Vista October 16-23

[zzdoug]

Hey gang, today is embarkation day for us on the Vista.  I will be enjoying my vacation in the moment and consequently will NOT be live-tweeting or sending updates.  In fact I will not be getting internet service and will be off the grid entirely, except maybe when we can get data service in ports.  But if any of you have questions I'll try to answer them when I see them and I'll try to diarize our trip as best I can.  

[zzdoug]

Thursday Oct 14
I was working this day but I'll describe some of the antics that ensued in our efforts to get covid tested. As soon as I had heard about the testing requirement and the acceptability of the Emed-supervised BinaxNow kits, I ordered some for us, but I wanted to be sure I had a plan B in case the FDA changed their minds about extending the expiration dates, something didn't go right, or whatever. Two weeks ago, I was able to book us appointments for the rapid tests on cvs.com at the nearby cvs, one for my daughter near her high school and the other 3 of us closer to our home.  About a week ago, the 3 of us received cancellation notices because the cvs near us apparently was shutting down its covid testing.  I signed us up again at another location with testing.  Then that one cancelled its covid testing also.  There was a testing center set up at my son's middle school but according to the online registration, it was only PCR testing with a 2 day turnaround which might not give us results in time.
When my wife picked up my daughter for her appointment (at a different CVS which wasn't cancelled), it turned out they also only had the 2 day PCR test.  She took it anyway.
I told my wife that she could just use the home test kits for herself and my son but apparently she felt more comfortable getting a professional to do it.  They tried going to Walgreens which had a line around the block, presumably because our school district has the upcoming week off school and everyone is getting tested to go on vacation.  So then they went back to his school and that whole experience took less than 10 minutes and they did in fact have rapid testing.  So I decided to do that too and was able to get there on my way home from work just before they closed for the day.  It took me less than 5 minutes and they were administering the same Abbott BinaxNOW tests that I would have used from the test kits.
My daughter has band practice until about 8:30 pm.  By that time the other 3 of us had received our negative test results.  When she finally got home, I told her she would need to take one of the test kit tests again because we might not get her PCR results in time.  We used the app on my phone and it went very smoothly.  It was a little bit nerve racking waiting the 15 minutes for the chromatography or whatever it is to take its course, since you can kind of see it slowly working and you hope you only get the 1 pink line instead of 2.  Anyways, she tested negative so all systems were go.

Friday Oct 15

Woke up at 3 am, but more accurately, I never did fall asleep due to a combination of my usual insomnia and excitement.  Since I couldn't reserve a Lyft for 5 people in advance, we parked at the Hyatt SLC airport which offers parking via Parkway Parking.  $90 including taxes for 9 days.  Arrived at the hotel at 4:16 am; we had just missed the shuttle but he came back for us and we were at the airport by about 4:30.  This was our first time traveling where we all had TSA precheck. The line took about 10 minutes and getting through security took another 3 or so.  The new SLC airport is requires about 20 minutes of walking for non-Delta passengers but this is not our first rodeo so we had planned accordingly.  I got a good nap on the nonstop to Hobby airport.

Rented car at Thrifty and we went to one of our favorite restaurants in Houston, the NY Bagel and Coffee Shop.  I got the smoked sable platter, the Mrs. got the matzo brei, and kids got bagels and eggs.  It was good but the service was not as good as our previous visits as  it did seem like the staff were stretched very thin. I am sad to say that I think days are numbered for moderately priced full service restaurants; it's just hard to make that work right now.

Anyway, we made our usual stop at Walmart for last-minute carryon necessities like 2 bottles of wine, 2 12-packs of soft beverages, toothbrushes, and halloween wigs.  Stayed at a Hyatt Place in the outer suburbs of Houston.  

I was once long ago what some might call a Deadhead but still enjoy listening to music by the Grateful Dead and seeing what is left of the band every now and then.  About 5 months ago I had heard about the summer-fall tour of Dead and Company and noticed they were not playing in Salt Lake City, but did happen to be scheduled for Houston the night before our already scheduled cruise.  I realized that if we took the kids out of school one extra day, I could make that work.  Which we did.  Somehow my daughter has also cultivated a taste for this music of my parents' generation so I asked her if she wanted to go and she excitedly said yes.  My wife is not a big music fan (i.e. she would enjoy herself but would be ready to leave by intermission) and my son could not be less interested, so my daughter and I went to the show.  We got dinner at "Shakedown street", the camp following of hangers-on and vendors who set up in the parking lot.  We got 2 grilled cheese sandwiches for $5 but I offered an extra dollar if she would make mine with actual cheddar cheese instead of American and the vendor gladly accepted my offer.  We were still hungry and shared a $12 shrimp PoBoy and an $8 slice of apple pie a la mode, both of which felt expensive compared to our grilled cheese sandwiches but the poboy was good if a bit too bready and the pie was absolutely delicious.  I also bought a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon and we each got a bottle of water.  People seem to be able to sell beer without licenses out in the open and possibly other things not so much in the open.

The show was really good.  We sat on the lawn, the weather was a gorgeous 70 degrees, breezy with a pleasant touch of humidity.  The rest of this paragraph will contain a bit of inside baseball and those not interested are free to skip ahead.  John Mayer seems to be doing a great job picking up where Jerry Garcia had left off.  Highlights for me were him singing lead on a tight Dire Wolf, plus Bob on acoustic for Mexican Lullaby, a 30 minute second-set jam that included a slower, bluesier Truckin that melded into Saint Stephen, which I had never before heard live because the Grateful Dead had stopped playing that song long before I followed them in the 1990s.

Moving on.  Daughter and I were simply starving afte grooving and dancing for 3 hours so we stopped on our way out at the Taco Bell a few blocks north of the venue.  Two gentlemen at least my age and clearly way too baked to drive were standing at the drive thru ordering display, stymied by the policy of not allowing pedestrians to order at the drive-thru.  They asked if we would be willing to order for us.  Recalling at least once similar situation long ago in which I had once found myself, I said sure.  One of them shouted an order into the speaker while we figured out what we wanted, and I didn't pay attention to his order.  We ordered our quesadilla, taco, and bean burrito, and a soda.  I asked them how much their order was and the other guy who hadn't ordered said he would offer to pay for everything including our food and gave me a $20 bill.  I said, are you sure?  He said yes, and I thanked him.  I drove up to the window, paid for our food and it turned out the only thing they had ordered were 3 tacos, which I gave to them. The whole thing came to right about $20 so there was no change to give back to him.  I have a feeling the guy who gave me a $20 wished his friend had ordered more food.  I would have gone through again if the drive-thru line hadn't gotten so long but it was late and were ready to get back to the hotel.

 

I'll post a few photos eventually but I am having some IT issues at the moment.

 

Just now waking up at our hotel, spent the last 30 minutes typing this, and have a 40 minute drive back to Hobby airport and another 50 minute Lyft ride from their to the port.  Our embarkation appointment is at 1pm.  Cheers

[devinc]

Off the grid cruises are the best!  

[zzdoug]

[firefly333]

Have a guys burger and fries for me.

[BohJang]

We will be on the Vista for the 11/20-27 Thanksgiving cruise.  I will be very interested in your thoughts about your cruise when you return.  Have a wonderful time!

[princess76021]

hope you don't mind i  jumped on board!!

hugs

[mondello]

Glad to see you got the show on the road. I just hope by the time you get back home you're not saying, "What a long, strange trip it's been." We'll be on Vista next March.

Forgot to ask, what hotel did you use in Houston? It will be our first time out of Galveston and we'll need a room the night before, too.

Edited October 17, 2021 by mondello

[zzdoug]

Checking in from Roatan on cellular service while aboard our shore excursion boat. Since I can only write on a proper keyboard, I'll try to post my next dispatch if we can get back aboard in time for me to perform some IT gymnastics. Even so, I'm running a couple days behind.

Edited October 19, 2021 by zzdoug
Corrected grammar

[zzdoug]

On 10/16/2021 at 10:09 PM, mondello said:

.Forgot to ask, what hotel did you use in Houston? It will be our first time out of Galveston and we'll need a room the night before, too.

We stayed at a Hyatt place in Northwest Houston. Nowhere near Galveston so probably not ideal for most people. I like Hyatt place because they are the best value when traveling on Chase points and this particular hotel was the closest to the Woodlands amphitheater that had 2 queen beds and a sleeper sofa for 5000 points. Kind of a particular and unique set of criteria.

[zzdoug]

I was able to copy and paste about half of my accumulated notes. Long story. We're staying on board tomorrow in Belize. We probably won't buy phone service tomorrow but I understand we will have service in Mexico on Thursday. Should get current by then.

Saturday October 16: Embarkation Day

We woke up in our hotel and my wife noted that I had not printed off enough luggage tags.  The front desk dude made me copies and lent us a stapler.  My wife grew up in Northwest Houston so we took a detour to drive around her old neighborhood and drive by the house she grew up in, which she had not seen since she left during her freshman year of high school.  We stopped at a bagel shop in the area for breakfast, and headed down to Hobby airport to return the rental car.  We hailed a Lyft XL down to Galveston to pick us up at Thrifty Car Rental.  On the way down, I realized that the money I transferred to PayPal that I intended to use to pay our private shore excursion in Roatan on Tuesday wouldn't post until Wednesday, a full week later.  So I panicked and told my wife we would need to stop at an ATM and she would need to use her card to pull out a bunch of cash because I had lost mine.  It turned out to be no problem.

We arrived at Galveston around 1:45 pm, having missed our 1-1:30 check in appointment.  It was no problem and we didn't have any line at all getting aboard.  Dropped our bags off and walked to the passenger entrance.  The first stop was the Covid documents check, where a clerk from a health contractor checked all of our vax and test paperwork.  We continued on to the check-in desk.  We remembered sitting in the waiting room packed with hundreds of people for at least an hour on our last cruise about 7 years ago.  Today it was completely empty except for the staff checking in the few passengers that were trickling in.  From there we got our facial recognition scan and walked right onto the ship.  

Our room was immediately available so we left our stuff, switched my wife and son's room accounts so we had our room and the kids had theirs, watched the safety video in our rooms, and went to our muster drill, which took about 5 minutes as someone demonstrated how to put on a life jacket.  

The new muster and app-based operations are a big improvement and avoid the need to wait in a lot of lines.  But I am realizing that the one positive thing waiting in line does for me is that it forces me to interact with other people.  My default setting is introversion, and without waiting in line, we really had few needs or even opportunities to talk with other passengers.  

 

 

[zzdoug]

Greetings from the Mayan coast between Playa del Carmen and Cozumel where my Verizon plan apparently includes roaming and service reaches to the ship in the middle of the strait.

 

Our plan today is a relaxing self guided walk around San Miguel de Cozumel and some tacos for lunch.

 

I have four more days of reporting on my laptop but I can't seem to transfer it to my phone to upload to the board. If I can't figure it out, it may have to wait until we get back stateside.

 

[zzdoug]

Good morning. This is sunrise as we approach the port in Cozumel. RCL Odyssey of the Seas is also in port here this morning.

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by zzdoug
Upside down photo

[zzdoug]

Good morning from the port of Galveston. For anyone still paying  attention, I expect to have internet access on my laptop this afternoon and will be able to post my journal.

[texancoyote]

1 hour ago, zzdoug said:

Good morning from the port of Galveston. For anyone still paying  attention, I expect to have internet access on my laptop this afternoon and will be able to post my journal.

Looking forward to it!

[zzdoug]

Continuing from the first part of my post from Saturday 10/16:

 

We then had a light lunch/snack in the lido cafeteria.  Our son took off to investigate Circle C and we walked around with our daughter for a bit.  There seemed to be a very small number of passengers aboard, and almost all of them were at the Sailaway party, the only crowded place on the ship.  Our daughter went off to find a beverage and my wife and I decided it was high time for some pina coladas.  Which is to say, she drank about 30% of hers, so I ended up drinking about 170% of mine.  I guess there was recently a rotation in cruise direction as we will now be directed by Joey, a British gentleman who seemed up to the task and good at engaging people who hail from all walks of American life. We then joined our daughter to investigate Club O2.  There were only 2 counselors there and no kids, and they told us that there were 40 kids aboard aged 15-17 but only 7 had registered for Club O2 at that point.

Finished unpacking, had some mommy & me time and took a short nap and shower.  Then around 6pm we met our son for a quick round of miniature golf and soccer billiards.  We located our daughter in her room by calling her on a house phone, which still exist and do come in handy.  It was 7pm and I used the Hub app to get in the dinner queue and was offered a table within about 1 minute, so we proceeded to the Horizons dining room.  

Since we hadn't yet really had the opportunity to interact with any other guests, I had clicked the option to be seated with other passengers. Apparently nobody else did, because we were seated at our own table and the nearest table with other passengers was at least 10 feet away on the other side of a waiters' station.  The food this night was really good - much better than I had expected.  I don't typically order fish but the item that seemed most intriguing was the mahi mahi with pumpkin, and it was really good, and in particular was not overcooked.  Wife and daughter both got the vegetarian Indian dinner which seems to be offered every day and has daal, vegetable korma, and a few other items with rice.  I tasted a few of their items and I thought they were delicious. My wife doesn't like her food too spicy and she thought it had a bit too much heat for her but otherwise they both really enjoyed their dinners.  My son ordered the flatiron steak cooked medium, and he offered me a taste and it was overcooked, but that is what happens when you order it to be overcooked.  But he seemed to enjoy it anyway.  

Kids skedaddled to the soft serve machine en route to the teen clubs while my wife and I lingered over dessert.  She ordered the chocolate lava cake and I got a cheese plate and a fruit plate, as is our custom.  All were delicious.

After dinner the Mrs. and I wandered over to the Havana lounge for a bit and enjoyed some music from the band there and even danced for a bit.  Then we went to the piano bar.  Russell Blues did a good job with a tough crowd that just didn't seem to come to party.  He's an excellent piano player and singer and fielded a good range of pop hits, playing the usual Elton John but also an impressive cover of Ray Charles singing Georgia On My Mind.  He also played Sweet Home Alabama in response to a request.  The requester told him afterwards she had wanted to sing it with him, so he played it a second time for her and gave her a microphone.  She sang only the chorus, and she was frankly terrible, but who cares, it's all for fun.  I had requested Changes, the David Bowie song, because it's one of my favorites and has a strong piano line.  Russell said he needed his soundtrack backup for it.  He humored me, but it has a pretty complicated vocal melody and is not a song one can easily fake, and he clearly had never heard the song Changes by David Bowie before.  I wasn't trying to stump him, but apparently I did.

By this time (10 pm) my wife had gotten tired and already went back to the room.  I went over to the Welcome Aboard show about 10 minutes late and immediately found plenty of prime "Dress Circle" seating in the center of the balcony.  The CD was pretty funny and got several guests involved.  You know how some crowds get really into it and the host says "This is way better than last week's crowd" and the crowd goes wild?  Well, this was the last week's crowd.  I don't know if it was just the small number of people or what, but folks just weren't feeling it and the CD really had to make an effort to get people into it.

After that, I walked around and tried to figure out where everyone was.  I went to the Casino, the only place on board that felt even remotely crowded at the time, and played video poker for about 3 minutes and hit a 4 of a kind and decided I should quit while i was ahead and cashed out $30 richer.  Around 11 pm, there seemed to be about 2 crew for every passenger on the Promenade deck and at least 3 crew for every passenger up on Lido.  I finally talked with my first non-family member, a couple from San Francisco who were driving home from a cruise in Florida and decided on a whim 3 days ago to take the Vista because they snagged a balcony for $400.  I didn't get if that was per person or total or if it included taxes but whatever, it's a deal.  Anyway, I live in Utah but only moved there last year and I identify as a Californian where I have lived most of my life, so I found something in common with them which is a good place to start.
 

Edited October 23, 2021 by zzdoug

[zzdoug]

Sunday October 17

Didn't do much on this day.  I found myself awake around 5 am so took my laptop to the pool area and spent a couple of hours typing the above paragraphs. My wife and I had breakfast in the MDR and opted to be seated with other people.  It was a friendly couple from outside of Dallas who were seated just as we were being served our breakfast.  I had a salmon superfood salad or something like that and it wasn't what I had expected. Not terrible but the salmon was a bit overcooked.   I read a novel on my kindle and got in a not-so-intense workout up in the gym.
It was the first fancy pants night so we gussied ourselves up, my wife in her flapper dress and me in my seersucker suit which I've only worn about 5 or 6 times in the 10 or so years I have owned it, and it barely still fits after at least one tailored expansion. I opened our carry-on bottle of moscato wine and poured each of us a glass before dinner.  It was way too sweet for me so I dumped it out (my wife won't ever drink more than half a glass) and I poured myself a generous glass of malbec, our red carry-on.  We carried them with us to dinner.  We were seated at table 716, which clearly is the worst table in the entire restaurant as we had a great view of the bussing dump station.  I found that to be a rather curious place to seat us as the restaurant was less than half full, but I was too hungry and didn't regard it sufficiently important to ask for another table.  Sticking with winners, which seem to be the seafood items on this ship, I had a lobster tail and striped bass, with a mushroom bisque and deep-fried oyster fritters as starters.  I enjoyed everything except the oysters.  The lobster tails were better than I had remembered; the bass wasn't as tasty as the mahi mahi from the previous evening.  The oysters were hot and fresh but I guess I just don't really like oysters, except for the smoked ones from the can, which my grandmother used to serve on ritz crackers.  The red wine turned out to be a big mistake.  There was nothing wrong with it, and in fact I enjoyed its mild flavor and drinking it much more than I usually enjoy drinking straight red wine, but one of the reasons I seldom drink red wine is that it usually makes me really tired.  True to form, it knocked me out, and I was in bed by 8:30 pm.  So much for team photos.  My wife and daughter went to the production show and apparently enjoyed it.  I woke up around midnight and read for a couple hours on the lido deck.

[zzdoug]

Ok I think I have finessed my IT issues and figured out a way to rotate the photos that were upside down.

 

Catching up with some photos....

 

Friday 10/15 before the concert: a few images from "Shakedown Street", the camp following around the Dead show where people sell goods seemingly without regulation.  The quality of t-shirts and other graphic items seems much higher than 25-30 years ago, now that people use computers and can order their products online or whatever.  Back in my day people did stuff by hand, spray painted stencils, etc.

 

 

 

 

Relaxing on the lawn before the concert

 

 

[zzdoug]

Here are some photos taken just after boarding, Saturday 10/16 afternoon.

Foot-pool with my son.  The balls are light and not very dense like a billiard ball.  It's pretty hard to break the pack.

 

 

Highlights from first night's dinner in the Horizons Restaurant (MDR used for anytime seating)

Calamari appetizer, freshly fried and crispy.  The photo doesn't do it justice.

 

Dessert cheese plate

 

 

[zzdoug]

Sunday "elegant" night dinner: lobster tail was pretty good.  Striped bass was ok.

 

 

[zzdoug]

Monday October 18

 

Another laid back day.  Hey, what did you expect? 

 

My wife went to a "Ladies Pampering Seminar".  I rescued her from it in the middle of the session; you have never seen anyone more relieved to have an excuse to leave.  I asked if she had bought any timeshares while in there and to our good fortune she had withstood the pressure.  

 

Rendezvoused with the rest of the family and played some trivia at Ocean Plaza.  The questions were a bit harder and the competition a bit stiffer than I had expected.  Lots of people.  We lost.  I was humbled.

I wanted to see what the hype was with regard to Guy Fieri hamburgers and there was no line when I went to order.  I don't like too many non-standard items on my burgers and you could not pay me enough to eat something entitled "Donkey Sauce" so I went with my standard, which is a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and ketchup, and the kicker: both caramelized and raw onions; the former adds a bit of sweetness and the latter adds pungency and crunch.  You're welcome, America.  To paraphrase Jules Winnfield, it was a tasty burger.  My wife had a lobster roll from the seafood shack and seemed underwhelmed.  Kids got some unmemorable slop from the buffet line.

 

Later, my daughter tried to get me to join her and my wife for high tea and I showed up toward the end since I wasn't so hungry after the burger.

 

Business at the spa was apparently very slow.  They were offering massage specials so I asked my wife if she wanted me to schedule one for her when I was up there and she said yes.  I went up there to use the gym and the therapist was out in the hallway trying to drum up business and seemed very hungry for clients.  The offer was $149 plus 18% tip for a 75 minute swedish massage plus an hour in the hammam or some kind of chamber or other and eye collagen, whatever that is.  I asked if she could do a deep tissue instead of swedish and she said she would.  This was at 4:30 pm and she said she was available at 5pm but I probably could have asked for any time during the rest of the cruise and gotten a spot. The therapist asked me at least twice if I wanted a treatment.  My wife said the massage was good and the upselling was relentless.  My only significant complaint in the post-cruise questionnaire was the aggressive marketing of snake oil type products during the massage treatment which made the experience much less relaxing for my wife.

 

Met up with kids for the "PG" comedy show, which they seemed to enjoy.

 

Dined with family.  I got escargots and roast lamb.  The escargots were very tasty.  The lamb was overcooked and was really the first somewhat disappointing dinner item I had so far on the cruise.  The waiter furnished mint jelly upon request which made the lamb taste much better.  

Enjoyed a smorgasbord of evening entertaiment, including the piano lounge and the production show.  I made the mistake of asking for a request at the piano bar and then leaving for the other show before my request could be performed.  The Studio VIP show is campy and it features one of my preferred musical genres and is very well produced so it was entertaining.  Carnival's production style is all entertainment, no education or context.  If that is what the doctor ordered, the patient will be happy.
 

[zzdoug]

Tuesday October 19

Port of call at Roatan, Honduras

 

This was our big splurge day.  Back when I thought the cruise would be crowded and after I found out I would have a valid claim under my cruise insurance worth $400 because of the change of ports of call since our original booking in February, I kind of wanted to find a private excursion that could take us snorkeling somewhere where we wouldn't be in a big crowd of people to scare the fish away.  I found Jackson Marine Adventures through a Google search of tours in Roatan and found several positive recommendations on TripAdvisor.  Also, the owner/operator, Joseph (Joey) Jackson, was very communicative and responsive to my requests by email and WhatsApp messages and phone calls.  

 

We got off the ship just before 8 am Roatan time / 9 am ship time and walked outside the Mahogany Bay cruise terminal / shopping mall, and over the hill, where a driver held a sign for us.  We arrived at his dock about 10 minutes later.  It was just us, Joey, and his brother Justin on their fishing boat.  

 

The original plan was to snorkel around French Cay and Fantasy Island resort, about 15 minutes from his dock, but he sent me some drone video from a recent trip they took to Pigeon Cays and they were spectacular and I really wanted to go there.  It cost us an additional $150 which he told me is about how much more he has to spend on fuel, since Pigeon Cays is 20 miles away on his boat and he pays $5/gallon for fuel.  If we had taken this trip a few years ago, I would have wanted to save the $150, but I have recently realized I tend to regret not splashing out for something I really want to do, especially if it is a rare opportunity for a special experience.  

 

The ride to Pigeon Cays took about 1 hour in each direction from his dock. Roatan is a long, thin island and the Pigeon Cays are past the eastern end of the island.  It was a beautiful ride and we made 2 snorkel stops.  The first stop had beautiful coral formations and lots of exotic fish, including a species that is blue in front and orange in back, some clownfish, many sea sponges, etc.  They pointed out some points of interest, including a fort with cannon defenses dating to the 1700s.  We don't have an underwater camera but if you go to their website or facebook page they have a lot of good photos and videos. 

 

Here are some photos from the boat ride.

 

 

 

 

 

They mostly run sport fishing charters so between the snorkel stops, they got out the fishing rods and we did some trolling.  I have a curse that has limited me to catching a grand total of 1 fish in my entire life, straight off a dock where an entire school of lake perch was frenetically looking for food below me.  Needless to say, we didn't get a single bite.

 

We continued on to a beautiful sandbar which apparently was deforested by a recent hurricane. We saw some flocks of birds and crabs crawling around.  There were coral formations scattered around the underwater part of the sandbar.  The water was crystal-clear and shallow enough to walk and there were lots of tiny fish swimming around us.  My son snorkeled around and checked out a nurse shark and a stingray.  

 

Here is a photo of us at the sandbar in Pigeon Cays that hopefully obscures my beached-beluga je ne sais quoi.

 

 

 

We snacked on some watermelon and some chips and enjoyed some soft drinks. It was getting late and we headed back to their dock.  We settled up and their driver brought us back to port.  

 

We had brought a "reef safe" 50-SPF sunblock which seemed to be useless as we were all sunburnt to a crisp.  

 

As soon as we got back to our rooms, we took advantage of the 2 showers and immediately and simultaneously showered off and cooled down and mainlined some advil.

We were all pretty wiped out and very hungry.  We had dinner at the buffet.  All I remember was the fried chicken which was pretty edible, and I think I also had a salad.

 

We were wiped out and crashed right after dinner.  I woke up a few hours later and watched the Love & Marriage show, which was pretty hilarious.  My wife slept right through until morning.  Lots of people were dressed up in Halloween costumes as there was a costume contest after that, but I wanted to relax and type some of this up before I forgot it.  I ran into my daughter who decided that she didn't have much in common with the 5 to 10 other kids that were occasionally showing up at the kids club. We got some pizza, where we ran into our son, and then turned in for the evening.
 

[zzdoug]

Wednesday Sept. 20

Port of call at Belize

 

Since yesterday was a big, expensive, and exhausting day, and we knew it would be, we had planned to stay on board today.  It worked out fine because it was pouring rain for most of the day.

My wife and I woke up around 8 am and went to breakfast in the Horizons MDR.  I had an omelet, which I liked very much except for the fact that I guess the waiter heard "cheddar cheese" when I had said "feta cheese" which sort of rhyme and, if you think about it, are probably easily confused, even if I don't have a New York accent.  No big deal, it was a good omelet and not important enough to send back.  I also had turkey bacon which was not bad (I seldom eat pork bacon so I didn't mind it) and a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon.  If you like Lender's Bagels you may enjoy the Lender's-style Bagels served by Carnival's Main Dining Room.  

 

I spent most of the morning and afternoon alternately doing laundry and typing this report.  The laundry room on 2 was out of order so I had to use the one on 1, and a good number of people had the same idea so I had to wait about a half hour before a machine was available. $3.50 to wash and $3.50 to dry per load, so 2 loads cost $14 to my account.  I met up with various permutations of family members for trivia at 1pm and 2pm.  At around 2:30 I was ready for a light lunch.  I had a salad and a chicken taco from the taco stand.  The meat was good but the corn tortilla was fairly meh. Afterwards I realized that the Buffet was featuring a country French menu, which is way more bold than I would have expected from the likes of Carnival kitchens.  There were mini onion and cheese quiches, ratatouille, cassoulet, boeuf bourgignon stew, and some kind of nicoise style fish.  If there was a nicoise salad I would have tried that but there wasn't.  I did try a quiche and I thought it was delicious.  

 

Met up with the kids for more brutal trivia competition in the Ocean Plaza.  I was late to the one event I was pretty sure I could win, the "Mind Games" or whatever the trick question one was called.  Result: we lost.

 

We gueros spent much of the afternoon nursing the intense sunburns we had acquired on our snorkel charter boat off Roatan.  Our "reef-safe" mineral-oil based 50 SPF sunblock that we bought for this trip apparently slid right off our sweaty bodies.  We had planned to buy more ibuprofen and acetominophen in Cozumel but ran out while aboard, so we had no choice but to bend over and take it from the Carnival Vista gift shop.  $9 for 24 tablets was a painful but necessary price to pay to relieve our fever-inducing burns.

 

We interpreted the second Cruise Elegant attire advisory loosely, choosing to dress in collared short sleeves and jeans, which is more formal than our usual "dress shorts" approach.  We even sat for a few photos.  After reviewing them, I had the following epiphany: Dang I am really starting to look old.

 

We dined in the Horizons Main Dining Room.  I had the pumpkin soup - again, delicious - and the filet mignon.  Now I get it: I requested it rare and received it on the medium side of medium rare.  Next time I may request it raw.  We had our best waiter of the trip so far, Mr. Jose from the Philippines on the port (?) side of level 3.  My daughter enjoyed her spanakopita and my wife enjoyed the shrimp.  As per custom, son ordered and received overcooked steak - also the filet in this case - and seemed satisfied.  Desserts of the evening included low-sugar key lime mousse, chocolate melting cakes, 

After dinner, kids scampered off to the teen clubs for a bit and the Mrs. and self went up a level to the Punchliner to see Carl Faulkenberry.  The late show is the blue show, as they say.  I had seen him with the kids for the early show and the material was completely different.  Both shows were good, this one was better in my opinion.

 

We then moseyed over to the Liquid Lounge for the evening's production show, America Rocks.  If you enjoy medleys of one verse and one or two choruses each from songs you have heard 10,000 times before, you will enjoy this show.  I personally would prefer a smaller number of entire songs that I have heard slightly less often, but I'm pretty certain I'm in the minority on that front.  The production quality is about as high as it could be - on par with Las Vegas, Broadway, etc - with live singing, dancing, the live band which usually plays rock covers at Ocean Plaza, and even pyrotechnics.  I do very much appreciate Carnival's continued commitment to live entertainment and live music in particular.  This show also has campy elements - for example, during Free Bird one of the dancers sported giant American Flag wings - but I think I would have enjoyed it even more if it had taken itself just a bit less seriously. 

 

Our son returned from the Circle C club, saying there was some kind of a teen prom with the 10 or so other kids on board and he had no desire to stay.    I was a bit surprised to see my son rather than my daughter not want to participate, as he usually seems more interested in the social aspects of school.  That said, I don't think my daughter participated in the O2 prom either. 

 

In any case I completely empathized.  As an introvert who once navigated complicated self-esteem issues well into my 20s and could not get out of high school and the culture thereof fast enough, I can't really conceptualize the desire to go to any more proms than necessary.

 

 

[Silent Penguin]

I'm really, really enjoying your trip report.  LOL, Lenders bagels. Ugh.  Acceptable if toasted.  It's creepy the way they NEVER go bad.  Nine dollars for 24 tablets of pain reliever, ouch!  Been there, done that.  I think it was friggin sunscreen for us though. Many years ago on a Disney cruise.  You can imagine how much that cost on a cruise ship.  Speaking of sunscreen,  what brand of reef-safe sunblock did you buy?  We just got back from a very hot, sunny vacation in the Floriday Keys without any sunburn, which is a first. Thank you Hello Bello Mineral Baby Sunscreen  (got it at Wal-Mart).  

[zzdoug]

55 minutes ago, Silent Penguin said:

I'm really, really enjoying your trip report.  LOL, Lenders bagels. Ugh.  Acceptable if toasted.  It's creepy the way they NEVER go bad.  Nine dollars for 24 tablets of pain reliever, ouch!  Been there, done that.  I think it was friggin sunscreen for us though. Many years ago on a Disney cruise.  You can imagine how much that cost on a cruise ship.  Speaking of sunscreen,  what brand of reef-safe sunblock did you buy?  We just got back from a very hot, sunny vacation in the Floriday Keys without any sunburn, which is a first. Thank you Hello Bello Mineral Baby Sunscreen  (got it at Wal-Mart).  

Thanks for reading! I think this is the sunblock that didn't work for us. Target brand.