year old and a parent volunteered her daughter. As soon as Orlando went up to her, she turned around and made a beeline to run away from him. It was really cute and funny all at the same time. He ended up gifting her some candy and a build a bear certificate. They did pull the only man to win up on stage and made him dance for the prize.

 

 

We didn’t win anything (pretty much story of our cruise). Plus, Orlando made no mention of the weather and what we should expect with the itinerary with the rain, at least during the show. That would change very soon after… which I will get to another day. 

[t4jes]

Seems to be working on my end when I go into incognito mode so I'm going to keep reposting the same posts with photos. Unfortunately can't delete previous ones. 

 

REPOST: 

Shortly after the Fun Ashore and Fun Aboard show, as we were getting ready to head to the Muster Drill (which by the way, Orlando mentioned usually only takes a long time because people head over way too early), we heard an announcement. Originally, our cruise was scheduled to stop at Catalina Island on Tuesday, Ensenada on Wednesday, and Sea Day on Thursday. I was fully expecting them to just cancel Catalina Island. Instead, they announced that they were switching up the schedule and that we were going to have our Sea Day on Tuesday, and go to Catalina on Wednesday and Ensenada on Thursday. Honestly, I was a little surprised, as the weather reported it was just going to be bad on Catalina every day so I wasn’t exactly sure why they were doing this. 

 

We headed to the Muster Drill station which was in one of the lounges on the Promenade deck. Our last cruise, we were outside so this was a lot better. It was fairly quick and easy, and they didn’t make us wait for those who weren’t there. While we were waiting, I was checking the weather and the Carnival app and the Weather Channel app weathers didn’t match. I had a theory that maybe their weather reports weren’t accurate and they told us they were switching up Sea Day with Catalina Island to appease people rather than making them think they wouldn’t make port (and thus receive a ton of complaints), and that they’d then tell us the next day that we’d have another day at sea, or move down to Ensenada on Wednesday instead. My husband and I weren’t too fazed – we would’ve been disappointed to not go to Catalina as that was one of the original reasons we booked this cruise, but mainly just wanted to go on this cruise to relax. We’d just roll with whatever happened. 

 

Muster Drill Station

 

After the muster drill, we went up to the Lido deck and only things that were open were deli and pizza station, so we grabbed a half prosciutto pizza. This pizza felt a lot faster than when were on the Legend last time. They’d go to the back and pop out with pizzas very quickly – I have no idea what’s going on back there, but it was efficient – far more than I remember. 

 

 

The ship started to sail and with at least other people, we got sucked into the Liquor Tasting event at the stores. This was the most “booze cruise” moment of the whole cruise. We packed into the hallway to wait to try one little sip of a liquor of your choice (they had four choices) while they tried to hype up the crowd so they could hand out raffle tickets. We grabbed a bunch, which ended up sucking us into a greater vortex. As we walked in the store, we tried another sample which was Amarula. If you’ve never had it, it’s a cream-based liquor that’s made out of a fruit that’s native to Africa. My brother and his fiancé had mentioned that they were planning to serve some at their wedding, since she’s from South Africa, so we decided to buy some of these limited-edition sleeves for them. 

 

Liquor Tasting Event

 

We asked the guy about customs and duty, and he said it didn’t matter how many we bought if they were bought on the boat. They only cared if you bought them off of the boat. I don’t really know if this is true or not. We researched later and found that the info he gave us wasn’t true officially. We did declare the extra liter of alcohol (since we also bought a bottle of scotch), but they just waved us through. 

 

Back to the craziness in the duty-free shop. Because we had grabbed a bunch of tickets, we decided to stay for the raffle which would take place in 15 minutes. While waiting, they kept handing out these different fliers for different free things, including a charm bracelet and a gem necklace. The store was PACKED, but they were doing whatever they could to keep people in the store. I was already a little annoyed and claustrophobic, but my husband and I decided to just stick around and see what the raffle would be like. Very disappointing. We waited maybe 20 minutes of sales pitch for them to call one name. I was about ready to leave, but then they announced they’d be giving out the free charm bracelet. Since we were already there, we decided to stay and try to claim one. How long could it take? 

 

Mistake. The lines took forever, and they were trying to sell charms. Even though these were free, they needed to scan every single person. We were maybe 5^thor 6^thin line, but people were crowding the counter, and it took maybe half an hour to finally get to the front. You know that feeling when you really don’t want to be somewhere anymore, but you’re so close to the front that you didn’t think you should leave?  We got our bracelets but at this point, we’d be in the store for almost an hour and half and I was cranky and annoyed. 

 

We decided to head to the MDR. Like last time, we chose to do Anytime Dining. We never were given the option to sit with others, and were always just placed in a 2-person table, which was fine by us. This night, we were told there would be a 20 minute wait and were given a pager. We went to the library and grabbed the game “Guess Who” (there were not many games there). We played once, and shortly after, our buzzer ran – probably for a total of fifteen minute wait. 

 

The food was good. I don’t remember everything we ordered particularly for our appetizers, and in my intro, I mentioned I forgot to take photos of a lot of things. I do know that I ordered the Miso Salmon off of the Port-of-call menu, and my husband got the Flat Iron Steak. The salmon was VERY good. I’d order it again in an instant. I think we skipped dessert so dinner moved pretty quickly – I think we were out in less than an hour. 

 

Kale Caesar Salad - dressing was a little different, but overall good

 

Flat Iron Steak - Good. My husband enjoyed. 

 

Miso Salmon - very good! If you like fish, get this! 

 

We walked around a little bit and stopped by the Alchemy Bar. I don’t drink a whole lot, but was hoping to have something special the next day. I decided to stop and ask the mixologist what she could make for me if I didn’t want any sugar (added or in fruit juice/mixers) since I’m diabetic and try to limit those. Her name was Michelle and she explained a bunch of things she could make for me that sounded great. She was really knowledable and I asked if she’d be there the next day and she said she would. I decided I’d want to go there the next day on Formal Night and have her make me a drink.

 

I wanted to check out the Welcome Aboard show that was at 10:15pm – again, since I’ve never been to one. It was more raffles and then a short preview of the Playlist Production performances. Nothing particularly exceptional, and only somewhat entertaining.

 

 

After the show, Orlando had a conga line go to different parts of the ship, where he’d give out free stuff. We started by going to the atrium where we had a dance contest where winners would win a free cocktail. We had some fun dancing, but left right before they gave drinks since we wouldn’t drink them anyways.

 

 

We ended our first day on board with my husband getting his favorite dessert – an ice cream cone, and headed down to our room to sleep.

[t4jes]

Day 1 Fun Times : REPOST with working photos

 

[t4jes]

Day 2 Fun Times : Repost with working photos

 

 

[t4jes]

Day 2 (Sea Day) 

Sleeping in the interior room was great with it being super dark. And because it was a Sea Day, we weren’t in a rush to get up. However, I still ended up waking up around 7:45. My husband was going to sleep in, so I decided to make use of my morning by getting out of the cabin so he could keep sleeping in the nice dark room. One pitfall to an inside cabin is you have no idea what it looks like outside. You could turn on the TV to see a picture from the forward of the ship, but I didn’t want to wake up the husband – plus, it turns out we found out later that our TV stopped working that day. 

 

I decided to prep for two things: 1) get online to write a review for a book that was being released that day, and then 2) go for a run, since one of my New Year’s resolutions was to run a 10K at the end of April. I figured I’d just change and then if it were too cold or wet outside to run on the deck, I’d just go to the gym. 

 

So about the online review. One of my best friends had a book published that was due for release on Tuesday, January 15^th. I had signed up for the launch team, which meant that they gave me a copy of the book and some goodies, and I’d be a part of getting the word out. Since we were originally scheduled to dock in Catalina, I figured I’d just get cell phone coverage when there. The rescheduling meant that I couldn’t go with my original plan. Since I wanted to be a good friend and fulfill my launch team duties, I decided to just pay for a one day package for internet. 

 

I sat on the tables opposite the internet café on the Empress Deck, right next to the Atrium Bar. Honestly, it was a little sad once I logged on, getting all my e-mail notifications and some work slacks. I realized how much I enjoyed being forced to disconnect. But I was grateful to be able to write my Amazon review as well as get an instagram and facebook post. And it gave me a chance to test out the internet. We did the $16 value package for 24 hours. In the morning, I thought it was quite fast, but there were times later in the day that it was really slow. I pretty much logged off after I did my business, but let my husband go on here and there. I also logged on to try to get a better sense of the weather for the next few days in Catalina and Ensenada. 

 

I also got a chance to look outside and see that we actually were getting some clear skies. So after dropping off my book and iPad, I headed up to the Sun Deck (Deck 14) to the jogging track. Here it was 11 laps for a mile. I hadn’t ran in a long time, so I just decided to try to get a mile in, which I did. There were a few people out at the mini golf course and a few people running. It was a little windy, but overall, was a nice day to run. 

 

 

I went back to find my husband, who was finally up, and we headed to the Sea Day Brunch. We really enjoyed this on our last cruise, and knew we had to go again! After the amazing salmon last night, I decided to go for the salmon again. It was visually impressive, but not as good as the one the night before. My husband went for the Steak and Eggs – the only chance for free filet mignon – and that was good as always. 

 

Pretty salmon. Tasted fine - nothing spectacular. 

 

Steak and Eggs with side of Tomatoes

 

Our plan for the morning/early afternoon was to do our annual New Year reflection where we take time to listen to God and plan for our next year. Even though it was already 2-3 weeks in, we had a busy first few weeks, and set time in our vacation to do this. Before we did this though, we decided to check out the Serenity Deck. We had really hoped to take advantage of it, but when the weather turned, we weren’t sure we’d be able to. There was some sun that day, so we headed back. It’s just one floor below the aft of the Lido deck, so easy access if you wanted to head before or after a meal. 

 

 

Look at all that sun! It actually got so warm, we had to move! 

 

 

There was sun! And a lot of it. We decided to sit and rest for a few minutes and soak up a little bit of the rays, since we weren’t sure how much we’d have. At noon, we had heard there would be a chocolate extravaganza buffet, and we wanted to go see it! It was much smaller than I expected. I feel like when we were on the Legend, there was a chocolate extravaganza also, but that one actually felt extravagant. This one felt… well, just chocolate ordinary. There were maybe 6-8 chocolate cakes. We tried two, and thought they were only okay. There were a bunch of little random candies out like marshmallows, sugared almonds, rock sugar (not sure how you ate those), and some Turkish delight looking candy. 

 

 

After that, we settled in the Rhapsody in Blue Piano Lounge to do our reflection. This would end up being one of our favorite spots during the day to hang out, or when we had to wait for a dining time. There were rarely people, good tables for playing games, and a nice view. We spent an hour or so doing our reflection and sharing, and then proceeded to continue with Monopoly Deal, where my husband ended up winning 3 games in a row! 

View from the lounge window

 

We decided to take a peek in the casino. This casino was much larger than the one on the Legend, even though I had heard from others that it was small. The games were mostly older ones. We aren’t huge gamblers, but do go to Vegas often, and I’m definitely attracted to some of the newer penny machines they have there. This casino didn’t have a ton of games that I recognized, other than Buffalo Gold, but the Buffalo games were always being used. We decided to play a few dollars. I lost a little bit, but my husband hit a bonus that won him $12 bucks or so, so he was up about 10. In our times in the casino, we honestly didn’t see a lot of big wins. Just a few dollars here or there. Definitely felt tighter than when we’re in Vegas --- but then again, we usually lose there also. 

Casino Pics (from embarkation day) 

 

Casino Pic (from Embarkation Day)

 

Husband's small little win! 

 

Closed off our Sea Day afternoon by heading back to the cabin and taking a nap! 

[t4jes]

My husband loves scotch. One thing I forgot from the day before was that he was on a quest to figure out which interesting scotches or whiskeys they had on board. He had his eye on a Macallan that he hadn’t tried before, and we spent about half an hour trying to figure out which bar it was that he saw it at. I got annoyed and just asked him to ask a bartender, but he was determined to find it on his own (men sometimes). We finally swung back near the Casino Bar (which we had already been by twice) and he saw what he was looking for! It was a Macallan Quest. I guess there are some travel exclusives that he found on this ship that he can’t find on the land. There was usually a deal for an extra $3 for a double shot, so this was his go-to each day generally. I don’t like scotches at all, so I can’t tell you how they were, but I think he rated this one a C+. 

 

Back to Sea Day afternoon – I took a nap (this is what vacations are for!), and he decided to go check out the Watch and Scotch event. I declined to go, lest I grow more annoyed at the duty free shop. He went for five minutes and then decided to come back to the cabin as he thought the event was lame. 

 

Our ipad had some movies loaded on it, so we decided to watch Three Identical Strangers – interesting documentary. I’m glad we loaded movies. The movies on the Carnival tv were only okay, so it was nice we had some options of our own. PS, we got a notice this day that between the 17^thand 18^th, they would be switching over some of the TV channels – something like they were including a new news channel, plus HGTV and Food Network. We got to see some of the new shows after they turned over – I love food network, so it made for more entertaining TV watching. 

 

Then it was time to get ready for Cruise Elegant Night! I had this floor-length rose gold sequin gown that I had wore for the wedding the weekend before as a bridesmaid. I had figured I’d never wear it again after the wedding, but after talking to my friends, decided why not? Let’s wear it on the ship! So my husband and I were pretty bling-ed out for formal night. 

 

We went to find the photographers. We had not taken portraits previous days, but wanted to take advantage of that day. We took our first photo – this photographer took a LOT of time making sure the photo turned out well by adjusting my hair and lots of angles. He said this is “old school photoshop”. We ended up not buying that photo. 

 

Right afterward, another photographer pulled us aside into a corner, and we ended up taking some Dreams Studio photos. This was primarily against a black background. I really didn’t necessarily want it as I was worried about a hard sell, but we figured we’d just go along with it since we were dressed up. He scheduled us to view the photos the next day. 

 

There were maybe 8 or so backgrounds to take. We took about 4 or 5 of them. In hindsight, I wish we would’ve taken them all. There were some that looked tacky when looking at them in person, but ended up looking really good in the photos. I particularly liked the way the backgrounds that were set up nearer the Alchemy Bar ended up turning out. We didn’t take them as by that point, I was getting photo’d out, but kinda wish I did. We did buy one of them on the next day since there was a promo of free wallets.

 

The day before, I mentioned I stopped by the Alchemy Bar and talked to Michelle, who described some great drinks that she could make without added sugar. We headed back to the Alchemy Bar (by the way, the bar always looked empty whenever I passed by). Unfortunately, Michelle wasn’t there, so I asked one of the mixologists who was there about a drink without sugar. He was really unhelpful and basically said he couldn’t make a drink without using the syrups. I described as best as I could what Michelle had shared the night before (gin based drink mixed with some fresh fruit and some herbs --- she had mentioned she could add some bitters, but he didn’t end up using those). He told me he think it’d be sour, but managed to throw something together with citrus. My husband also described what he enjoyed (whiskey based), but again, this mixologist had no suggestions for him, so my husband ended up just ordering a Kentucky Mule (Moscow Mule but with bourbon) – kinda boring. Wasn’t the type of experience I expected at Alchemy Bar after reading tons of great things about it, and this particular mixologist wasn’t very good. If you go on the Inspiration, look for Michelle! She seemed a lot more knowledgeable. 

 

My sugar-free drink on the left. Hubby's Kentucky Mule on the right. 

 

Fortunately, the drink he made turned out great. I’m glad I insisted and remembered some of what Michelle told me the day before. Plus, it was Ladies Night with a dollar discount. He gave us both the discount, so that was a nice plus. 

 

It was about 7:30pm at this time, and we went to the MDR. The wait this time was 30 minutes. We weren’t in a rush and I had Monopoly Deal in my purse, so my husband went back to the Rhapsody in Blue lounge to hang out there. Other people watched us go into the near empty lounge, and then followed suit to hang out in there while we waited for our buzzers. My husband proceeded to beat me 2 more times (that’s 5 games in a row!) before our buzzer rang. 

 

We were always sat in the left side of the dining room. I don’t know if it was intentional. Towards the end of our trip, they kept seating us in the same section with the same dining team. I don’t know if that’s typical or not. That evening, we decided to try one of the cold soups, after reading lots of raves. My husband really enjoyed it. I thought it was a little bit strange. For mains, he ordered prime rib and the shrimp, and I ordered the Sea Bass. Again, I thought this fish was great! Top two meals on this trip overall were the Sea Bass and the Miso Salmon. 

 

Strawberry Soup - weird to me, husband liked it.

 

 

Four Seasons Salad - Felt very plain, and I think Carnival's blue cheese dressing tastes weird

 

Prime Rib 

 

Shrimp Dish

 

Sea Bass --- very very good! 

 

I wanted to see the comedy show, so we headed over for the 9:30 show. The comedian was Eric Schwartz. They described him as a combination of musical and comedy. While he had his moments that were funny, particularly when he did his singing, I thought he was only okay, and mostly was waiting to laugh. 

 

 

While I don’t remember for sure, I’m fairly positive we stopped by Lido deck again for my husband to grab and ice cream cone before heading back to the cabin. At this point, we weren’t sure what was going to happen the next day. We hadn’t heard any announcements about Catalina Island being cancelled, but we had looked online that day since I had internet. It looked like it was going to rain most of the day. However, we did look and see that the time it was least likely to rain was in the morning before 11am. We had originally planned on taking it easy on port days and getting off whenever we felt like it, but because of the weather report, we made a plan to wake up earlier, grab a quick breakfast, and see if we were actually able to dock in Catalina. If we were, we’d try to get on shore before the weather started to turn. 

 

However, I was still thinking that I’d wake up and end up finding out that we’d have another day at sea… So to bed we went and awaited what would actually happen the next day… 

 

 

[jimbri]

Photos look great now.  Thanks for the review.

[cali-croozer]

THanks for this.  We might be on this ship soon for a last minute trip.  Looking forward to your next posts.

[t4jes]

The only day we set the alarm was this day. I woke up and felt the boat totally still – no movement whatsoever. Could it be? Was the weather actually good enough that we could get to Catalina Island? 

 

As mentioned in the introduction, one of the reasons we had went on this cruise was because my husband had never visited Catalina before. When the weather turned, we understood tender ports tend to get skipped over, so we had prepared in our hearts that we may not make it. I went upstairs to deck 7 and took a look. Waters were still! And we were docked just outside of Catalina Island. It was overcast, but it wasn’t rainy and the water was calm. We also knew from going online the day before that it’d only last before noon, so I went back downstairs to our room and my husband and I decided to make a beeline to the buffet to grab a quick breakfast. 

 

View of Avalon from the ship

 

During breakfast, I discovered the gluten free bread. It was really dense. It didn’t toast up quite right. But somehow, I found it quite satisfying and addictive. I think my husband got the Huevos Rancheros at Blue Iguana, which really just looked like a chicken taco to me. 

 

 

We headed back down to our room on Deck 4 since the tenders were loading from Deck 3 and it’d be easy to get to. Grabbed some rain gear and our stuff, and we headed to the tender boat loading zone. 

 

Let me mention that on our last cruise, we had gotten Faster to the Fun. While we were glad to get it last time for our honeymoon, we decided not to this time. For the most part, up until this point, we didn’t really think we needed it this time around. We were willing to just carry our carry-on bags with us and sit around waiting for the room. The guest services lines were long, but we didn’t need to use them. The one area I wasn’t sure about was priority tenders, since we’ve never had a cruise that required tenders.

 

We headed downstairs and basically had zero line. We walked right onto the tender (this was probably around 9am), and this gave us confidence we made the right decision that we didn’t need FTTF this trip (it was available right up until the day before we left). 

 

View of ship from tender

 

We took the quick tender ride to port. We didn’t get any excursions for this trip, and at one point, contemplated maybe doing one of the underwater excursions (like the submarine) because of the weather, but in the end, we decided to try for renting a golf cart. I had researched, and settled on Island Rentals, which actually ended up being the closest one to the tender dock. 

 

 

There was a line already forming, so we jumped in. A few notes for Island Rentals - They are cash only and their carts are a little less fancy than the other places (no turn signals). They only have carts that seat 4. But they are the best price. Most places are $45 for an hour. Island Rentals is also that much, but if you purchase 2 hours, they give you the third hour free. Some people in line got to ask about 6-seaters, and were referred to another rental place down the street. Also, some people didn’t have cash, and were also told the same. We waited about 15-20 minutes and then settled into our cart. We paid for the 3 hours (for the price of 2), and went on our way. 

 

Island Rentals gave us a map. Because of the rain and rockslides, the whole left section of the scenic route was closed off. That was a little bit of a bummer, because some of the good views were over there. But I knew it was for our safety. Even in the area that was open, there were quite a few rockslides that we had to navigate around. 

 

We drove around the town a little bit first (partially to get some Pokemon Go stops) and to scout it out. We should’ve looked at the map more carefully but ended up getting towards an area of the scenic route that was one way, so we had to turn around back into town to go the other way. 

 

The scenic route was nice. There was some drizzling, but nothing particularly unbearable. We drove up towards Wrigley Memorial and Botanical Gardens. When we got there, there were a bunch of other carts there, but people quickly left as soon as they got there. We weren’t sure why, but then realized it was another $8 to get into the memorial and gardens. With the rental time of the cart, plus the fact that it was pretty drizzly, we also passed and quickly went down the hill and back onto the scenic path. 

 

The scenic drive was pretty. We got some good views of the town and of the ship. At some point, we passed by the Catalina Island Zipline Eco Tour. Despite the weather, they were still sending people down the ziplines. I originally wasn’t very impressed as the first zipline looked fairly short (I’ve done a few in my travels). But we drove around the corner and saw a huge one that went a really far distance over the Catalina Island foliage. That one looked fun and beautiful. 

 

 

 

We kept driving, and hit a point where fog started to hit in, but we also could see the beach (specifically the Descanso Beach Club). It would’ve been nice for a picture, but it was a little too drizzly. We prayed that it would clear up for a photo, and shortly after, we found a spot where we could see the ocean background pretty clearly. We took a couple of photos and selfies and continued on our way back down the hill. We switched spots and I decided to drive (my husband had been driving up until this point)

 

At this point, maybe an hour and fifteen had passed of our rental time. We headed back into town when my husband told me he didn’t think the photos we had just took had saved on his phone. Since we had extra time, we decided to make another loop to try to see if we could get the photos again. This loop was shorter as made a shortcut through part of the city and were able to start driving right near the Zipline. 

 

Right as we approached the place we were before, we realized the photos weren’t going to be good since the weather was definitely beginning to turn (probably about 11:15 by this point which we knew was when the forecasts said it’d get worse). I grabbed my husband’s phone anyways, and then realized we had our photos! Yay! 

 

One of the photos we thought we lost (Descanso Beach Club down below --- totally empty that day with good reason)

 

So we just drove back into town. There wasn’t much more to drive around and see (I would imagine 1 hour of rental is too short, but 3 hours was too much, even on a regular day when the whole scenic route is open). I had seen a sign for a bowling alley and arcade. With the rain coming in, we parked our little golf cart on the street, and decided to explore the stores and the bowling alley. 

 

The bowling alley wasn’t a full size, but a little island bowl (small softball sized balls and no need for bowling shoes) It was $5 a game. A little pricey, but hey, we were on vacation. We got the full 10 frames. It was pretty fun, and we’re glad we did it. It took probably about twenty minutes. There were two lanes. Another family came by and looked like they wanted to play. They could’ve played on the other lane, but I guess they decided to wait until we totally cleared. 

 

 

We ended up walking around the different stores in the area. We honestly could’ve returned our cart and just walked around, but it did feel nice to know we had the cart as an option if we wanted to do anything else. Checked out the grocery store (Vons) just to see the prices, since everything needed to be imported in. Some things were a little bit pricier than LA, but not exorbitantly so. We found a magnet for our travel collections and some coffee for the husband. 

 

The rain was coming down more and we were getting tired (it’s probably just around noon) and we had always planned to eat lunch back on the ship, so we returned our cart at about the 2 hour, 40 minute mark, and then got into line for the tender back. 

 

There was a tender disembarking and we were kind of towards the front of the line, so we thought we would be able to get on quick. Nope. The disembarking and embarking process took a while. And with the weather going bad, more and more people were getting in line to get back onto the ship. It probably took us about 20 minutes before we were able to load onto the boat. There were two different tenders – one was bigger and one was smaller. We were waiting to load onto the bigger one. 

 

Waiting for a tender

 

The ride back to the ship was definitely an adventure. The waves were building. The calm seas had dissipated and our ship was going up and down fairly dramatically. My husband and I were standing. It wasn’t crazy enough to get seasick, but definitely enough that we really needed to hang on. We probably got to the side of the ship around 12:35 or so when they started bringing passengers onto the ship.  This took a long time to get all the passengers off. I had hoped to make a 1:00pm trivia game about food and drink as that’s probably the only one we had a shot at winning. We waited and waited as they let some of the upstairs people off first. Soon 12:35 became 12:45. And 12:45 because 12:55. And FINALLY, we were let off the tender back onto the ship, only to be waiting in another security line. And when we got back on, we realized there were still a ton of people from the upstairs that needed to disembark from the tender. They weren’t able to because the sea was rocking so bad that they couldn’t get it stable enough. Finally after a five minute wait, it was calm enough for them to get back onto the ship. 

 

I finally got through security maybe 1:10 or 1:15, and by this point, I knew the trivia game wasn’t going to be a possibility, so we decided to just go straight to lunch.

 

A few thoughts about the tendering and Catalina before I move on for the rest of the day. 1) If I had bought FTTF, I would’ve been really disappointed unless they gave me priority tendering to get back ONTO the boat. That didn’t seem to be the case. 2) There must be a better more efficient way of loading and unloading. 3) I’m very glad we checked the weather the day before and made plans to get off early. We heard tons of people who only did about 45 min on the golf carts because they didn’t start until 11 and by noon, the weather was really bad. We feel like we got to experience everything we had planned to for Catalina. 4) Golf carts was fun. Not sure I’d need to do it again. Avalon is really tiny, so I’m not sure what we’d do in town for a repeat trip. I told my husband if we went again, I’d probably take him hiking or something. 

 

 

 

[t4jes]

We were back on the ship and went to Lido Deck to grab some lunch. The first day, we had a Guys Burger, and my husband only thought it was okay. I think it was because it was cold because we were waiting for one another. So today, we made a different plan. I’d go grab the Guys Burger and try to keep it hot, and my husband would go grab tacos (we like the fish ones) from Blue Iguana. There no lines at either, so we thought it’d work out great. I got my burger and found a table inside just beyond where I could see my husband. Then I waited and waited and waited for him. It probably took about twenty minutes, and by this point, the burger was cold again. Our plans were thwarted, and again he had a cold burger. Apparently, there was a huge delay in the taco line for some reason. Usually it was super fast, but not today. We didn’t end up eating everything, which is okay, because this day ended up being a snack kind of day. I don’t exactly remember when, but I’m pretty sure we also discovered the Taco Salads at Blue Iguana and shared one later on that afternoon or maybe the day before (though it’s not in my notes, but I know we ate it!)

 

 

Since we missed the 1pm trivia, we decided to go for the 2pm movies trivia. They were just finishing up Scattergories. One interesting fact I heard from the guy in charge is that he had tons of “Bling on a String” – so he was giving them out liberally since they didn’t have much of a winner for the Scattegories game. 

 

The trivia game started pretty much on time. We didn’t expect to do well. As soon as they hit the second half where they were talking about Classic movies, we knew we were done for. Actually, after scoring, we were probably in the top 5, but nowhere near the top. They did give out a Ship on a Stick for the winner. I had read that maybe they had gotten rid of it and replaced it with the Bling on a String, but that was not the case. The person who won had won the previous trivia game as well, so walked away with two. I don’t know what you’d do with two ships. I wish we could’ve gotten one, but then again, I don’t know what I’d even do with one ship. 

 

My husband wanted to stay for Carnival Tower, which was basically giant Jenga. We were generally split into two teams. It was pretty nerve-wracking to play. The first game ended pretty quickly and our team had won! The game leader decided to let us have another change to play again, but not for prizes. I liked that this game really got everybody around into it, but it was much harder than regular Jenga. Our prize for winning: Bling on a String! 

 

Carnival Tower! (this angle makes it look really tall. It was probably about 4 ft high)

 

Our bling on a string!

 

We returned back to our room for a nap. We went to Lido deck to check out what dinner looked like up there since MDR menu didn’t really inspire us. We decided to make that day a chill day rather than going to MDR. We weren’t quite ready for dinner yet though, so we just spent some time upstairs in Lido watching another movie (Searching) and reading. I loved that on this cruise, I could actually read and enjoy it. I think with all the internet these days, I usually don’t sit down to read a long book. But this cruise, I was able to read through the book Pachinko. 

 

We had an appointment at 5pm to meet up with the Dreams Studio photographer. I was worried it’d be high pressure, but wasn’t at all. We had a chance to view the photos, and I was actually quite impressed. The photos were really good. When my husband and I got married, our wedding photographer was actually a friend of my husband’s who specialized in studio photos. He had taken photos of celebrities and politicians. We got some because he threw it in with our wedding photos. They were good, but I thought these ones on the ship were done better. I commented that these must be really expensive, but the photographer said they weren’t that much more than the photos outside. He said it’d cost about $150 for 5 of them, which came out to be about $30 a piece. The photos outside were 21.99 for the Cruise ProPortraits so he was right. The problem: because these were just black background photos, we didn’t really think there were five that we’d want to take home. And they wouldn’t sell just one. So he let us walk. 

 

Remember on the first day, when I mentioned they asked us to sign up for a photo session and I declined? This is where I wish we actually did. If we had some other photos on other parts of the ship, we might have actually purchased the package since the photos were quite good. If we had 5, I think we might have splurged.I’m surprised Carnival wouldn’t want to get some money out of us by selling more single shots. Oh well. 

 

We ended up going back and looking at our ProPortraits and chose one that we’d get free wallets for. Now that I’m home, I’m not sure what I’ll do with those free wallets. They managed to suck us into those purchases with all these promotions! 

 

The rest of our day was fairly uneventful. We went back up to Lido deck and ate from the buffet. Probably around 7:30 pm, we went back to our room and rested up. We read and watched movies as we prepared for our next day in Ensenada. 

 

Oh, one last thing. Somewhere in the afternoon, Orlando, the CD, came on the loudspeaker to apologize to everybody about the weather. He did say there was nothing they could do about it since that’s out of their control, but he did wish people would’ve had more fun. I realized that those who might have waited later to get off the ship (maybe 11 or after, since we were in port until 3:45 or so) probably had a miserable day. It wasn’t Carnival’s fault at all. In fact, I’m super impressed the captain switched around the schedule so we could even make it onto the island at all, but I bet there were those very disappointed with the lousy weather that day and wanted to blame Carnival for it. The guest services lines were often VERY long. 

 

I'll throw in some Lido Deck and ice cream machine photos for the heck of it --- since a lot of our afternoon was spent here:

 

 

 

 

[t4jes]

Catalina Day Fun Times (Day 3 - normally Day 2)