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Carnival Sunshine ~ Day 1: Fly to Venice

September 7, 2013 deladane Leave a comment

September 6, 2013

Ok, folks… Sit back, relax, and enjoy the overly detailed and photo-filled review of 17 amazing days in Europe!

The journey began on Friday, September 6. Mom and I finished our packing and went for manicures that afternoon, then my dad drove us to the Delta International Terminal at JFK airport. We used curbside check in to drop off our big suitcases (whew! we were barely under the 50lbs per bag limit!), and made our way through the short line at security. Mom bought passes to the first class lounge, so we spent about an hour and a half in there enjoying some cocktails and snacks.

We got to our gate at the time they told us boarding should be starting, only to find out that our plane had not yet arrived. We were disappointed that we could have spent more time enjoying the first class lounge, but the plane arrived eventually. We couldn’t afford first class seats with the fancy chairs that fold down flat like a bed, so we settled for upgrading to the “economy comfort” seats which gave us a few extra inches of leg room, priority boarding, and power outlets. The individual TVs were great as they allowed you to select whatever movie you wanted to watch. I had a bit of an Anne Hathaway marathon as I watched Les Miserables and the Devil Wears Prada. They gave us pillows and blankets, and they served complimentary wine and beer along with the standard beverage service. They also served 2 meals during the flight- dinner options were pasta, chicken, or a salad, and the breakfast was a veggie egg McMuffin.

Dinner:

Breakfast:

The flight was fairly uneventful. Even though we took off an hour late, we still landed on time. We even had a great view of flying over the Alps!!

Flight Map:

Once we got to Venice, we had the best view of all… If you look very closely at the far end of the Grand Canal in this photo, you can see the Carnival Sunshine as she sailed into port on Saturday morning (as the previous cruise docked in Venice overnight on Saturday prior to us boarding on Sunday). It was amazing timing that our flight landed as our ship came into the port! I realize it is hard to tell from this photo, but as she sailed closer into view, I was so mesmerized and excited that I forgot to keep taking photos!

Once we got off the plane, went through customs, and retrieved our suitcases, it was time to search for our car driver. We pre-booked with Sun Transfers based on their good recommendations on Cruise Critic. Unfortunately, it took us 45 minutes of frantic searching through all the signs to finally find our driver holding up a sign with our name on it! Had we not prepaid with our credit card, we probably would have given up and just taken as taxi haha When we got to his car, he told us that our bags were too big and we should have ordered a bigger car. This was very confusing to us, as we told them in our reservations that we each had one checked bag and one carry on bag (plus a backpack which went in our laps). He managed to fit the two big bags and one carry on into his trunk, and the other carry on bag sat in the front seat for the 15 minute drive into Mestre.

We used credit card points to book a room at the Hotel Plaza in Mestre. We decided that since we were only staying in the hotel for one night before the cruise, it was much more convenient to stay in Mestre so we could take a car from the airport to the hotel, and then another car from the hotel to the cruise port on Sunday morning. The idea of lugging two wheeled suitcases over all the bridges and on and off the boats in Venice was less than ideal! Hotel Plaza had many positive reviews both on Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor, and it lived up to those reviews in every way. The hotel was clean and modern, and conveniently located directly across the street from the train station to get into Venice. The one downside was that our AC did not work very well, but they promptly sent up a maintenance man to fix the problem. Here are a few photos of the hotel room:

After we unpacked and freshened up a bit (and I changed into shorts, as evidenced by my jeans laying on the bed in that photo haha), we set out to explore Murano and Burano. We knew it was important to do some sightseeing that afternoon so we wouldn’t give in to the jetlag and throw off our sleep schedule, but we didn’t want to do something as hectic as walking around St. Mark’s Square. A nice long vaporetto ride across the lagoon and a leisurely stroll through Murano and Burano was just what we needed.

We bought our tickets for the train from the vendor on the platform (1.20 Euros per person, each way). The trains run every 10-15 minutes from 5:15am until 11:45pm, and the ride takes about 10 minutes to get from Mestre to Venice. Before boarding the train, be sure to validate your ticket in one of the yellow stamping machines in the station. Listen for a “thunk” and check to see that your ticket was stamped. Here is a photo from inside the train… notice how we were basically the only people on the train!

We were beyond starving by this point since it was nearly 2pm and we barely ate anything all day, so we bought prosciutto and cheese sandwiches from the store in the train station, and ate as we walked to the vaporetto stop. I pre-purchased 48-hour unlimited ride vaporetto tickets online for 30 Euro each, so I used the vending machine to type in my confirmation number and retrieve the actual tickets. We had to validate the cards each time we used the vaporetto by scanning them at the little machines outside each vaporetto stop. I am pretty sure the pass paid for itself in just our first afternoon as we rode it several times that day, and each ride is 7 Euro if you pay for the rides individually.

The vaporetto stops can be somewhat confusing. There are multiple floating docks at the stop location, and two or three vaporetto routes stop at each dock so you need to look for the numbers on top of the waiting area shelter to see which routes stop there. We intended to take the route that goes directly to Murano express with very few stops, but somehow ended up on the local route instead. No worries though- it got us to Murano eventually! Unfortunately, I never took a good photo of the vaporetto stops, but here is a photo I took while standing on the dock…

We got off the vaporetto at the Museo stop, and wondered along the canals back to the Faro stop. There are lots of cute little shops along the canals, and it was a lot of fun to look in all the window displays at the glass figurines.

One of the souvenirs I most wanted was some glass candy from Murano, so I bought a glass bowl and some glass candy to put in it. I collect postcards from everywhere I go, so I bought a postcard here too. We found our way back to the Faro vaporetto stop and waited for the #12 route to Burano. You can easily find the Faro stop because this tall tower is visible all over Murano:

This is the view looking back towards Murano as we floated away…

It took surprisingly long to get to Burano, maybe 45 minutes or so. Notice how the clock tower in the distance is leaning?

We got off the vaporetto at the Mazzorbo stop. The man operating the vaporetto said we should go towards the left to walk to the bridge to Burano. Along the way, we passed a small park small garden park which had a public bathroom. We continued along the path along the water until we saw the bridge, and we ended up near the Burano vaporetto stop. We crossed the bridge into Burano and walked through the narrow streets behind the houses until we found the water canal leading to the clock tower and the shops in town. Burano was very quaint, and I thought it was worth the trip. All the houses are painted in different bright colors and they reflected beautifully off the water.

We ate dinner at one of the restaurants in the main square near the clock tower. I had my first of many pizzas in Italy- this time with mushrooms, artichokes, and prosciutto on top! Mom had the fried calamari, and both dishes were great.

After dinner, we walked back to the Burano vaporetto stop and barely missed the boat. We had to wait 30 minutes for the next boat to arrive, and it took us 2.5 hours to get from Burano all the way back to our hotel in Mestre. At least we had a beautiful view of the sunset during our ride!

It was a long day and we were exhausted by the time we got back. We went to sleep with excited anticipation for boarding the Carnival Sunshine the following morning!

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Carnival Sunshine 12-Night Mediterranean Cruise ~ Introduction

September 4, 2013 deladane Leave a comment

I just returned home from 17 fabulous days in Europe, and I wanted to take the time to share my experiences with all of you. Every night of the trip, I jotted down a few notes of what we did each day, so I plan to write that up as a journal style review, and I will include tons of photos along the way! But first, a little background info…

I am 31 and have cruised 3 times before (twice on Carnival, once on Celebrity- see my prior blog postings for details on those sailings) I started planning this cruise in December after returning home from my last cruise. I have always wanted to go to Italy, and I love cruising, so I decided to combine the two and take a Mediterranean cruise. I looked at the itineraries on several cruise lines, but found there was no deal as great as this itinerary. It was a 12-night cruise (which I liked because I wanted to make it worth spending over $1000 on airfare), and it started and ended in different ports (which was great because I could have a few extra days to explore those 2 cities). I also liked that it would be on a newly renovated ship, but several months after the inaugural cruise so all the kinks should be worked out. Here is the itinerary for the cruise: Venice, Dubrovnik, Athens, Izmir, Sicily, Naples, Rome, Florence, Marseille, and Barcelona.

The day before I planned to book the cruise, I called my mom to tell her about my plans. She has never been on a cruise before because my dad gets sea sick, so she invited herself to join me. The next day, we called Carnival and booked an inside cabin midship on deck 7. I was happy with that location, knowing the benefits of a centrally-located cabin 2 decks below Lido, 2-3 decks above the nightlife entertainment, and sandwiched between 2 cabin decks, but mom really wanted a window. We agreed to watch the prices and if an oceanview cabin became the same price as our inside cabin, we would switch. We booked early saver, and I checked for price drops nearly every day. That was in the last week of January.

Then the Triumph incident happened! While that was an unfortunate situation, and I felt badly for the passengers involved and all of the people who had to change their vacation plans during the repairs, I was thrilled at what it did for our cruise fare! By the end of March, we got $800 back off the original cruise price! Thank goodness we booked early saver!!

Around the same time, Carnival decided to extend the original 7-week dry dock transformation of the Destiny into the Sunshine in order to make more thorough upgrades to the ship’s mechanics. This meant canceling Sunshine’s first 2 sailings. I had originally joined the roll call for my sailing back in January, and up until this point, it was fairly quiet and had very few participants. We were still over a half a year away from our cruise, and were just starting to plan excursions. When the Sunshine cruises were cancelled, many of them decided to change to our sailing. All of a sudden, we had an extremely active roll call! These “Sunshine Castaways” as they called themselves were at a very different phase of their planning as they had already booked all of their excursions, and were ready to fly to Europe in 3 weeks. When they rebooked onto the September sailing, they needed to find new groups for their tours, so this was when I was able to set up my own tours.

I never take ship tours as I think they cost more money, see fewer sites, and are more crowded then the private tours. Instead, I prefer to research each port and find a private excursion company. I used Cruise Critic to find people to join me on each tour. I will go into the details of each tour when I get to the daily trip journal part of this review, but I will just briefly mention that I organized 3 tours with Rome in Limo for Naples, Rome, and Florence, and we joined tours organized by other roll call members for Athens, Izmir, and Messina. We decided to do Venice, Dubrovnik, Marseilles, and Barcelona on our own without formal tours.

We booked direct flights on Delta from JFK to Venice and home from Barcelona, and we upgraded to the economy comfort seats because we wanted a little more leg room and a power outlet. I guess that’s it for the planning phase. Before I get in to the day-to-day trip journal part of this review, I wanted to mention a few things about the cruise…

Itinerary– We definitely booked this cruise because of all the amazing ports it visits. Yes, it was a hectic, tiring 12 days, but it was an incredible experience to spend a few hours in each of these ports. The cruise started in Venice on a Sunday morning, but we didn’t sail away until Monday afternoon, so that gave us a chance to enjoy a dinner and evening in Venice (plus, we flew in a day early so we ended up with 3 half days to explore this port!) Then, after 12 days in Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Italy, and France, we ended the cruise in Barcelona, where we stayed for 3 nights in a hotel, giving us tons of time to enjoy this fabulous city. I guess the only slight flaw in the itinerary is that our 2 sea days were both within the first week of the cruise, leaving us with 5 very hectic port days in a row at the end of the cruise (followed by 3 days of touring in Barcelona), so I would have appreciated it if one of those two sea days was later in the second half of the cruise, but that’s really just a tiny flaw in an overall amazing itinerary!

Embarkation process in Venice– This went very smoothly. We arrived at the cruise terminal by 10:15am, checked in by 10:45am, and were on the ship by 11am! We did have to put our carry on bags through the x-ray machine (they actually made us do that every time we got back on the ship in Venice- Sunday morning during embarkation, Sunday night when we returned from exploring the city all day, and Monday afternoon before sail away), but no one seemed to care what we brought with us. We did not have a chance to stop at a grocery store for wine or liquor, but I doubt it would have been a problem if we did try to carry that on with us 😉

Cabin– We were in cabin 7192, which was midway between the forward and mid-ship elevators. The halls were generally quiet, and the location was very convenient to get to the other areas of the ship. The cabin had more than enough storage space, with 3 small dresser drawers, a cabinet with 2 shelves, and 3 closets to hang clothes. We also took advantage of the 2 shelves on either side of the mirror in the bathroom to store all our toiletries. There were two single plug American outlets (one below the vanity mirror and one behind the TV set) and 1 European outlet (which is where they plugged in our mini-fridge so we didn’t have access to it). Since we were one of the first people to board the ship, we went straight to Guest Services and requested a mini-fridge for my mom’s medicines. It was waiting for us when we got back to the cabin that night, and it was cold enough to safely store a few extra cups of yogurt and some drinks.

When we first arrived in the room, our beds were set up as 2 twin beds (as requested), but they were parallel to each other and took up nearly the entire floor space of the cabin. We asked our stewardess to move them so they were perpendicular to each other, which freed up a ton of floor space in the middle of the room. I highly recommend people to do this if they are sharing an inside cabin and don’t want to sleep in one big bed. It was nice having the space to walk around and not trip over each other for 12 days!! Here are some pics of the cabin (I have two bathroom photos too, but have not uploaded them to my computer yet, so I’ll post those later):

Steward– Our head stewardess was Yelena and she was great. She gave us extra towels and whatever else we asked for, and she even challenged me to a towel folding competition when she found out I went to the class on my previous cruise. She had a team of two or three girls working with her, and they were all fairly thorough. We did come back to the cabin a few times while they were cleaning, but other than that, we rarely saw any of them.

Food– I thought the food was very good on this cruise. I ate breakfast every morning up on Lido deck, and became a quick fan of the breakfast burritos. We ate dinner every night in the MDR, and the food was always hot and served as we ordered it. My mom has some major food allergies, and she was very concerned about eating on the ship. One of the things that impressed us most during the cruise was how Carnival handled this situation. There is a lady named Irena (I think she was an assistant maitre’d or something like that) who went over my mom’s allergies with her on the second night of the cruise. We ate dinner in Venice on the first night of the cruise, and when we arrived in the MDR on the second night, Irena said she has been looking for us last night and couldn’t find us! Then, every night after that, she brought over a copy of the following night’s menu so my mom could pick out what she wanted to eat and the chef could prepare it without any of the unsafe ingredients. We found out that there is actually a separate chef who handles all special needs meals to make sure there is no cross-contamination. There were some nights that she and I ordered the same dish, but they looked totally different because hers was cooked without the things she is allergic to so it was safe for her to eat. Irena really went above and beyond to make sure my mom enjoyed every meal in the dining room (including brunch on the 2 sea days!).

Room Service– My mom doesn’t function in the mornings without coffee, so she ordered room service every day. She put out the menu on the door each night with a 15 minute delivery window request, and the food arrived on time every day except the last morning (one day it even arrived 20 minutes early, so we weren’t awake yet! oops!)

Lido Buffet-.When they renovated the ship, they designed the buffet in stations, so the same 6 or 7 dishes are available at a few different stations around the buffet. This was good and bad- It definitely helped limit the length of the lines, but I also thought that it limited the options available. Maybe it’s just because I was eating breakfast there and there aren’t as many options for breakfast foods, but I thought the selection was somewhat limited. There were bread stations with muffins, danishes, bagels, and things like that, there were hot food stations with powdered eggs, potatoes, sausage, and bacon (no bacon police!), and other stations for cereal and fruit. I never ate lunch of dinner up here, so I have no comment about the food selection or lines during those meals. One big disappointment was that they only have 2 omelette stations on the entire ship! They are both located all the way aft on Lido deck in the Havan Bar/JiJi/Cucina del Capitano section, but they always had long lines when I arrived there. On my last Carnival cruise, they set up many more omelette stations, so the ones in the aft were never crowded, but that was not the case on this cruise. Luckily, I developed an obsession with the breakfast burritos from Blue Iguana, so I ate there most mornings instead (and I also loved that I could get watermelon from their salsa bar!)

Weather– We got fairly lucky with our weather during this cruise. We had a few cloudy days in Venice, and short periods of rain in Dubrovnik and Pompeii, but it was dry and sunny the rest of the cruise. The temperatures ranged from the mid-90’s in Athens and Izmir, to the mid-70’s through all of Italy. Unfortunately, there were very high winds and rough seas the entire second week of the cruise, which left us stumbling around the ship like drunken fools (they even had to cancel the evening show on the last 2 nights because it was not safe for the dancers and prop control people to perform with the rough seas). The rough seas also forced the Captain to slow down the ship when sailing between Livorno and Marseilles, so we arrived in port 2 hours late. Luckily, we were not sea sick at all during the cruise, but I am sure there were others who were not as lucky.

Entertainment staff– The cruise director Noonan was great. He was funny and entertaining when he hosted the love and marriage show and other events. Lexi and Ben were also great as members of the entertainment staff, and they were also in charge of crowd control when we were getting off the ship each morning so we got to chat a lot with them. We went to the shows nearly every night, and generally enjoyed what we were watching (although there was one magician who was not very good, but I’ll get to that later).

Comedians/Comedy lounge– The lounge they use for the comedy shows is fairly small for the number of guests on the ship. We arrived 15 minutes before the show one night, and had to sit on the tiny ledge of the windowsill because there were no other seats available. As a result, we never tried to go to another show because we didn’t feel like dealing with the crowds, but friends told us that one show they went to only had about 5 people in the audience, so I guess it varies! The comedian we saw was just okay- he had a few funny jokes, and a few misses, but I guess that could be said of most comedians because it’s a very subjective form of entertainment.

Stuff to do on the ship– Because this was such a port-intensive itinerary, we did not have many opportunities to explore the ship. The Fun Times offered limited daytime activities on port days (for obvious reasons), but did offer more options on the 2 sea days. We played several games of trivia (and even won a ship on a stick at one of the games!) As I just mentioned, we went to the show nearly every night, so that took up most of our evenings. My mom spent some time donating money to the casino, and I spent about 2 hours laying out on Serenity deck on the first sea day, and I also went to the piano bar one night, but other than that, we didn’t really have a chance to explore much of what the ship offered. We woke up around 6:15am every morning, so we were ready for bed by 10-11pm every night, so I guess that also limited our time to explore the ship at night. I never made it to the disco, and we did not eat in any of the specialty restaurants so I cannot comment on that.

General condition of the ship– There was a lot of talk about problems on the Sunshine after her rapid renovation earlier this year. Our cabin was on deck 7, and we saw a bucket in our hallway to collect water from a dripping sprinkler nearly every day of the cruise (although I will note that the bucket was not always lined up to where the water dripped, so there was a bit of a water stain on the carpet sometimes). We also noticed some drips from the ceiling while waiting on deck 1 near the forward elevators/stairs to get off the ship. This by no means ruined our experience, but it is what it is. We also noticed that some of the exterior railings looked a bit rusty, as if they forgot to re-paint those areas during the drydock. Other than that, the ship looked beautiful! Although we only had an inside cabin, it definitely had new carpet, linens, cabinets, flat screen TV, and a renovated bathroom (with a HUGE shower compared to what I have had on previous cruise ships! haha) The public spaces on the ship all looked shiny and new, and I really enjoyed the more subdued color scheme and vibe of the ship. Even though I only spent a few hours actually laying out on Serenity deck, I loved that I could always see the pretty waterfall feature when walking around outside (like in the mornings during breakfast, or when I took photos of the port area after getting back on the ship in the afternoons). Overall, I really didn’t have much to complain about with the ship, and I think Carnival did a great job with all the renovations.

I think that covers everything I wanted to mention about the ship. Up next, I will review what we did each day (but first, I have to finish sorting through my 3000 photos and upload everything onto my computer!!)

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Carnival Victory ~ Final Thoughts…

December 18, 2012 deladane Leave a comment

A few words about packing: As I mentioned at the beginning of the review, I traveled with only carry on luggage for this vacation. I had to transfer planes in both directions and didn’t want to risk it that my bags might not get to my final destination at the same time I did. I used a large backpack with several sections and a standard rolling carry on bag. I actually found that I was able to bring everything that I would have wanted. Perhaps I would have enjoyed one extra pair of shoes to wear at night, but I really didn’t feel that I was missing everything. I was able to fit 6 bathing suits, 6 pairs of shoes (beach flip flops, nicer flip flops, flat sandals for casual nights, dress heels for formal night, aqua socks, plus an old pair of sneakers which I wore on the plane), casual dresses as cover ups or shorts and tshirts for every day, casual or formal dresses for every night, all of my toiletries and electronics (iPhone, waterproof camera, regular camera, iPad, and their respective chargers), and even my snorkel mask! The only thing I didn’t fit was my big bottle of suntan lotion which I bought at CVS in San Juan when I arrived (and that would have physically fit in the bag, but TSA wouldn’t approve of such a big bottle… oh well!).

I had read all the threads that recommended people pack duct tape, over the door shoe organizers, bungee cords, and tons of other things. Since I was so tight on space, I didn’t bring any of these things and I didn’t really need them! There was plenty of storage in the cabinet in the bathroom, so no need to waste luggage space on that. The one thing I did bring was a small dry-erase board that I found at the dollar store. This proved very handy for leaving notes to our steward when we wanted extra ice or towels, or just wanted to wish him a good day! We also used it to write ourselves reminders on things we needed to pack or take care of. I suppose a pad and paper would have worked just as well, but it was convenient to just erase the message and re-write on the board. I left the board in the room on the last day with a note that I hoped the steward would have some use for it (I also left behind the two paperback books I brought, since I use a Nook to read at home and only brought the paperbacks so I could leave them on the beach while I went in the ocean without worrying about them being stolen. And we left behind half the bottle of vodka we brought on, some granola bars, and a few other things which I didn’t want to waste space with on the trip home and which might have been handy for the steward to use).

Overall, it was a great trip. I had fairly low expectations for my time spent on the ship, knowing that it was an older ship in need of some renovations and knowing that Carnival has a bad reputation for their food. With that said, I tried not to let the negative things impact my vacation, and I put most of my effort into making the most out of every minute we had in port. Would I sail on Carnival again? Possibly, but only if I couldn’t find the same itinerary on another cruise line, and only if Carnival’s prices were significantly cheaper than the other cruise lines making it hard to resist booking the trip! I do tend to prefer port-intensive cruises, so the actual ship and cruise line isn’t as much of a priority for me as things like itinerary and cost. I hope you enjoyed reading my review. Please let me know if you have any questions!

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Carnival Victory ~ Day 10: back in Puerto RIco

December 17, 2012 deladane Leave a comment

December 16, 2012

Sunday back in Puerto Rico
After a great week at sea, we returned safe and sound to San Juan on Sunday morning. We decided to carry our own bags off the ship, so we left the cabin at 8:30am (the latest time we could), and took our luggage up to Lido for one last breakfast. It was very crowded, but we found two seats at a table and were able to take turns watching the bags and getting our food. After we ate, we waited for them to let people start getting off the ship. Apparently there was a hold up in the luggage warehouse, so we had to wait a few extra minutes, but finally at 9:30, we were cleared to leave. We took the elevator down to deck zero, swiped our sign and sail card one last time, and then walked off the ship. We had to wait on line for about 15 minutes to go through customs, and then we left the cruise terminal. We found a taxi right away, and he took us to the Marriott Stellaris Resort and Casino for $12 plus $1 per suitcase. Our good luck with hotels continued, as our room was ready for check in when we arrived a little after 10am! We dropped off our bags and went straight down to the pool area for a day of relaxing. Here are some photos of the resort:

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. It was partly sunny in the morning, but by lunch time, dark clouds rolled in with a cold breeze. It definitely was not the warm sunny day we anticipated, and we never went into the pool because the water was too cold. I ordered lunch by the pool bar- it was the best bacon cheeseburger with fries I had all week!

A word of caution though: There are tons of pigeons surrounding the pool, and the second they brought my food to my lounge chair, the pigeons came over and attacked. One of them jumped up on to my lounge chair, and then perched on the rim of the food basket! The bartender came over and shooed him away, and I moved over to the bar to finish my food. The bartender told me the pigeons don’t like water, so when they came back, I just splashed water on them and they flew away. It was kind of gross and not very appetizing, but at least it never touched my food!

I stayed at the pool until around 5pm, and then headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. We didn’t know exactly what we were in the mood for, so we left the hotel and walked up and down the main street, reading menus as we passed each restaurant. Most of the restaurants were a bit more pricey than we wanted to spend, but we stumbled upon an Italian restaurant called Via Appia’s Deli that had a huge line outside of locals waiting to be seated. The restaurant awning says it is a deli, but we walked inside and looked at the menu and saw that it was actually an Italian restaurant, and almost everyone had gourmet pizzas on their tables that looked delicious! We were told to wait in line outside and someone would come seat us. While we were waiting, this man pulled up and parked his motorcycle right across the street from us:

It attracted a lot of attention, but it was fun to see! Eventually, one of the waiters came outside and escorted us to a table in the restaurant. I ordered the baked ziti with chicken, and it was one of the best meals I had all week! It was filled with pieces of chicken, and the sauce and cheese were both very tasty. Best of all, it only cost $11.50 (as opposed to the nearly $30 dishes at all the other restaurants!) They didn’t have the fastest service, but I think that’s because there were only locals eating here, not many tourists, and they were all out for a leisurely Sunday dinner with their families and were not in any rush. After dinner, we got some Haagen Daaz for dessert and then went back to the hotel.

Monday morning, we woke up, got ready, packed up our stuff, and checked out of the hotel by 10:30am to go to the airport. There was no wait for a taxi in front of the hotel. My flight home left Puerto Rico at 1pm, and transferred in Atlanta to fly back to Tucson, landing at 9:15pm (which was really 12:15am Puerto Rico time!). I took a taxi home and was in bed by 10:30… back to work at 8am on Tuesday boooo!

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Carnival Victory ~ Day 9: St. Maarten

December 16, 2012 deladane Leave a comment

December 15, 2012

Saturday in St. Maarten
Saturday was our last port day and we were docked in St. Maarten before I even woke up. We had a busy day scheduled for today, with an ATV tour pre-booked through Island Marketing in the morning, and a taxi ride out to Maho Beach to watch the planes land in the afternoon. We met our tour guide, Junior, outside the front gate of the port area at 8:40am. Luckily we had given ourselves a half hour to find him because everyone we asked for directions pointed us in a different direction! It seemed like no one knew where the front gate was, but we did eventually find it and Junior drove us to his supply yard to get our ATVs. We had arranged to be on a group tour and to share the ATV because I personally was terrified and had no interest in driving, whereas Beth has driven ATVs before and was excited to do it again. When we got to the supply yard, Junior told us that we were the only two people signed up for the excursion! So basically, we were charged the group rate for a private tour! Junior was a great guide- he took us all over the island, and gave us time to stop and take photos at some scenic overlooks and at the border of the French and Dutch sides.

Originally, the tour was supposed to include an hour break at Orient Beach. Beth and I spent so much time at the beaches all week that we didn’t really want to waste an hour on an already-busy day. Plus we were dressed in shorts and sneakers, so we didn’t want to bother changing into bathing suits and flip flops for just an hour. So instead, we asked Junior if it was okay to stop at Orient Beach to take a few photos, and then we could get on our way 5 minutes later. After seeing so many beautiful beaches all week, we were somewhat underwhelmed by Orient Beach. It looked like a very narrow strip of sand, and it was packed full of lounge chairs. We were happy with our decision to carry on with the tour.

The ATV tour only took us on the streets of St. Maarten, so aside from like 3 minutes of riding along the beach, there was no off-roading. On the way back through Marigot, we got stuck in a lot of traffic. It was stop and go for most of the ride back, and we ended up back at the storage yard around 11am. Junior took us back to the ship by 11:15, and I took a few minutes to run back to the ship and change out of my dusty clothes while Beth did a few minutes of shopping in the port area.

At 11:30am, we met up at the taxi stand to get a ride to Maho Beach. It turned out that we were sharing a ride with the magician who performed on the ship the night before. I was so busy playing 80’s music trivia that I missed the magic show, but he told us he has worked for Carnival for 25 years and it was interesting to hear his perspective of living life on the road. The taxi ride cost $9 and took about a half hour, and we noticed that the traffic in the opposite direction heading back towards Marigot and the cruise terminal was totally stopped for several miles. Our taxi driver said if we wanted to get back to the ship on time, we would need to leave at least 2 hours for the ride because of all the traffic. The magician suggested that we should ask our taxi driver to take us the long way through the French side of the island instead of coming back the way we came through Simpson Bay/Marigot. At first, the taxi driver hesitated, but after a few more minutes and seeing how bad the traffic was, he agreed with the magician that that would be a better route to take on the return trip.

We dropped the magician off at the airport and then continued on to Maho Beach. We got there at the right time because as soon as we got there, several huge airplanes came in for landing one after the other! We saw 6 or 7 planes back to back in about 25 minutes! Please note that 1) MANY more planes landed than were listed on this surf board, and 2) I was standing on the bar/restaurant’s patio to take all of these photos.

We were at Maho Beach from around 12:30 until 1pm, and we decided that we saw plenty of planes landing so we wanted to get back to the ship area before the traffic built up too much. We found a taxi at the taxi stand and insisted that he take us back the “long” way. He resisted at first, but then agreed. We were very happy that we forced him to take us that way because we got back to the port in 45 minutes (only 15 minutes longer than the ride to the beach) and we knew that the other direction would have taken way longer.

We spent a little more time shopping in the port area, then got back on the ship for a late lunch. Today was the “chocolate buffet” at lunch time. It wasn’t all that impressive of a selection, but I did enjoy the dessert sushi pieces:

I actually ended up eating my dessert first while I waited for the pizza guy to make me another slice of that yummy De Chevre pizza I had earlier in the week. I figured today was my last chance, so I wanted to eat all of my favorites one more time!

After lunch, I went back to the cabin to start packing my suitcase… I couldn’t believe our vacation was almost over! I spent the rest of the afternoon packing, relaxing on Lido deck, and worrying that people might miss the ship because they were stuck in traffic. Here is a photo of all the people coming back down the pier at about 4:15pm (with a 4:30pm all aboard time)

Surprisingly, I didn’t hear them call any names over the loudspeaker, so I guess everyone did make it back in time. Maybe traffic cleared up by then? Or maybe they all just left the beach early enough!

Tonight’s dinner menu wasn’t very exciting. The coconut shrimp entree was a repeat from my appetizer on the first night. I did make it a point to have some WCMC one last time! I had the shrimp cocktail for an appetizer and I also ordered the mushrooms in balsamic vinegar dressing but the waitress forgot to serve that to me (everyone at the table who tried the mushrooms said they tasted horrible because they were drenched in vinegar, so I didn’t bother asking the waitress to bring me my dish haha) Anyway, no need to re-show the shrimp cocktail photo, so I’ll just start with the entrees…

broiled filet of mahi mahi

oops, I just remembered I forgot to take a photo of the shrimp before I ate it! It looked identical to the shrimp appetizer on the first night though, so you’re not missing much 🙂

WCMC and Grand Marnier Souffle

diet apple pie (tasted exactly like the regular apple pie!)

After dinner, we said goodbye to our tablemates and wait staff, and went back to the cabin to finish packing. Then we went down to guest services to settle our bill before heading to the adult comedy show. I already mentioned my feelings about this comedian- the one who was so horrible that no one laughed at any of his “jokes” and he spent most of his half hour on stage picking on people in the audience instead of attempting more of his pre-written material. After that, we spent some time at the casino and then headed off to bed. Our last towel “animal” was a heart…

Cruise

Carnival Victory ~ Day 8: St. Kitts

December 15, 2012 deladane Leave a comment

December 14, 2012

Friday in St. Kitts
On Friday we docked in St. Kitts. This was my only repeat island for the itinerary, as my cruise two years ago docked here as well. Last time, I took an island tour through Liz Pereria’s Tour Store and I really enjoyed it. This time around, I went for a more active excursion and tried my first attempt at Stand-Up Paddleboarding. We pre-booked a tour through Konu Pelikana and our guide, Nick, picked us up at the port at 8:30am. As it turned out, there were only 4 of us booked on this excursion and the other two people were a couple we met on our Cosol tour bus in St. Lucia. It was great to have such a small group, and even better to share the excursion with our new friends Katie and Damian.

Backing up a few hours, I wanted to mention something that happened that morning… My alarm clock went off at 6:40am, and 10 minutes later, someone came on the loudspeaker system and announced “Operation Brightstar on deck zero”. I didn’t know for sure, but I had a strong feeling that this was Carnival’s code for a medical emergency. We didn’t hear any other announcements, so we got ready for the day, ate breakfast on Lido, and then got into the elevators to get off the ship at 8am. When I pushed the deck 0 button in the elevator, it wouldn’t light up, so I hit the button for deck 1. When we got down there, there were about 30 people already waiting and the staff had put up a barricade across the stairs so we couldn’t walk down to deck 0. At this point, we figured out that there was indeed a medical emergency, but we never heard any announcements about delaying getting off the ship. At 8:15am, someone came up and removed the barricade and we were able to leave the ship and meet our tour guide on time. There was an empty ambulance sitting on the dock, so I assume that they held the passengers until another ambulance could drive away with the sick passenger. Due to HIPAA laws, I knew that we would never know for sure what happened to that passenger, so I can only hope that he/she was okay.

Nick met us at a parking lot behind the stores in the port, and we drove up the coast. He made a brief stop at Timothy Hill to see the amazing views. Here is a photo of Beth, me, Katie, and Damian with the Marriott resort in the background:

And here is a view in the opposite direction where you can see the Atlantic Ocean on the left and the Caribbean on the right:

Next, we drove up to another overlook for a view of the coastline where we would be paddling. Nick told us that we would paddle a little over 2 miles until we got to a beach, and then he would ride back to get his truck to pick us up.

We got back in the car and drove down the coast to a tiny parking lot where Nick’s family usually docks their boat. Nick unloaded our boards from the back of his truck, and we got ready to go. The shore was very rocky, but Nick helped us get on the boards and briefly told us the easiest way to stand up and paddle. Amazingly enough, I found it fairly easy to balance on the board. I struggled a bit with controlling the direction the board drifted and I moved much slower than everyone else, but overall it was a fun way to see the island.

Nick offered to hold my underwater camera so he could take a few photos along the way. He had cargo pockets with a zippered closure on his swim trunks so I figured it was safe for him to hang onto the camera. We spent about two hours paddling up the shore, taking a break mid-way to sit on our boards and rest, or to swim if we wanted to. At the end of the tour, we reached the Carambola beach club and I asked Nick if I could have my camera back. He reached down for his pocket and said he didn’t have the camera- did he already return it to me? At this point, panic set in as we realized that the camera had fallen out of his pocket and he didn’t know when! Luckily I had uploaded my photos onto my iPad every night on the ship, so I knew I didn’t lose all the photos I had taken all week, but I was really upset about having lost my brand new underwater camera. Nick left us at the beach club and went back up the coast to look for the camera. I knew it was highly unlikely he would find it, but the camera was attached to a bright yellow floating wrist strap, so all hope wasn’t lost. Fortunately, none of us had any excursions booked for the afternoon, so we weren’t in a rush to get back to the ship and we sat at the bar and ordered a few drinks while we waited for Nick to return.

An hour later, Nick came back, and amazingly enough, he found my camera!!!! One of his friends took him back up the coast on a jet ski, and he found my camera floating on the shore near where we stopped to take our rest break. Nick had taken out the camera to take some photos while we were sitting there, and I guess he just didn’t get the camera all the way into his pocket when he put it back. I was so beyond excited that he found my camera, and I gave him a HUGE tip at the end of the day haha

So now that you all know I got my camera back, I can show you a few photos from our excursion…

By the time we got all the equipment loaded back in the truck, it was close to 2pm so we headed back to the port. We were originally supposed to get back by noon-ish, so I was very grateful that Katie and Damian didn’t mind spending some extra time at the beach club waiting for Nick to find my camera.

The port area in St. Kitts is fairly new (they were doing tons of construction and building new stores when I was there 2 years ago, so by now it looked like they were finished with all the building). We did a little shopping and then went in search of some wifi to check our emails. I had read on cruise critic about a bar/restaurant called Ma Pau which offers free wifi. The bar area was super crowded by the time we got there, so we walked into the casino on the ground floor, and sure enough, the wifi signal worked fine from inside the casino! This was now a totally free wifi signal because we would have had to order a beer or something if we used the wifi from the bar area.

After checking our email, we went back to the ship for a late lunch, then spent some time relaxing on Lido deck before getting ready for dinner.

Tonight’s sail away wasn’t scheduled until 6pm, so this was our one chance to watch the sunset before dinner while the ship was still docked. I picked up a much-needed glass of Miami Vice and headed up to Lido deck to watch the sunset after a crazy day.

I ordered a lot of food for dinner tonight, but it was mostly because I needed some back ups in case I didn’t like something haha I was really curious to try the pumpkin squash entree, but it was a very bizarre combination of flavors (I don’t think cheese belonged in this dish!) Something else we noticed throughout the week is that the items on the menu that are listed as being “healthy” with a heart icon, are not necessarily the healthy options. Clearly a dish that is filled with cheese and covered with a filo dough pastry crust is not a healthy option! Another thing that we noticed is that the descriptions of the food on the menu weren’t always accurate. Like they would describe a dish on the menu and make it sound really fancy, and then the plate would show up on the table and it looked nothing like what we were expecting. Anyway, here are some photos of everything I ordered tonight…

shrimp cocktail

oysters rockefeller

petite filet mignon and braised boneless short ribs

cinnamon pumpkin, squash, yam, and cheddar cheese pie

Apple pie

diet pumpkin pie

After spending the whole week searching for something fun to do at night on the ship, our wishes finally came true. Tonight’s theme was 80’s night, and they were playing 80’s music at a lot of the bars and the trivia game was an 80’s version of name that tune! I LOVE 80’s music, and I knew that game would be perfect for me. We sat down at the casino bar, ready to play some trivia, and guess what? I won!!! I was very proud of my ship on a stick 🙂

Tonight they also had the towel folding demonstration. I was looking forward to this all week! There wasn’t a huge turn out, but I think that might be because it started at 9:15 when many people were still eating dinner at the late seating. They had bins filled with clean towels at the entrance to the theater, and they walked us through the process of making two towel animals. It was a lot of fun (I love anything crafty!), but I doubt I could re-create it now if I tried haha Here are my new towel buddies:

Ironically, our steward also left us an elephant in the cabin. I think his was a little better than mine haha

Cruise

Carnival Victory ~ Day 7: St. Lucia

December 14, 2012 deladane Leave a comment

December 13, 2012

Thursday in St. Lucia
Thursday was our day in St. Lucia. We had pre-arranged a full-day excursion with Cosol Tours for $65 per person, so after breakfast on Lido, we left the ship as soon as we were cleared and met Cosol by 8:15am. He assigned us to a van with 10 passengers total, and our driver/guide for the day was Bernard (but everyone calls him “Fat Man”). The van was clean and air conditioned, and we had a little wiggle room because there were only 10 of us in the 15-person van. As we drove around the island, Fat Man occasionally spoke up and told us what we were looking at. He made a few stops along the way and gave us some time to take photos:

Notice the rock formation on top of the mountains? It’s supposed to look like a woman laying down:

where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed:

The famous Pitons:

We stopped at a scenic overlook that also had a small store selling spices, bottles of alcohol, and a bunch of varieties of hot sauce and banana ketchup:

Our next stop was at the banana plantation. Fat Man explained how the banana tree grows and gave out some samples of the bananas.

Then we got back in the van and drove to another scenic overlook that had a bathroom we could use (but they charged $1 to use it)

Up next, all of the vans touring with Cosol met up at a house for breakfast. They had a huge spread with tons of different sweet and savory foods to try, and they also had rum punch, beer, water, and soda available. I tried a taste of almost everything, and as expected, I enjoyed some of the foods better than others! They also had free bathrooms to use (but the toilets didn’t flush- yuck!)

After breakfast, we headed off to the drive-in volcano. We could smell the sulphur even from inside the van! We got out of the van and a separate tour guide took us around the property and told us lots of information about it. We only stayed there for about 15 minutes, but that was more than enough because the sulphur smell starts to get to you after a while! There were clean restrooms to use here too, which came in handy after drinking all that free beer at breakfast!

After the volcano, it was time to go snorkeling between the pitons! We got into a small water taxi and rode for about 5 minutes to get to a small beach located between the pitons.

Here is what the water taxis looked like:

View of the Pitons in the background!

The guides told us we could have 1 hour to spend at the beach before he would come back and get us with the water taxi. From the dock, he said the lounge chairs towards the left were free for us to use, but that the chairs towards the right were reserved for people staying at the resort. All of the beaches in St. Lucia are public land, so there was nothing to stop you from putting your towel down in the sand on the resort side- you just couldn’t use their lounge chairs. I dropped off my bags and immediately got in the water for some snorkeling. This area is famous for it’s snorkeling, and it lived up to my expectations. The one problem was that the water was a little choppy from all the water taxis coming in and out. I didn’t have a noodle or life vest or anything, so it got very tiring trying to fight with the current to stay afloat. Also, there was a helicopter tour that kept circling over me, but with my head in the water looking at the fish, I kept freaking out that I was swimming under the motor of a water taxi!

Here is a photo of the free side of the beach:

Me with the pitons:

This was the resort side of the beach:

And here are some photos from snorkeling:

The beach had surprisingly clean bathrooms, and they also had an outdoor shower to get the sand washed off our legs. After an hour, we got back in the water taxi and headed back towards the van. It started pouring rain while we were on the boat, so that wasn’t quite as scenic as the ride to the beach! The rain felt like knives hitting your head as we sped through the water! At least I was already wet from swimming!

Our next stop was the waterfall and botanical gardens. Fat Man told us we would only have 10-15 minutes at this stop because it was getting late. Since I had skipped out on swimming with the waterfall in Puerto Rico, I jumped out of the van and went straight to the waterfall to get a few minutes of swimming time!

The botanical gardens are on the same grounds as the waterfall, and it was very small and limited in the types of plants they had. This was our last official stop of the tour, so we dried off, got back in the van, and started the hour and a half long drive back to the port. About half an hour into our drive, Fat Man pulled over in front of a local house and got out of the car. He came back a minute later with a bag of cookies for us to sample! It was like a drive through cookie stop haha

We continued on the road for another half hour and then Fat Man pulled over again and got out of the car. He came back a few minutes later with a huge bag filled with some of the tastiest bread I’ve ever had, and it was literally steaming hot right out of the oven! He also passed around some pieces of cheese, which tasted great when they melted in the hot bread!! And no, the shape of the tip of the bread did not go unnoticed haha…

We finally got back to the port at 3:45pm. Originally, I think we were supposed to have some shopping time at the end of the excursion, but I think he just took us back to the port because we were running so late. I think that is my only complaint about the tour- it is advertised as being around 6 hours… we left at 8:15am, so we should have been back to the port by 2:15pm. We ran an hour and a half over, and cut out the shopping time! Some people in the van were getting worried that we would miss the ship! I had a great day, and I didn’t think it felt like too long of an excursion, but I think Cosol needs to let people know a more realistic time frame of close to 8 hours on the tour.

Once we got back on the ship, it was time to get ready for formal night #2!

The dinner options were less exciting this night since lobster was not on the menu. However, I was super excited for my escargot!

escargot

seafood platter

chateaubriand

grilled jumbo tiger shrimp

After dinner, I went to the second big production show of the week, called Vroom. I enjoyed this show significantly more than City Lights. For one thing, the girl dancers had costumes that covered their butts! But I also enjoyed the song choices better, and it was a more fun vibe than the other show.

After the show, we ended up at the casino bar where they were playing name that tune for 70’s music. Considering neither of us were even alive during the 70’s, I had fairly low expectations for our knowledge of 70’s songs, but we had no where else to go so we stuck around and gave it a shot. It turned out to be a lot of fun! I was very proud of myself for correctly knowing 13 of the 15 songs! After that, we walked around the ship a bit more looking for something to do, and eventually gave up and went back to the cabin to get ready for bed.

Cruise

Carnival Victory ~ Day 6: Barbados

December 13, 2012 deladane Leave a comment

December 12, 2012

Wednesday in Barbados
When we woke up on Wednesday, we were docked in Barbados, but it was pouring rain! Our plan was to take a taxi to the Boatyard and spend the day relaxing on the beach and going out on one of the local boats to see the sea turtles. We decided to head to the beach even though it was raining, figuring we could sit at the bar and use their free wifi until the weather cleared up. We got to the Boatyard at around 9am, and the taxi cost $5 per person. The only people at the Boatyard were the hostess and one bartender. She explained the package they offer for cruise passengers: $12 per person includes a lounge chair, a drink (rum punch, soda, or water), and an umbrella to share. It also included use of the water trampoline, rope swing, and floating rock climbing, and there was free wifi access at the bar. We each paid our $12 and sat at the bar using the the free wifi until the rain stopped at about 9:30am. Then, we went out to the sand and picked two lounge chairs in the front row right along the water.

After about 5 minutes, a man named Charles approached us offering to take us out in his glass-bottom boat to swim with the sea turtles and snorkel over a shipwreck, plus he included the snorkeling equipment, life vests, and rum punch, all for $20 per person. We decided to go out with him right away because the skies were cloudy and we could tell it would be raining much of the day, so we wanted to do our swimming while it was somewhat sunny. To board the boat, we had to walk out into the water about 5 feet, and then Charles helped us climb up the ladder and get settled. There were two other passengers on the boat, and Neville was our guide for the excursion. Neville drove the boat to the other side of the bay and told us to get in the water while he threw out some food to attract the turtles. Two beautiful sea turtles came over to the boat and we swam with them for about a half hour…

By the end of the half our, another boat arrived and it was getting a little crowded with the extra people all trying to swim with the same two turtles, so we got back on the boat and motored over to the shipwreck. There were tons of different fish and coral to see, although I found the water to be too cloudy so my photos didn’t come out as clear as the photos with the turtles.

After another half hour of snorkeling, we got back on the boat and Neville took us back to the Boatyard.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing at the Boatyard on our lounge chairs. The weather wasn’t great, and it kept alternating between pouring rain for 20 minutes, followed by partly sunny skies for 20 minutes. Luckily we at least had a beach umbrella where we could try to stay dry during the rain.

Here’s a photo of me on the beach. The water turned a beautiful shade of turquoise when the sun came out…

At 2:00pm, we decided to go back to the port area to do a little shopping. Here is a photo of the shopping mall right next to the port:

There was free wifi access in there but it was spotty service and didn’t reach to all the stores. Beth picked up some more suntan lotion at one of the stores, and I bought a postcard for my collection. Next, we got back on the ship and ate a quick lunch up on Lido. One of the things I definitely wanted to do on the cruise was to go down the water slide. Since we were already wet from the rain and snorkeling, we figured this was a good afternoon to go down the slide. Also, since the ship was still in port, there was no line, and we both had fun on our way down.

After that, we spent some more time lounging on Lido deck, and then went back to the cabin to get ready for dinner. Here is what I ate for dinner that night…

prosciutto ruffles with sweet melon

sushi sampler- warning: the one in the middle tasted HORRIBLE!

penne mariscos with grilled salmon

I couldn’t decide on one dessert tonight, so I got two!:

strawberry cheesecake

diet lemon cake

After dinner, I went to see the juggler show. His name was Manuel Zuniga and he was probably my favorite nighttime entertainment of the week. He was very funny, and I was impressed that he was able to juggle and not drop anything despite the rocking of the ship. He even did a trick where he juggled 4 ping pong balls using only his mouth!

Since a handful of passengers embarked today from Barbados, they had a sail away party up on Lido deck. We didn’t get the outdoor sail away experience in OSJ due to the rain, so we went to this sail away party instead. It had a decent turn out, although it did start raining by the end:

Our only Funship Freddy sighting of the week!:

Tonight they also had the midnight Mexican buffet. We weren’t really hungry to eat anything, but I had a few pieces of fruit and took some photos of the decorations:

Cruise

Carnival Victory ~ Day 5: Day at Sea

December 12, 2012 deladane Leave a comment

December 11, 2012

Tuesday was the one and only sea day. I wanted to eat breakfast in the MDR since this was the only day we’d have the time to do that. Plus, I wanted to redeem my past guest drink voucher! Beth only eats cereal for breakfast, and she preferred to sleep in, so I went to the MDR alone at about 9am and was seated at a table of 10 people who all walked in around the same time. I also like eating breakfast in the MDR because it’s fun to see how many different waiters fuss over you- one for the water, one for the coffee, one for the danishes, one to actually take your food order, etc. I got the baked apple, french toast, and turkey bacon:

We ended up chatting at the table for an hour and a half! When we were done eating, I ordered my free cocktail, with the intentions of drinking it up on Lido deck (since 9am is a little too early to start drinking if you ask me! haha) I got The Cruiser, which had Malibu rum, vodka, peach schnapps, pineapple juice, orange juice, and cranberry juice. It sounded like a good morning drink, and it tasted delicious!

They served it in a glass, so I carefully carried it out of the dining room, up the elevator, and straight to one of the lido bars and asked the bartender to transfer it into a plastic cup so I could drink it on the deck. By then, it was about 10:45am, so I found Beth and we sat together in our lounge chairs. As I already mentioned, there was absolutely no trouble finding lounge chairs, even on the sea day. Beth had saved me a seat next to her, but that wasn’t really necessary as there were tons of empty chairs. As the day went on, I was worried about getting burned, so I pulled a lounge chair under the overhang from the deck above next to the stairs, behind where the band plays. There were about 20 other people who did the same thing, since there isn’t any other shade near the pools. It was a beautiful day with clear skies and a light wind.

I am not one to sit around and do nothing all day- I get bored way too easily, and despite my best efforts to read my book, I get distracted every time someone walks by because I like to people-watch. Perhaps the only downside to me of having just 1 sea day is that the ship has to cram all the typical sea day activities into one day, so there are a lot of scheduling conflicts! I enjoyed watching the ice carving demonstration, hairy chest contest, and paper airplane contest while on Lido deck. The only time the Lido deck looked crowded all week was during these contests:

At 1pm, I went down to the Atlantic dining room for the wine seminar. I had called guest services earlier in the day and was told it costs $10, which I thought was very reasonable for 5 glasses of wine. Well when I got there, only one other person showed up! The hostess said this would be the third week in a row when they had to cancel the wine seminar due to lack of interest. I think a lot of the problem is that 1pm is prime time to be up on Lido enjoying the activities on the sea day, plus a lot of people would think 1pm is a bit too early to drink all that wine. I suggested that they may have a better turn out if they moved the seminar to later in the afternoon. As a way to apologize, they offered us each a complimentary glass of wine, so I happily took my second free drink of the day back up to Lido and enjoyed my Chardonnay with some seafood stir fry from Chopstix.

Next up on my agenda was the Love and Marriage show at 3:15pm. By then, I had enough time outside so I didn’t mind going inside to the theater for a little break, and I was glad I went. The cruise director Hennie was very funny as the host, and I spent most of the next hour laughing. After the show, I went back to the cabin to get ready for formal night.

I was very impressed and surprised with how the guests onboard participated in formal night. I saw a handful of men wearing tuxedos, although most wore suits. And I saw many women wearing floor-length gowns, which really impressed me knowing how much luggage space that would require! A few people chose to stay casual, but overall, most of the guests were dressed up. Even the Puerto Rican teenagers were dressed up, wearing what looked like their fancy quincinera dresses! Here is a photo of Beth and I outside the comedy club:

Tonight’s dinner included the ever-popular lobster entree. I thought the lobster tasted good, but it was a bit tough in consistency, likely due to being overcooked. The tiger shrimp that came with it were surprisingly good though. I also ordered the prime rib, and I was very impressed that they actually cooked it to order (I love my meat rare!) The stuffed mushrooms were served in the escargot dishes, and they tasted pretty good.

baked stuffed white mushrooms

broiled Maine lobster tail and jumbo black tiger shrimp

prime rib

caramelized apples on puff pastry

After dinner, we went back to the cabin to pack up our beach bags for Barbados, and then I went to the first big production of the week- City Lights. I usually enjoy watching Broadway-style shows, but I wasn’t overly impressed with this show. I thought the costumes were somewhat inappropriate for a family-friendly show, considering the girls were wearing nothing but thongs to cover their behinds. The singing and dancing was okay, but not great, although I guess I should cut them a little slack considering how rocky the ship was haha

After that, I went to see the other comedian, named Mark Simmons, and he generally went for the dirty jokes and for the shock value. He made a lot of jokes about smoking pot, which I didn’t personally find to be funny but many others seemed to enjoy it. After the comedy show, I went back to the cabin to rest up for Barbados.

This was our towel “animal” tonight- We weren’t exactly sure what it was supposed to be… maybe an eskimo?

Cruise

Carnival Victory ~ Day 4: St. Thomas

December 11, 2012 deladane Leave a comment

December 10, 2012

Monday in St. Thomas
We woke up early on Monday, got ready, and headed up to lido for breakfast. There was hardly anyone in line for the buffet when we arrived at 7:15am. I had an egg whites, cheese and mushroom omelette, a pancake and some honey dew.

We were off the ship by 8am and walked through the Havensight mall to the taxi stand to get a taxi to Sapphire Beach. We were assigned to an open air taxi, and waited about 10 minutes for it to fill up. The ride to Sapphire took about a half hour and there were some beautiful views along the way. The taxi cost $10 each. When we got to Sapphire at around 8:30am, there was almost no one there so we had the beach to ourselves for a while. We paid $7 each for a lounge chair and the man at the dive shack put the chairs where we wanted them (warning us that a ship tour would be arriving later and setting up right in front of the shack and suggesting that we sit further down the beach). The beach was beautiful with turquoise and deep blue water and lots of trees for shade. Here are some photos of the beach:

The one problem was that it was extremely windy! I was cold and the water was rough and choppy so I was hesitant to go snorkeling. It turns out, the dive shop has foam water noodles that you can borrow for free! They also had boogie boards and snorkel equipment available for rent but I didn’t look at the prices. The foam noodle was extremely helpful and I was able to snorkel for a half hour despite the fairly rough waters. The water was a comfortable temperature, not too warm or too cold, but the choppy water stirred up the sand from below so it was a bit cloudy and hard to see the coral and fish. I asked the guy at the dive shop for the best place to snorkel to see coral and fish, and he looked at the clock and then pointed me to the right of the dive shop. I swam out about 50 ft from the shore and there was tons of coral and fish to see. Be careful and wear aqua socks or something to protect your feet if you can because there is no breaks in the coral to put your feet down, and the water gets shallow at points so my heel accidentally brushed the coral and gave me a cut. Here are some photos from my snorkeling:

After snorkeling, I sat in the shade for a few more hours and then we got ready to leave around 12:45pm. While we were packing up our bags, a huge iguana came over to the lounge chairs and caused quite a commotion!

We walked out to the front circle of the resort and a standard 12-person van taxi was waiting, so we got in and headed to the shopping area in downtown Charlotte Amilie. We went into a few of the stores, but everything was more expensive than we wanted to pay, and we didn’t buy anything. We asked for directions to walk back to the port, and were told to go down to the water and turn left at the straw market, and then just walk along the water on the sidewalk all the way back until we saw the short cut through the yacht club. You literally cannot miss the cut through area:

The walk was about a mile, took us less than half an hour, and it was flat and paved the entire way. It was fun to see the ship across the water as we walked back:

Once we were back on the ship, we went up to lido for lunch and it was PACKED!! I was starving and didn’t want to wait in the long buffet line, so i ordered a slice of the De Chevre pizza (goat cheese, mushrooms, and roasted garlic with mozzarella cheese and no sauce) from the aft pool area. It was ready in about 15 minutes and was well worth the wait:

After lunch, I went back to the cabin to drop off my bags and saw the letter waiting with our new table assignment. I think the maitre d misunderstood what we asked for because she changed us to the late seating time, and that was not okay with us! It was about 3pm at that time, so we decided to hang out around the ship and get ready for dinner, and then we would just show up at the early dining time and try to straighten it out then. Sure enough, we found the maitre d at the Pacific dining room at 6pm when they opened the doors and he had no trouble finding space for us at a 10-person table. I think that was the table for solo travelers, as our tablemates were two male solo travelers, one female solo, and two men who traveled together but each had his own cabin. I am not sure if anyone else was assigned to our table or not, but no one else showed up all week so we always had a few empty chairs (and access to extra silverware when needed!). Overall, dinner took us an hour and 45 minutes, and the conversation flowed easily with getting-to-know-you small talk. Here are some photos of my meal:

smoked duck and caramelized oranges

assorted seafood, newburg style

warm choc melting cake

Everything tasted great, and I think this was one of my favorite dinners of the week. Almost every night at dinner, the waiters would get up on the serving tables or on the stairs, and dance and sing. Our assistant waitress was one of the 6 or 7 people to have to wear the costume, and she always looked totally miserable while doing her dance. I kind of felt bad for her by the end of the week because every time she was up there, she never smiled and she always looked like she hated doing the dance. Here she is with her typical facial expression:

After dinner, we walked around the ship for a bit, watched the Monday Night Football game in the Sports Bar, and then I went to the first of the adult comedy shows of the night. The comedian’s name was Johnny Millwater and he was okay, but not great. He did have some funny jokes (I especially appreciated the joke about how annoying it is that Chic-Fil-A is closed on Sundays, and why can’t they just find some Jewish people to cover the Sunday shifts? haha) After the comedy show, there wasn’t much else going on so we just went back to the cabin for the night.

Dana's Destination Diary

Tag Archives: vacation

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