JamieLogical's Live from the MSC Divina 2/11

[DaKahuna]

2 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Day's Drinks: Mango Mimosa from Caffe Italia, Fresca Heaven Mojito from El Burlador, Americano w/ Bailey's from Caffe Italia, Double Rum & coke X2 from Caffe Italia, Prosecco from Black Crab, Mojito from La Luna

 Glad to see you are joining your husband with the rum and Coke’s.  I think I’ll try one later if I can make up my mind on which rum to mix.  So use to rum old fashioned / new fashioned that I’ve not considered a rum and coke for a while.  

[not ice cream]

We enjoyed Cartegna very much in spite of the heat and humidity. From New Orleans so we’re used to it but that doesn’t mean we like it. It is interesting how similar the Old Town and the French Quarter look too. Enjoying the reviews from you and DaKahuna!! (Tell Adi at Cafe Italia hello from Christopher)

[Bluewake]

I greatly appreciated your description of Cartagena.  We will be on this same MSC Divina cruise in April and it will be our first time visiting Cartagena.  We've read about the relentless vendors in Old Town, including "rappers" who supposedly come up and loudly "rap" in your face until you give them money to go away.  Not sure if that is a myth or not!  Although we often book private tours, we decided to go with a cruiseline excursion in Cartagena that spends only part of the time in the Old Town so that might help to mitigate the stress for our first visit. 

 

 

 

Edited February 17 by Bluewake

[brucevr6]

@Bluewake Cartagena is a great place to visit and Old Town is a very nice and safe area to walk, eat, drink and enjoy. We’ve been there several times and have never experienced the “rappers in your face “ that you mention. It’s kinda like Casco Viejo in Panama, or many other old villages and towns in central and South America. They have been extensively renovated to look like in their heyday, and are lots of fun. Great music, lots of cafes, bars and some amazing arepas. Yes, there are vendors trying to sell stuff…like in almost all touristy areas I’ve visited in many parts of the world… but a simple “ no, gracias “ is usually all that’s necessary. When the cruise ships are in, there is obviously a crush of people trying to see the same things at the same time, same as most smaller cruise stops. We’ve been there mostly on land based vacations. Lots to see and do along that coast. 

[JamieLogical]

41 minutes ago, Bluewake said:

I greatly appreciated your description of Cartagena.  We will be on this same MSC Divina cruise in April and it will be our first time visiting Cartagena.  We've read about the relentless vendors in Old Town, including "rappers" who supposedly come up and loudly "rap" in your face until you give them money to go away.  Not sure if that is a myth or not!  Although we often book private tours, we decided to go with a cruiseline excursion in Cartagena that spends only part of the time in the Old Town so that might help to mitigate the stress for our first visit. 

 

 

 

 

Oh, we had the in-your-face rappers. They asked our names and then made a tap about us and then three of them held their hats out in front of my husband until he gave them each dollar. I was worried we weren't going to have enough cash to pay for a cab by the time we got out of there!

[DaKahuna]

When we did a tour of Cartagena a few years ago, everytime our tour bus stopped in traffic we had young kids coming up and tapping on the windows trying to get us to buy things. 
 

Never encountered any rappers but our tour guide was pretty good about keeping vendors away during the walking parts of our tour.

 

[Fogfog]

Years ago we did a private tour of old Cartagena. We were picked up at the port by van with a guide and driver. Went up to a vantage point to see the old port and could see where they pulled the large chain to block-close the port etc. Learned some history. We did a tour of the gold museum, a tour of the colonial era buildings, etc, the stretches of beaches, and learned about the city. Never had an issue with panhandlers. We'd be dropped off with guide, would  tour a particular venue and picked up at end of street by driver. Very seamless. 

Found the guide through CC here and he was called "the Emerald Guy" and we booked him while enroute. So for those going in April, it is an option.

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was our port stop in Colon. I took a photo of an MSC cargo ship from our balcony and was going to make a joke about docking near our sister ship, but Mark already beat me to it! There were, of course, a LOT of container ships in the waters all around us and docked at the nearby piers. Apparently, despite the existence of the canal now, many ships unload their freight on the Colon side of the canal and it is transported by train to ships on the Panama City side. With the limitations on how many ships can go through the canal and how expensive it is to send them through, this is still an economical choice for some freight companies.

 

We had received our excursion tickets in our room the previous night, so we knew we needed to be in the Theater at 10:15. Ou ship’s arrival in port was supposed to be around 10:00. We had decided on MDR breakfast because I wanted to eat something hardy since we were not going to be provided lunch on the excursion and weren’t scheduled to get back to the ship until 2:45. I don’t often find anything hardy for myself on the buffet, because I don’t like powdered scrambled eggs and the fried eggs they put out are few and far between. So I often end up with only some slices of cheese and some cottage cheese with jam.

 

So we showered and dressed and headed down to the MDR at about 8:40. We were seated right away with a German party of four who didn’t really try to talk to us at all. It was more challenging getting water this time than last time, but I did eventually end up with some. We also each had a second cup of coffee (had our usual first cup out on the balcony earlier) to hopefully buy us a little time to have a later afternoon coffee since we would be off the ship.

 

I ordered my usual omelet with cheddar and bacon with white toast, plus I added the cheese plate. My husband went for some french toast, bacon, and sausage links. So the first major blow to my husband’s contentment was that he was the only person at the table who hadn’t ordered something “cold,” which meant he had to sit patiently while I had my cheese plate and the Germans all had the yogurt, fruit, and lox. Next up, when we finally did get our “hot” food, his french toast was cold. My omelet was warm and delicious and I accomplished toast for the second time, making me 2 for 2 this sailing! Disgruntled with the long wait for food that came out cold, my husband once again swore off the MDR breakfast. I guess the compromise is for us to eat breakfast separately. I don’t want to have to fight the crowds and chaos for some cold eggs (if I can get any at all) at the buffet, and he doesn’t want to have to wait patiently for cold french toast in the MDR.

 

It didn’t help that as we were leaving the MDR, we couldn’t get an up elevator to save our lives. The first one we encountered was completely full. Then a down elevator came and we didn’t get on it, because it said it was going down, but then it went straight up! By that point, he was REALLY impatient.

 

We did eventually get back up to our room to get our sunscreen on and get everything gathered up for our excursion. Apparently, Panamanian law requires people to carry their passports with them. I would have been extremely nervous about this if we didn’t have a ship excursion and had to do any wandering on our own in port. Once I was off the ship, I would have been even more nervous about it, because the area near the port is pretty sketchy looking. Though to be fair, I didn’t interact with anyone in that area beyond our tour guide and bus driver, so I have no idea what the “vibe” was when actually encountering people.

 

I’m getting ahead of myself! Okay, so we gathered up our stuff and headed to the theater around 10:05, stopping for a couple of bottles of water on the way to take with us. The theater was already pretty packed and I was surprised to see only two excursions on the screen that left at 10:15. It seemed like there were a lot of people there way earlier than they needed to be. But once they finally started calling people by bus number, it was clear that even though there were only two excursions leaving at 10:15, there were several busses for each of those excursions. We were Bus 10.

 

We waited patiently for our bus number to be called. Things seemed to run pretty smoothly. Announcements were made in many languages, which actually had me a little concerned at first,. We must have just missed the English announcement before we came in because it seemed like they were never going to make an announcement in English when we first sat down, but they did eventually loop back around to us. Once the bus numbers were being called, the announcements were brief and they were able to get through many languages quickly.

 

When your bus number was called, you were to proceed to the port stairs and out the port door to join the line. The line snaked all along the port side of the ship, through the casino, Piazza Del Doge, and the atrium. There were people all along the way trying to cut into this line, despite it being roped off and supposed to only be for people with excursion tickets or YC guests.

No matter to us. We knew we had people from bus 10 ahead of and behind us in the line and they probably wouldn’t leave without us. Finally, we went down two flights of stairs to Deck 4 and out the gangway. Unlike some other ports, we did not have a long pier walk here. It was just a few steps off the gangway to a duty-free shop that they funneled everyone through and then out to the area with the waiting busses. Even in that little bit of walking, though, I was grateful to board our air-conditioned bus!

 

Our tour guide took our tickets as we boarded and we found some seats and waited for the bus to fill up. It wasn’t long at all and I would say we were underway by about 10:45. We were informed the tour would be in English and Spanish. I am not sure we had many native speakers of either of those languages on the bus with us. As far as I gathered, only one other couple on the bus was American. There were a handful of French. A LOT of Germans. And the couple right behind us was Italian, though they told the tour guide that Spanish would be okay for them.

 

The bus ride was about 45 minutes long, I would say? We started off driving through the city streets of Colon. We learned it has a population of about 340,000. Initially, we drove past some buildings that were completely falling apart. I mean, if you had seen pictures of them out of context, you would have thought this was a bombed-out city like you see on the news. Fabio, our tour guide, explained that this wasn’t due to poverty, but to lack of funding and management by the country’s administration? He said that Panama is not a poor country, but that the money is not well distributed.

 

We did drive through some nicer areas where was saw a government administration office building that looked very well-maintained, some shopping centers, and some gated communities. For the most part, though, I would say that a lot of what we saw would definitely count as “poverty” in the US. Fabio said a normal “average” salary in the area was about $800/month. The Blaboa, the country’s national coin, is tied to the US dollar, so that is $800 US. I am pretty sure the crew on this ship makes twice that.

 

Anyway, that’s enough depressing information about the Panamanian economy! Let’s talk about our tour! After leaving the city proper, we took a freeway for a while and then finally a windy, narrow road up through the jungle to the Eco Park where our tour was to take place. It was a proper jungle and reminded me a lot of my bus ride to the top of the mountain overlooking Puerto Plata. I was happy I take Dramamine every morning of a cruise!

 

Once we arrived at our destination, there were a few converted cargo containers that made up the little complex. There was one with a store selling food and drinks and some local crafts. There was one that was clearly the sleeping quarters for the staff. There were two that provided bathrooms. My husband and I both decided to use the restroom, as our tour guide had told us to meet back in 10 minutes.

 

By the time we had gathered back, another tour bus had arrived (Bus 9) and it seemed the guides were a little anxious about people getting confused and going with the wrong group because of the language/communication barriers. We did eventually get what I assume were all of our Bus 10 people together and the owner of the park gave a little speech in several languages. He and his son own the 30 hectares that the park sits on. There are many species of flora and fauna living there. They do their best to preserve the land and the wildlife.

 

The first part of our tour was a jungle hike. I knew this from having read the excursion description. Some of the people in our tour group did NOT look as if they had read or comprehended this. Sandals and denim halter tops with your make-up caked on do not scream to me that you are prepared for a hike through the jungle in 90-degree heat and 95% humidity. But what do I know? They did all seem to make it at least.

 

The whole hiking trail did have paving stones set about a foot apart that you could mostly walk on, though you had to be careful as many of the stones were loose. We were near the tail of the line (could only go single file), so if the tour guide said much, I didn’t get to hear it. I did hear him talking about the ant nests in the trees and how this was a symbiotic relationship between the ants and the trees because the aunts protected the trees by biting anything that tried to chew on the bark or leaves.

 

At the end of our hike, we had made it down to the lake, where we boarded a boat. Gatun Lake is a manmade lake created to feed fresh water to the Panama Canal. We heard the history of how the railroad was first built connecting the two shores of Panama. That railroad was apparently built by Chinese workers who brought a love of rice to Panama and that is why it is now “a sin to eat lunch without rice” here. After the railroad, the French wanted to try to build a sea-level canal like they did with the Suez Canal, but that was never going to work because of Panama's tall mountains, the lack of excavation technology, outbreaks of yellow fever and malaria, and the opposing tides of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

 

So then the Americans decided to build a lock system canal, but that needed fresh water to operate. They leveled a large section of the rainforest, damned local rivers, and created Gatun Lake. Everywhere you look in the lake, you see tree trunks sticking up out of the water to remind you that it was recently a forest.

 

Initially, when we got on the boat, there wasn’t a hint of wind and we were all very hot and sweaty from our hike, but once the boat got moving, there was a slight breeze and it became much more comfortable. I think it helped that it was also fairly cloudy.

 

We slowly made our way around the lake, pulling up and stopping at the shore several times so our guide could tell us a bit about local vegetation and wildlife. We didn’t actually see much wildlife. I was kind of shocked at the lack of waterfowl. We didn’t see any herons, egrets, ducks, geese, fishing birds, etc. The first “exciting” wildlife we saw were some black vultures. It was entertaining to see how excited the Europeans were about this. They all scrambled to take pictures and would “ooh and ah” whenever one of the vultures took off or landed.

 

The only other bird we saw was a tiny little black bird with an orange bill that Fabio said was kind of like a duck. I didn’t get a super close look at it other than to see how small it was. Near the end of our trip, the real excitement happened when we saw a sloth sleeping in a tree. I didn’t even TRY to get a picture of it because there was such a press of people rushing to the front of the boat to take photos and gawk. I *had* just gotten pictures of a sloth in a tree the day before and I will get to hold sloths and see LOTS of them in Roatan. It was pretty cool to see one in the wild though.

 

The boat then made its way back to the dock and we got off. We noticed the water level was extremely low as some of the floating docks weren’t even touching the water. Fabio had explained how the “dry season” is supposed to be from mid-December to early April in Panama, but this year the dry season started in September. So they have had a real drought and they have had to limit the number of boats going through the canal each day due to that.

 

Rather than hiking back up the trail we came down, we just walked up a gravel road back to the complex where the buses were parked. It wasn’t a super fun climb, but it wasn’t *too* bad. They did have a car (a Hyundai Ionic 5 that looked very out of place here) to drive people up the hill who needed assistance.

 

We had a few more minutes to use the restrooms or buy something from the shop and then it was back on the bus. However, we did not go straight back to the ship. We took a little detour to cross over the Atlantic Bridge so we could all get a good look at the Canal. That was pretty cool, as we had passed under that bridge on our Panama Canal cruise in December of 2022. Then we did a U-turn and went right back across it again and headed back to the ship.

 

Once again, we did not have far to walk from the bus to the gangway. The tour had run a little long, so it was closer to 3:00 when we got back onboard. No real issue with lines to get on the ship or through security. This time my husband was not stopped for our first aid kit.

 

We headed straight up to the buffet for a VERY late lunch. I just had a slice of pizza and some french fries, as I didn’t want to spoil dinner. Then it was back to the room to shower and change and become human again.

 

After my shower, I was FINALLY able to head down to Caffe Italia for some coffee. My husband had broken down and taken some Excedrin on the bus again for his caffeine fix. We got to relax and play Splendor Duel (my husband just barely eeked out the victory) and Skip-bo (I crushed it). After my coffee, I had a double Kettle One and Gingerbeer, but then Reynald was there and I decided to challenge him to make one of my favorite drinks from one of my favorite restaurants back home, an Alabama Slammer. Now I have looked up recipes online for this in the past, but the way Tully’s (the restaurant) makes it is with Southern Comfort, Grandine, Vodka, and orange juice. I told this to Reynald and he managed to make a PERFECT Alabama Slammer. It was exactly as if I were at the Tully’s. I was elated. I ended up ordering a second one to go as my husband and I wanted to go up on deck for a bit before dinner.

 

We headed up to deck 15 and checked out the views of Colon from the Garden Pool area. Then it was down to the Black Crab for dinner. We were surprised to see our Greek tablemates join us shortly after we arrived. This time we had a livelier conversation and learned more about the husband at least. So he was born and raised in Egypt, but his parents were Greek. His mother died when he was one year old and his father sailed on ships and had moved to the US, so he was raised by his maternal grandmother in Egypt. As a child he went to French and English schools, so he learned Arabic, Greek, and English as a very young child. He also picked up Spanish somewhere along the way. He moved to the US as an adult because his father was there and that is where he spent most of his professional career. His first wife passed away ( he didn’t mention when or how) and he has been with his current wife, who is Greek, for about six years. She only speaks Greek but is trying to learn English. It sounds like they now split their time between New Jersey and Greece. He is such an interesting character!

 

For dinner, my husband and I both had the lamb meatballs as our starter. I also had the legume soup. Then I had the mushroom and shrimp risotto, while my husband had the Moroccan couscous. Then for dessert, we both had the red velvet cake. All of my food was delicious, but I was a little remorseful about getting the risotto because it was VERY filling. My husband said he wished he had ordered the Grandma’s chocolate cake instead of the red velvet, but I was grateful for the slight change of pace.

 

After dinner, we ended up at Caffe Italia briefly and then headed over to La Luna. The female singer and electric guitar player duet were scheduled to be in there at 8:00pm to do French Music… whatever that is. It was about 7:40, so we went there and got our usual table as people began slowly filing in. We ended up with what I believe was our fourth bowl of potato chips for the evening? They REALLY push the potato chips on this ship! We had also had two bowls of peanuts at some point in the evening.

 

The first song the duet performed was “All You Need is Love,” so I wasn’t convinced about this being French music. But they did go on to play some French-sounding-to-me music after that. We decided to go back up on deck and see if we could see any of the city still since we had missed sail away. We could see the city in the distance, but I think what was cooler was seeing all the ships in the water around us. It really is neat to see so many ships loitering outside the canal.

 

We then went back to the room for a bit, but I decided to go lose some money in the casino while my husband stayed in the room and played his Steam Deck. Things were actually looking up for me for a half a minute, but that didn’t dissuade me from losing a whole bunch of money before finally heading up to the buffet for my slice of pizza. Then it was off to bed!

 

Day's Drinks: Americano w/ Double Shot Bailey’s from Caffe Italia, Double vodka & gingerbeer from Caffe Italia, Alabama Slammer x2 from Caffe Italia, Hugo Spritz from La Luna, Mojito from Casino Bar

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 18 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

Oh! My photos reminded me of the most upsetting thing I saw in Colon. On the way back to the ship we passed this very large, VERY dilapidated building. I say clothes hanging out the windows from the building and I thought, "God, I hope no one is actually living in that." But then when we were stopped for that train crossing, I could see there were people looking out the windows. Then Fabio told us that guilding used to be a dairy factory for processing milk and cheese and used to be within the 5-mile zone around the canal controlled by the Americans. When the Americans left, the Panamanian government turned it into a prison! 

 

 

Edited February 18 by JamieLogical

[pirate4me2]

Really enjoying your review! Thanks for taking time from your vacation to do this! 

[Cruzinforpeace***]

7 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’re making me want to take this cruise!  

[JamieLogical]

44 minutes ago, Cruzinforpeace*** said:

You’re making me want to take this cruise!  

 

It has been a great cruise so far! One of my favorites I think.

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was a sea day and our anniversary! My husband and I have been together for seven years, married for three. We got married on the fourth anniversary of when we got together, so the anniversaries for both are the same.

 

In light of it being our anniversary and a slow-paced sea day, we had ordered some orange juice with our room service breakfast so we could make mimosas using my Diamond prosecco that had been left in our room on embarkation day. We had our coffee and then our mimosas and lounged about lazily in the room for a while.

 

Once we were showered and dressed, we took what was left of our second round of mimosas up to the buffet with us. It was busy, but we were able to find a booth and take turns getting our food. On my quest for jam, I saw they had breakfast pizza over on the pizza station. I am sorry I didn’t get a picture of it, but it was like a normal pizza with egg, bacon, and cheddar cheese in addition to the traditional mozzarella. It tasted like pizza to me. Nothing too weird other than the whole pizza for breakfast thing, which college students have been doing for decades.

 

After the buffet, we stopped back by the room and picked up our games and headed down to Caffe Italia to park for the morning. We went ahead and ordered some vanilla mimosas, despite already having had two normal mimosas each. Then we both drank a bottle of water each before ordering anything else. My husband ended up with another vanilla mimosa while I went for an Alabama Slammer before Reynald went off shift.

 

At some point, right as we were about to set up a game of 7 Wonders, John came and hung out with us for a while. We had a really nice, long chat before my husband and I needed to leave to get lunch in the MDR while they were still open. We ran up to the room to drop off our stuff and on the way, we changed our minds and decided we would try the buffet. BIG MISTAKE! It was the worst we have seen. For some reason, they had the whole starboard side of the buffet shut down at noon on a sea day! We did manage to find two seats on the end of a high top counter, but it was impossible to get food. My husband came back with just one unidentifiable item on his plate. I said he couldn’t just eat that and we decided to go down to the MDR afterall.

 

Service in the MDR was slow, as expected, but at least it wasn’t a complete cage match. We were seated in that Aurea section where we had a two-top the night we couldn’t sit at our usual table because of the ceiling leak. People around us were at various states in their meals. I made the mistake of asking for ice water, because I had seen some servers going around with the silver pitchers of ice water. Instead, our waiter took an extremely long time to bring me a glass of ice and then an extremely long time to bring us a bottle of Aqua Panna. Then, to my amusement, he poured the Aqua Panna into my empty water glass instead of the glass of ice. Did he really think I wanted a glass of ice and a separate glass of water?

 

All of this happened before he even took our food order, so once we had water and he then came back a separate time to get our order, we finally just relaxed and waited patiently. We both got the vegetable samosas with mango chutney as our starter. I had discovered on my last solo cruise that the mango chutney is super good and told my husband about it. I then got the muffaletta sandwich and my husband got  a burger. For dessert, I got the cheesecake and my husband got some puff pastry things filled with hazelnut cream.

 

Having finally finished lunch, I headed back to the room for my nap and my husband headed down to Caffe Italia for coffee and to play his Steam Deck. They had made an announcement at lunch that they would be handing out disembarkation tickets for our Roatan port stop between 3:00 and 5:00pm in the Black & White Lounge, so I had my husband set an alarm on his phone to get tickets in case I was still asleep. We need to get off the ship as early as possible, because we have a private tour scheduled.

 

It turned out that I woke up just before 3:00, so I texted my husband to keep his table at Caffe Italia and I would get the tickets and bring down some games with me. Unlike the morning I got our tickets for Cartagena, there was quite a line of people trying to get tickets right at 3:00. There were people ahead of me asking for 15 tickets! They had said you only needed to send one person to get tickets for your entire family or group, but that was extreme. We ended up with Group 4, which has an approximate disembarkation time of 8:55. Since we are supposed to dock at 8:00 and the information from our tour company said they would only wait 2 hours after people are allowed off the ship, I was a little stressed about that timing, so I emailed the tour company and let them know.

 

We spent the afternoon drinking many drinks and playing games at Caffe Italia. At one point, I thought to check the app about our Galaxy Sushi reservation, because I couldn’t remember if it was for 6:00 or 6:30. I was shocked to see it said 7:30. We would never have agreed to that time and I SWEAR I remember our waiter telling us he had made the reservation for 6:00, because that was the same time we had arrived that first night we had dinner there. My husband wanted to go back to the room to change into his elegant night attire, so he said he would call the reservations desk from the room.

 

Turns out, the reservations desk didn’t open until 6:00pm, which is pretty inconvenient for people who are trying to make reservations FOR 6:00pm. We decided that, since it hadn’t seemed to be a very busy or popular restaurant, we would just head up there at 6:00 and try to get a table. So we played some more games and drank some more drinks and headed up to the room to drop off our stuff just before 6:00.

 

We got to the restaurant right at 6:00 and there was a large crowd gathered off to the side. It wasn’t clear to me if they were dining there or not. We went to the maitre d and asked her if it would be possible to change our reservation. She said there were two large groups already booked for 6:00 and she didn’t think she could accommodate us. We explained that 7:30 is way too late for us and it was our anniversary and we could have sworn our waiter had told us 6:00. She asked us to have a seat while she dealt with the large group that had now walked up to the desk behind us.

 

While we were sitting there, our waiters from the other night spotted us and came over and greeted us warmly. I mentioned that we thought our reservation was for 6:00 and they were telling us it wasn’t until 7:30 and they just took us right over to a table. So the crisis was averted. Not sure what the maitre d made of all that.

 

We then received our promised “Champagne,” which was actually prosecco, but it was very good prosecco. It was very dry and I had no problem drinking it without mixing it with something else. We placed our order and we had a very pleasant time. The only real issue was that my husband's tempura batter on his Tigerseye Tempura was burnt. But, neither of us starved! He had some Maki as well and he was able to steal a few pieces of my Samurai Tempura.

 

Finally, after much ado and many jokes about making our waiter sing, he did come out and sign to us, carrying a big cake. Everyone in the restaurant clapped along and it was incredibly sweet and special. The cake was the best I have had on MSC. It was absolutely delicious. I hated to only eat one small slice of it, so we asked our waiter if there was any way to wrap up some of it to take back to our room. He put some of it in aluminum foil for us.

 

After dinner, we headed down to the casino for a bit. We played bubble roulette again and at some point John showed up and played as well. My husband won $36 when he bet on 5 and won for both that and a red scatter bet he had placed. I was not having any luck, so went over to play slots instead. I ended up just over even for the night, which is a big win for me!

 

We then checked out the Black & White lounge, but there was some kind of kids dance thing going on there and we quickly exited. Finally, we ended up at La Luna for a bit where there was a pianist playing. We didn’t stay there too long. My husband headed up to bed and I headed back to the room just briefly to get one of my smaller casino tickets to cash in. We were out of small bills for tipping at our port stop in Roatan. I then headed up for my late night pizza and then off to bed. It was a very nice anniversary all around.

 

Day's Drinks: Mimosa x2 from Our Stateroom, Vanilla Mimosa from Caffe Italia, Alabama Slammer from Caffe Italia, Americano w/Bailey's from Caffe Italia, Glass of Kettle One with a side of ginger ale from Caffe Italia, Alabama Slammer x2 from Caffe Italia, Prosecco x3 from Galaxy Lounge, Bailey's Alexander from La Luna
 

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 19 by JamieLogical

[Cruzinforpeace***]

Happy Anniversary!🍾🥂💐🎂

[alserrod]

On 2/18/2024 at 2:36 PM, JamieLogical said:

As far as I gathered, only one other couple on the bus was American. There were a handful of French. A LOT of Germans. And the couple right behind us was Italian, though they told the tour guide that Spanish would be okay for them.

 

 

 

An Italian speaker will understand 60-80% of a Spanish dialogue if it is clearly pronounded (and conversely a Spanish speaker will understand most of Italian)

It is easier if written but softly speaking works too

 

 

 

 

[bjahil47]

Happy Anniversary!  Cake looks delicious!

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was our port stop in Roatan. We had disembarkation tickets for Group 4 with an estimated time of 8:55am. So, we had our room service breakfast and I worked on my blog out on the balcony for a while. My husband took his shower first and I went in right around 7:00 for my shower. We then headed up to the buffet with the intention of coming back to the room to get ready to go ashore.

 

The buffet was as insane as ever. We struggled to find seats again but managed two next to each other in the middle of a high-top counter. Then we took shifts fighting to the death to acquire actual food. My husband went first and didn’t return with much. He doesn’t have much of a stomach for blood sport. He got a breakfast sandwich but gave up on his quest for sausage links.

 

I spent the majority of my scavenging time attempting to get some jam. For reasons I cannot comprehend, the only stations with jam are at the very front of the buffet, while the bread and yogurt stations are further back. I don’t know why they wouldn’t put the jom stations near the things you would want to put jam on. So, since no one has yet acquired the items they want their jam for, they have to use GIANT spoons to try to scoop the jam into tiny paper cups. When I got in line for the station, I got the last tiny paper cup. The two people ahead of me, who I believe were unrelated to each other were both trying to figure out which jam was which. I tried to help them, but the real confusion seemed to be that there were two apricots when the labels above said there should be an apricot and a marmalade. The woman who got in line behind me was out of luck because there were no more tiny cups.

 

Once I had gotten my jam, more on my fingers than in my little cup, thanks to the giant spoon, I headed all the way to the back of the buffet where the cheese stations are to get my cottage cheese to put it on. On the way, I spotted a fresh pan of fried eggs, so I grabbed one of those as well.

 

I got back to our counter and ate my food while my husband went for a second round of scavenging to find some sausage. While he was away, I spotted some very yummy-looking donuts on the grill station from where I was sitting. Once he was back, I waited for a moment for the crowd to seemingly clear and then attempted to make my dash over there. Of course, the moment I got up from my chair, an army of humans passed between me and the donuts and I had to wait for them to clear again. Then I discovered the grill station was entirely out of plates, so I had to cross back over to the fruit station to get a bowl. Then back to the donuts, but I did eventually acquire one. Much to my surprise, despite being the type of donut that has a hole in the center, it also had custard filling and it was delicious!

 

After breakfast, we headed back to the room, thinking we had roughly 55 minutes before we needed to be anywhere. It was almost 8:00 on the dot when we got back. As soon as the door closed behind us, we heard the announcement that the ship was docked and cleared and they called Group 1. The meant we needed to get a move on, so we quickly started to transfer items to/from the safe, put on sunscreen, pack our water slings with the necessary snacks and water, etc. Then just moments after the first announcement, they called Groups 2 & 3! At that point, we were in pure panic mode and I was really worried we were going to forget something. They called Group 4 as we were about ready to head out the door and they called Group 5 as we were walking down the stairs.

 

I hadn’t even had time to look at my email and figure out the instructions for where to meet our driver based on which pier we docked at. I said “this is ridiculous” and we took a time out. We sat on some benches outside of the Black & White Lounge and regrouped. The email said the driver would wait up to 2 hours after the ship was cleared for us, so there was no reason for all this rushing. It was 8:05 when we left our room and we had until 10:00. So we calmly evaluated whether we actually had everything we needed and I checked my emails for the instructions for where to go once off the ship.

 

We had docked in Mohagany Bay. It was our first time in Roatan, so we were unfamiliar with the island and the port. Our instructions told us to pass through the shops and out, then up the hill to our left to the main gate, then down the hill to where we would see tour guides with signs. It was a bit of a walk, but I was impressed by how nice the port area was. There were lots of little shops and it was a pretty open space, so we didn’t feel crammed in like the port area in Cartagena.

 

We followed our instructions and, as we came down the hill, we spotted someone holding an AJ’s Monkeys and Sloths sign. That was us! There was a it of a bottleneck right where all the drivers and tour guides were because we all had to cross the street and enter a little roped-off area. I was anxious to get to our driver, but we got stuck for a bit behind a large group that was meeting a driver closer to where you enter the roped-off are and they blocked our path for a bit. But it wasn’t long until we got over to her. She was a woman who I would guess was in her late 50s? Clearly a native who spoke great English, but with a heavy Caribbean accent.

 

The first pleasant surprise was that we had a private car. I had assumed we would be lumped in with others from the ship who had booked AJ’s, but apparently, there weren’t any others. She even allowed my husband to sit in the front seat, which was nice because he is tall. It was a late-model Hyundai SUV, so it probably would have had enough legroom in the back for him, but he still sat in front.

 

The drive to AJ’s was pleasant. We chatted with our driver quite a bit. We mostly talked about cruising and cruise ships and the ports we had already stopped at on this sailing. The area that we drove through seemed nice. Certainly not as impoverished as some of the ports we have been to and it seemed like a nice little town with the usual amenities of shops, restaurants, fast food places, etc.

 

The drive wasn’t too long (maybe 20 minutes?) and we were pulling up to AJ’s. We got checked in at their front desk. We had paid a 50% deposit online when we booked and owed the remainder of the balance ($36). I asked if we could pay by credit card and she said yes, but we had to wait a bit for the credit card machine to boot up. While we waited, we sat on some benches in a covered area. The front desk doubled as a snack and souvenir shop, so I took in what was on offer there while we waited.

 

Soon, a guide came to start our tour. He first took us to an enclosure full of guinea pigs. There were a LOT of them. I got to hold one. We chatted with the guide (who sounded American to me, though I didn’t ask) about the fact that we have a good friend who keeps guinea pigs for whom we occasionally pet sit. She is the one who is pet-sitting for us right now, in fact. We learned that in parts of South America, some people actually eat guinea pigs. I eventually made my husband hold the one I had been holding the whole time.

 

After the guinea pigs, we were directed to a bench where we had to wait our turn for the sloth enclosure. There was a large group ahead of us with maybe 20 people. Not all of them got to hold the sloths because there were only two of them. But they all got to take pictures of and look at and appreciate the sloths, which we did from afar while we waited.

 

I was SOOOOO happy that when it was our turn, it was just the two of us and we both got to hold sloths for the entire time! My sloth was named Flash (like from Zootopia!) and my husband’s was named Lightning. There was also a third sloth up in a tree named Sonic. I tried to take about 300 pictures and had the tour guide take some pictures as well. Note, this was a different guide than the one that showed us the guinea pigs. We learned that sloths can live over 25 years in captivity. Flash is 7 years old, but Lightning is only 3. He was born during the pandemic. They get all of their nutrition and water from two types of leaves that they eat. Or, at least the three-toed sloths do. I was surprised they don’t eat any fruits.

 

We really got to hold them for a long time. I loved their little faces so much. Eventually Lightning reached back over for the tour guide, just like a baby reaches over when it wants to be held by the other parent. And then I finally had to give up Flash.

 

After the sloths, we got to hold some scarlet McCaws, which are the national bird of Honduras. It wasn’t until after I had held one that the guide told me their beaks can exert 600 pounds of pressure! I don’t think I need to hold one of those again…

 

Then it was off to the monkeys. The enclosure for the monkeys was pretty interesting. It had sort of an airlock situation where one door opened into an empty area. People had to go into that area and close the door behind them, before opening the second door that led into the area with the monkeys. We got to see first-hand why this was necessary. The large group ahead of us was in the process of leaving the enclosure and were all trying to cram into the airlock space. One of the monkeys kept going in there and jumping around from one person’s head to another’s. It was pretty amusing, but the handlers were clearly annoyed. It was hard to get the monkey out of there to close the door behind the last guest.

 

Finally, they all did get out of there without any monkeys escaping. We were warned to put our bags and anything from our pockets into some little cubbies near the enclosure. Fortunately, I wasn’t wearing any earrings or a necklace. We did as we were told and we quickly learned why. These INCREDIBLY hyper monkeys would try to grab at and take anything they could from you and they were pickpockets, so they would just reach right into your pockets and take anything you had in there. Our driver later told us about a guy who had a zipper pocket in his cargo shorts and assumed his cash and cigarettes would be safe in there and the very first thing a monkey did when he went into the enclosure was unzip his pockets, take his cash and cigarettes, tear them up, and throw them on the ground.

 

Now, what you need to know is that my husband hates monkeys. They are too Uncanny Valley for him and creep him out. So you can imagine how thrilled he was to have hyper little monkeys jumping on his head and grabbing at his stuff. It was hilarious!

 

After the monkeys, our tour was sadly over. It was a really great experience and a really great deal! $35 per person for a private car to/from and basically as much time as we wanted with the animals. I would HIGHLY recommend this to anyone who is coming to Roatan. They can pick you up from either cruise terminal.

 

Our drive back to the ship was similarly pleasant to the first one. Our chat with our driver (same driver as before) was mostly about COVID and how that impacted the island. They were so locked down they weren’t even allowed to pick up groceries or food. Those had to be delivered. And there were only certain days they were allowed outside. Fortunately, it sounds like not too many people died. For the drive back to the ship, she was allowed to take us into the terminal itself. We just had to show our cruise cards to at THREE different security checkpoints.

 

The weather had been fantastic all morning. It was only in the 70s and a little overcast, so no real threat from the sun. Right as we got back to the terminal, we did get a light drizzle, but that only lasted a few minutes. We decided to walk around and at least peek in the doors of the various shops. There was a leather store with a large selection of wallets, but my husband still couldn’t find one he liked.

 

The port area has beautiful flowers and fountains and is just a really pleasant space. I’d be curious what the Coxen Hole experience is like, versus Mohagany Bay. On the way back to the ship, we spotted a sign for a “Nature Trail” and decided to check it out. There wasn’t much to it, but it did lead to an overlook from which you could see the ship. There was a couple pretty much just parked in the spot where we would have had the best view though, so I wasn’t able to get in there and take a good picture.

 

We got back on the ship and it was barely after 10:00. We had plenty of time to wash up, change, and enjoy some vanilla mimosas at Caffe Italia, which is exactly what we did. I finished typing up my blog, since we had been rushed out the door earlier in the morning. Then I did a bit of work for my job, since yesterday was the beginning of Preview Week for our late-start Spring courses. Then we set up a game of Splendor Duel. As we were playing, I hit my mimosa with my elbow while reaching for a token and spilled it all over my laptop and phone, which were sitting on the chair next to me, and broke the glass on the floor! It was a true disaster.

 

My husband acted fast to try to save my laptop by dumping all the mimosa from it onto another chair. Once we got the laptop wiped down with some napkins, I decided to take it back to the room while the entire ship’s crew descended on the area to clean up the broken glass.

 

Once back in the room, I double-checked that the laptop seemed okay and then got to work on my phone. It was inside my phone wallet, which is just canvas, so that was soaked. I wetted a washcloth and wiped the outside of my phone and the inside of the wallet with that. My phone had a warning on it that “liquid or debris” had been detected in the USB port, so the port had been disabled. This was worrisome, of course, because the USB port is how I charge the phone. I tried to blow the liquid/debris out of the port, Nintendo cartridge style, and just had to home that it would be okay once it had dried out.

 

Back down at Caffe Italia, I was shocked to see a brand new mimosa sitting there waiting for me. I can’t believe they were willing to trust me with another one! We resumed our game and all was well after that (aside from the fact that I lost).

 

Lunch in the buffet was easy, but I didn’t really find any good meat toppings for my mac & cheese. I had to settle on chicken teriyaki, which was good but definitely doesn’t go with mac & cheese. I, of course, had a slice of pizza and some french fries as well. The fries were more thickly cut steak fries than the usual fries. They were still good though. But the star of the show was the lemon cake we had for dessert. It was really really good.

 

After lunch was nap time for me. My husband went down for his coffee but actually ended up coming back to the room to nap as well. I woke up around 3:15 and headed down for my coffee while my husband was still napping. People were starting to come back onboard at this point (all-aboard was 4:30) so Caffe Italia was starting to get crowded. I managed to get a table, but couldn’t really justify a table for four to myself, so I relented when another couple asked if they could sit there. I figured they would drink their Irish Coffees and leave, but they actually seemed to hunker and order a second round of drinks.

 

Luckily, by the time my husband joined me, someone had stolen all the chairs from the table behind us. So we dragged our two chairs from our table over to that table, making two tables for two, leaving my old table to the other couple. We played more games. I won 7 Wonders and Skip-bo and my husband won Rummy. We drank a lot of drinks. Then it was time to get ready for dinner.

 

I was excited for this dinner because one of the appetizers was frog legs, which I had never tried. We ended up alone for dinner and had a really nice long chat with our server who didn’t seem to have many people to serve this evening. All three of the tables adjacent to ours were empty. I ordered the frog legs, the Texas-style pulled pork, and the dulce de leche cake. My husband ordered the asparagus soup, the steak Dianne, and the Grandma’s chocolate cake.

 

The frog legs were delicious! The breading was good, the dijon tarter sauce was good and the frog itself was good. My mac & cheese and pulled pork was everything I had been missing at lunch. Once again, I found myself eating WAY more of a pasta dish than I should on this cruise. My dulce de leche cake was delicious and mercifully tiny, so there was no risk of me eating too much.

 

At about 6:40, the family at the table to my right finally showed up. And at some point after them, another group/family was seated at the table behind us. I have no idea why they were letting people in so late. My understanding was that the doors for the first seating closed at 6:15. In any case, we were out of there before 7:00. The other tables near us were just placing their orders.

 

After dinner, I stopped to use the restroom and we sat on one of the benches outside of the Black Crab to figure out what to do next. We ultimately decided on the casino, with the intent of my husband going to a liquor tasting in the “Mini Mall” at 7:30. We both lost money pretty quickly. I decided I was done shortly after 7:30 and texted my husband to see how the tasting was going. He was already back at the casino, having checked out the tasting and not having been interested in anything on offer.

 

We had decided earlier that we would try to go to the Golden Jazz Bar for some sort of musical performance that was happening there at 8:00. We got there early and were able to get seats near a table. The bar wasn’t busy at all and I was finally able to accomplish a drink from there! It was an Absolut Cosmo (the drink of the day) and my husband got an appletini. We stayed for the first few songs of the Pop4You Trio, I think they were called, but they weren’t really our thing and it turns out the acoustics in that venue are not good. So we decided to check out La Luna.

 

A pianist was playing at La Luna and we were able to get one of our tables for two that we like there, so we hung out for a while. La Luna is a great spot to watch the traffic to/from the theater and we really love the atmosphere there. We ended up hanging out there until 9:15 when we knew that The Groovy Band was scheduled to be playing in Black & White Lounge.

 

The Black & White Lounge was already pretty packed when we got there, despite there having been another one of those stupid kids dance things right before. Word is out about how awesome the Groovy Band is by now. Initially, we got a table over by the windows, but while my husband was in the bathroom, one of the loveseat tables opened up and I snagged it, which caused him a little confusion when he returned and didn’t know where I was.

 

Once he was back from the restroom, I went up to the bar to get us some drinks. The bar was slammed and I had to wait quite a while. Meanwhile, the band had started playing Sweet Home Chicago. They stuck with a really blues and rock set and it was AWESOME. I enjoyed every song and they were really pouring it all out. It was definitely my favorite performance of the cruise so far. We stayed until their first break, but then we had to call it a night because the clocks were moving forward again and we knew we would suffer if we stayed out too late. We went up to the buffet for some late-night snack and then it was off to bed.

 

Day's Drinks: 3x Vanilla Mimosa from Caffe Italia, Americano w/ Bailey’s from Caffe Italia, Rum & coke X2 from Caffe Italia, Alabama Slammer from Caffe Italia, Absolut Cosmo from Golden Jazz Bar, Double Bailey's Alexander from La Luna, Vodka & ginger beer from Black & White Lounge

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 20 by JamieLogical

[laudergayle]

Those sloths are so darn cute!  Who knew😊

 

 

[Essiesmom]

I’m surprised you docked at Mahogany Bay.  Better, as there is little but straw market at Coxen Hole.  Mahogany Bay is a Carnival Corp. creation.  Did you glance at the beach?  EM

[JamieLogical]

4 minutes ago, Essiesmom said:

I’m surprised you docked at Mahogany Bay.  Better, as there is little but straw market at Coxen Hole.  Mahogany Bay is a Carnival Corp. creation.  Did you glance at the beach?  EM

 

I did not go towards the beach at all 

[pamelanj]

The SLOTHS! Omg!  Monkeys and GP are cute too, of course.

 

🤣 love your DH face in monkey pics!

 

I love reading your reports. ❤️

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, pamelanj said:

The SLOTHS! Omg!  Monkeys and GP are cute too, of course.

 

🤣 love your DH face in monkey pics!

 

I love reading your reports. ❤️

 

Those sloths were pretty much my favorite thing that ever happened to me. Definitely the best $35 I ever spent!!!