Ian woke up at 4:15am and cried “I want mommy” for 10 min because he was scared.  We calmed him down and he eventually went back to sleep, but I never did.  He woke up again at 6:15am, and I knew he was up for good at that point, so I got up, got both of us dressed, and we went up to Lido for a snack to hold us over until brunch while Jason went back to sleep.  

Random side note: In order to operate the lights in the cabin, you need to insert some kind of card or piece of paper into a slot above the light switch.  That seems like a great way to guarantee you leave your sign and sail card in the cabin when you leave because the habit would be to just turn off the lights and leave.  I’m sure I would only realize I left my card in that holder the second after the door closed and locked me out.  When we got to the cabin yesterday, there was a plain white plastic card in the slot, so we just left it there all week.  I’m not sure if Nino put it there, or if it was left behind from the people in our cabin last week, but either way, it was convenient and meant we didn’t need to find something else to operate the lights.  I have had this system on prior cruises and I always wonder why they installed it.  I understand that they want the lights turned off to conserve energy on the ship, but I would hope most people would turn off their lights the normal way, using a switch, and the number of people on line at guest services for a new key card because they locked themselves out of the cabin has more of a negative effect than any energy saved, but what do I know?

Ok, back to our sea day morning…

I walked around the Lido buffet in search of something to snack on that wouldn’t be too filling and ruin our appetites for brunch.  

We settled on one pancake for each of us, and I brought it to the outside section back near the Seafood Shack at the aft pool.  It was a glorious morning, with temperatures around 60 degrees and sunny with a light breeze.  It was the perfect morning to sit outside in the fresh air and watch the ocean go by.

When we finished eating, I took Ian for a walk in his stroller and took some photos around the ship when it was mostly empty as everyone else was still asleep.  

Since we were sitting by the aft pool, let’s start with a view of the wake!

The sunrises and sunsets on this cruise were so pretty!

Midship pool looking forward:

Midship pool looking aft:

Towel hut and life jackets:

Walking around the Sports Square on Deck 12, starting on the port side walking from midship to aft, first we found the foosball table:

Across from that are the stairs leading up to the ropes course and Sky Ride:

Next, we got a great view of the newly-reattached whale tail, right behind the mini golf course:

Out in the distance, we could see the Discovery Princess.  We were both due to be in Cabo tomorrow, and we could see them off to our port side for pretty much the whole day.  Ian got a kick out of it and kept asking “Where’s the crew sip?” (I don’t think he fully grasped that he was actually ON a CRUISE SHIP lol), so we’d run outside and look for it!

Continuing aft on the sports deck, we came to the basketball court.

And then the body weight work out machines:

Does anyone know what this is for??:

Rounding the aft of the ship, we had a beautiful view over the aft pool and the wake.  I just realized the wake had a zig zag pattern to it.  I’ve never seen that happen before!

Walking forward along the starboard side of the ship, we came to another section of work out equipment.  I’m pretty sure these are supposed to be like the Gazelle Glider machines, but there were 2 teenagers each standing on one of the footplates and swinging back and forth on it.  I don’t think that is the intended purpose, but there wasn’t any staff around to tell them otherwise.

Up next, we had a view of a few more holes of the mini golf course, with billiards tables in the background, and the ropes course above us.

We then continued forward on deck 12 to the Water Works area.  I was surprised at how active and busy the water slides were on this cruise.  Maybe people flying in from Northern states with colder weather at home thought the temperatures on this cruise were appropriate for swimming, but coming from Phoenix, I thought it was too cold!

We went back inside to the forward elevators, so I’ll take a moment now to talk about the elevators on the Panorama.  I’m not sure how many ships use this system, but this was the first time I cruised with “smart” elevators.  It really wasn’t that big a deal for me because, thanks to numerous posts about it on Cruise Critic, I was prepared and knew how the system worked.  Unfortunately, as I assume happens on every cruise, most passengers did not understand the rules and that’s what led to complications.  

There are no buttons inside the elevator.

There are touch screens in the lobby of every set of elevators.  

Each elevator is labeled with a letter (so you don’t get confused between the elevator name and the deck of the ship).  On the touch screen, you press the deck you want to go to, and the system assigns you to a specific elevator.

In case someone doesn’t know how to operate the elevator, they had a huge screen with the instructions:

The problem was that people didn’t always bother to repeat the process for every member of their party.  In a way, I get it.  If you have a family of 6, it is really tedious to type in “deck 9” 6 times.  It was even annoying for us and we only had a party of 3.  That meant that sometimes the elevator doors would open to my assigned elevator, but it was crammed full of other people and no space for me, so I had to repeat the process and wait for another elevator to come.  Similarly, people in motorized scooters really need to tell the system that they are a group of 2 or even 3 people because their scooter has a much bigger footprint than 1 single person.  The same goes for people with suitcases (ie: everyone on the first and last day of the cruise!) and strollers (we always pressed the buttons 4 or 5 times when Ian was in his stroller to make sure there was enough space for us).

Another issue we encountered was that I would repeat the destination request 3 times, and it would assign 2 of us to one elevator and the third person was assigned to a different elevator.  Of course, we don’t want to split up.  That’s ridiculous!  So we just all went in whichever elevator came first (and yes, I know that made us as bad as the people who only press the button once for a larger group, but I blame the system on that one!)

It didn’t take us long to realize a very simple way they could fix all of these problems.  Lord of the elevator, I hope you are reading this!  Listen carefully to my genius plan!!  Why can’t the touch screen first ask you to enter how many people are in your party, and then prompt you to select your destination deck?  Yes, that means when someone is taking the elevator alone, they have 1 extra button press to say they are a party of 1, but the vast majority of people using the elevators have at least 2 people in their party, if not more, so this would save button presses for all of those people.  It would also eliminate the issue of groups being split up between multiple elevators because it would know to assign you to an elevator with enough space for your group (unless you had a group of 18+ people which exceeds the elevator capacity… but does that ever really happen?!)  And obviously, it would eliminate the issue of people only pressing the button once for a group of 6 (or however many people) because you have to tell them the number of people in your group first, before selecting your destination deck.  But hey, what do I know?!

**end elevator rant**

I pressed the elevator button 3 times so Ian, his stroller, and myself could get down to deck 5 to continue our ship tour.  We exited into the atrium and spotted a beautiful floral design on the funnel.

Next, we saw the library.  I didn’t realize that newer ships still had libraries.  I would have thought a ship built in 2019 would make different use of that space in a world of Kindles and digital books.  I really liked the decor in here, and the ceiling was so pretty!  Apparently there is also a bar inside, but I never went by when it was opened to check it out.

There was a cute gingerbread display in the hallway.  I assume it was there for the whole Christmas week cruise, and it was also there for all of our cruise, so I was impressed that it was durable enough to still look good after 2 cruises.  I also assume that it was taken down (along with the other Christmas decorations) on our disembarkation day.

We went down to deck 4 for a quick view of the casino.  In general, I avoided walking through the casino as much as possible because it was always very smoky, but I thought we’d be safe to take a peek now as it was only 8am and it was mostly empty.

We took the forward elevators back up to deck 5 to sneak a peek at the Liquid Lounge.  It was set up for a presentation or a show, but I think they also clear out all the chairs from downstairs at night to set it up like a nightclub.  I have never personally seen it set up like a night club because that is waaaay past my bedtime.

Outside the deck 5 entrance to the theater, there is a display case showing all of the Panorama’s awards and accolades.  I love that every cruise ship has something like this and I always find it fun to check it out as it shows some of the history of the ship.

Just beyond the display case is a set of doors leading outside to the Lanai.  

This was one of my favorite parts of the ship.  Nearly the whole length of the ship on both the port and starboard sides, there is an open deck with nice padded loungers, dining tables, big round sunbeds, access to some of the specialty dining restaurants, and more.  The far forward section is blocked off for the crew members’ outdoor access, and the far aft section is reserved for passengers staying in the Havana cabins.  There is also a smoking section on the forward starboard side.  I love that deck 5 is always peaceful and relaxing, with no loud music or activities like on the Lido deck.  I also love that it is closer to the water level so we had a beautiful view of the ocean.  Sometimes it is so easy to forget that we are on a ship and not just a land-based resort, so it’s nice to spend some time with direct ocean views.

Since the deck extends out further than the balconies, you get a good view of the balcony cabins from here.  Of course, that means that when you are on your own balcony, it is never fully private as someone can possibly see you if they are looking up from deck 5.  Buyer beware!

Something to keep in mind when selecting your cabin on this ship:  I personally would never want a cabin on deck 9 midship where you are directly below the Lido pool, but there is one very slight advantage (at least for me).  If you look closely, you can see in the photo below that part of the upper deck extends out further than the balconies.  That bump out is from Lido deck, so the cabins below it on deck 9 have an extended roof above them, likely providing more shade than a standard balcony.  For me, that is a plus since I usually hide from the sun (as much as I love sunshine and sunny days, the sun does not love me and my fair skin!)  If you prefer more sun on your balcony and you pick a deck 9 cabin, make sure you are further forward than where this bump out begins, somewhere midway between the forward and midship elevators).

Continuing on our tour of the deck 5 lanai, we found the Guy’s Pig and Anchor BBQ Smokehouse.  There was an indoor and outdoor part to this specialty dining venue.  The outdoor area was open from noon until 2:30pm on sea days, including embarkation day.  The food is free and served buffet style with staff behind the counter dishing out whatever you ask for.  Many people think this is a great place to go right after boarding the ship because it is less crowded than Lido, but as you already saw, our embarkation day was far from ordinary and we opted to hold off on eating here until the final sea day.  More about that later, but for now, here are some photos of the outdoor section when it was closed this morning.

Just aft of the Smokehouse, the deck is blocked off for Havana access.  There is a large revolving door to get back inside, so we entered into the Ocean Plaza.  There were always activities happening here throughout the day, from trivia to dance classes to kids club activities, and in the evening, there was usually some kind of live music and dancing.

Just forward of that was the Java Blue Cafe and Shake Spot.  This was the one place that was busy as I walked by at 8:10am (no surprise there), so I didn’t want to take a photo at that moment, and I forgot to return later in the day.

Up next, we came to the indoor section of the Pig and Anchor Brewhouse.  This place was always busy whenever we walked by from midday through the evening.  They often had live music performances, and there was also a tour of the brewery offered several times this week.  We have taken brewery tours before, and while we considered it on this cruise, it just never fit into our schedule.  While the outdoor buffet part of the smokehouse is free, the indoor restaurant has a separate menu for a charge per item.

The last stop on our tour was at the Pixels gallery.  I have never seen so many screens to view your photos on any other ship.  There were about 20 of them on bar height tables, plus at least 10 along the banquette seating along the windows in this area.  You can also view your photos in the Hub app, so I don’t know why it was necessary to have this many screens at the Pixels Gallery, and there were rarely more than a handful of people using them as we walked by throughout the week.

It was now 8:15am.  When I left Jason in the cabin an hour earlier, we agreed to meet downstairs on deck 3 aft for Sea Day Brunch when it opened at 8:30am.  Before I walked too far forward on the ship, I decided to turn back and take the elevators down to deck 3 and wait for the dining room to open.  When I got down there, two of the waitresses were in the elevator lobby with tablets to take reservation requests.  The app doesn’t let you request a table until when the doors open at 8:30am, so this gave us a head start before the mad rush.  I told her our cabin number, and after she put in the request, I got an alert through the app on my phone that our table was requested and it would notify me when our table was ready.

Three minutes later, my phone buzzed again and our table was ready.  That was fast!

I clicked the “On My Way” button (even though I was already there), and the screen changed to indicate that they would hold my table for 10 minutes.

Just then, Jason met us outside the MDR.  Good timing!  While we waited, we talked about it being convenient to be able to text each other when we split up on the ship.  Pre-Ian, we usually made it work without being able to communicate when we went in different directions, but with Ian, we realized we needed to be able to reach each other.  We didn’t pay for the wifi package on the ship, and Jason uses an android phone so we couldn’t text over iMessage even if we did have the wifi package.  We decided to buy the chat feature through the Hub app at $5 per person for the whole cruise.  Since I’m talking about it now, I’ll just say that we have mixed reviews about the chat feature.  If your screen was off, you didn’t get an alert of a new message, so half the time he didn’t see my messages.  If you had your screen on and you were actively using the app when a message came in, it did alert you… sometimes.  We still found that we missed messages or that the messages never went through.  When it worked, it was convenient to have, but unfortunately it wasn’t reliable and didn’t work 100% of the time, so that was annoying.  I guess it had enough value to be worth $5 per person for the whole cruise, but still, when you pay for a service, you expect to get what you paid for.

Ok, back to brunch… The MDR doors opened at 8:26am, and we were immediately escorted to our assigned table.  We asked them to bring a high chair for Ian, which was done promptly.  It was nice to be assigned to a table by the window with such a beautiful view.  We wished we could have a table like this for dinner!

Just like at dinner, the menu is available in the app, but they will bring a paper menu upon request.

This menu was new to us since our last cruise in 2019, so I was excited to try some of the new dishes.  I ordered the bagel with lox, the skillet cake, and the 12-hour french toast (I’ll take carbs with a side of carbs, please!).  The bagel came out right away, which was convenient because then I could feed Ian ASAP.  He got the plain bagel, and I smeared the cream cheese on the lox and made a little roll-up for an appetizer.

It took 20 minutes for our hot food to come.  The french toast was very good, although it was similar to what they serve in the Lido buffet.  I’m not sure if 12 hours made any difference versus 1 hour, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The skillet cake was the real star of the show!  It was a thick and fluffy pancake, topped with whipped ricotta and guava preserve, with marshmallows and maple butter on the side.  It was soooo good.  Definitely the highlight of the meal for me!

We skipped dessert, and took Ian upstairs to Camp Ocean for the open play time in Dr. Seuss Bookville.  This room was outside of the regular camp rooms, and was basically open all day/evening for parents to play with their children.  This was the only option for kids under age 2 who were too young to enroll in Camp Ocean, so most of the toys were for babies.  

There was a huge wall filled with multiple copies of every Dr. Seuss book.

Ian ran right in, grabbed a xylophone, and started to play.  He felt right at home!

We had about 20 minutes to play with him there until Camp Ocean officially opened for the day at 10am.  The drop off process took a really long time.  One of us should have waited in line while the other played with Ian in Bookville, but we didn’t realize a huge line had formed out by the elevators until it was too late and we had a bunch of families ahead of us.  It was finally our turn to approach the desk at 10:20am.  They made sure we had our Bat Phone and that Ian was wearing his name tag, they took our bag of diapers and wipes, they opened the gate and told Ian to come in, and that was that!  We didn’t realize he would be swept away so abruptly so we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.  At daycare drop off, we have a routine to say goodbye, sort of like Ian’s version of a secret handshake.  We give him a big hug, then 3 kisses (one on each cheek and one on the lips), and then a high five.  Then we reassure him that “Mommies/Daddies always come back” (something his teacher said to reassure kids with separation anxiety at the start of the school year, and it seemed to stick so now all the kids in his daycare class say it to the teacher instead of the teacher saying it to them!).  None of that happened today at camp drop off and we were afraid it would backfire, but we just went with the flow and trusted the counselors knew what they were doing.

We knew we wanted to try the Sky Ride and Ropes Course, and that we needed to do it while Ian was at camp because he is obviously way too young to participate in those activities.  We went straight up to the entrance, which was right above us at deck 12 midship.  The line for the Sky Ride was pretty short so we decided to start there.  They have little signs along the way to tell you how long the wait is from that spot.  We were lined up to the 15 minutes sign.

It actually ended up taking closer to 30 minutes to reach the front of the line.  There was a man around 70 years old who got stuck and stopped pedaling.  Each track has 2 cars- 1 that is out on the track doing the course, and the other that is being unloaded and reloaded with the next rider.  The staff had to get into one of the 2nd cars to come up behind the man who got stuck, and then gently push him the rest of the way around the track.  It was actually interesting to see what they did when someone can’t finish the course on their own.  

When the people before us got called on to the scale, the Bat Phone rang.  Uh oh!  Camp Ocean was calling to say that Ian was upset and crying for me.  I knew that abrupt drop off would backfire!  He was in a strange place and he didn’t get the reassurances that he is used to when we leave him in childcare.  I told them to give him cars and trucks to play with because he is currently obsessed with anything with wheels.  I said we were about to get on the Sky Ride and that we would be down to get Ian in 10 minutes.  They said they would call back if needed. 

When it was our turn, they asked each of us to stand on a scale.  It had a big light on top that turned green to indicate we were under the 250 pounds max weight limit (and I assume if we were over that weight, the light would have turned red).  We assumed they ask everyone to get on the scale, even if they are obviously under the limit (like the super skinny teenager who went on the ride right before us), so that way they don’t insult anyone by picking them out to get on the scale.  Don’t worry though, the scale does not give a read out of your weight.  It just lights up green or red.

Next, they asked us to put any belongings into a basket.  I was hoping to take a photo while on the ride.  My phone has a wrist strap that I can secure around my wrist so if I dropped it, it would just dangle from 3 inches down from my wrist and there was no risk of it falling to a deck below or into the ocean.  But nope, no phones or cameras or water bottles or purses or anything else was allowed on the ride.  My general philosophy on cruises is “photo or it didn’t happen” so that was a bummer.  No worries though, there are 2 cameras on the course to take your photos as you are pedaling.  I made sure to find them before I started the course so I would know where and when to look up and smile.  

Jason let me pick which bike I wanted so I opted for the one on the inside.  Biiiig mistake!  The staff helped me slide the seat forward enough that my feet could reach the pedals, then they counted us down and said “Go!”  Within the first few seconds on the track, I had to pedal uphill and it was a lot harder than I expected.  Jason’s track started with a gradual downhill slant, so I wished I was on that bike.  Mid-pedaling, I looked up at the camera to smile.  I didn’t see a flash go off, which was weird because usually on roller coasters at amusement parks, there is a flash for the cameras during the ride.  Odd, but I couldn’t focus too much on it because I had lots of pedaling to do.  Then, my nerves kicked in.  I never really thought that I had a fear of heights, but I guess it’s been a few years since I have done something thrilling like this and fears have developed with age.  I kept telling myself over and over that I would be fine, I wouldn’t fall off, thousands of other passengers have done this ride before me and no one died, everything would be okay.  I tried to look out and enjoy the views, but really I just spent the whole time focusing, pedaling, and breathing.  After I curved around the aft of the ship, there was a steep drop where I really picked up speed.  I think had I started with a downhill drop at the beginning of my course, that would have given me momentum and the uphill climb at the end would have been easier.  Jason kept stopping and waiting for me to catch up, so we pedaled side by side for the last part of the course.  Just a little bit before the finish, there was a second camera, so I paused to fix my hair and smile.  Again, no flash from the camera.  And that was it.  We returned to the starting platform, the staff helped remove the harness, and we got off the ride.  Jason said we should do it again later in the cruise and I could start on the outside bike, but I said no way was I ever doing that again!  It was definitely more thrill than I could handle and once was enough for me!  Later in the day, and several times through the rest of the cruise, I checked the Hub app to see my photos from the Sky Ride, but nothing ever appeared.  I was actually most annoyed about that.  Obviously those cameras weren’t working, and surely the staff knew that.  If that was the case, I wish they would have taken a photo of me sitting in the bike at the start line so at least there would be some proof that I did it, but nope!  So now you will just have to trust me when I say I gave it a try, but one and done!

We ran back down the flight of stairs to pick up Ian from Camp Ocean, and sure enough, he was happy and playing with cars and had no memory of being upset or crying a few minutes earlier.  I know my kid so well!  We signed him out of camp because it was almost time for the Noon Years Eve party in the atrium.  This was a “family event” as the counselors put it, which meant that they would not take the kids at camp down to the event and they expected parents to get their kids and bring them down.  

When we got down to the atrium, we could see the funnel looked like a starry night sky.  The event had a space and astronauts theme.

There was a table set up where parents could pick up some crafts for the kids, so we got our goodies and found a spot to sit down.  Ian doesn’t really like coloring, but he liked putting the stickers on the paper.

The entertainment staff did a good job hosting the event.  They played Simon Says and Musical Chairs with the older kids, but Ian just hung out with us.  

They handed out sparkling cider, and did a count down at noon.  I was expecting balloons or confetti or something to fall down from deck 5, but that didn’t happen.  Nonetheless, it was a nice way to let the kids enjoy some of the New Year’s Eve fun without staying up past their bedtimes.  I don’t remember Noon Year’s Eve being a ‘thing’ when I was a kid, so as a parent now, I appreciate it.

The event was over by 12:05, so we went up to the deli for lunch.  Luckily, it wasn’t crowded at all.  I got a meatball sandwich, and it was as delicious as I remember from my 2019 cruise.  Ian even ate half my sandwich!

Camp Ocean hosted the Dr. Seuss parade at 1pm.  That seemed like weird timing as that is the time that most little kids take their naps.  Going on the cruise, this was one of the top things that I definitely wanted to do with Ian.  Starting a few weeks before the cruise, we read him lots of Dr. Seuss books at bedtime.  I wanted him to recognize the characters and be excited to meet them, so we read those books over and over until he knew their names.  It wasn’t ideal that the parade was at nap time, but there was no way we were missing it, so we just crossed our fingers that Ian would adapt and not have a meltdown from being overtired.   

The parade started in Ocean Plaza.  First, they gathered all the kids on the dance floor and started getting them hyped up.  They taught them how to march together, and they taught them a little chant: Dr. Seuss is on the loose!  To this day, Ian sometimes randomly says the chant and it is so cute!  Next, they told the kids to line up and march in a circle around the dance floor.  As they passed the stage, the kids could pick up a bell and streamers to hold during the parade.

At daycare, Ian doesn’t usually participate when the other kids are jumping and dancing around.  He is more reserved and has always been more of an observer than a doer, so I wasn’t sure how he would respond to such a festive event.  He impressed me so much and made me so proud as he really embraced it and was having so much fun!  Just look at that smile!!

Once all the kids had their supplies, Deon came out to introduce all the characters.

First up was Thing 1 and Thing 2:

Then came Sam I am:

I expected to see The Cat in the Hat, but he wasn’t there.  Deon led the parade, followed by the 3 characters and then all the kids and their parents.  We marched through the ship from deck 5 aft at Ocean Plaza, all the way through the promenade.  Ian LOVED it!  He had so much fun ringing his bell, shaking his streamers, and running through the halls of the ship (poor kid has such short legs that he had to run to keep up with the big kids who were marching haha).

Even the funnel in the atrium had a fun Dr. Seuss theme!

I can only imagine what the other people on the ship thought.  Not everyone has kids in Camp Ocean, so I am sure many of them had no idea about this parade, but there’s no way they missed now because it was sooo loud!  Those were some excited kids!  The parade continued down the atrium stairs to deck 4, and into the Liquid Lounge forward for story time.

They reintroduced all the characters, and then announced that a special guest was on his way…

The Cat in the Hat arrived!

Ian was thrilled!!  He was so excited to see all these characters from his books at home, right there in front of him.  

For story time, the team from Camp Ocean dressed up and acted out the book “Read Horton Hears a Who.”  They had so much energy and did a great job of keeping the kids excited, entertained, and getting the kids involved with yelling out different lines in the book and animal sounds.  This was definitely worthwhile as Ian had a blast, and it was totally worth postponing nap time so he could attend.

Story time ended at 1:45pm, so the whole thing took 45 minutes (including the parts before the parade).  We went straight back to the cabin for Ian’s nap.

I took this photo 30 minutes later.  Does this look like a child who wants to take a nap…

Unfortunately, Ian refused to nap. He kept singing songs and saying “It’s not nap time. It’s wake up time.”  In an attempt to give him some alone time so that maybe he would settle down, I sat outside on the balcony for a bit.  It was a beautiful afternoon, with sunny skies and temps had warmed up to the low 70’s.  

Looking forward:

Looking aft:

Actually, that photo shows a good view of the bump out from the Lido buffet which gives extra shade to some of the deck 9 balconies.

By 3pm, it was obvious that Ian was never going to fall asleep for his nap.  I think all of the excitement from the morning had a big impact on him, and now he was having some FOMO and he didn’t want to fall asleep and miss out on the cruise ship fun.  We knew this had the potential for disaster.  I can only think of a handful of days in the last 2.5 years when Ian didn’t take a nap, and none of them were good days.  This was New Year’s Eve and Jason and I were hoping to leave Ian at Camp Ocean for Night Owls so we could enjoy the festivities, but without his nap, that left our evening plans in jeopardy.

I took a shower, and while I was drying my hair, Jason took his shower.  At home, Ian has only ever taken a bath.  When we booked the cruise, we knew there wouldn’t be a bathtub in the cabin so we tried to give him a shower, but he hated it.  I think he was afraid of the water coming from the handheld shower head.  I bought a mini swimming pool to bring on the ship and planned to blow it up to use as a bathtub.  The shower has a curtain so this was the only reason I was happy to not have glass doors because we would have space for the swimming pool.  Maybe it was the new environment, but when Jason went to shower, Ian said “I come!” and he let Jason give him a shower.  That was a pleasant surprise and definitely made things more convenient!  

When Nino cleaned our cabin that morning, he left us a New Year’s Eve themed top hat and headband.  I thought it was a nice touch that it featured the Carnival whale tail.

There was nothing for Ian to wear but that was okay because we brought our own hats from home, not knowing something would be provided.  In the end, it turned out that Ian took Jason’s top hat and wouldn’t wear the hat I brought for him… toddlers! **eye roll**

We finished getting dressed for the evening and went down to the atrium around 4:30pm to take some professional photos.  With Ian being so resistant to taking photos on my phone, I thought maybe the professional photographers would get him out of his shell.  We went to the only backdrop that was set up because we were definitely there very early.  The photographer really tried to get Ian to smile, but he just wasn’t having it.  He kept trying to run away and was starting to cry.  Okay, let’s pivot and try asking a fellow passenger to take our photo.  This lady was so sweet and understanding.  She just kept snapping photos in hopes that she’d capture one useable picture.  Her techniques worked!  Ian never smiled, but at least she got a few pictures of him looking at the camera, so I guess that’s the best we could hope for!

Hoping to snap Ian out of his mood, we let him walk around the atrium.  He still wouldn’t smile, and he looked pretty miserable, but at least he wasn’t crying.

A second backdrop station opened up so we went over there to try again with the professional photographer.   Ian was still being uncooperative so we coaxed him over to sit in a chair to the side, and Jason and I took a few photos of just the 2 of us.  When I saw them in the Hub app, I could see the stress in our faces and it just wasn’t worth purchasing.  

Here is our over-tired toddler, waiting for us to finish taking photos…

Ian was just so tired and being very uncooperative, trying to run away from us and throwing himself on the floor crying.  He never usually throws tantrums so we knew it was because he was tired.  That skipped nap was really hitting hard!  We were counting the minutes for the dining room to open, and we went straight to our new table as soon as the doors opened at 5:30pm.  We saw Raf right when we got to the table and asked how fast we could get chicken nuggets for Ian because he was screaming that he was hungry.  Raf called over to his assistant Eva and told her to run down and get the nuggets right away.  It was so nice of them to take care of us like that and Eva returned with the nuggets in a few minutes.  Ian inhaled his food extremely fast, so he was definitely hungry!  Before our appetizers arrived, Ian’s eyes were drooping and his head was bobbing.  It wasn’t long before he fell asleep on the high chair tray!

At least with Ian napping at the table, Jason and I could enjoy our meal.  The night of the first sea day is always a formal night, but they also had a special menu specifically for New Year’s Eve.  None of those options appealed to me so I just ordered off the regular formal night menu.

  For my appetizers, I ordered the lobster bisque and the spiced pork poppers.  The lobster bisque was tasty, but it wasn’t exactly what I expected.  It didn’t have any pieces of lobster meat in it, but that didn’t really surprise me.  I was expecting a cream base but it was more like a tomato base, like Manhattan clam chowder instead of New England style.  It tasted lobster-y and was served nice and hot, so I enjoyed it even though it was different than I was expecting.

The spiced pork poppers were a miss for me.  Usually when pork is paired with apples, it is a sweet dish.  In fact, Carnival used to serve a similar pork chop dish on the old menu they had available every night in the MDR.  This appetizer really should have been called SPICY pork poppers, not SPICED.  They definitely had a kick to them and I wasn’t expecting that, so I only took one bite and I was done.

I ordered 2 entrees tonight.  The filet mignon was excellent!  It was cooked perfectly- rare as I ordered it.

I also ordered the pappardelle, and this was another dish tonight that was served differently from what I was expecting.  The description said “butternut squash, portobello ragu, pine nuts, pecorino,” so I was expecting a mushroom sauce because of the “ragu,” or maybe possibly a butternut squash puree sauce.  This dish was served with an alfredo cream sauce, with diced pieces of squash and slices of whole mushrooms.  It was delicious, but very different from what I expected.

Ian woke up before dessert came and he wouldn’t stop crying.  We decided we needed to get Ian out of the MDR as he was likely bothering the tables around us.  Raf saw us getting up to leave and we explained we would need to skip dessert to take Ian back to the cabin.  Raf suggested he get our dessert to go and we could take it back to the cabin, which was so nice of him.  Jason took Ian back to the cabin, and I waited a few minutes for Raf to bring our desserts with lids over the plates.

Sometimes when Ian wakes up from a nap, he is cranky and he needs some time to snap out of it.  Tonight, he was at a whole different level!  He was hysterically crying, angry, refused to have a diaper change, and would not go to bed for an hour.  It was miserable.  Our original plan was to drop him off at camp and go see the 7:30pm production show Soulbound in the main theater.  That plan was out the window.  It was after 8pm by the time Ian finally calmed down.  We considered taking him to camp at that point because he was wide awake (thanks to his power nap through dinner), but we decided to just put him to bed and hopefully he would get a good night of sleep.  Of course, Ian had other plans!  He wouldn’t settle down and he was having so much fun running around the cabin and playing with the NYE top hat. 

While Ian burned off some energy, I packed up the bags for tomorrow in Cabo and Jason and I took turns getting ready for bed.  Ian finally fell asleep at 9:30pm.  We were about to go to sleep when we remembered we still had our desserts from dinner!  I got the Triple Chocolate dessert.  I’m not really sure what it was supposed to look like on the plate, and what was going on with the colorful frosting.  By the time it got back to the cabin and sat on our counter for 2 hours, it looked very messy, but I don’t know if that’s what it was meant to look like.  Either way, it was delicious!

We went to sleep right after that.  This meant that we did not get to enjoy any of the NYE festivities on the ship.  I was very disappointed at how tonight went.  I have never been on a cruise ship for NYE before, and I was really excited for the big deck party at midnight.  Had the calendar worked out that NYE fell towards the end of the cruise, I think things would have played out differently.  With this being our first full day, Ian was still adjusting to life on the ship and to the drastic change in his routine.  We knew that cruising with a toddler would be very different from when we used to cruise as just a couple, and this was one of those moments.  I think this was the first time I ever missed a production show on a cruise, but I know for sure that it was definitely not the first time I’ve fallen asleep before midnight on NYE!

Up next: Cabo San Lucas!